Wim Demeere's Blog

Martial Arts, Self Defense and a Whole Lot More.

What the bouncer knows.

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Clint is a friend of mine and a bouncer with decades of experience. When I say “bouncer”, I don’t mean the guy babysitting on frat boys to make sure they don’t hurt themselves. I mean the guy who steps up when hardcore, bad-ass mofos want to do some dark deeds to each other or innocent (if such a thing exists) patrons. And then he has to watch his back for the rest of his life for when they might return…

In other words, he’s lived on the edge of darkness and is still around to tell the tale. So perhaps, just perhaps, he has some insights that might be worth listening to…

Here’s something he wrote and he kindly gave me permission to share it here. [Read more…]

Martial intent, what it really looks like

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I’ve written about martial intent and martial intent the wrong way before. But here, I’d like to show you some other aspects of it.

However, this is a difficult topic to talk about as so many people have their own ideas about what martial intent actually is, these can then get in the way of looking at it differently. But also, I probably have a different take on it for a variety of reasons I won’t go into just now. What I will say is this:

When I was a young man, I read something about KGB agents in training having to go to the zoo and stare big predators in the eyes to learn what a true killer is like. Now I have no clue if the Russians actually did this or not but I did find it an interesting concept and tried it out. There could be a long blog post about those experiences  alone but again, not today. The key is this: I learned a lot about intent, fighting and myself by staring down tigers and panthers and them being totally unimpressed. But when they did pick me up on their radar, things got interesting… It sounds too woo-woo even to me and I was there so I’ll save that for another time as well (there’s a theme here…)

Anyway, I highly recommend you try it out when you have some time. If you’re lucky, you’ll experience some amazing things and gain important insights. If you can’t, here’s the next best thing, a couple videos of animals in action.

The thing about animals is this: animals are as close to “no mind” as it comes when fighting and violence is concerned, so you can take a cue or two from them. You don’t see them second-guessing themselves when they attack. Nor do they delude themselves that deadly violence isn’t happening. That’s what we humans do.

 

Warning: It is possible to get lost in this type of training and do some serious damage to your mind and if you believe in it, your soul. I consider some of this training part of the “dark side”, for lack of a better word. Those of you who have experience with this know what I’m talking about. Those who think I’m full of it, I wish you well.

That said, here are the videos: [Read more…]

How to make absolutely sure you get your ass kicked

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Here’s a video showing some behavior that always baffles me: Just as a guy who’s harassing a woman is about to leave, she does everything she can to make sure he kicks her ass. Case in point:

To make my opinion absolutely clear: that guy is an asshole. Regardless of what the woman said or did, he’s an asshole for landing that leg kick. He could have broken her knee or leg, she could have cracked her skull, etc.

That said, the woman isn’t entirely without an important part of the responsibility for why it all turned out the way it did: with her ass getting kicked. Here’s how I see it: [Read more…]

MMA Against Multiple Opponents, Part Five

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I wrote about MMA against multiple opponents in detail in the past, but this fifth part sums it all up so well. Take a look at this video of a street fight that goes to the ground..

 

Here’s the full fight:

 

Now you can give me a load of excuses why this isn’t “real MMA” and how much these guys suck at it and why I’m wrong. I’ll even help you get started:

  • Their technique sucked.
  • They weren’t in shape.
  • They should have done technique X instead of Y.
  • GSP would kick your ass!
  • You just suck man, WTF are you doing undermining my self-esteem!
  • And so on ad nauseam.

I’m sure you can come up with a bunch more “arguments” but that’s not really the issue. Anyway you slice it, the young man was doing MMA when he hit the ground: he got side control, guard, tried chokes, ground and pound, the works. Granted, he didn’t do a good job of it but you didn’t see him try strategies from traditional arts.

The real issue is that this video illustrates what I’ve been saying for so long: [Read more…]

Purse snatcher stabs wannabe hero

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This incident happened a few years ago in Belgium, on the Brussels subway. A purse snatcher tries to get away after scoring some loot and a wannabe hero tries to stop him. Here’s what happened:

Some thoughts:

  • I applaud the guy for trying to stop the purse snatcher. It’s a noble act and takes courage, which many people seem to lack these days. So regardless what you think of the guy, he stood up when others didn’t. Tip of the hat to him for that.
  • Unfortunately for him, stopping an armed thief isn’t something most people have a lot of training or experience with. So trying it out of the blue can backfire on you, as it does here. You should take that into account before making such a decision. The criminals usually have a lot more experience with violence than you do, so you’re behind the curve already. [Read more…]

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