Knowing Martial Arts
To my students and first time readers, this essay is written to give you a competitive edge against your attacker in a street fight or anywhere an attacker wants to try his luck. Read and re-read these words because they can save your very life. I welcome you to Protecttheroses.com
Cotton Batte
1. Aikido: Known also as the gentle way. Created by Master Morihei Oyshiba (1883-1969) in Japan during the 1930's. This art evolved from his mastery of both Jujitsu and Nijitsu. This work is about never resisting the greater force but to go in the same direction as that greater force, whether it is a push or a pull at all times. After his experience as a solider he realized that something was missing. War leads to killing and he thought he wanted a better way of fighting with no killing. He was a master of both Ninjitsu and Ju Jit Su so he knew his way around the killing arts. He created something that would do only the minimum amount of damage and pain to an attacker or opponent. This art, Akido, is a one-of-a-kind martial art that is unlike any other martial art in the world. The goal of Akido is make the practioner a better person.
2. Amazon: A member of a nation of women warriors reputed to have lived in Scythia (now, modern day Ukraine and Southern Russia) and various other countries. An Amazon is any vigorous, aggressive woman and has been written about in some detail. A woman who will, with her training, fight to protect herself and her loved ones. An Amazon is a woman of any size or shape. I highly recommend Jessica Amanda Salmonson’s book: The Encyclopedia of Amazons as a way of getting a full, basic education of women warriors from antiquity. You will be surprised at how many women that have lived as warriors and how many have commanded armies and fleets of battle ships. These warriors did their very best with what they were taught and improved upon these lessons as if their life depended on it. Get Jessica’s book!
3. Anchor-Ripper: A ProtecttheRoses.com technique designed to effectively rip one or more fingers off of an attacker's hand when they try to choke a woman from behind. As a basis for this technique, we use “the overmatching principal” as the strategy for counter attacking the attacker’s index finger with the student’s whole body starting with the students’ two hands, arms shoulders chest, hips and legs. This is the use of the overmatching principal at its best. It is attacking the smallest with the most
4. As: This word, “As” has a big importance to ProtecttheRoses.com students because it guides them to execute their individual techniques all at once when possible. The techniques are taught by me in steps one, two, and three and could mislead trainers and women into thinking that they should also perform the techniques in a step-by-step way. The bigger point that I make about this understanding called “As” is not just that it cuts down on the time it takes to do a technique. Its that just knowing that it is possible to cut down on the elapsed time by following this secret is something that know that you are made aware of it, you can work on reducing the time you used to spend doing “As” on the technique. Said another way, you can’t improve on a secret way of being faster at producing the result you want if you don’t even know about doing the steps all at once. Understanding the difference between making use of the strategy of "As" or actually performing the techniques in step one, step two, and step three and the way that time is compressed to the advantage of the student is immense. I have taught the same technique both ways, countless times to test my theory and it is always the same. When a student does the techniques in the way they were taught, step 1, step 2, and step three, not only were they slower, they were just that little bit disjointed. They did not know until I told them about “As” and then when they started thinking “As”, you should see the difference! Students must realize that the compression and manipulation of time is critical to the success of their techniques and when using a big martial arts secret like this one certainly is, our student has an advantage over the untrained attacker that can’t be beat.
Because, when “As” is used as a guide post, it always gives the student that control and management of the time that it takes to deliver her technique with the force and power needed to smash her targets. When done properly, the attacker does not stand a chance of surviving her counter attack because of her control over her use of time. He does not understand that she is controlling all three elements of distance, speed and position that would have allowed him to win that particular second of the fight. But since she controlled time and he did not, there was no way he could be victorious! By keeping him though, from controlling all three elements and using “As” as her guidepost, time was controlled. Her long-term superior training beat him and he found out about her hidden skills and training, the hard way!
But there is more! Even if you currently understand doing several parts of the technique is a compression of time design, you can improve on the speed aspect by working on making all three or four techniques even faster because you are aware of what you are doing. Unconsciously doing this “time saver” is one thing for sure, but it is another thing all together when you know you know what you are doing and why you are doing it.
5. Attacker: A person who is committed to harming a woman or girl physically or mentally. We teach women that they have an infallible, never miss system of feeling harmful intention coming at her from miles away, blocks away, down the street or standing right next to her. What is the significance of this sensing system? For one thing it is never ever wrong. Whenever you have that feeling in the pit of your stomach that something is about to “jump off” and not in your favor you best be on the look out about protecting your self. You have a sensing system that can, without fail, ever mistake the harmful intent directed at you. But you know what the one big problem, you have to deal with about this system that is located in your stomach? You know what it is don’t you? You already know the answer to this question. You don’t pay it any attention. Or worse, you sense and know that it is telling you about something wrong and not good for you or down right dangerous and you doubt the message. Do you realize that in the animal kingdom, it is the only way that small animals are able to keep them selves safe? They know when trouble of all types is coming their way, they know and they act on that sensation and so can you! Wake up and start trusting your gut instinct to survive as assault.
6. Back foot drag: When counter-attacking a rapist when the student is standing in back stance, the rear leg is moved forward and touches the front heel to insure perfect balance first. Keep in mind that the student is always ready to defend against anyone of the eight doors of the Octagon. That means that if she is moving that back foot forward and is surprise attacked before the front foot completes the next step moving forward, it is no problem at all. She simply steps forward and she is right back in back stance, with no harm at all to her or her balance. Because if the student is pushed or shoved at the exact moment that her two feet are very close together, she simply steps in which ever direction is best for her and her balance is restored instantly, with no problems. Keep back foot drag in your mind when you are working on improving your footwork.7.
7. Balance: An inner sense that produces equilibrium throughout the body and a feeling that a student’s “footing” is on solid ground as they move or stand. But what is balance really all about? Balance is the sensation that creates leverage for punches, sweeps, throws, and kicks. Balance can only come from a place where both feet are on the ground, or else the body is laying flat on the ground and is able to get up when the time is right and the first thing the body gets, is a signal that everything is okay. In stand up fighting, balance can be lost and as quickly regained. What this means is that balance is used for fighting back against an attacker.
Balance in Tae Kwon Do starts with back balance, where 80% of the student’s weight is centered about an inch to the rear from the belly button. The lead foot is pointed toes forward and the other foot is pointed exactly 90 degrees to the left or right according to which foot is in front. There is about a shoulder and a quarter width of space between the lead heel of the front foot and the inside heel of the back foot. As importantly, is that the leg lead can perform a front kick with no shifting of body weight. That is the test you need to give yourself when you are standing in back stance. If you can’t pick up the lead leg and kick with it, without the slightest microscopic shift in weight, you were not in back stance. Also, on your test list is to jump straight up in the air, even if both feet are off the ground by only 1” that is a jump. If you have to even slightly bend your knees in order to perform your jump, you were not in back stance. There will be more of this training when I teach Tae Kwon Do basics
The second balance is called fore balance because the lead foot is pointing straight forward and the rear foot is pointing in the same parallel direction as the front foot. The body’s weight is carried on the front leg by a factor of 80%. It is as if you were standing with both feet a shoulder width apart and you took a big step forward, with 80% of your weight carried on the front leg, you are now standing in fore balance. The rear leg is locked so that an instructor could stand on the back of the rear leg’s, knee joint. The chest and shoulders are “stacked” directly on top of the hips. The hips are turned under just a little bit so that if the upper body were tugged forward, the students would not be pulled forward, face first. The chest is stuck out, the shoulders are pulled back and the head is erect, with the chin tucked down. The eyes are looking straight ahead and the arms are at each side relaxed. There will be more of this training when I teach Tae Kwon Do basics.
The third balance is called horse stance. Standing in a neutral, ready position and when either foot steps to the right or left as events dictate. Both feet are pointing forward and the feet themselves are placed on the ground facing the same direction in a parallel stance, two shoulders width apart. The butt is tucked underneath the hips, the shoulders are back and the chest is out. The head is erect and the eyes are looking straightforward. Arms are at the sides of the body and the fists are relaxed. There will be more of this training when I teach Tae Kwon Do basics
The fourth stance is called ready position. The feet are a shoulder’s width apart, between the ankles, and the knees are relaxed and ever so slightly bent, to allow for a quick movement. The shoulder’s are back and the arms are at the sides of the body and the hands, for now, are relaxed. All four of these stances are fighting positions and any techniques done in Tae Kwon Do can originate from either one of these four positions. There will be more of this training when I teach Tae Kwon Do basics.
8. Bojutsu: Stick fighting from the Japanese Martial arts school of fighting and strategy. Fighting with sticks is as old as recorded time. The school of Bojutsu started in Okinawa centuries ago. I recommend you find a Japanese Bojutso instructor and study what they have to teach. You never know when you will have a staff roll across the ground in your direction and you want to be sure now, that you learn all you can about sticks. I will be teaching a class with Nun Chucks so be on the look out for that. Nun Chucks are what Okinawan rice farmers used to flail rice that they harvested to make ready for sale.
9. Boxer’s Stance: A crouching stance that affords a student optimum balance and control while developing power and a strong impact into her attacker's vital spots. The elbows and chin being tucked close to the body and the arms blasting forth from the centerline of the body, characterize a Boxer’s stance. The stance itself guides us to place both feet, one behind the other at about a shoulder’s width distance apart. Both feet are turned to a 45-degree angle off of the line of attack that both feet are standing on. To be specific, if you draw a line eight feet long and stand on that line, at about the mid point say 40 inches, both of your heels would be standing exactly on the line of attack, your heels are centered on that line, a shoulder’s width apart. Once those heels are on that line, you simply move your feet to the right and you are standing in boxer’s stance. That position, with the left foot in front is called “left leg lead”. To stand in “right leg lead”, simply put the right foot in front with the left heel on the “line of attack”. So, all you have to do is to step forward about a shoulder’s width. Remember that you always use the back leg towards the front leg to protect your stance. When you step forward with your lead foot first you are doubling your distance that your feet are apart.
What this means is that you are now able to stand in either left or right leg lead whenever you want to. But what you didn’t know is that if your left foot is in the front, your power “shot” is your right hand, because it is the greatest distance from your target. And distance, plus speed equals power delivered. The greater the distance to the target, the greater the opportunity you have to develop real force. But don’t forget your speed, because the equation is distance plus speed equals power delivered. This means that you must be both powerful and fast to really hurt your attacker. If you want to knock someone off their feet, enough to put them on their backs, you must first lift them off the ground just enough to clear a tiny space between the heel and the ground. Then comes the push back with your fist. All that will be taught when I teach you boxing.
These particular stances and their variations that are taught to ProtecttheRoses.com students are only some of many fighting stances that can be learned and made use of.
10. Bullwhip: The teaching story of a bullwhip is designed and used to clarify to the student how the body can be used to develop and multiply power that is then delivered by the torque of the back, legs, arms, and hips. The fists and feet are trained to crack like the tip of a bullwhip so as to increase their personal “penetrating power” of their Chi/Qi. In other words, no martial art punching occurs with a “push punch”. It is always called a snap punch because that is always the goal of martial arts: to have plenty of power and to leave all that developed and delivered energy deep inside the body of the attacker. This exactly why a bullwhip is so hurtful when it impacts the flesh of the person being hit. It is the sudden invasion of negative energy from my student that not only impacts the person you are hitting, but also deposits your negative energy into the body where it should not ordinarily be.
11. Carried by Six: It is better to be tried by twelve strangers than to be carried by six of your relatives to your grave. One must not hesitate in the moment of attack to fight to the death in order to protect oneself. To be unwilling to fight back for fear of possible incarceration means that one is out of control of their own life. Making decisions of being ready to live and being ready to die makes for a bold and powerful life. P.T.R.com students learn in time, to have the willingness to act out on these decisions to be their own protectors, which makes them very dangerous to anyone who would attack them. The student knows about their decision, but the attacker does not. So, that is one of the reasons we train women to be physically dangerous to the men who would attack them. We do not teach women to negotiate with any attacker, but to attack them “full-on” instead, without regard to anything but the complete destruction of the attacker. Our student will see to it that the attacker cannot repeat his attack of another woman or a girl.
