I have my first tournament in years in a couple of months. I never competed much when I was young, only a couple of in house tournaments with taekwondo and pai lum kung fu. I never competed in kajukenbo or krav. In that I have been thinking about both a guard stance and best practices when starting out in a fight. Being unreadable, or having fluid defenses seems to be the best practice. Feeling out the range of yourself and your opponent, while staying a very mobile target is the best bet, until one strikes.

Some Shaolin Principles from Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit

• Attack continuously.
• Signal to the east, strike to the west.
• Avoid an opponent’s strong points, strike the weak ones.
• Trick an opponent into advancing without success; strike decisively with just one blow.
• If an opponent is strong, enter from the side; if he or she is weak, enter from the front.
• Use four tahils against a thousand katis (use minimum force to neutralize maximum strength)

Upon a strike, it should hit with force, and an advantage should be pursued when there is a gap, until that opens up another hole in the defenses. Often one can chain these offensive movements to encourage an opening. Advancing into a new range with a punch or kick can also be an effective way to be more unreadable. If there is only one range that one stays within, then the opponent can start to plan out a strategy around overcoming the range.

I think that it is best to always seize all the advantages one can prior to an attack. When I'm teaching, I talk a lot about center lines, and how it is best to rotate around our opponent to get off their center line while keeping ours on them to allow for full use of our weapons. A similar concept in jiu jitsu makes it much easier to get one's frames in and stay safe. I think this is a way to only need four tahils against a thousand katis.

In the same way, I find that sweeps are effective if the opponent prefers kicking range to minimize effort and maximize results. There is a clear moment where the kicker has a compromised base of support, and if kicking high, easy to off balance. This typically involves hooking the kicking leg after blocking, which requires very precise timing. It is important to avoid exposing one’s head to a punch while addressing the kick, as it is an effective tactic to “signal to the east, and attack to the west.”

It is always important to keep the elbows in close to the body to protect from body shots in punching range or to avoid someone harvesting your arm for a kimura in grappling or trapping range. I find that it seems best to have my back hand with some horizontal space between the front hand, as well as the depth to blade a stance and keep a secondary line of defense. The horizontal space seems to protect against the more circular punches like hooks or corkscrew punches and overhand rights.

One of the difficult tightropes to walk with footwork is staying light on the feet while still avoiding telegraphing. If the focus is so much on lifting and getting the heels off the ground, then one can start to bounce while performing a slide-up kick, or simply advancing. This lets the opponent know where you are moving, giving away the attack. To properly hide intentions, the knees need to remain bent so as to keep the head at the same level. This also helps one push through the back leg to add backup mass to the kick itself by kicking with both legs.

5 Principles of Judo - Jigoro Kano

• Carefully observe oneself and one’s situation, carefully observe others, and carefully observe one’s environment.
• Seize the initiative in whatever you undertake.
• Consider fully, act decisively.
• Know when to stop.
• Keep to the middle.

The phrase is “position before submission” when it comes to grappling. The same concept applies at every range. This is why footwork is so important to practice, because often people get locked into an advance and retreat step when it comes to sparring combos. This habit of constant retreating when defending gets one’s back to a wall and prevents the use of rotation to take a better position when striking.

When one gets to a point where one can find and recognize the superior position, it may seem so brief that it can't be taken advantage of. When these moments arrive, if they are not acted upon decisively, they often pass. If one moves too aggressively then one can become off balance. I say become off balance because in this instance, no one made the tori extend dan tien beyond the base of support aside from a foolish overreach.

It is important to consider fluidity as well as power and intensity when practicing self defense. The ability to recognize value from a wide variety of lessons, and to combine those lessons in new ways allows for far more growth than rigid loyalty to a single style. Fluidity in practice allows one to flow around defenses and take the opening that presents itself, before overwhelming it with a tsunami.

“Be like water, my friends.” - Bruce Lee

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” Dhammapada

Life is what you make of it. The way we perceive and react to the material reality around us shapes the future of the material reality. Neitzche calls this the will to power. The way I think of this is akin to Plato’s world of ideals. A mental image of a square will be more true as a four sided object with sides of equivalent length and perfect ninety degree angles at each corner which has no depth as a second dimensional object than any square created from material in our existence.

