[Sociology] "If we fuck up, we fuck up....?" "AGGRESSIVELY!"

[thewronghands]

Hello, Seattle! Tonight I finally made it down to Krav Maga Seattle to determine if they were a reasonable place to refer my friends who have inquired about self defense. Indeed, they are. Krav has a specific philosophy -- basically, harder, faster, more, fight fight fight never stop fighting. (See subject line.) They are all-around

Comments

[girl_on_a_stick]

"Our verbal de-escalations are different. I'm less aggressive before it's a fight and after it's a fight. "

This. Totally with you here. I believe the most effective verbal defense is a calm but clear tone giving simple, clear instructions.

I too usually send people the direction of Krav if someone wants to learn martial arts primarily for self defense, but man there's some pretty wacky Krav schools out there. The one here is run by a hyper pro-Isreal guy with a few screws loose in the prepper department, if you know what I mean. I met him at a local gun show and NOPE!

[thewronghands]

Yeah. Also carrying. You want everyone to hear you saying "Back away, I have no problem with you, leave me alone" or what have you. Krav is very into "dominant, alpha yelling". It might help you if someone's looking for easy prey, but in a bar fight or something like that, it might just escalate it. (Less a problem for us than for dudes, there... no one looks at me and thinks "man, if I beat HER up, everyone will see that I'm the king of this bar!", haha.)

To the wacky ones, haha, yeah. That's why I had to go myself to make sure they were a good one before recommending them. Some of my friends who are looking are Arab. I don't want to send them into political hell. Nobody brought up politics at all the whole hour I was there. Perfect.

[tylik]

I got all excited reading about this, because my sister and a few of her friends were looking for a place to train... and then I remembered that discussion devolved into "But it has to be in Ballard."

(This is a fairly reasonable requirement considering my sister's teaching schedule and the work and training schedules of other friends in the discussion, but... frustrating. I'm feeling more out of touch with the Seattle scene than I'd like, but Rusty was part of things, and she knows a pretty large chunk of everyone in the area, but for the "practical self defense oriented martial arts for some pretty fit and focused women" Ballard was a super annoying constraint.)

[thewronghands]

If you want, I can go poke around and see if I can find anyone good in Ballard. Any constraints around their search beyond that? (How much can it cost/how much are they willing to go/is everyone able-bodied/are they super super injury averse? I presume your sister is, with her job. But it's hard to learn a contact art with *no* injuries, so, the slider on tolerable levels of risk there is in different places for different people.)

[tylik]

The flip side of that is that she's an aerialist, which is kind of the opposite of being super averse to injury. I'd put her pretty middle of the road, really. I think it's a pretty able bodied crowd, they're not dirt poor, but not techie income, generally, either. Scheduling is always tight, but knowing what's around will at least let people make their own calls.

[warriorinside]

You have to do the form of exercise that works for you. Despite what so many people want desperately to believe, we humans are not a one-size-fits-all form of life. If we were, what'd be the point of life? If you like weightlifting/yoga/whatever, then do those things. If you hate running, then don't do that unless you must. I happen to like weightlifting and body-weight mastery myself, but I'm having problems with back spasms at the moment that make me NOPE so hard at any form of exercise beyond a good long hike.