12. Centerline Theory: From Kung Fu we learn that while punching, kicking or blocking from the center of one's body, maximizes the student’s ability to stop an attacker’s attempts to impact their body at the same time. Conversely, the competitive edge of blocking, punching and kicking is that, in seeing "only one punch or kick that is not of their known system, informs the student about what to expect next in terms of attack style. Understanding the style of the fighter, and of what is coming next, forewarns the student about what is coming before the attacker himself realizes what he is going to do. She knows his limitations! If you recognize it, what comes next cannot surprise you. Centerline theory teaches that the overall silhouette of the attacker, should be watched as much as the chest and hips because that will tell the student how to extend their path to a target without having to look directly at it. Knowing what the body is doing tells you what it can and can’t do next. That’s very important to a good street fighter. Centerline theory teaches us all that the more direct the attack, the faster and the more powerful the attack that is coming your way. Centerline theory teaches students how to fight and win against an aggressive attacker. Physical aggression is only a small part of a fight or an attack. Remember that strategic training and practice is equally as important.
13. Centrifugal Force: We use centrifugal force in the dojo (school) to explain how easy it is to use an attacker's weight and intention against them. Knowledge of how and what centrifugal force is, is a big help in defeating an attacker. In combat, centrifugal force is a powerful force that makes a ball connected to a string lift up in the air as it is spun around in a circle. This force is so powerful that it can make a ball fly away when the string is released from the grip of the person spinning around. By the same token if an attacker grabs your hand and starts to swing you around, you know from your training that if you step towards the attacker, not away, you can cut into, not away from his centrifugal power, for just a moment. Said another way, swinging you around is not going to hurt you. What will hurt you is not knowing how to step into his swinging arc to cut the centrifugal forces he is using against you. And while he is swinging you can bet he is not protecting his vital areas one little bit. Why? Because, the attacker is thinking about swinging you forcefully into some object, so that the “impact” of that centrifugal controlled swing will be the real cause of your injury, not the swinging itself. The problem for him is, that now you understand and have been taught a remedy to that method of attack. Whether you realize it or not, you play a part in your own injury, if you don’t step into the attacker and crunch them with a punch or a spear hand or spear finger, to a tinder part on his face. Now, when you strike him, he will release you, but before he releases you, I want you to strike him in a few more places, before he can realize and interpret what has happened to his grand plan to swing you into something and hurt you critically. Remember, swinging behavior, does not by itself, hurt you. It’s what he is able to swing you into that does the damage to your body. You have got to see him as defenseless while he is starting to swing you around. He is even more defenseless after you make contact with his body, he is even more defenseless after you hit him the second, third, and forth strike. In a very direct manner, you are pushing the pull.
Now, I want you to practice stepping to the center of that “pull”, with your girl friend. One of will play the “swinger” and one of you is my student. I want you to go slow at first as you learn this, but here is the footwork to use. As you are being swung around, snap your body into a back stance. Let’s say for this example, your left leg and foot are closest to the attacker’s body. Since he is not touching your legs, you can use and formulate them however you want. If you are lucky, he has grabbed your one arm so that he can push more force into your upper body. To do this technique, you stomp down on the floor with both feet forming up a back stance, but your back foot stomps twice and that stomp propels you even closer towards the attacker. Now, whether he knows it or not, he is using the “Over Matching Principal” against you, so kudos to him for at least using two hands and two arms. What he does not know though, is that he is not trying to use centrifugal force on an untrained woman. What he does not fully understand is that “what he does not touch in any way, he does not control in any way”. This of course, means that your legs or feet are yours to control and use in any way you see fit. By jumping immediately into a “bouncing back stance” (the bouncing back stance is very important) means that you are not able to be drug around in a circle, instead you are going to bounce like a Kangaroo towards him, towards the center of the swing. The bouncing is going to stop though, after just one bounce (maybe two) because you are going to execute a “back-foot- drag” after the first bounce so that in less than a second you are as close as you need to be to his body to strike it hard. And the good thing for you is that if he is holding your arm with one hand that means that the hand that is holding onto your arm is not providing protection against a punch to the nose or spear finger to the eyeball. This is not a get acquainted moment! This is you striking him “seven or eight times in a row” moment. This is superior fight strategy and “original nature” martial arts philosophy at it’s best. Learn this from me, or learn it by trial and error with your girl friend, just learn it and be able to do it smoothly.
14. Chi or Qi: Whichever word and how it is spelled, means the same thing: the breath of life or the internal force. The energy of the body is inside you to protect, strengthen, and defend you. Your Chi/Qi is your all time, best friend that you will ever have and to say the very least, it is devoted 100% of the time you spend in your body to just and only you. You are directing a powerful force that moves throughout the body by command of the mind. A fighting spirit inside the body that can be directed by the mind to travel outside of the body when kicking, punching, or blocking, and most definitely penetrate the body of the attacker.
15. Combat: To fight against; to oppose in battle, to physically resist. Whether by empty hands or with weapons, it is combat just the same. Combat is a pitched battle with the outcome not known. That is why I teach you to be first and definitely last in striking your target, when protecting yourself. Knowing combat strategies should be taught to all girls and women just like they spend years mastering the language of their native land. And why not? Is the world at large, a safe place for women? Or is what these rapist and murderers taking over?
16. Connect: To use places on your body as leveraging points which will enable any student to multiply her physical power. To connect the lower part of the body with the upper part of the body is a skill you will learn how to do with me. To separate the lower from the upper body is also a skill that you need to be able to do if you want to be a great street fighter. To strengthen the mind, body, and spirit is the ultimate goal of martial arts students and you do that by connecting and disconnecting points of your body for a nanosecond in time. By disconnect, I mean that if the upper body is rotating to the right the lower body is in no way influenced by what the upper body is doing. If you are throwing a punch with the left fist, the left and right legs and feet have their own assignment to get accomplished and are not going to flinch or do anything that shows the upper body has any control or dominance over them whatsoever. Did you get what I just told you? Read it a few times just to be sure. You will see these words in action, when I am teaching Chung Do Kwon Tae Kwon Do.
17. Cross: A punch thrown from the rear side of boxer's stance toward the attacker's body. This punch must cross in front of the student’s body and into the target to qualify as a cross. Example: "She threw a right cross to the attacker's nose and knocked the attacker down and out". But let’s talk about how that really happens
Standing in left leg lead and left jab fist is positioned in front of the body. The upper body is turned on a slight angle away from the 90-degree line that that connects the two fighters. Let’s say you throw a left jab first and then immediately follow that with a right cross. The right shoulder moves towards the target, as does the right fist. When the right cross makes contact with the target, the fist twists on a forty -five degree angle and the right shoulder continues moving towards the target, about six inches, for a nanosecond. The right cross fist and shoulder retracts and goes back to the right side of the student’s face to protect it from a counter punch.
18. Decision: The act of reaching a conclusion or making up one's mind. See: One Decision. When you make up your mind, you also exclude any other possibilities from being possible. A decision is one of ten words that I talk about in great detail in another document entitled: “Martial Arts 4 Life” that you can find in the section entitled Cotton’s Class Notes. Once you find Cotton’s Class Notes, scroll down to Notes From My Class. You will see 12 yin-yang symbols stacked on top of each other with twelve documents to their right that I do want you to read and study. At the bottom of that list of yin yang symbols, you will find: “Martial Arts 4 Life”. It is packed tight with all the information you need to give you the beginning of a basis for understanding what we are going to cover in this on line course. Most of what I have written was not taught or discussed with me by anyone. This is one of my contributions to making it easier to bring millions of women and girls know what I know.
19. Distance: The amount of space between the attacker and the student defending herself is one of the “big three” which is distance, speed, and position that must be controlled in order to win a moment of a fight. However, if you just control one of the three elements, by default, you still keep your attacker from controlling all three elements and you are still safe in that moment! So, you can win this “game” of distance, speed, and position, two different ways! Controlling distance, speed, or position is extremely important, and it costs you nothing. This is martial arts fighting strategy at it’s best.
20. Dojo: The building or room where one studies martial arts or self-defense. The word Dojo, is a Japanese word in origin, meaning school or "group". It can be inside of a palace or inside of a barn; it’s still your dojo and because you are there, it is sacred and special to you. When you are in your private room, that is your dojo, so treat it with respect always.
21. Drive: Used to clarify the importance of using hip driving thrust when punching, blocking, or kicking. The use of the word "drive" is a metaphor (figure of speech) for the determination and commitment to winning, reaching, or accomplishing a stated goal. Drive is that invisible force that will be with you all the way to mastery of your martial arts journey, and wherever else it takes you. It will burn bright within you.
22. Drop: Lowering the body as fast as humanly possible. This means that you do not jump up first (not even a micro jump) in order to move downward. A drop is designed to add your body's gravitational weight to whatever technique you use against your attacker. An example is when doing a heel stomp; shift your weight slightly to the right first as you raise your left foot up to the height of the attacker’s knee. Then as you drive your left foot down and scrape the shinbone of the attacker, so that your heel and all your body’s weight and muscular strength slams down onto the instep bones of the man who has grabbed your throat. You know full well that you do not want to touch those hardened steel-toed boots even a little bit. Just crush the instep bones and when you do that stomp, give your foot a twist to the right and then back to the left. This will help to separate the bones from where you crushed them apart and also pull the veins and arteries apart as well. Plenty of internal bleeding and bone fragments tearing apart the soft veins and arteries and making his blood pressure drop. He will be focused on the pain and not on hurting you any further. More importantly, is he will not be focused on protecting himself from you.
23. Drop-Turn-90.5: A rotating hip, leg, and body movement used when performing "Do you Wanna’ Dance?" This technique gets the legs, hips, and shoulders to move in perfect unison so as to move the man's somewhat containing arm, opened enough to move within its seeming constriction. One moment the woman is standing with her arms at her side and doing nothing, because his mighty arms seemingly trapping her arms. The next moment she is in perfect horse stance. She enacts a drop turn of 90.5 degrees (in relation to the straight line she was standing on) in moving her feet into a perpendicular horse stance, (meaning that her body is squeezed against the man’s chest center-line and groin) thus improving her stance and destroying the attacker's stance by sweeping one of his two support legs out from under him. And that is why we call it 90.5 degrees. That extra ½ of one degree is just enough to break his balance (by forcing either his left or right leg to be pushed to the side, depending on which of your legs you “snake” between his own legs, he will fall forward, just slightly, into the knife going straight into his throat. As the woman is destroying the attacker's balance, she locks into a good and safe balance: her horse stance. While she is thrusting the knife deep into his throat all the way up to the hilt of the knife. Also, she is standing in a perfect horse stance. With just a little pressure on his leg making him lose his balance and fall neck first, into the knife blade. Superior strategy and excellent execution all the way, keeps our student on the pathway to her home all the while being just as safe as when she gets there.
24. Escape and Avoidance: The first rule of self-defense is to make and keep yourself safe while you are under attack. The second rule is to not get caught or captured doing what ever it takes to make and keep you safe. If this means that one must escape from the scene of a street self-defense encounter, then do that. If it means that you maneuver the attacker into a situation where they can be hit or counter-attacked, then do what needs to be done. However, if one chooses to turn oneself into the legal system (only upon the advice of legal council) then do so with a clear head and with some degree of assurance that one's basic civil rights will be protected and observed by your attorney. Women spend more time in prison for an act of self-defense (that was not of their choice or making) than do men. An example is a woman who is battered for years until she kills her batterer to stop him from killing her, only to spend years in prison. Our nation's laws were written and are largely enforced mostly by men. You must learn the laws of your country and really understand what you rights are. The decision to escape and avoid capture, arrest and incarceration is for each woman, in her own time, to make. If someone allows another person to kill her, the legal system's promise of "blind justice" or equal protection under the law won't matter because she will be dead. Self-defense means one thing: staying alive to fight and to live another day. Animals do it all the time.