At the same time, a stab wound will bleed regardless, and a broken leg would pierce through my flesh if I tried to walk on it. The material cannot be fully willed away, but we can will our way to action or convince others to act with us to affect the material world. When I shattered my leg as a child, I had to wear a cast for months. I still used my other leg which allowed me to become more ambidextrous with my feet. This was useful for both soccer and martial arts.

I believe it is best to approach the world with optimism and lovingkindness. I find that the majority of the people who are engaged in that manner reciprocate. This is why I emphasize peaceful means of addressing conflict first, and prepare guided meditations to help in that manner as well. Even so, there are people in the world who look for an opportunity to improve their individual state at the expense of others. This has always been the case, long before Machiavelli or Sun Tzu.

When I was in college, I had some nights that were more eventful than others. Once, when I was returning from rehearsal, I was met by a person on the street who talked to me and told me a sob story and a said how it helped him become more charitable. He said he wanted to help me. He led me off the beaten path, where two other people came up to us when we were near an ATM. He was trying to convince me to access it, and succeeded. While the others distracted me, the first person relieved me of a couple hundred dollars. Because of the way I reacted to the surprise of two new young men aggressively approaching, I am grateful for the fact no one was armed.

“When the window was dirty, the man couldn’t see through it; when the window was clean, he couldn’t see the window. The beauty of the window was that he couldn’t see it.” - Zen phrase

There are various ways to prepare oneself for potential conflict. The first step is awareness. One can view this as a quadrant where you are either aware or unaware of the assailant, and the assailant is either aware or unaware of you (and your awareness). The US Marine Corps uses a color code system to break this down as well - white (oblivious), yellow (aware), orange (alert), red (concerned), and black (under attack). This allows you to place yourself in a state where the signals can be respected as the signs for danger that they can be.

Prior to a date with a new and mysterious individual, checking in with a loved one and giving a time that they should call you to make sure your plans are going properly can get a third party involved (law enforcement if necessary) and potentially an excuse to leave your current location. Carrying some kind of self defense tool, whether pepper spray, a kubaton, baton, or some other tool. I tend to think that a gun or a knife should only be carried or used if one has practiced long hours and is willing to take a life and face time in prison. However, they can be used to get a less armed and less desperate aggressor to reconsider, if one were accosted by either the date or someone else on the way home.

In the moments prior to conflict, the first priority would be to find escape routes, ideally to well lit areas with other people. Using debris or objects to blind and provide an obstacle can give you time to escape. Your words can be a valuable tool as well, perhaps to talk out of the physical confrontation, but even if de-escalation is not possible one can attempt to distract or trick the opponent to look away. Even something not even tangentially connected can split the attention long enough to have an advantage (asking about some pop culture icon or a a math equation). Since many conflicts are about pride and face, avoiding insulting the assailant is best practice, and if a simple apology can get one out of a fight, it’s best to save the bruises.

There are principles to determine whether physical violence is the proper choice for self defense. There are four criteria to be met. The opponent needs to have the ability to cause damage. I should not use full strength on my four year old nephew at any time. The opponent needs to have the opportunity. Just because a big bruiser is walking down the same street as me does not necessarily mean he is a threat. Some people say ones life must be in imminent jeopardy, wherein I am actively being attacked. Some also say that I must have no other less dangerous means of defending myself.

“Trust God, but tie your camel.” - Eastern phrase

That has never been the behavior of a state military. Throughout history rulers have used citizens to achieve the goal of the ruler. Sometimes this is increased land or resources for the country, sometimes it is some abstract concept such as saving face or retaliating for an insult, and sometimes the argument is a preemptive strike for a perceived threat.

The consistent engagement of military powers in foreign encounters like Afghanistan, Ukraine, or Vietnam leads me to consider the use of individuals in self-defense. As the hearts and minds of the public are the most important part of the battle, most military do not believe that rampant use of aircraft or explosives are best. This is because of the mixture of civilian and guerrilla combatant in the population.

Back in Japan, when Nobunaga attacks the Iga and Koga, the civilians rose up to fight back against his rejection of protocol in warfare with traps, sneak attacks, and fire. This reinforced the legend of the ninja, which persisted as spies and assassins were used during this Sengoku period. From the more aggressive attacks on the citizenry in the area, the shinobi gained support and were better able to fight back against the superior forced of Nobunaga, although they were not successful in the long run against that brutal force.

