Here is a quick update and a product announcement:
My surgery went fine. The doctor reattached the supraspinatus muscle and filed off the acromion to avoid future damage. I now have to keep my arm immobile for four weeks and then I can start rehab. I should be able to resume normal life in about eight weeks and have a full recovery in 6 to 12 months. Thank you to all of you who wished me the best both before and after the surgery.

Because I’m self-employed, this means pretty much zero income during the eight weeks I am not allowed to drive a car. As mentioned in my podcast, I had planned on doing some sort of crowdfunding to span that period. But it turned out I didn’t have enough time to set that up properly. So instead I chose to focus on two new products and offering them for sale:

• Finishing the “Boxing for self-defense” book as quickly as possible so I can release it. That went reasonably well so far: I finished the photo shoot a few days before my surgery and am now busy finalizing the manuscript. With some luck I can publish it very soon.
• Republishing my Paladin Press videos as soon as the rights revert to me on January 1, 2018. I’ve now found a platform where I can do just that. It’s called Pivotshare and allows me to offer online streaming and digital downloads. It also offers a monthly membership option that I might explore in the future. But all my original DVDs will be republished there and I will continue adding to that library of instructional material.

With that in mind, I just uploaded an instructional video as a test case, to get used to the platform and figure out how to optimize it for your convenience.

The video is called “Five Element Arm.” I originally made this video for my Patrons, but several people requested a separate purchasing possibility, so I uploaded it to the platform. You can create an account directly from the video here below or go to my main channel page and do so there if you would like to buy it.

What’s this video about? You can watch the preview here above, but here’s a quick explanation:

“Five Element Arm” is a series of self-defense techniques from the Practical Tai Chi Chuan system I teach. It takes a specific scenario into account: what if you can’t use both arms to defend yourself?

• You might be injured during the fight.
• You could be carrying something and not have the time to drop it.
• You might need the other hand to keep track of the person you’re protecting.

Whatever the reason you might find yourself in that scenario, this drill teaches you effective self-defense techniques for such an occasion. This video includes both the solo drill as well as detailed instruction on how to apply each technique. It is just over 30 minutes long and to the best of my knowledge,  it is the only instructional video available on this specific drill.

Given as I am now exactly in the situation for which this drill was created, I can speak from experience that it’s worth investing the training in “disaster” scenarios. I will not have the full function of my right arm for several months and being defenseless during that time is unacceptable. It’s for exactly this reason that I practice this drill and several others. I hope you find it useful as well.

As explained above, all of my instructional videos will eventually be available on the Pivotshare platform so stay tuned for more.

PS: in case you’re wondering, I’m using Dragon Naturally Speaking software to dictate this text. I can very much recommend it to everybody.