25. Exaggeration Principal: Often when teaching a student how to make a movement, she will not be able to find that imaginary line that she needs to step on. When the trainer notices that a student is not able to perform as requested, it is because the student thinks that she is performing correctly and does not understand where she has gone wrong. How does a trainer make this point clear? By having the student go past the point (or the line) they have been asked to go to. The secret to the “exaggeration principal,” is to ask the student to move beyond the intended line that you wanted them to move to by a big margin. Instead of making a 90-degree right turn in back stance you make it 125-degree right turn and see what happens. What happens is the "mental restraint" of the student will be shattered and they will physically understand what she thought and felt was exactly right, actually wasn't right at all. P.TR. . Com teaches women not to fight, but to strike quickly and repeatedly. The contextual difference is immense. To fight means to willingly get into a conflict where both makers are going to give and receive energy of a negative nature from each other. ProtecttheRoses.com teaches: strike first and quite often until the attacker is stopped in his tracks and flat on his back. When you hit the attacker a few times, it is not the time to stop doing what you are doing! Keep hammering away on him until he is on the ground defenseless and not moving. If he is not moving, the chances of him hurting our martial artist are very slim in deed.
26. Fire Babies: A woman who is "out of her body" and not able to move in a strategic way that will make the techniques flow easily and quickly towards her targets. These "fire babies" are quite willing and sometimes able to defend themselves, however, it is the quality, smoothness and consistency of their technique that is in need of long term training. Having a true willingness to fight and being able to fight very effectively is two different things. Learning how to fight has nothing to do with being angry or expressing anger in any way shape or form. Fire babies can maybe take out one guy, but can they take out two or three guys with weapons? Do they know anything about fight strategy? One very important reminder if you are even slightly angry, you must run hard the other way, because under battle conditions you cannot fight “even close” to your best if you have that feeling of “blind rage” controlling you. You will most certainly be “killed on the spot” by a trained and effective street fighter, when you are full of rage and anger. In fact, if the street mugger can get you to get in touch with your anger, all the better for him. It is just entertainment for him anyway, nothing more and nothing less. If you are angry, run the other way and that act alone of controlling the distance is enough to save your life. If you cannot run away from him or he chases you down the street until he catches you, guess what you are going to do?
27. Fist: The hand, when rolled up twice from the ends of the fingertips and the thumb being pressed (at a 90 degree angle) against the center of the first and second knuckle joints, becomes a fist. You never, ever hold the thumb when making a fist. The body's Chi/Qi flows through two mentally co-joined holes in the dead center of the two big knuckles of the hand when she closes her hand into a fist. Her Chi/Qi internal energy, then flows directly into the body of the person who is being struck. A student should be able to perform push-ups on her knuckles everyday to get used to the impact on the two big knuckles when she strikes a target. But more importantly for doing knuckle push-ups is this one: she performs knuckle push-ups to strengthen and align the weight of her upper body and Chi/Qi pulsing through her wrists. This means that to do the push up she needs to perfectly straighten her wrist so that there is an uninterrupted flow of energy straight through her wrists and through those mentally imagined holes in her knuckles.
What does this actually mean? She wants to learn how to mentally and physically punch as hard as she can and this is a great way to practice that skill every day. When she makes a fist, is there a slight bend between her fist and her forearm? If there is, make the necessary adjustment so that the connection between fist and forearm is as flat and straight as possible. In fact if you put a straight edged ruler on the forearm fist connection, there should be a perfectly linear line underneath that straight edge.
Eventually, she can do bounce push-ups on her knuckles to really toughen up her skin and psyche. I still punch/ palm heel strike concrete and brick walls to this day.
28. Focus: A point to which something converges or diverges. Forging and shaping the power of the body, mind and spirit, to the point of a pin, a martial artist can punch, kick or block with the power of a person twice their size and strength. Said in a simpler way, it’s taking all of you with all the force you can develop and deliver and drive that into a pinpoint size target on your attacker’s body. Besides a great working definition of the word focus, it also does a colossal job of defining the phrase that I use in the dojo: “the over matching principal” which is exactly what you will be doing when you put all of your energy and strength into a target the size of a pin on the attacker’s body.
Focus is the “grand secret of the marital arts”. Although it hides out in plain sight everyday of the week, if you are not told what I just said and explained to you, it goes right over the top of your head. That’s how a secret as big as “focus” can be invisible to all but the trained martial artists. You have just been introduced to something truly great in your life.
I had been a Black Belt for about twenty-five years and I still did not understand what it really meant, until I started thinking about it and teaching it everywhere I went. I wrote everything out on a piece of paper and worked on this word for years. I have lectured on focus for a long time, so now; you know what I know about focus.
Imagine a four-walled pyramid (as seen in the Egyptian dessert) and all of the invisible energy/power swirling around inside its base and below ground. Imagine having the ability to direct all of this power at the bottom of the pyramid to travel to out of the top of the pyramid. If all this power, under pressure were to come out of the top of the pyramid, that energy field would be tremendously forceful. Focus is defined as being able to direct its capability for the big and undirected to the small and the directed. Using focus is the ability and the knowledge of what you are actually doing when you are not only using it, but also making plans to use it. Focus is most definitely a force multiplier for anyone. I urge you to go to: Cotton’s Class Notes and scroll down to: “Martial Arts 4 Life” to read even more about focus. Yes, you should really understand that focus is force that you have yet to use to your greatest efforts.
28. Fulcrum: The point or support on which a lever moves. A martial artist is always seeking the point of the fulcrum in both themselves and their opponent's bodies. Those martial artists, who use the leverage that is there for the taking, are living the good life! What I mean by that is: understanding about a fulcrum and a lever and the work you move, is something you need to read more about. It is no overstatement to say that a fulcrum and a lever are your two best friends in a street fight. Do I need to ask you to read that last sentence at least ten more times? Remember those words: your best friend in a street fight.
29. Goddess: A female deity; a woman of great beauty and grace. A woman adored as a beauty. The word Goddess implies a spiritual entity that connotes a love for all nature. This term is not to be confused by you, with any religion's view of a goddess.
30. Grounding: Whether punching or kicking a target, a woman must lower her center of gravity so as to maximize her ability to develop and deliver power from her legs and hips. Grounding is being certain that no matter how intently the focus is on the strife of the moment, your prime directive to activate is to maintain your balance. Grounding is best when your feet are flat on the ground at the moment of impacting the target. Why? Because when you strike with your body’s weight on “your toes” what happens is that when you strike an attacker, unless you get off the target with a sharp, snap back, the energy that you put into him will go through his body and straight down to the ground and back up to your striking weapon in far less than a second. When that happens it goes through your body and downwards to your feet where you are up on your toes. Guess where that energy goes directly to? It goes to your weakest spot, your ankles where it is absorbed. What is the problem with that? It gives your body an unwanted job: deal with the energy that was just allowed to invade your body. Flat foot is best for any kind of fighting. You can still pivot on your ball of or heel all you want to.
31. Harassment: Systematic persecution by an antagonist stalker with annoyances or demands. Not respecting “no” as an answer. Recognition that you are being pressured to do something that you don’t want to do. A continual barrage of unwanted attention from a man that cannot be stopped any other way, except for the use of self-defense techniques. And there are tons of men who have no self-esteem whatsoever and having you tell them to take a hike is the highlight of their day. And do we need to go to the dictionary for this explanation? I think we should. The dictionary’s definition of the wrongful use of force is violence, as in the instance of rape. The rightful use of force is defined as self-defense. Do I need to say more?
32. Hook: A punch thrown by either the lead or rear arm. The crook of the arm defines the pathway of the hook so that the fist actually returns to the student’s opposite side of the face. If it is a left hook, the fist returns to the right side of the face, so as to protect it as well as the throat. When the fist is protecting the throat and face, the elbow is pointed at the target that has just been thrown. This is a momentary guard position for the elbow, protecting the front of the face and the throat. The hook is a punch that has the elbow in a chamber and responsible for propelling the fist. The elbow, is in a very straight line with the elbow (in fact, on the same plane) pushing the fist onward to its target. The hook has, as its primary targets: the temple, throat, jaw, and ribs.
33. Horse Stance: A utility stance used in self-defense and martial arts to provide stability and strength in a combat or technique-using setting. This positioning of the body is characterized by squatting with the feet two shoulders width apart and parallel with each other. The back is straight and the hips are tucked in underneath the vertical shoulder line. The head is neither turned up nor down. The arms can be positioned as necessary. Horse stance can be a stance of resistance too. Any striking that you want to do with hand or foot, you can do from horse stance.
34. Jab: A punch thrown only with the lead hand and supported by the lead leg. This punch is designed to keep the opponent at a distance by using the length of the arm as a controller of distance between two fighters. The jab is short, fast and is used over and over again without taking a toll physically on the fighter who is throwing the punch.
35. Jeet Kune Do: A synthesis of all the major martial arts styles through the work and study of Bruce Lee and by his number one student Danny Inosanto, into one new system of “no way”. The primary message of this system is that there is no systematic way to fight everyone, every time. There is not even a proper way of performing Jeet Kune Do. This is a departure from any system to come before it meaning that the old rules have changed and the new path works against an attacker that was never seen before its inception. Anything that does not work against an attacker must be discarded. Anything that works is used again and again until it is not useful and is ultimately discarded.
36. Judo: A combat sport that evolved from Jujitsu. It was develop by Jigaro Kano in Japan in 1882. Judo uses ground fighting, leg sweeps; shoulder and hip throws as well as chokes. Judo is in most colleges and universities in the East and many in America. It is not known as a killing art form but is thought of as a sport.
37. Ju Jit Su: A killing art from the Ninjitsu School of Martial Arts. This art is a forebear of Judo and Aikido. It has ground fighting techniques, grappling, chokes, sweeps and takedowns. You can learn quite efficiently how to kill your attacker when studying this art; I highly recommend this art form for any woman or girl for too many reasons to count. This is one of my top three favorites.
38. Karate: Open hand and foot fighting with no weapons. The concept of Karate is to defend and then strike. Karate is fast and simple, and anyone can learn it. It is so well thought out, that anyone can learn this art and become quite dangerous to any attacker, no matter what his size, and most importantly in a very short amount of time. Karate is known as the empty hand art form of fighting although many Karate instructors teach Nunchakus (pair of wood or metal or foam sticks tied together to strike and block with) and Bo staff as well as edged weapons.
39. Kata: A Japanese word that means a form or a pattern. There are similar words used in the art of TaeKwonDo and it is Hyung or Poomsa. Kata is performed to learn it all and to know nothing. Kata is performed to be in the moment with you, full of power and full of force. Kata is a way of getting to the truth about what one believes about themselves. Kata, Hyung, or Poomsa is one path for spiritual enlightenment and harmony. But, the way that I teach it is one of the most fun things you can do in a dojo and at the same time your strength and timing will increase a tremendous amount. I have great regard for studying and mastering forms; they are the lifeblood of teaching beginning students how to fight. The reason I say this, is that every single thing you learn on the road to becoming a street fighter is to get you to one single solitary realization: you can learn how to protect yourself, no matter what you believe about your self and your situation. Karate is just another path to get you up on to the martial arts highway, where we all walk the same path talking about the same thing: we can and will defend ourselves with out anyone’s help or assistance. This is what we talk about and these conclusions about being sure of yourself one fine day are as inevitable as the sun coming up in the East and setting in the West. Think of Kata, as an introduction and a life long guide for the body, mind and spirit.
40. Kiai: instantly synthesizing the spirit and the body into an instantaneous fighting system. The kiai is an invisible weapon able to startle an attacker long enough to strike him and gain the advantage because he momentarily froze on the spot. The kiai should be seen and thought of as a ball of fire that comes out of one's mouth each and every time they block, kick, or strike. If there is anything in life that is better or equals the moment I hear a beginner student’s for real Kiai I certainly have not experienced it yet. When she walks out of the dojo, she is “weaponized” to say the very least. I say she is “weaponized” because she most certainly is. Think about it for a moment. Lets say you are a slightly built woman or girl who weighs about 100 pounds ( about 45 kilograms) and has small hands and feet. Now what male mugger in his right mind would fear a woman who is described like I have just written about? Here is the sweet part of this story.
