Essential life saving skills.
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I think you're right "basic" education is actually a life saving skill. Prevention better than cure, better education seems to run parallel to better health and lower crime.
So at some point soon - I think - I will be in a position to start teaching what is known as Combatives - which is I guess Martial Arts without the ARTS bit.
Alot of it is rooted in original WWII combative techniques taught to SOE and OSS.
So thats the main 'crux' of the training syllabus - alot of diversion, subterfuge , situational awareness etc etc encompassed by way of teaching. Its not putting on pyjamas and going 1 on 1 in technique based point scoring. Not that there is anything wrong with that - it just doesn't appeal to me.
I want to teach some other "useful" things in there also - so First aid against big bleeds make sense as , for reasons , knife crime seems to be increasing.
First aid for CPR and Recovery positions make sense as does understanding how to respond to hypo/hyperthermia.
etc etc - Just useful skills that can become somewhat muscle memory IF they were ever required. Tying a bowline quickly and without outside instruction as an example.
Hope that gives context - so I can't make it too onerous as needs to be taught within a scheduled lesson type environment.
This sounds excellent, and like a really rewarding endeavour. Best of luck with it.
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Any combatives system from war time is probably going to be slightly on the rough side for the pseudo peaceful society of today. The "art" part in many martial arts should be translated as "skill" as I understand the medieval origins of the usage. As a first guess there are better starting points.
If I remember correctly KM has it's roots in pre war Czech Jewish community not as a fighting system but self defence. Presently it has split into various siblings that vary a lot in their goals, some not so peaceful.
Certainly, presently it is a very good modern fighting system with some options in aggressiveness. Just meant that it was not a SOE system with different origin.
When it comes to physical altercations, they are definitely best avoided, but if it does happen, the best preparation is to have done some contact sports when young and be accustomed to (and humbled by) physical contact with full resistance, being struck, pinned, restrained and being submitted. Most people will not know what it feels like.
Playing rugby, a wrestling-type activity and a bit of boxing/kick boxing is a good recipe. Krav Maga etc. are just applications, but without fighting spirit, good basic punching and grappling skills, and experience of real resistance, combatives type activities not as useful as they could be.
There is a lot of value in being able to shrug off/evade an assailant and escape, almost always far more so than being able to kill them.
Playing rugby, a wrestling-type activity and a bit of boxing/kick boxing is a good recipe. Krav Maga etc. are just applications, but without fighting spirit, good basic punching and grappling skills, and experience of real resistance, combatives type activities not as useful as they could be.
There is a lot of value in being able to shrug off/evade an assailant and escape, almost always far more so than being able to kill them.
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The most useful bushcraft skill I use 24/7 is like, the very basic understandings about clothes and body heat. Knowing textiles, how to layer them, when to remove them, the dangers of water and wind, condensation, and this stuff is useful stood on a bus-stop or even when thinking about insulating your home or staying warm in the winter.
A lot of people have never thought about this in any kind of conscious way, esp with most people only having access to plastic clothing and so have never experienced a truly warm coat. I see it a lot when people say 'how could victorian women have worn all those petticoats, it must have been so stuffy?' but those layers would have been linen, not plastic, it may well have been cooling even.
Maintaining the right body temperature and managing moisture is essential, I would say.
A lot of people have never thought about this in any kind of conscious way, esp with most people only having access to plastic clothing and so have never experienced a truly warm coat. I see it a lot when people say 'how could victorian women have worn all those petticoats, it must have been so stuffy?' but those layers would have been linen, not plastic, it may well have been cooling even.
Maintaining the right body temperature and managing moisture is essential, I would say.
A good point.
As somebody who cycles to work throughout the year I do think about these things and there is some satisfaction in getting it mostly right.
Having done a lot of outdoor activities, knowing when to add/remove layers and put on/take off a waterproof has been gained from experience.
I'd agree with this bit.
There is a differing types of violence and as you say most people ( fortunately/unfortunately ) haven't experienced it - Men maybe in the younger day and women unfortunately either domestically or predatory situations.
I do think one is less keen to intentionally escalate a situation if one has actual experience of what a beating feels like , even if one comes out as a 'victor' there tends to be some element of injury and that is just with old school fisticuffs/monkey-man-dance. Also one is less inclined I've noticed to 'run-ones-mouth' and verbally escalate a conflict.
But they are very typical examples of what I would call Social violence where there is a standard path way of triggering , then posturing , verbal assault and further tiered escalation until some sort of conflict ensues - this is a social traffic light system. You don't need to be a psychologist to see and understand it and pick up the cues - this is part of situational awareness , reading the room and reading the combative opponent. And Social violence is also culturally different - the cues and actions vary from country to country of what can be expected and what can't - So whilst violence is a universal language there is localised nuance and 'accent' for want of a better term.
Antisocial violence however doesn't observe these traffic light process - one needs to change shift gear from waiting for traffic light signalling to effectively being a dragster and going from 0-100mph in 1 second. And equally understanding the consequences - meaning knowing when to employ such adverse , but life saving tactics.
Antisocial violence is indeed rarer than Social violence but more devastating due to this - its NOT something people expect or can feign subservience and surrender ( at the loss of face ) and de-escalate away from.
I don't want to give direct examples of antisocial violence but hopefully you can think of some - there are no indicators , there is not options to de-escalate and the end intention was already predefined in anothers mind and will.
Cody Lundins book , the colourfully named "98.6 Keeping your bottom alive !! " has a good top down view of what actually kills people or harms the human body and how that happens and THEN how to prevent it via correct clothing or avoidance of certain situations.
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