When one is trying to defend one’s family and home, one is more likely to engage in more intense and dedicated measures than in the case for an invading force, which may feel less motivation to crush the opponent while so far from home. A leader of the offensive force needs to convince those who follow to willingly choose to accept their own potential death in the pursuit of the objectives in a foreign field. This is done by dehumanizing the opponent, or at least glorifying the end goal for the invading group.

When fighting a superior force, it is never an intelligent plan to meet it head on. Force with force will result in conflict, injury, and risk. Instead it is best to attack a more vulnerable area, or to use the opponents force against them. This usually goes into retreating as they attack, or circling around as they advance. It’s the same in hand to hand combat. It is by harmonizing with the opponent that we can have victory. This has been described by Mao as to retreat when attacked, harass when they halt, attack when they tire, and pursue as they retreat.

“Once Motsugai was visiting the lord of the Mihara domain, and he was shown a painting of a solitary goose done by an artist in the lord’s employ. ‘Geese always fly in flocks,’ the displeased lord said to Motsugai, ‘and I feel that this goose is ignoring his fellow birds.’ Upon hearing that, Motsugai took out his brush and wrote this inscription on the painting: ‘This is the head of the flock, more will follow, more will follow.’ The lord was much happier with the painting.” - Budo Secrets, John Stevens

No matter what, if one does not have the people of the community behind you, you will not be successful. Machines (or techniques) don’t win wars, people do. If one were fighting another, and everyone around was on the side of the person you were fighting, then even if you win they may attack you to back the other person up. However, if one stays within the crowd and conforms inspite of the material world not matching with the Platonic Ideal we have for it, change will never occur. To this end, the first fight is to win the hearts and minds of those around, often with propaganda or sabotage. In a more self-defense perspective, one can consider this as ensuring that those around you know that you are the one being attacked. One can do this with phrases like, “He’s got a knife,” “Help,” “Back off,” or something of that variety.

Sun Tzu says, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” If one has this knowledge, then one can properly determine both the proper time to strike, and the right type of defensive position, whether it is firm, elastic, or diversionary. One can think of these as solid blocks, redirections or parries, or a feint. If one does not have that knowledge, one will find oneself open to retaliation.

If one recognizes the value of different beliefs and goals of life, then it is easier to have compassion for different lifestyles. We are not all focused on equality, nor sanctity. For some loyalty is a more important value than freedom. Jonathan Haidt wrote very effectively about this in the Righteous Mind. Yet everyone is trying to make their world and lives a little bit better. Perhaps they don’t even know of some of the benefits of a slightly changed culture. Perhaps you don’t know of some of the losses.

“Eternity was manifested in the light of day, and something infinite behind everything appeared.” Thomas Traherne

Through that compassion for different perspectives, peace can be maintained in a heterogenous global society. Without that, the violence of sectarianism and ultra-nationalism is difficult to halt due to the tribal nature of existence. Everyone desires to be both an individual recognized for one’s unique existence, and yet part of a group distinct and supportive.

All too often someone can surround oneself with voices that seem comforting and smart because they confirm beliefs. I believe this can be even more alluring if they echo personal opinions held that run counter to other opinions in one’s community. Often situations are more complex than anybody’s individual experience. Having empathy for these experiences leads to a more diverse understanding of the world.

Why is a diverse understanding of the world important? I would offer that no single person can experience enough of the world to know the broad long term impact of everything from a smile or gift to a rape or murder. Events don’t stop their impact with the victim. The victim seeks comfort in family and friends, and may gain PTSD or have other reasons to release the emotional weight from the incident upon others. If it was an act of charity, perhaps they pay it forward in some manner or share a better mood with those around for the rest of the day.

Even on a more limited scale, one event can be seen so radically differently as that of a police officer enforcing societal rules and order and an expression of grief at the perceived persecution at a member of the community. Typically, the truth is somewhere in between. Occasionally, one side has all the facts to back up their opinion. Even then, the different values between the two could still allow for radically different interpretations.

“Honor all that is, and respect others’ beliefs. In this way, you’ll bring an end to suffering.” - Zen phrase

Within any society there has to be agreed upon rules for engaging, and a path to a harmonious existence. Confucius talks about how we all must engage in our roles in society to the best of our ability. This can lead to an understanding and reinforcement of a caste system. Even if there is room for class change in a harmonious society (albeit one that changes rapidly with the cultural changes and diverse ruling class), then behavior among individuals is shaped with words like please or thank you, sir and ma’am. These rules need to be taught and encouraged by the nurturing of the village it takes to raise a child.