Imagine that this smallish woman was my student and she watched a video of me teaching the difference between a warrior’s shout and a normal scream. Imagine also that I went into painstaking detail about when and where to perform this “weaponization” of her body, mind, and spirit to the point that when she did let out her warrior’s Kiai , it was so loud it shocked even her best friends. Now, let’s carry this to it logical conclusion. Imagine that a man was threatening her and telling her all the things he was going to do to her. While he was having a “good old time threatening her”, she, at that very moment was selecting her multiple targets on his body. Imagine her very carefully sneaking just that little bit closer to him while he was blubbering (what we at P.T.R. .com call his “sermon” ) about all the things that were in store for her. Now, here is where the story gets down right funny. She knows for an absolute undisputable fact that she is about to Kiai as loudly as she can right in his face and that she is going to reveal herself, she is going to force him to see her like he has never once in his life, seen a warrior woman before. She is going to go from “acting like a passive and submissive woman” to full blown warrior monster and she is going to push that air out of her diaphragm and really direct that same energy from her very being into the face of the attacker! She has learned form her martial arts training at the moment that she lets out a Kiai; the attacker will be stunned for a second or two. While at the same time and in a very real sense his entire body is a target rich environment that is frozen cold on the spot, and is defenseless and unable, in that moment, to formulate a battle plan to protect himself from her full on counter attack which starts at the moment of her first breath out of the depths of her being.
In that very moment, because of the overwhelming element of surprise, he is absolutely not striking or grabbing our student. He is vulnerable to whatever she wants to do to him. The reason for him being frozen like a cube of ice is that what is really happening for him is, he is forced to change gears from offense to defense in a matter of microseconds. But, and this is important: because she knew when she would yell and how soon after that yell, she would strike him where ever her first target on his body was located, she is totally in charge of the situation. There was no hesitation as all for her, it was kiai first, and strikes her pre-selected and thought out targets. It could not possibly take more than one second, or less to complete her yell and strike. Do you get the amazing things you can learn along the way to being a martial arts practioner?
So, is her martial arts learned yell: a weapon? You bet it is, along with the strategic training and timing that she will learn from me in the videos that are ready for viewing on Protecttherosees.com. If you can vividly imagine what I have just told you, you can see and understand quite clearly, the advantage you have any time you Kiai at the right moment to start your attack.
When I teach a girl or a woman the difference between a shout, a Kiai, and a scream, it is a revelation to those who are learning it for the first time, and it empowers them in ways that you just have to experience in the flesh to know what I am talking about. Without doubt, it is worth teaching women for all of my life just to see the look in their eyes when she has truly let her Kiai emerge from her combined body, mind and spirit. She had no clue it was in there lurking around in her body, mind, spirit, now did she? Now, she knows what I know, and she knows she knows it. That’s my definition of a martial arts class, being heaven on earth!
41. Kick: A kick is the sum total of all the energy the body can develop and deliver in an instant. A kick is an act of the body moving energy from the top of the body towards the feet. A kick is the most devastating force delivering weapon in a martial artist's arsenal. A kick can be as fast as a lead hand jab. You have no idea how fast a front kick, round kick, sidekick, or back kick can be until you have done them at least 10,000 times each and only then will you know what I am talking about. But there is nothing stopping you from learning how to do them and when you have watched my video for a few months, I guarantee you this, nobody will be able to teach you how to do those kicks better than what you learned from me! I know Tae Kwon Do kicks inside and out and every speck in between and I want to teach you how to use these kicks in a street fight that you will be able to dance and prance away from. When I watch MMA fights, the one thing I see all the time is that world champions or first time fighters all punch and look, or kick and look. They never do attack sequences in “chains” of techniques. So, I ask this question, two really, why do you kick? You kick so that you can punch. And why do you punch? You punch to kick. They follow each other. You never give your attacker even one second of breathing room, because there is no space of time between your techniques, ever. There is never any looking and seeing to discover how things are going with the counter attack.
42. Kill Shot: An expression that is use to draw attention to the importance of punching on target and as hard as possible. ProtecttheRoses.com advocates training girls and women to really hit as hard as possible with the view that some attackers are planning to kill any woman they meet and trying to negotiate, a reasonable, sensible settlement for what he has been planning for you, is just so much entertainment before he starts doing whatever he wants to do. Seeing you squirm and plead for your life is the main reason he is doing to you what he wants to: watch you beg for your life. But for you instead, along comes an opportunity to learn how to protect yourself and all of a sudden the idea of squirming and pleading for your life is not appealing for you at all. You can, over the years become a woman full of experience and loads of superior strategic fight training.
43. Kung-Fu: Indirectly created perhaps, (that’s what I have learned and read from my research) by a man named Bodhidharma (an Indian monk who descended from Indian Royalty, who was the son of a King) and a Buddhist teacher and first Patriarch of China) as an outgrowth of a series of exercises that trained monks how not to fall asleep during meditation practice. Kung Fu (originally called Gung Fu) was an out growth of his creation of Tai Chi Chuan. Kung Fu makes good use of kicks and sophisticated locks and punches, and blocks. It is said by many that Kung Fu is by far the most complex martial art there is to learn. Kung Fu was highly secretive and taught only to family members from generation down to generation. Transportation, in the origination days of Kung Fu was either by foot, donkey or horse back, so with the secretive nature of its practioners, it is not surprising that it was not until Bruce Lee came to San Francisco and had that epic fighting show down: which was in fact a no holds barred fight with Wong Jack Man in 1964 because Bruce Lee’s classes were filling up with white people. Wong Jack Man was dead set against white people being taught Kung Fu. Only three people saw the fight and accounts vary as to who won the fight. Jeet Kune Do, which was Bruce Lee’s creation, was crafted as a result of that world changing fight. And if you decide to study Kung Fu, just know that you are currently living in the golden age of martial arts, because know-a-days, martial arts is coming straight to your computer.
44. Kyosaku: A flat, wooden stick that is used to strike a sleeping student to wake them up during their meditation practice and help keep them alert. Japanese Zen Buddhists have found the use of this stick helps the practioner gain personal insight, sometimes in moments of great surprise because of a “wake up slap” from the Kyosaku board. The monks were and are extremely serious about their meditation and recommend it for the entire world. I have meditated for over 40 years and would not consider myself a martial artist if I did not meditate.
45. Lady: A woman having the refined habits, gentle manners and sense of nurturing responsibility often associated with the current culture. Or the equivalent of a gentleman who does not train ladies to be warriors, well we at Protecttheroses.com train girls and women to be street fighters. Ladies is a term originated by the patriarchy to keep women in line and controllable. Lady defines a woman as a human being who controls her feelings and attitudes so as to take care of others at her own emotional or physical expense. At ProtecttheRoses.com we never use the term “lady” when referring to any woman, because it makes those women labeled as “ ladies” to be representatives of the system, we are so intent on destroying, which is of course, the patriarchy.
46. Lever: A simple apparatus consisting of a rigid body, typically a metal bar, a wood pole that can also pivot on a fixed fulcrum like a child’s see-saw. Martial artists would say that a lever is a leg that kicks a target, with the knee being the fulcrum. The point I want to make is that a lever can be most anything. It can be a stance for sure. But an even bigger point is that if you don’t know about the power of levers and fulcrums, you may not realize that a lever is a part of a machine that includes a fulcrum. When you put the two together, you have a “work”-moving moving machine that has formidable “force multiplication” powers that you may not have explored fully. What I am saying is that “brute” strength is good for digging ditches or picking up and carrying rocks, but even those two examples use a fulcrum and a lever. Martial arts study is all about fulcrums and leverage and how it gives you an advantage your attacker does not know or understand himself, but by just looking at you coupled with the fact that you are female, what do you think he is going to assume? Does he have even a slim chance of assuming anything else? What does he believe about women in general? That’s right, he is going to assume you are just another woman to rape and kill. But here is the “kicker “ in all this. He does not even realize that he assumes and believes this about you. The result is that he is not, in anyway prepared to defend himself against a trained female martial artist. He does not know what he believes; he does not know what the trained female martial artist can do. He does not know what the trained female martial artist knows and he most certainly cannot know the short and long term consequences of his unwitting ignorance.
47. Leverage: The action of a lever. It is the mechanical advantage of a lever and positional advantage and power to act effectively. A woman on her back is able to lift an attacker off her hips by using her legs and hips together as a lever and fulcrum. Nothing is going to change that either. If she understands and has been taught how to use leverage to her advantage every time she needs to dismount a man from on top of her. It is at the moment of “lift off”, that the woman has leverage dominance over the attacker. If she is trained, she knows what to do next. Think about this thing called leverage for a moment and get a hold of this idea: men are truly ignorant of what women can do with leverage and they don’t even know of their ignorance and what that ignorance can cost them. Leverage is quite invisible so how could he know what you know and what you have been trained to do with it? How could he know that you are not afraid of him at all? How could he know about leverage and what it can mean to him during an attack against you? Leverage gives you a power that most women you will meet know nothing about, so why should you be any different to your attacker? I know that leverage is a “diamond mine” of power for you in a moment of attack. And from that diamond mine all it takes is to pull just one diamond out of that mine and use it and off you go. You have the whole world waiting for you once you learn how to protect yourself.
48. Line of Attack: Between any two adversaries, there is always a straight-line that is connecting them. No matter how they twist and turn that line is still connecting them. This imaginary line in martial arts, boxing, judo, ju-jitsu is known as the line of attack. It is the line to not be “on” when the attacker makes their move to grab or punch you. It is a straight line though, that the attacker and student share and either one needs training to know how to make that line of attack work for them. Like anything in the “fight game” you can bet that there is a ton of things to learn about everything I have to teach you and this ever-present line is no exception. Just knowing that you can manipulate this fact of standing on a line with your attacker, should give you some idea about the incredible energy that goes into an attacker trying to put his hands on you. But just because your attacker is trying to put his hands on you does not mean that he can actually put his hands on you and survive. That is a big difference in deed.
49. Martial Arts: The way of spiritual enrichment and education. One aspect of the Martial Arts is learning to protect the body, mind, and spirit through a physical discipline that involves blocking, punching' and kicking, as well as throws, chokes, and take downs. But that is not all that is learned, students learn in great detail about the art of making war on another person or group of persons. I suggest to you, to find and read: “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu, it will make you see street fighting in a whole new way. It will also be another source of information from one of the most famous generals in the world.
50. Matriarchy: A society where woman and men were treated and thought of as being equal in strength and power. The matriarchy was a time in the history of our world when no countries or groups of people had implements of warfare. Women’s governance was thought of as a natural occurrence. Women governing the state was not designed to dominate men. In fact, it is a false belief that matriarchy equals male oppression. It was never true, ever. Obviously though, it was a time before the patriarchy existed.
51. Martial Arts: The way of spiritual enrichment, enlightenment, physical training, and education. One aspect of the Martial Arts is learning to protect the body, mind, and spirit through a physical discipline that involves blocking, punching, and kicking as well as throws, chokes, sweeps, take downs, sword, sticks and other assorted small farm tools. But that is not all that is learned: martial arts students learn in great detail about the art of making war from a start to a finish. They learn strategies that have been around so long that they are called the Rules of War. And the proof of that statement is that when an attacker fails to observe and pay attention to these rules, it will cost them dearly, every single time. Imagine what would happen to you if you started to really dig deeply into the study of martial arts and you realized that there was a great big world out there where people who came before you had to learn and improve on the things they were taught, the same things you are learning about now? You like learning about people from foreign lands or right in your hometown? Well, ProtecttheRoses.com is certainly a great place to start your journey. Not the ending, but the beginning.
52. Matrifocal: A word denoting that a woman holds dominant authority in the bloodline of a family. The attention is always focused on the family unit. The family is headed by the mother and lacking a father permanently or for extended periods. Control then, is focused or centered on the mother. A Matrifocal control means historically that there were less wars started.
