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  Original article from “Law Officer” archived here for students. There was an 18-year-old kid (well, I call him a kid) who was a dope-dealing, burglarizing terror to us in the 1970s. I’ll call him Juan here. He and his cronies never seemed to rest a single night. He was even a suspect in some armed robberies. He gave us hell as a teenager and juvenile offender, and we all know how slippery juvenile delinquents can be inside the judicial system. So, we patrol folks and several detectives were pleased when he finally turned of age so we could arrest him and get some kind of adult justice. One North Texas summer evening, Juan and his buddies decided to do some auto burglaries around a large university neighborhood in our city. The sun hadn’t even set. Several witnesses saw this dusk crew at work and called the police station. My unit and a backup were dispatched. I may have been the backup I can’t remember for sure but either way, I was in the middle of it. We advanced on the street in o

 Old "Black belt" article archived here for students. Anytime martial artists get together to discuss defensive techniques that employ the empty hands against a knife in a real-life scenario, arguments ignite. Then proclamations start: “There’s no way you can make that work against a real attack.” “Do that and you’ll get cut for sure.” “That move will get you killed.” So goes the banter in discussing self-defense techniques, and the debate often gets hot when practitioners are talking about knife fighting. It’s interesting that very few of the speculations about knife fighting are based on criminal case studies or military research. Instead, the speculations about self-defense techniques employed in a knife attack revolve around anecdotal observations and shortsighted, nonscientific testing. Which “get you killed” self-defense techniques incur the greatest wrath of martial artists? The arm grab and the knife disarm are usually the first to go. Other tactics — such as verbal s

  Australian interview with Hock from a few years back for student reference. Founder of the Scientific Fighting Congress, ‘Hock’ Hochheim is a commendated 23-year veteran of military and police service with Black-belts in Filipino, Japanese and American martial arts. Long sought-after as a seminar presenter, his mission is to teach modern hand, stick, knife and gun combat by bridging the gap between the military, the police, the martial artist and the aware citizen. While in Australia to conduct workshops recently, Hochheim did an exclusive interview for Blitz with his Australian representative, Paul Johnstone of Brisbane’s Street-Edge Defensive Tactics. Hock, what originally influenced your decision to learn unarmed combat? I have always had an obsessive interest in tactics — hand, stick, knife, gun tactics — which of course means fighting with each against each in a mixed-weapon matrix. The unarmed combat is part of that bigger picture. How long have you been in the martial arts and

This content is posted for information purposes only and does not reflect my views on knives or knife defence training. This was originally posted back in 2010 by Redcap on Hock Hochheim’s  SFC combat forum. 21,000 views on that page alone -  it’s now doing the rounds WITHOUT credit to the original source on a certain "manifesto" page and a couple of others. I've placed Redcap's extra comments at the bottom to give students extra info. Hock's Combat forum: “ ‘A Knife Is For Killing’ «  on: March 31, 2010, 03:22:41 AM »  I have had a long chat with my wife’s uncle Borino. He is the family 'fighter’, the one with the rep. He also killed our pig the other morning for the big family reunion fiesta. (Photos not included but if you ever want to learn how to kill and butcher a pig for Lechon, these follow it step by step). Anyway, he has some interesting opinions and experiences on knife killing (he uses the word 'ihaw’ 'kill’ not 'nagaway’ 'fighting’

  Remember that old advice about judging people by their actions rather than words? Dogs take notice of it seemingly better than some people... Some of the senses that dogs use may seem superficially obvious but the takeaway for humans is the ignoring of subtle clues and loss of intuition of danger over time by social conditioning... "According to a lot of scientific research, Dogs have a highly evolved sixth sense and are much more sensitive to human emotions. What is more, dogs can also sense if someone is trustworthy. In a study conducted by Akiko Takaoka of Kyoto University in Japan, it was discovered that Dogs would not trust someone who lied to them and they could determine if someone was unreliable. How can dogs recognize bad people? Dogs use their previous experience to understand if someone is unreliable. The experiment was conducted with 34 Dogs and was divided into three parts. In the first part, dog owners pointed them towards food with containers and dogs ran towards

Samsung have released a bluetooth tracking "SmartTag" - a small plastic disc that can be attached to valuables and even pets and then tethered to a phone app which enables you to find the exact location of that object should it become lost much like competitor products like "Tile". One comes free with the new Samsung smart phone and tags retail here in the UK at £30. On the face of it a useful idea. These products are reasonably new on the market and could as they develop have personal safety uses such as a tracker for children. Currently there are apps available to track your child's phone but if you apply logic, the first thing an abductor would do is take the phone from the child so an easily hidden item like this could be actually better if in the jacket etc. But what if it were used by an abuser or stalker to track your location at all times? This is potentially now a new and very cheap, accessible technology to use to control or find another person. What i

If you've ever had to get someone to leave a premises as part of your work - you'll recognise this as a master class in what not to do. The news stated that the customer was "maskless" at the self service checkout when he was challenged by staff and a row ensued. Which I'm guessing was the perceived justification for the total overreaction of what comes next. " A witness at the scene said: 'He was shouting but I don't think it's fair how he is being handled.  'He says he hasn't done anything and isn't being violent or aggressive, but several security guards tackled him.' " The level of force used including the fall at the exit are potential grounds for legal action and could of resulted in a needless tragedy. Interesting to watch the emotional reactions of the guards - loosing their heads and punching and kicking a downed man.  The fact that it took a member of the public to restrain the customer safely and singlehandedly  spe