I’ve been asked by a couple of people how one can teach mixed martial arts. Sometimes as one learns a specific style the emphasis is on the traditions and the kata wherein the secret of the style reside. A shield kick is not a taekwondo maneuver, for example. The way I respond is by saying that basic principles of martial arts are universal, and these principles is the primary goal of the kata and specificity of technique from various styles.

In kenpo, taekwondo, kajukenbo, krav maga, and any style there is a concept called a marriage with gravity or back-up mass. This is about using your whole body to add power to a strike, whether this is a forward facing strike or more of a downward motion. If I just punch with my arm and leave my body behind, then I lose out on the mass of my body. Since force is mass times acceleration, this drastically reduces the force of my strike. This even ignores the fact that I can off-balance myself by not keeping my center of gravity between my legs but instead reaching too much with my fist.

Even that concept of the center of gravity or dan tian translates between all styles of martial arts. This is why if I bend at the hips for a single or double leg takedown I am asking to have my face planted into the ground instead of putting my opponent on his or her back. My center of mass has moved in front of my feet then. By shooting in (a wrestling term) I have much more control and can safely go corps-a-corps (body to body) with my opponent.

Stances also have distinct purposes between them, which changes whether I have my feet wide, planted, heels off the ground, weight distribution and many other details. If I want stability, I would not choose a cat stance, where the majority of the weight is on one foot and the other foot is lightly resting on the toes. However, that stance is great defensively. I have three limbs ready to strike at any time.

Similarly, the specificity of a weapon also frequently has matches between styles (even if I think there is more detail and variety in kung fu). No matter what style I studied, it is always the middle knuckle that is used. Sometimes the bottom three knuckles are used for an intercepting fist, and sometimes the top two knuckles are used with strikes like a square punch. There is always a distinct difference between a slap and a palm strike. In my experience, kung fu goes more in depth with eye jabs, ear pulls, and throat strikes.

It is interesting when the phrases change. My training was focused on center line and getting off it, and a co-teacher of mine is more focused on off-angling. But both concepts are the same. Getting toward one side of an opponent allows more of my limbs to strike (if I stay facing them), while my opponent is restricted to that single side. A step vs a slide in that rotation and movement can be a change, and I find that the step would reduce friction and give a small amount more speed.

I believe that this focus on principles allows for a growing martial artist to apply them more broadly than a specific memorized pattern teaches. This way rotation and backup mass can be applied to a kick, a punch, a throw, and an elbow, as opposed to rotating from a horse stance to a forward bow with a cross in a kata. Knowing the purposes of stances being for defense, evasion, aggression, or stability allows more fluid adjustments to be made between them depending on the situation that one is faced. It is from these principles that an effective personal style can be developed by mixing various techniques from effective martial arts practices.

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A meme that is floating around the web at the moment is the fact that the average American consumes an average of the mass of a credit card in plastics on a weekly basis. This is a rather depressing concept to consider, as plastics have deleterious impacts to our fertility and health and yet seem almost impossible to escape considering the dominance of oil for medicines, containers, fuel, and most every part of western capitalist culture. There are scientific advancements in recycling technology and interest in cleaning up the Pacific Garbage Patch and others, and this is incredibly important as plastics can last without action to eliminate them for 400 years.

The endocrine system is a delicate balance in our body that can impact muscle growth, fertility, and basic mental functioning. It turns out that plastics can mimic estrogen, cause oxidative stress, inflame the body, and decrease estradiol in mice. Beyond the mice studies, it has been replicated in other much more closely related species to humans in the impact on birth rate, weight, and conception rate. It also impacts the liver. I don’t think there is a single good quality about consuming a material that our body doesn’t have the capability to digest.

How are these plastics so ubiquitous? The primary contributor to the 2500% increase over the last century is packaging, which due to the waste disposal in countries in primarily Asia, but all around the world, ends up in one of a few plastic patches in the ocean. Two large ones are the East and West Great Pacific Garbage patch, which grows due to the currents of the ocean. If we really want to narrow things down, Panama, Guyana, Suriname, Malaysia, and the Philippines are the five highest per capita sources of plastics in the ocean.