53. Matrilineal: The passage of power, of inheritance, of family name traced and descended through the mother; inheriting or determining descent through the female line.
54. Off: Useful as a word that describes a muscle group in the student’s body, which can strike an attacker without the slightest amount of wasted time. A woman who has mastered the ability to switch her body’s muscles to “off” under pressure and not remain tense while awaiting the opportunity to counter attack can do a much better job of self-defense. In fact, teaching “off” is one of the joys of martial arts training for me. The reason for the joy is in knowing that with this one lesson, completed, my students are going to be just a little bit faster than their attacker will be “off the line”. The word “off” is just a three-letter word for every one who is not on the inside, but it means a tremendous amount to my students in a street fight. The reason is that controlling speed is a great way to win a fight. But if you don’t know this secret, the tendency is to get stiff and hard in preparation for the fight to “jump off” and that has to make the person who is “hard” just that little bit slower in moving their body. You have just learned another martial arts fighting secret, a thing that none of my teachers ever told me, because they did not know about “off” themselves. I made this one up from scratch. Understand that when your body is hard, it is considered “on”, and when it is soft and fluid it is “off” You can only move your body parts when you are physically off.
55. On: Useful as a word to describe a woman's muscle group or body when she is in a state of muscular rigidity in anticipation of an attack. To allow her body to move, her muscle group, that’s all of them, she must first relax before she can move a centimeter. When she is ‘on’ she is unable to move and cannot defend herself because her body is so rigid she cannot move. Try it; try to move when you are hard and rigid. I should have called it “frozen instead of on” because that is exactly what her body is: frozen and not able to move, except perhaps an eyelash. If you can move from “rock hard” without blinking your eyes or losing a second, send me a video, I got to see this for myself. This is one of those facts, that seem to start out, as no big deal, but it becomes a “real earth shaker” when you can understand it and test it for yourself! Test it real well, prove it to yourself and once you do, you will have that one-second advantage every time, guaranteed! Relax, and then do it! Just remember this: to be able “to go, you first have to stop” your chi from making you frozen. You will only be able to move your body from “off”. I made this one up from scratch at the same moment I made up the use of the word “off”. It was a moment of realization that I hope helps you.
56. Patriarchy: A system of social organization in which descent and succession of the bloodline is traced through the male line. The prime belief of course, is that men are superior to women who can be successfully' abused and used in anyway they want to use them. Completely disrespecting women in every way possible. A philosophy saying by thought, word, or deed that women are expendable and the servant's of men in the very best of times. With this work, you are reading, it is my life’s commitment to destroy the patriarchy down to the last thought. I want to train millions and millions of women and girls in this way of thinking and living their life. Having martial arts and self-defense training at your beck and call, and to have it when you want it. Destroying the patriarchy is revolutionary in every way you can think of. I have made my decision years ago; it is your turn to decide now where your particular path is. My hope is for you to join me on the martial arts highway.
57. Point of Origination: The point of leverage wherein the strength of a woman’s body is multiplied by her body's use of the natural starting and stopping points that she only imagines about today. She learns in her classes that this use of a “point of origination” makes a martial arts student aware of the need to create and maintain the same amount of distance between their attacker's hips and her hips at all times. Of course, controlling the distance between those two sets of hips, precisely is what I want you to teach you. Our new student must also designate in her mind, an invisible and arbitrary “moving spot” from the floor to the bottom of her own bottom to make contact with this invisible point of origination each time she rises upwards that one or maybe two inches to punch or kick. Try it out for yourself what I am talking about right now standing with your feet about a shoulder’s width apart and squat down about two inches and hold that spot for just a minute. Then do it again and try to hit that imaginary elevation again and again for a few times. If you can do this, you’re on your way to learning how to punch like a boxer.
This coaching strategy has been offered now, for the student to begin to understand the importance of moving the hips in the exact same way each time they punch. And her legs are also moved in the exact same way and for the exact same distance each and every time she punches. With this consistency, comes a certainty about what you can and cannot do in that moment. You will learn how to have more sophisticated footwork at a later date in videos on boxing. This superior fight strategy makes her consistent with distance to target, which makes her more consistent in production and delivery of power to a moving target. More than that though, is that when she has a consistent and definitely moveable leg system that works in both power production and delivery it becomes one less thing to concern herself with if she can just get past her limiting beliefs that this is all too hard to learn and she can’t do this, so why even try? Girls and women who think like this are my favorite kind of student though, because once they are convinced about this subject, they take off in their martial arts studies like a rocket!
When she can understand and then come to depend on things like her “point of origination” all day long, she is going to be effective at delivering consistently powerful punches and kicks every time she throws one or both following the other. Just remember “point of origination.
Beginner’s Footwork
Here is a lesson about beginner’s footwork I want to teach you today. I want you to learn how to walk differently than you do right now. I want you to get a small (and I suggest cotton or nylon) soft rope about 40” long (101.6 centimeters) and tie it around each of your ankles so that you are “hobbled like a pasture horse” and cannot run, but you can definitely slide both of your feet with no stress or strain. The distance apart for this training is about your own shoulder ‘s width. I want you to practice a “back-foot-drag” and a front-foot-slide forward, remembering to not pick either foot up. Any time you are standing on that one-foot, your strength and balance is compromised unless you know what you are doing. Practice this technique with each leg in front of your back leg until you are sick and tired of doing the exercise. Then, untie your ankles and see how closely you are able to step-slide forward with your back foot moving first towards your front foot (dragging it) and then slide your front foot forward. You will be shifting your weight very, very slightly. You want to keep the majority of your weight on your centerline. You dancers and ballerina know what I am talking about! For the uninitiated in dance, imagine a string line going down the middle of your body keeping your posture as perfectly straight up and down as you can. Have your girlfriend tell you when she can catch you moving forward on a “slide”. Tell her in this one instance she needs to look you in the eyes. You are learning how to safely sneak up on your attacker. Why though, move the back foot first instead of the front foot? Because it is harder to see the back foot move if you are being very sneaky about doing so. Then if you follow with a front foot slide as you are striking out against your attacker you are covering at least a shoulder’s width of distance without him realizing it. Getting closer without getting hit or stopped by your attacker is called getting a “free close”. Practice your craft of being sneaky when the situation calls for it.
By the way, to do this “back foot drag and front foot slide” you want to start off in a back stance. To form back stance, stand normally with both feet (your toes) facing the same direction. Turn your right foot to the right 90 degrees so that your toes are pointing 90 degrees to the right. Then take your left foot and place your left heel “hard up” against the inside of your right heel, so that there is no air space between the two heels. The rear of the heel of your front foot is touching the left side or inside of your right heel. Then step forward with your left foot about the length of your shoulder’s width of your shoulders. The rope you tied around your ankles should be tight.
You should be about right to start out learning this. Now: quickly bounce up and down and notice that bending your knees and keeping them bent makes it possible for you to jump straight up, to the left or to the right, quite easily. And of course, if you can jump up even an inch in the air, you can kick with either leg, which means if you need to stop an attacker charging you can kick him with a lead leg side kick. Remember you just cannot kick in a wide horse stance or a modified back stance unless you shift your weight and that takes time.
Now that you have done this exercise for a while let’s go back to “back foot drag” for a moment. I want you standing in back stance and moving your back right foot to the back of your heal (either foot you move right now is OK) and just as you are about to touch it with your back foot slide on the line of attack you slide your front foot forward. When you can do all that with a “left leg lead”, start all over again and get in ready stance with both feet facing forward and turn your left heel to the left 90 degrees and bring your right heel across and touch your left heel. Then, slide off with your right foot straight forward and stop where you “feel” because the rope is tight once again, it is the exact place to stop.
By now, with the help of your rope, you should be gliding along in a back stance quite effortlessly whether it is left or right leg lead. Be sure that as you slide forward, if you want to go to the next step in the footwork, as your back foot is sliding forward, it must slide forward right next to what was the lead foot is located. You should feel the skin of each foot rub against each other as you move forward with your rear leg. And to further your education: I want you to have both feet, when you are at the mid point of travel to fully, from front to back, touch each other and then your back foot continues to move forward as your opposite foot pivots on the ball of the foot and viola’ you are in a brand new back stance, with the right foot in front. Keep in mind that it is going to take at least 10,000 steps like this to make it feel normal and smooth where you glide as you move. And just to be clear, “glide as you move” is our North Star. I always knew it would be fun for you, but it would never be any fun for your attacker.
Why is footwork so important? Because I am training you to be a street fighter and you must be prepared to be surprised and interrupted by a second or third attacker in a normal “free fighting” movement and at any moment. If someone pushes or pulls you, all you have to do to solidify your balance is to simply step forward or any other stepping sequence that provides you a solid “back stance”. Being interrupted by a secondary attacker is absolutely no problem for an experienced street fighter, especially a trained martial artist and street fighter. When your rear foot is in the midst of transferring from being a “back foot” towards becoming a “front” lead foot, ask your girl friend to give you a good hard shove either from the rear of your body, the front of your body or on either side of your body. The trick is to flow from an upsetting push in to a perfectly positioned and calming back balance stance. To be good on your feet you must be prepared to be surprised by any number of people trying to disturb your balance or take you to the ground. Understanding your point of origination is one of the most important things you can learn as a street fighter. A “point of origination” is any place you want it to be to help you reach predictable spots in the air around your body that your body returns to over and over again.
And finally, I am introducing the Ring of Fire! Check this out, if one girl friend would coach you to learn how to move and walk in back stance, imagine what it would be like if in your training group, you had at least four girlfriends who would volunteer to be your “surprise, surprise” pushers? Here are the guidelines. One girl pushing at a time, when the girl or woman doing the pushing is in the center of the ring she gets to push only once and then she must return back to her spot on the Dojo floor. She then stands still and evaluates the performance in the ring of fire. After all is said and done with the center girl, it is time for all four girls to evaluate and critique her performance. Let her know how she could improve on her “step-slide-glide!
Also, remember what the definition of grace is: it is simple elegance or refinement of movement. What is at the heart of that definition? Two things are inherent, one is understanding and the other is discipline. Understanding is where the parts of the movement are so correctly comprehended that it would be impossible to do them any other way. Discipline is doing the right thing in the right order and not taking any short cuts to achieving your goal. To a third set of eyes our student makes what she does look so easy. That is why I say these words to you know: it is the ten thousand repetitions that tell the story about grace. You have to show up and put in the time to learn martial arts or self-defense. I challenge you to be the most graceful warrior that you can be. Grace is born out of mastery, no doubt about it.
If the girl has already been practicing and receiving a push, she is ready to graduate up to four girls in her own Ring of Fire! The only reason that a girl would not be able to make her transfer is because she was not keeping her knees bent and ready to transfer her weight. With her forward or backward movement the student in the Ring of Fire! Center must be always looking straight ahead. I want all girls who can learn this technique really well to help the other girls and women in your circle so that all the females can be good at doing this. No student left behind. But here is the twist ending to this game. The girl in the center is eventually going to wear a blindfold, so she cannot see when a pusher is closing the distance. Whatever the line of attack, it is best for all concerned, if she is surprised! Remember; be sneaky and quite when you are closing the distance to the center girl or woman.
58. Controlling the distance: When the hips move, it is critical to have predictable results in developing and delivering power to a distant bobbing and weaving target. The spot in space that you or your attacker occupies must be as similar in one second as they can be in the next second. For example: "he was situated two feet away from me in a crouched and ready position", or "my chest was positioned so that he could not hit me squarely." It is critical that students understand this strategy to survive and win their street fights. So, controlling access to your body or your ability to safely close the distance without being hit is a big accomplishment in a street fight. However, more importantly, is being able to know about “stepping off the line of attack” and why. When you know about “stepping off the line of attack” you cannot be hit or grabbed by the attacker unless he has been trained by someone and can actually step off the line with you. If he can’t understand or do what you can do, you will know it the first time you step off the line and he misses his target. By missing his target, he can be struck by you as he goes moving past you. The thing to remember though, is that controlling the distance and that once you understand it, being hit by your attacker is a harder, if not impossible thing for him to do. They can’t hit you and don’t know why they can’t hit you. That causes instant confusion and frustration in his mind, body, and spirit. And your attacker being confused is always a good thing, because when he is confused, he will definitely make bad choices and those same bad choices can leave him vulnerable to your counter attack. Confusing your attacker is another fun part of my women’s self-defense training. If you get a chuckle out of his blunders is that a good thing or a bad thing?
