I’m working on a new book tentatively called “Surviving a Knife Attack” and I am smack in the middle of the research phase. Right now, I don’t want to give away too many details but you can guess from the title what it’s about… :-)  Here’s the thing:

One of the things I’m doing with this book is using stories of actual events. I have a lot of stories already, some from well known authors and experts, but I’d like to get some more to have a bigger sample to draw information from. For that purpose, I’d like to ask your help:

• If you’ve been attacked by somebody wielding a knife or other edged weapon and successfully defended yourself.
• If you were in a situation where the knife was out but you got away, managed to de-escalate or anything else that meant no violence was used.
• If you are willing to write about this event (anonymously if you prefer).
• If you know of somebody who went through such an event and would be willing to write it up.

Please get in touch with me via my contact page. I’ll give you some more details then and we’ll see if we can work something out.

If you can’t help out in that department, no worries, there’s still something you can do:  please share this post  with your friends who also practice martial arts or train in self-defense. They might know somebody, even if you don’t.

 

In the same vein, I’m looking for two more contacts for the book:

• An FBI agent who is willing (and allowed) to do an interview about the Uniform Crime Report, in particular the data on knife attacks.
• A trauma surgeon with experience caring for victims of knife attacks (stabbings, cuts, etc.)

I would like to interview them via email or over the phone to get information  about the realities of knife attacks from their perspectives and professional experience. If they prefer, they can use an alias or stay anonymous.

 

With all the information I have right now, the book looks very promising. But I’d like to make it as good as I possibly can so if you could direct some people who can help out towards me, that would be great. Thanks!

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A while ago I asked for some feedback on my upcoming newsletter. I most certainly got it so thank you all for taking the time to vote in the poll.

The results clearly indicate you have a preference for three specific topics:

• Training tips: ideas to help you improve your training. (86%)
• Training course: An online, multi-part course on a given technique or concept. (55%)
• Web picks: Internet articles and websites you’ll find interesting. (54%)

As you asked, so you shall receive. :-) But I’m not done asking what cha what cha want just yet…

httpv://youtu.be/ru3gH27Fn6E

First we have to decide what kind of newsletter you are most interested in. Because there are many different ways I can write them. I could make each newsletter a collection of 1-2 paragraph training tips and so on. Or I could go more in depth on a particular topic and write a full article about it and then add some web picks at the end. Of course, there’s overlap and I can mix and match things a bit too. But I’d like to have some idea of which way to go with this. [Read more…]

Before I explain this poll, a quick update on the previous one:

Almost half of you came here through other blogs. So a big “Thanks!” to all you bloggers out there for supporting my blog.

The rest of you came here through other channels. It was surprising to see how few people arrived here via my Youtube videos. I guess they either aren’t good enough to entice people to come here or they’re not getting enough views to do that. I gladly choose to think the quality of the videos is OK and that it’s the latter. :-) Anyway, thanks for the feedback. It’ll help a lot in making my blog better and reaching a broader audience.

As for this one, here’s the thing:

I ran a newsletter but stopped about a year ago. I simply didn’t have the time and it became a struggle to put it together. The main problem was the software I had to use. It wasn’t all that great and cost a lot of time and follow-up to make it run the way I wanted it to. As my time is nowadays rather limited, that kind of software just doesn’t cut it for me.

However, I now have a solution for that so I figured I’d give it another go. But before I do so, I’d like some input from you all to decide what kind of content I should put in there. I obviously have some features already in mind but want to check if you are on the same page with me or not. So please vote in the poll at the top right corner of my widgets area here on my blog. You can select multiple entries, by the way.

If what you have in mind isn’t listed, let me know on my Facebook Page so I can follow up more easily.

Thanks for helping out!

 

 

 

On the right side of the blog, in the upper part of the sidebar, you’ll find a quick poll. The question is pretty straightforward:

How did you first get here on my blog?

 

I listed a couple answers and you can just click on the one that applies to you. If yours isn’t included in the list, please drop me a line on my Facebook Page.

The reason I ask:

I was looking at my web-analytics for last month and noticed some changes in where most of my traffic was coming from. Sometimes, those stats are hard to figure out so I wanted to ask you directly instead of relying on my interpretation of the data.

The more I understand how people find my blog, the easier it is to promote it for best results. The more results, the more time I can spend writing on my blog. Everybody wins. :-)

 

Thanks for your help.

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