The impact of the plastics in our world (of which Americans inhale 132-170 tiny bits of plastic on a daily basis) does merely impact our species. It severely impacts every species. Some by the material impact of the physical constraints of poorly disposed plastics, and some by the long term impact on the species as a whole, as with the fertility of Rhesus monkey’s previously cited. In a couple of decades, if our production and disposal of plastics continues at the present rate, the mass of plastics in the ocean will outweigh the mass of fish. I can’t imagine a scenario where that is good for any species on the planet.

There are a great many ways to improve plastics use and disposal. After all, with 91% of plastics not even being recycled to begin with, the species can only improve. Often in the past containers of a wide variety were used – from ceramics to metal to wood. We still use many of these today, to a lesser extent. This may be due to the craftsmanship involved or the expense of the material in question, probably both. However, as with the growing danger to one of the healthiest protein sources on the planet, the question becomes who will foot the bill? Interestingly, some forms of plastics disposal can add value through energy generation.

The energy generation which could help allay the costs of revolutionizing waste disposal include using innovative pyrolysis or plasma arc gasification to generate fuels like syngas and pyrolytic oil. The first of these could substitute for something like natural gas which can pump methane into the atmosphere, and the other for your standard gasoline or diesel. They both could be a valuable source of energy in the modern day, when we are seeking other primary drivers to the engine of unlimited growth in our western capitalist society. Both innovative pyrolysis and plasma arc gasification use less water and require fewer pollution controls than a coal-fired power plant. To me, it seems self-evident the improvements that await, if one is willing to change tack from our current catastrophic course.

I’ve now completed 30 revolutions around the sun, courtesy of this beautiful and unique planet we call Earth (and my parents). It has not always been the best of times, but because of my upbringing I don’t think I ever can claim to have had the worst of times. I never had to question whether I would be able to eat that day, and only twice was unsure about where I would sleep. After college, I was blessed with those I call my friends who would deign to spend time with me and offer a couch or a floor. There was another time that I was asked to leave from my residence by someone whom I loved who didn’t live at that location but was using another person in my home for childcare. At the time I was without any ability or plan of where to go or how to afford an apartment, but I was fortunate enough to land on my feet. It is from one’s community that one gets the most value, I think.

​My caution over what I put in my body lost me that which I consider most valuable, even as my career progressed. The risks currently appear to be minor for my healthy, young, male demographic whether I had a more severe side effect or caught the virus. At the same time, it was much more likely to have an immediate side effect from the vaccine in my demographic than for others. This did not consider the long-term impact of that change in transcription could have. This is the worst with Moderna. I also weighed the fact that it was a guaranteed risk if I got an experimental vaccine that would teach my body to produce an endothelial disrupting spike protein, and a chance if I caught the virus. I did catch it twice. The first felt like a bad flu with some additional symptoms of brain fog and exhaustion for a few days. The second time I mostly had a sore throat. Since they were six months apart, I assume that while the more broad and durable natural immunity lasts longer than the vaccination, it is not perpetual. Further, there appears to be no correlation between catching the virus itself and the incidence of myocarditis or pericarditis.

With that it means that an argument I had been making for the benefit of natural immunity over a mass vaccination drive isn’t as solid as it had been. While there is no correlation between vaccine uptake and covid-19 spread, and the delta virus has made this coronavirus endemic, natural immunity is not a guaranteed path to herd immunity with a single infection. Due to the repeated injection of mRNA vaccines leading to an IgG4 response, I do not believe that those vaccines would do the same even if one boosts with the same solution more than ten times. I do wonder if a response to a more traditional protein as attenuated vaccines like Novavax could rekindle that broad and durable natural immunity, especially if the system previously had exposure to the virus itself. If that were the case, then the potential for spread effecting others could be reduced more effectively than seems to be the case from the mRNA vaccines. I believe that because of the specificity of the alpha spike protein production in the mRNA vaccines the immunity was not only therapeutic in nature, but also was the reason behind the narrow immunity which required an updated dose for a mutated strain, as well as repeated boosters.