59. Punch:Write this down and then memorize it word-for-word. A punch is the sum total of all the energy the body can develop and deliver in a moment. A punch is an all-encompassing act of the entire body moving energy from the feet to the two largest knuckles of the fist. For effective and powerful punching, the hips must rotate and forcefully move in the direction that the punch be thrown; the legs must rise up slightly before the hips go forward. No punch should be thrown that does not come from as far away as technically possible. Remember: the greater the driving distance of the body part that is doing the striking, the more power that is developed and delivered. Thinking that a martial arts punch has only the power of the bicep, completely refutes the whole philosophy of the definition you just read. This is why I tell my students to let the attacker be impressed by the size of his biceps, because he thinks that since he has bigger biceps than the woman has, he has got her where he wants her. Wrong! The best part of this is that he does not even realize that he believes this yarn, he just unconsciously accepts it as a “truth” and keeps on making those big mistakes in life until he meets the trained martial artist and then every thing “goes bad” for him really quick!
60. Rape: The felony crime of forcing a female into sexual touching and intercourse. The most under reported crime in the world by a factor of at least five to one, and the least prosecuted, with the least time served, along with the highest recidivism rate of all felony crimes there is. What does that tell you about the people who write and enforce our laws? It tells me that they don’t notice the results of their law making and their law enforcement. Looking to the government (or anyone) to protect you is the level of protection you have now. With long term martial arts training, rape can be stopped once and for all, if enough women learn martial arts and self-defense on their own.
61. Reciprocating: To give and take mutually, to move back and forth with equal and balanced amounts of force and speed. This movement of arms, feet, and legs is essential to punch or kick with power and speed. Think of an old time steam locomotive and look at the way the wheels that are connected to each other are being pushed forward and then backward in a reciprocating action. When an electrical reciprocating saw does its work, it first moves outward and then immediately moves backward and the process of cutting is underway. When a martial artist punches, she punches in a back and forth manner along with her other arm. One punch goes to the target and then in an instant, the other hand comes forward to strike the same target. These are all reciprocating actions. What you must really understand is that although the arms are behaving in a reciprocal manner, it is the unrecognized entire body that is producing the real power from the ground up for the arms and the fists to make use of in making and delivering a powerful punch or kick. Sit on the floor, with your legs crossed and do your reverse punches and tell me how much poser you have lost without your legs propelling your punches.
62. Reciprocity: is a mutual or cooperative exchange of power that does not destabilize the body’s balance. Imagine you are a martial arts practioner and you are standing in a horse stance, two shoulders width apart. One hand is pulled back to your lower rib cage and the other hand is extended out in front of you. Both hands are now formed into a fist. You have one fist at your side and one fist in front of you. Suddenly, you punch forward to the solar plexus and your opposite fist returns back to your ribs. This is reciprocity in action. Another word for reciprocity is exchange. In the example I have just given, the energy and the fists both go in opposite directions to each other and at the exact same moment. There is an exchange or reciprocity of energy, force and human flesh, muscle, and bones moving in opposite directions. Think about how you have never punched this way in your life, yet today you are learning at least a little bit about what it means to punch as a martial artist. There is more to come where I teach punching in the videos on Tae-Kwon Do.
63. Reverse Punch: This is a punch that is delivered by first reversing the direction of the fist from its intended target. In a classic Tae Kwon Do class, the instructor would require the student to position the fist at a spot on the side center of the rib cage below the breast and a few inches above the belt. A reverse punch is the use of and understanding of generating reciprocating force in a general sense. Remember this fact: this technique of punching, in a reciprocating manner, is most definitely a “force multiplier”. Remember that a “force multiplier” is any action where the martial artist is using their entire body to generate and direct power to the extremity being used to impact a target. The two fists move like pistons back and forth originating from the side center of the body to the target and back again. A reverse punch is the most powerful way to punch providing that the elbow is pointing downward and locked at the-moment of impact on the target. Reverse punch is striking with the two big knuckles of the fist twists to a full 45-degree angle upon impact into the target. Reverse punch is taught and defined as a “snap punch” that gets its multiplied power by making sure that the hips and shoulders develop and send power by at first: going in the opposite direction of the intended punch. It is that simple. It makes the left arm and the right arm very powerful punching weapons right away, even for beginners.
64. Rhythm: I want to help you to focus on the regular patterned stream of the body, the ebb and flow of movements and energy all around you. Listen for nature’s beat: it is already going in and out of your body. To use and understand rhythm in your street self-defense is a whole different conversation that will take an amount of time that these few words cannot adequately cover. I always teach students that getting your rhythm is also getting in touch with, your heartbeat and of course your breathing. These two constants in your body actually can and will teach you how to anticipate a downbeat of a musical note. You need great music for bag work and just practicing what I want to teach you. This means that I strongly recommend you listening to, singing, and dance to Ska or Reggae music.
If you listen to the Blues, you can always find something that will have a very identifiable down beat too. Why the big emphasis on music? I thought I was teaching you how to be a street fighter! What you need to know is that anticipation is a “big deal” in fighting in the street. Anticipation is all about “feeling the move” before he makes it and you then “beat him to the punch”. Meaning you can either hit him before he hits you or “scoot “ out of the way of his straight-line attack. The point I want you to get right now though, is that if you can start singing and dancing by your self to Ska, or Reggae music, before you know it, you are going to be throwing punches to that very beat. By the way Ska, or Reggae music, has a 5/4 beat, which is different to a 2/4 beat, so it is also just perfect for boxing or kicking the bag. Ska or Reggae music always makes me, easily feel the downbeat, always.
Your breathing is very important too start working on and understanding right now. Imagine that you are a person who has a bag inside you right where you believe your stomach is and it holds and releases the air you breath. Well, in fact you do have that bag I mentioned, it is called a diaphragm and it controls your breathing in more ways than you can imagine. First off, your body’s diaphragm has an ability to hold fast under direct attack as much air as is in side of it. I know this is an absolute fact because, when I used to give live
my fellow Black Belts used me as a kicking target. I would stand in fore balance and they would kick me as hard as they could. When they did that, I would let out a loud Kiai and tighten my muscles that cover my diaphragm. And guess what? It would always knock me backwards, sometimes lifting me up off the ground, but it never, ever hurt me at all, not even a little bit. It was because I learned how to control the air that was in my diaphragm and did not let my fellow Black Belt who was kicking me, do his own controlling of my body’s air, because that ebb and flow was all mine.
The result is that when the students watching the demonstration were convinced that there was something special about this martial art called Tae Kwon Do, they wanted to learn more. The trick to it is to expel about half of what you have in your diaphragm as you Kiai (yell) and everything that remains in the diaphragm is enough to keep everything where it is supposed to be. So, I am not telling you something that will not work for you, because it has worked for me for decades and every other martial artist I know of.
65. Scoop: This term refers to punishing a man from grabbing you around your arms. You will learn how to use both hands to grab the testicles of your attacker. When scooping, it is important to avoid grabbing the attacker's penis. The two hands must go between the attacker's legs reaching through to the center of the body, to grab his testicles. The testicles are the fragile part of the groin. The penis can stand a lot of abuse, so it is pointless to grab for that part of the groin when you have a much more vulnerable target right behind the penis, which is his testicles. When you scoop upwards from his knees, you want to grab and squeeze the testicles as hard as you can and pull them back towards your own body’s center line, lock your elbows, and then drop into horse stance as you drop your hips about six to twelve inches. Remember to lock your elbows straight downward at the instant you grab. “As” (there is that word again) you are dropping your hips you drop (only drop) into a horse stance. In effect, it makes his scrotum support your body’s entire weight for a good second or two. This is a fun part of the technique and a great way to meet up with your attacker. While your hands are down low, take a half step backwards and hit him with a good hard uppercut to the throat, first with your right fist and then with your left fist.
66. Second: An artificial unit of time measuring a change of energy. Although we recognize that there is no such thing as time in a tangible sense, it is important to communicate effectively about an opportunity to strike in a manner that is understandable to the student. ProtecttheRoses.com teaches the concept that every second on the clock that is controlled in a fight leads to and supports controlling the next second of the fight. This idea about control of time is used to get students to focus intently on striking first and after that first strike, striking him again as many times as necessary in order to incapacitate an attacker in the first few seconds of the “jump off”. On our website: ProtecttheRoses.com we teach students to be concerned about only one second of a fight at a time. Not to forget that every second that you can win, is a second that he did not win. If you manage to control 10 seconds of a fight, I doubt that you would have any problems in walking away from that encounter if you wanted to. Count to your self: ten seconds and start to recognize how long a time span that is to you.
67. Self-Defense: Defense of oneself when attacked, is self-defense. You’re right to protect yourself against violence (the wrongful use of force) when threatened by whatever violence is coming your way forces you to use self-defense in order to survive. Violence by the way, is defined as the wrongful use of force. The example given in the dictionary for defining violence is rape. Girls and women’s bodies belong exclusively to them and no one else. The right to defend one’s self against violence or threatened violence with whatever force or means are reasonably necessary is a guaranteed legal right. But even if it were not a guaranteed legal right to defend yourself, what is there to do but defend yourself, if a man is trying to rape you? It is a natural right to make use of self-defense. When he is thinking and planning domination and violence against you, you on the other hand are thinking about stopping him permanently from ever doing this to any other female and not just you. You are not trained to negotiate, but to either use his weapon against him or stop him outright on the spot from using any weapon again.
68. Sexual Assault: Any type of unwanted touching that has a sexual nature is a sexual assault. Example: A man who intentionally touches a woman's body, has sexually assaulted that female, if she did not give him permission to do so. However, if a woman can stop a man from touching her, she has not been sexually assaulted. Then the charge would be: Attempted Sexual Assault. My students can learn to stop an assailant from completing his attempt of sexual assault, by using what I teach on the videos and on this web site.
69. Sexual Harassment: Unwanted touching, speaking or threatening the same against another human being is sexual harassment. Behavior considered as offensive and of a sexual nature implied or communicated in any form is sexual harassment. Conversation that creates a tension or atmosphere that causes a person to feel threatened or uncomfortable is considered sexual harassment. Men believe that for any woman they want to sexually harass, there is nothing she can do to stop him, even if she wanted to. So they do just that, and then get away with it. Well that’s the way it used to be because now, there is martial arts training for all women and girls to put a stop to that nonsense.
70. Stair-Step-Approach: The Original Nature of Martial Arts mind set of attacking an opponent means that the first strike is far from the last strike to be landed. The student continues to strike until the attacker is at least unconscious. She does not stop striking against her attacker until she knows for a fact that she is safe. My students are taught that sometimes an attacker will play “possum” and try to convince the woman that he is unable to continue his attack of her. So, when she is leaving the scene of the attack, she is careful not to turn her back on her attacker, as she is rightfully opening the distance between them, she still must consider the possibility of a resurrection from the ground where he is laying. And for certain, she is completely ready for him to surprise her with a weapon of some type. She is taught over and over again to always expect the unexpected. My students getting back to their home may not be as easy as she could think it will be. And by the way, always keep your head on a swivel at all times. Remember, any one of eight doors of the Octagon can be opened at any time and any number of attackers can start to attack you from any one or all of the eight doors. Just because she has successfully defended herself is not reason to let her guard down.