One of my concerns beyond the spike protein itself was the use of polyethylene-glycol as an adjuvant. The nanolipids seemed to cross the blood brain barrier and got stored in areas like the spleen and and liver. This is potentially carcinogenic. Looking at Europe though, cancers appear to be going down, with some exceptions. So that does not appear to be true in that highly vaccinated population. Also, considering the sheer magnitude of carcinogenic substances that are omnipresent in modern western society, it would be difficult to pinpoint which was the greatest contributing factor should an increase appear in the mortality statistics. However, polyethylene glycol does seem to be strongly correlated with anaphylaxis.

Within the Novavax vaccine there is a different adjuvant. The Matrix-M adjuvant is from a Chilean saponin, which appear to have some health benefits for cholesterol and others. At the same time, there were severe reactions which were unlikely, but still more probable than my death from the virus. These include .01% myocarditis or pericarditis, .03% chance of cardiac failure, and .03% chance of acute cholecystitis. Primarily it was just redness and pain. As a result, I think my preference for this shot is based on a little bit of superstition I have which is that natural medicines are superior to experimental artificial substances. After all, if one cares for the body with exercise, vitamin D (especially with vitamin K), takes zinc, and does any of a variety of other things one reduces the risk of severe illness from many sources, not just covid-19.

Last year I taught all of the classes at my dojo and helped with the set up of a second for a brilliant instructor. It has been an incredible experience to have the additional knowledge of styles I barely practiced, and some that I never did. Some of his escapes are different from those I was taught, and I have discovered that my horse stance is influenced much more by judo than by either taekwondo or gung fu.

​As I teach, I try to ensure that I pass along the benefits for each style, and the ways that they lack. Just as with the stances themselves, there are pros and cons to each position one can find oneself in. I am continuing to break down my analysis of stances by aggression, stability, defensiveness, and evasiveness. It is necessary to drive the whole foot into the ground for stability, just as it is necessary to raise one’s weight onto the balls of one’s feet to keep evasive. This means that while longbow and horse stance have great stability it requires more effort to evade a blow, just as a cat stance has the inverse cost benefit balance.

I have recently learned the phrase “principle based learner.” I find that it applies to me. I occasionally tune out all the steps of a recipe or chess sequence, but I can remember to put the dry ingredients together and the concept of forking an enemy and having multiple lines of attack. In the same way I enjoy breaking down the principles of fighting to guide my students toward a discovery of their own way, supported by our training. I find that some of these phrases are different between myself and a fellow instructor, but the concepts remain the same. A great example of this is a base of support and back-up mass or a marriage of gravity.

These concepts can be used to encourage students to put their weight behind a downward strike. One “marries” one’s body with gravity with a downward elbow or a hammer fist, thereby putting one’s back-up mass behind the strike and making it more powerful. This also sinks into a strong base of support, as you use your legs with your elbow to add power via mass. Other principles beyond others mentioned so far that I teach include anchor, smother, structure, hook, post, rotation, angle of incidence, target, flow, and lever. These principles lead to a greater understanding of how to use one’s body to properly submit with a knee bar or arm bar, or how to put the proper power into a strike while keeping the structure of a guard.
In the same way one must teach basic principles of how to examine conflict. I find it is a greater hallmark of the discipline of a martial artist to respond with the exact amount of pressure necessary to overcome an obstacle, as opposed to overwhelming and breaking your nephew at a family event because play time got a little rough. This can be broken down a few ways. Some that I use include those developed by Sgt Rory Miller in his book Meditations of Violence. They include Terrain, Relationship, Intent, Opportunity, Movement.

Terrain is about the environment one finds oneself in. In a public place, the opponent may be less likely to engage in lethal force. However, the monkey dance of ego plays a substantially larger role in the intent behind the act. The terrain also can dictate what sort of movement will work. In a narrow alleyway there is a limit to what sort of techniques may be effective. If you are aware of them, that provides you with an opportunity to get distance and time before engaging in conflict. Often, an assailant is more interested in a surprise attack, which means building your awareness is an important part of training. Obviously, your relationship with the person changes what can be done. In war with enemy combatants, you can use different techniques than you can against a spouse.

My trek continues onward toward a more robust credential in understanding the human body (ideally, eventually Physical Therapy). One of the larger sections in my biology class this semester was on genetics, which is quite fascinating. The complexity beyond the simple distinction between dominant and recessive alleles is massive. Codominance means that both dominant traits phenotypically express themselves and incomplete dominance means that as they both express themselves it changes the way they express together. Respectively, great examples that are frequently used are blood types and Mendel’s pea plants.