71. Strategy: The science or art of military command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of large-scale warfare operations. However, what about you? What difference does it make to you how large scale operations are conducted if you don’t understand how strategy works for you in your pursuit to keep your self safe at all times? Strategy is using the best of everything that’s out there, to prevail over your attacker. Strategy is the detailed explanation for The Rules of War. With strategy you have a way of breaking down all the complexities that you will learn from this training, for easy comprehension and personal use. Strategy is a very easy way to communicate a better way to approach and control a crisis situation. Let me give you a simple story about communicating a strategy. One day I was competing in a tournament in Denton, Texas and I was watching a friend of mine fight another friend of mine. I noticed that when he threw a moving back fist on a straight line attack, he had a tendency of dropping that back fist in sort of a lazy way that did not cover his face and lower throat, when he got close enough to be counter punched.
Later, during the break, another friend of mine came up to me and said I got to fight the guy (who was lazy about retracting his moving back fist correctly) during the next bout. I simply communicated to him what I knew and then told him to drop his lead fist just a little bit to “bait” the guy into using that moving back fist and when he did try to hit him, simply move your head out of the way, since you know the strike is coming, it would be simple to do. Sure enough the next bout was upon them, and they bowed in and started sparring with each other. My friend dropped his hand just a bit to “sell” the fact that he was “unconsciously open” to an attack from my friend’s moving back fist. My other friend simply waited until the last moment and then countered with a block and a right cross and he got his point. My advice and strategy was communicated, and in just a moment it was received and became his strategy in another moment. Both competitors were Black Belts, but one of them was a little sloppy about making sure that his back fist returned to a guard position instantly. He lost the fight over that one mistake. That is what strategy is about and that is why you want to understand and use it for yourself. Look for things that I taught you that other martial artist are not doing correctly or all. It is seeing the mistake that no one else sees that can make the difference in the streets.
72. Speed: Rapidity in movement, proceeding at full speed with all of your force is what speed is for any of us. Full, optimum, maximum speed enables our student to penetrate the man in the eyeball before he could push his knife into her throat. This counter attack was made possible because she has superior training, a superior fight strategy, and that training develops in time, into an overall, strategic plan. Speed is one of the three critical elements that must be controlled in order for the woman to control a single second of her encounter. In this equation, distance plus speed equals power delivered. The person who hits first is the one who hits without having any negative energy in their own body from their attacker because she beat him to the punch. The trick is to really understand that particular fight strategy and hit him again and again as fast as she can. She does not want to ever just “hit and look” or a “hit and evaluate”.
Without speed though, no matter what the distance is, there can be no power delivered. Understand that although what I just said is true, it does not tell the whole story of self-defense. Speed, without great training and a superior strategy is not going to win a fight either. So it is important to understand that what you may “see” when you are watching a woman defending herself is just the natural thing for her to do, but it is not natural to win that fight with no martial arts and self-defense training. That said, you can have the best-trained, most well thought-out counter attack strategy and you would still be nowhere without speed. Blinding speed is critically important to a student in a self-defense and martial arts training. That is why I want you to really understand what distance, speed and position mean in controlling a fight means to the beginner student. Additionally, even just knowing about these three elements of a fight are important to a street fighter, just as important to know how to take advantage of the ignorance of your attacker. Remember that when he is talking to you; evaluate quietly to yourself how smart you think he is. Think and evaluate what you think he assumes about you. This will bolster your confidence in that moment.
73. Squish: One of the techniques ProtecttheRoses.com teaches women is to rip an attacker's testicles from their body when they attack her. The word scoop comes to mind when I think of squish. By placing his arms around her arms and then attempting to carry her away or to break her back by squeezing her arms into her rib cage while bending her backwards, he thinks he has her where he wants her. This technique of ours called “Squish” is about not resisting the greater force, which is not what an untrained woman would do. An untrained woman would resist the greater force of the man and consider her resistance natural against him squeezing her arms against the sides of her body. But if she were taught to move her arms inside to the centerline of her body in front of her stomach and on either side of her breasts, so that the upper and lower arms are “squished” together side by side, the attacker loses control over using her arms to break her ribs. As he relocates her arms, he still is in a more vulnerable position with the student’s hands almost touching his genitals without her even trying anything. Her hands are in the right place at the right time. Her open palms are in front of both her and him. That said, it is the positioning of her hands in that quiet moment, because right now his mind is a million miles away from his own self-defense needs. Her squished together open palms and their location next to his penis is what I want to teach you next.
Her “hands placement” is just the beginning of the fun, for her because our student is going to squish her arms all the way down to her hands with both palms facing towards the attacker’s groin area.. The entire length of her two little fingers will be touching each other. In the video, I will teach you how to turn your head to the side so that your face does not get cut or scratched as you quickly “drop down”. She is then going to scoop under his penis and grabs both of his testicles as she can. I don’t want you to grab his testicles like it is the family jewels either. I want you to reach under the penis and grab them like your life depends on it. The rest of this technique I will teach you in the video produced exactly for you to learn all of the technique from start to finish.
Last thought: think of your self as slippery from head to toe as you drop down into horse stance let nothing stop you from getting into a good deep horse stance.
74. Stalking: The act of focusing on and attempting to talk to, spy on, or to otherwise invade a girl or woman’s personal space in any way, against her wishes or consent, with the intent to hurt or harm her in anyway is known as stalking. Stalking, Prevention, Awareness, and Recourses Center (SPARC) reveal that 7.5 million people are stalked before the age of 25. Studies show that stalking victims suffer higher rates of depression, anxiety and insomnia. Stalking does not have a good ending for the girl or woman. What Protecttheroses.com is focused on with our work is to change that ”ending” to connecting with the student who provides a decidedly terrible outcome for the attacker. Stalking, is targeting a woman without her knowledge by the person who is trying to control her. That’s illegal, and it can be “stopped cold” by a trained and ready martial artist.
75. Stances: A physical posture wherein a woman or girl can defend herself from an attack from a man. That same stance will provide a base of support so that she can fight back and stop her attacker in his tracks. However, what you don’t know is that it is your awareness of what you can do from wherever you are standing and however you are standing that makes the real difference in martial arts. For example: if you stand with your two feet facing in the same direction and about a shoulder’s width apart, you are in an excellent fighting position even if your hands are at your side, hands in your pockets, or holding a bag of groceries. Granted, there are better fighting positions, but this one will definitely do in a “pinch”. Why? Because fighting back is a very lengthy and involved thing to learn and understand, it has to slowly come into your life and change how you think and your stance is only a fraction of what you need to know. Eventually, I will teach you all this when I teach Chung-Do-Kwan Tae-Kwon-Do to you. You will begin to know and appreciate that even though the self-defense training is great, there is an unending amount of knowledge to master and know in the martial arts world. I want you to master every step of what I am offering and be a controller of it all. To learn martial arts, you have to study and apply yourself to the study of it like you would undertake any serious subject that you don’t just want to understand, but become a master of it all. I am inviting you to walk the long, long road along with me and all the other travelers up here on the martial arts highway, walking together in the same direction. Once you are on this Martial Arts highway, it can take you all over the world and back. But get this, you will be far safer out on that Martial Arts highway than you can now imagine.
76. Tae Kwon-Do: The art of empty hand and foot fighting as first seen and created by General Choi Hong Hi in the year 1945. Tae Kwon-Do is a synthesis of Japanese Karate and ancient (2,000 years old during the Silla dynasty) Korean Taek Kwon. The Hwa Rang Do, a military group of upper class men, perfected this study of foot fighting. Taek Kwon was a foot fighting art, somewhat similar to the French foot fighting art known as “Savate”. Tae Kwon-Do is considered as having the best leg techniques in all of martial arts. At least that’s what all the Tae-Kwon-Do people think! It is a very condensed self-defense system to learn about the martial arts. Compared to other forms of martial arts, it is not Krav Maga in that it is more of a sport than an art form.
77. Target: A specific spot on a person’s body, which all of the woman's body, mind and spirit is intending to direct her energy into. But getting to the target is all about the training, strategy and the education you get, and the time you spend training on what you were taught. Here is an example. You are looking at the attacker and you see his nose as a juicy target. You want to hit it, but he is 12” taller than you. Your training teaches us all that even if you get closer, the nose, and the power you want to hit him with are just out of your reach. What do you do? Well, your training also tells you that your problem will go away, if you first kick him as hard as possible in the testicles as your opening counter attack. As he folds over with a tremendous jolt of pain, you will see that prize of his nose coming into punching range. It is in that second that you slam into his nose with all your focus and power. That’s hitting two targets almost in the same moment. And you are spreading the pain quite well, both low and high. Congratulations, you are safe now! But do you stop and run away like little Bambi? Of course not, you are just getting started on your attacker, besides he may have a weapon you have not seen yet, safely concealed on his person. You keep hitting him hard until you know you are safe. A good rule for that or at least a suggestion: don’t leave until he is not moving at all.
78. Time: is a measurement revealing the passage of mental awareness. Time doesn’t exist, yet we discuss and think about it, as if it really did exist. Performing several body movements in one second provides to the trained student the complete manipulation of “time” that she needs to consider her self a martial artist. Of course, that includes the fact that time can be made to stand still with beginning martial arts training. Why this is important is because once you are a martial artist you know how that manipulation of time can change the dynamic of a street fight in a second. Sometimes I have a student say something like what makes martial artists so fast? The answer is that a trained martial artist can manipulate time quite easily. Remember when I said about controlling distance, speed, and position? That if you can control all three elements of distance, speed, and position you cannot be defeated in a fight? Do you remember that? By the same token, if you can keep the attacker from controlling just one of the three elements of the same fight, he cannot beat you. The student has to control all three elements in order to win that precious one-second of a fight, even though if she keeps him from controlling all three she is still safe, she just did not “win” that moment of a fight. So controlling time, by manipulating it is a thing that any trained martial artist can do.
79. Triangulation Theory: The basis of martial arts originates from reducing the focal point of your personal weaponry to its smallest point so that it can have the maximum penetration of the target. For this reduction of focal plane to happen, the student must first know where their weapons are big and how they can pick a smaller weapon if needed. An example is the width of the shoulders traveling down the arm to the pinpoint of the fist's knuckles. The triangulation theory makes clear that every one has plenty of unused and unfocused power within their body at any given time. Let me give you an example of the triangulation theory in real life. Suppose you are thinking about punching someone in the solar plexus. If you stand on one foot and punch his solar plexus it won’t be enough power delivered to it to make any difference. But if you stand in a wide stance like a fore balance where your foot print of your two feet are spaced far apart, like you were taking a giant forward step, you can and will deliver much more power than if you were balancing yourself on one foot and one leg. Another example is if you were being pushed in the chest backwards and you did a stutter step backwards, you would probably fall down. But, if you were pushed hard in the chest and your foot stepped backwards to form up a proper fore balance, you would not be shaky with your balance and you would be fine. That is another example of the triangulation theory at work. Here is a final example using the finger jab. A man is standing in front of you and it looks like he is about to put his hands on you. You are standing in a regular shoulder’s width stance, with your feet in a separated stance and your hands are loosely at your side. You know you are going to strike him with a spear finger in the eyeball, but you want it to be as powerful as it can be. You know your stance is going to play a big part in really driving that finger of yours into his eye socket. Quick as a wink, you step forward with your right foot towards the attacker as your left hand retracts backward to a ready position at your lower rib cage and then shoots right back out to the target as your left foot goes behind you to form a perfect fore balance. And all that motion and energy you produced in less than a second, that’s manipulating time and using the triangulation theory all at the same moment. Your left hand goes to the left side of your waist in a clenched fist. All three examples define for you, triangulation theory at work. The structure, strategically is that you have to know going into this self-defense technique that you have the advantage over your attacker and he does not have a clue about what you know or are about to do. Will he be in any way large or small protecting his eyeball from what you are about to unload on him? You tell me!
80. Upper Cut: A punch originating from or below a woman's waistline and traveling vertically towards an attacker's throat or jaw. This punch can also be used to strike any target in-between the groin and the throat with damaging effect. This technique is best used in any punches that we teach when the two large knuckles of the striking fist make the primary contact with her target. Imagine that you are standing in regular stance, with a shoulder’s width between your feet. Bend over at the waist but still keep your eyes on the imaginary man standing in front of you. Put both your fists at each side of your face and imagine that you are going to throw a right upper cut. You keep your left fist up which provides protection of your face, temple, jaw, and throat. Your shoulders, if you were closer, could be on the same imaginary line or plane. You “rock your shoulder” down as your fist and face also travel downwards so as to get your right fist some time to create some distance from your target. From the attacker’s belt line your fist travels upwards to the chin and throat of the man who is attacking you. As you connect with your fist to his throat and chin, your palm of your fist is facing towards you. In that moment of contact, you rotate your fist 45 degrees so as to send a spiraling/twisting of energy into the attacker’s body. You quickly retract your right fist to the right side of your face and then you throw another punch or kick as the situation warrants. But learning how to throw an upper cut is best done by watching and learning from our video on the punches we teach you how to throw them properly.
81. Violence: Wrongful physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing: "The essence of war is violence." The abusive or unjust exercise of power: an outrage; a wrong. What that means is any and all kinds of violence, be it physical or emotional is in violation of the laws of the land, worldwide, in most countries. But here is the problem with laws that protect women: they do not protect women, not in the slightest during the moment of an attack. So, one of the problems in getting women to study martial arts is getting women and girls to their local dojos, because then they have to admit to a room full of men, that they are defenseless. Some women do not want to go to a Karate, Judo, or Ju-Jitsu school because they don’t want men to see them day after day, in a vulnerable situation. Some women don’t want to take martial arts classes because they cannot afford it. Some women don’t go to a martial arts class because they don’t have a car or the money for a bus or a taxi. Some women fear men so much they don’t want to take the chance of being around them for any reason. Some women have painful memories of a sexually abusive father and don’t want to be around men under any conditions. Some women don’t want to be around men because they hate them. So what do we do with all those women, worldwide? Do we just ignore them and say too bad for you? Do we organize out-reach programs that teaches self-defense classes? I think I have come up with a problem-solver with my program that is going to be world wide in its reach and will go out to over 104 language-speaking countries. My program on the Internet will make their self-defense and martial arts studies as private as it can ever get. It will be the same quality instruction that they could get anywhere in the world and it will be a program that is designed and written for all females of any age. This is how I intend to grow an Army of women and girls who don’t depend on Police, fathers, brothers, uncles, grand fathers or any other configuration of male that could possibly stop them from learning self-defense. Because those males alone, now think they know what is best for the female in question. These kinds of “toxic males” want to force women to be dependent on them for advice and guidance.
I was at the Women’s Center in San Francisco, California, USA in 1994 listening to an author named Ms. Robin Morgan talk about her new book: “The Word of a Woman”, who was at that time, the editor of Ms. Magazine taking over after Ms. Gloria Steinem left that position. Ms. Morgan had me walking away from that event realizing two things: a woman’s word is discounted and disbelieved and that I was going to go out the next day and buy her book. It changed my life to say the least. I want you looking for a copy of “The Word of a Woman” by Robin Morgan: buy it or borrow it and learn from it.
82. Virago: A heroic and vigorous woman: a female warrior: an amazon. A bold, impudent woman. A man-like or heroic woman. As great as the definition of a Virago women is, it is sad that the dictionary refers to Viragos as man-like. There is no “day-light” in that definition for women to be warriors in their own right. For them to be just women warriors with no connection to how a man behaves in battle. I understand that the patriarchal thinking has stolen that power and prestige from them, but that can all change in a women’s life as they get their martial arts training and are committed to women getting trained in the martial arts everywhere.
83. Warrior: A woman who is skilled at engaging in warfare or combat; see Amazon. One engages in or is experienced in battle. That’s what the dictionary tells us, but being a warrior and being a woman is far more encompassing. Women care about the welfare of other women and children. They care if her husband or some man is assaulting another woman. Women warriors are not out to hurt men who do not try to hurt them. Women warriors need love and reinforcement just like anybody else who is trying to better their life and achieve their goals. A woman warrior is a teacher of all girls in how to protect and defend themselves. A woman warrior is a role model for women in her community and the world at large. The world needs more, not less women warriors if there is to ever be a balance between men and women. Worldwide this is what is missing in teaching women how to be street fighters. It is that over riding thought that these soon to be warriors want the same thing that men have: the power to protect themselves against being raped. What is wrong with them wanting that? That’s what I thought too.
84. Water Babies: A phrase that is always used in ProtecttheRoses.com to denote the woman in question who is fully, "in her body" and in touch with the ability to move her body in a manner that will allow her to learn the techniques easily and quickly. These water babies are quick learners of the craft that I teach, no doubt. However these "water babies" are not ready yet to defend themselves because of their abuse by the patriarchy. These women need to be trained more on the fighting/warrior spirit aspects of the martial arts rather than relying on techniques by themself. That spirit training I mentioned, though will do the trick and get them to the place where they need to be to protect themselves.
85. Wing Chun: A sub-set style of Kung Fu that was invented by Nig Mui, who was an Abbess of a Shaolin monastery in 16th century, China. As a nun, she was taught Shaolin temple boxing and Kung Fu and was evidentially good at it. There are several legends about who taught who what, but my point is that it was a woman who created a major martial art. Wing Chun, invented by a woman for women is another martial art that I would recommend for you. I teach the Wing Chun style of punching since 1972 and really love it.
86. Work: The transfer of energy from one physical system to another; especially, the transfer of energy to another person’s body by the application of internally generated force. With Tae Kwon Do for example, when kicking: the knee is recognized as the fulcrum, the upper and lower leg is recognized as the lever and the body that is impacted by the kick and subsequently moved, is the “work”. In the case of any of my students using martial arts to defend them selves, you can know that a fulcrum and a lever are always, always in use. Of course, if that were all there was to it, it would not be martial arts would it? Do you remember me writing about “force multiplication”, which is you, taking all the leverage and fulcrum “workings” in your body and add to that, the reality of “force multiplication” from one point in the body to the other? I will talk in great detail about “force multiplication” in a separate document.
87. Yim Wing Chun: She was a nun and Shaolin Kung Fu master who invented Wing Chun Kung Fu in a monastery where she lived. She was taught Shaolin temple boxing by monks at the temple where she lived. Wing Chun synthesized the temple boxing with the Kung Fu she was learning and created Wing Chun-Kung Fu. In my opinion, her martial arts self-defense and martial arts system is a solid fighting system for women and girls to learn. I have taught the Wing Chun style of punching for the last 49 years and I know it is the best thing any woman can learn about punching. The teachings of “Center Line Theory” clarify to students that it is quite easy to protect the vital areas of their own body while counter attacking their mugger. That alone, is a revolutionary idea and in fact it has been around martial arts for over 300 years. Did you know anything about Center Line Theory? Check this out: two physical objects cannot occupy the center of a space at the same time. What this means is that the one who is first to occupy that center line space is going to be the one who can both protect their center space and successfully impact the other with either a punch or a kick. Now as student reading this for the first time, you may not think much of what this means. But there is more to tell you. If you punch in a perfectly straight line and you keep your elbow facing downward, your elbow joint will easily support your body weight and your elbow cannot be bent, and thus you can control the distance between you and your attacker. And when you can control that distance, you can keep him from wrapping his arms around you and getting in a chest-to-chest posture with you. This stops him from picking you up and throwing you to the ground. And all this because you kept your elbow down just the way it was when it was in ready position at your side. To test your form on the spot, if you bend your forearm back towards your punching side shoulder, your punching fist will lay down on your punching shoulder. When you are doing the punch incorrectly, your punching fist will go over the opposite side shoulder and that is not what I am teaching you, nor what I believe in.
88. You: reduce focal plane increase penetration.
In my class there is a lot of memory work that has to be done and memorizing makes it easier for you to recall when you take it seriously like it is supposed to be treated. If I write something for you, you can bet a couple of things. One is that since I wrote it, you can believe it is important for you and it could save your life. And by the way, there will be more memory work than just these few pages. This offering is all about “reducing the focal plane to increase the penetration”. Memorize those words, create a little song about it and whisper that song to your self as you go through your day! This is important for you to know like you know your name!
First and foremost, you are in this street-fighting program to learn how to hurt your attacker, before he hurts you, but not just hurt, but hurt him so badly that he cannot jump up off the ground and kill you! What that means is that street fighters usually fight each other by banging each other’s body with fists and feet. But what I want to start you off with today is an entirely new concept where you will be learning how to penetrate the body of your attacker when you can, instead of just punching and kicking like a novice! In terms of choice, you always want to penetrate the body if there is a choice to be made. So reduce the focal plane means when you have that choice to make sure your weapon is as small and hard as you can make it, if there is a opportunity to do so.
You can hit with a fist, spear hand, or a spear finger, your choice, so this means that if you are using a spear finger, the tissue you want to penetrate must, be very soft and pliable. If you are looking for a real easy to penetrate target, its always the eyeball as always being the best. Number two, is the Xyphoid process, which is a spot directly on top of the heart that protects the heart to some degree. Like the eyeball, it cannot withstand too much pressure though. Whether it is struck with a palm heel strike or a one or two finger strike, expect good results with either one. The eyeball is a soft target that no one expects to see coming, because women in our polite society just don’t poke the attacker’s eyeball. There exists a social custom against that technique for women to strike the eyeball, which makes it your number one reason to use it, when the situation warrants. Your attacker will never know or defend against this attack. And let’s say that he is wary of an attack to the face or soft tissue of the eye, you are going to have to fool him to get close enough for you to do what he is fearful of you doing anyway. There is no justification for what he is planning to do to our students, so we will treat this rape/murder as an act of war and respond accordingly.
Let’s get back to the technique itself. When you strike with the spear finger you can always use a bigger middle finger to strengthen and stiffen the primary attacking weapon. With the index finger you cannot go wrong. Whether it is one or two fingers, it is going to be a hard, strong tiny penetrating weapon. Remember to: “reduce the focal plane and increase the penetration.” If you say this to yourself a hundred times a day to instill it in your brain do that starting today!
I want you to see the following as a “for instance” example. An attacker grabs you by the lapel collars and pulls you to him, he says he is going to rape you, and then kill you. You are certain he is going to try to do both of these felonious acts to you. What ever you do, don’t resist his initial grab. Consider that grab, an open invitation to what you plan to do to him, not the other way around. I call it a “free close”. Snake your left forearm up his chest and around to the back of his neck, going between his elbows, then up and around his neck like a python would do. Don’t forget: pull him to your chest, so that you will have no airspace between you two. Take your right arm and let it wrap around his left fore arm, on the outside, which is holding you by the coat lapel. You then spread your four fingers onto the side of his head (your thumb will be touching his right eye socket) right under your thumb, with his left eyeball being between your right thumb and the four fingers of your hand. And start to squeeze his face as you place your thumb on the left side of his nose and then dig deep into the eye socket to get that eyeball out of his skull. Once you have his eyeball out, you throw it away and then take your left hand and remove it from around his neck. Finish him off with an upper cut to the throat.
The above example will render him blind in one eye. In a further example in a video presentation, I will offer a fuller presentation that will go into more details about what to do after the initial counter attack is completed. Remember that your counter attack does not stop until he is on the ground flat on his back. This is just an example of a part of one technique only, but there are more that I will offer on this website, www.ProtecttheRoses.com.
It is important that you know that although these techniques are damaging to him, my concern is that you come home in one piece and unharmed. For too long, it has been women that have had their life destroyed by men who are no better than street bums at best! Oh, did I mention that you did not make the first aggressive move; you did not attempt to do any harm to this attacker? When some men are either dead or too afraid of what a trained woman will do to them, only then will violence against women stop. I believe that rape as we have read and know and heard about it will come to an end when millions of women can do all the techniques and all of the Tae Kwon Do and Kung Fu that I teach. Some male attackers just won’t learn about respect for women or girls any other way. The only thing that these attackers respect is one thing: raw power and who has it and who will use that force multiplication against them.