​The incomplete dominance of blood types A, B, AB, and O can be explained simply. A and B are both dominant traits. If one does not have either allele, then neither A or B are phenotypic, resulting in the smooth blood type O which (if negative) can be used by anyone of any blood type. A and B present some modifications to the blood which require the similarity of a blood donor. How I had this described to me was with spikes on the outside with corresponding to A, and bumps with B. One can have both phenotypically present themselves and then the dominance of both the A-spikes and B-bumps are present on the blood cell, which means it is not complete.

While blending does not occur with genes (either they are active or inactive, there is no halfway), codominance could be mistaken for blending. When Gregor Mendel bred white and purple pea plants the only the alleles for purple or white pea plants expressed themselves. They did not become pink petaled plants. However, wavy hair in humans and petal color for roses are examples of how both alleles for curly and straight hair or the color of a rose petal can be different from both parents once heterozygous individuals are bred together. Grey cats also can exhibit incomplete dominance when they are born from a black and white parent.

The human body is a fascinating organism. Everything is reduceable to basic codes of four nucleic acids (five because of the different relationship of adenine to DNA and RNA). Everything in the code all returns to maintaining homeostasis for pH and temperature so that reactions can be properly catalyzed. Due to the human body’s inability to naturally produce some amino acids (produced during translation into polypeptides attached to the tRNA) which are necessary for specific proteins which have specific purposes based on shape and structure, one still needs to get those amino acids from somewhere. The myriad of ways that those four basic codes can be expressed in codons of three before being converted to proteins folded into the perfect shape to be used for anything from anti-bodies to muscle growth.

Due to the qualities of epistasis and pleiotropy, I don’t think it would be a good idea to artificially teach the body to insert a codon which would produce these same amino acids. Histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine are essential amino acids which must be acquired through food, but since one could have tRNA release them with a different code, I don’t see why it couldn’t be produced with our new technology. The issue is that it is very easy to make a dangerous mistake with something like that. A deletion or insertion of a codon into the genetic code would cause a frameshift, which can result in dangerous mutations making a protein function improperly or not at all. Perhaps I am a little conservative here, but I can’t help but think that some adjustments could reduce the T-cell production we need to naturally fight of diseases or shut off the trigger for density dependent division or something.

Since we can’t just force the body to produce the amino acids necessary on its own, it is important to eat complete proteins, like soy, meats, eggs, Huel, rice and beans, and so on and so forth. Some of these are better than others because of the micronutrient content and the bioavailability of the nutrients (such as B vitamins) meaning the ease at which out body puts the fuel through chemical reactions to break down the content to allow the nutrients to be absorbed by our body. One way to track that effort is through the thermic effect of various foods.

And yet the modern lifestyle is supposed to be unhealthy not just for ourselves but also the environment. Everything from the meat we eat to the shipping around the globe to the plastics used to contain the food to the water used in monocrop culture seems to lead the human species toward on a destructive path. If not for ourselves through war, then through greed and short-sided behavior. Some projections have doomsday scenarios in a few decades. I think it will be a slow decline instead of a catastrophic rapid shift. No one wants to admit there is a problem, so the wound will just fester instead.

The world is projected to end in 30 years. Well, not the world, but humanity and their relation to it. It appears that one part of the ecosystem can completely flip the table, so to speak. Scientists say it’s possible to use the resources of the earth to feed 10 or 11 billion people, with radical changes to management. The world population will reach that in the late 2050s. At that point the plastics in the ocean will outnumber the fish. It would end far sooner if everyone on the planet was using resources and driving vehicles at either the US or EU rate per capita.

Thankfully smart and prescient people have been on the job for a while now. We have been informed we can trust them as experts. If you can’t stop people from having sex, you can slow their population growth with contraception, abortion, and information campaigns. This is even more important as energy and resource use increases instead of decreasing. As such, an unending stream of migration toward countries of high per capita resource use is not feasible. Some risky experimental actions could be rationalized away for the greater good and perpetuated on a poorly informed populace.
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I still hold out hope that humanity can make the world better than we found it. The technology for wonderous advances such as to burn through waste faster than it is produced and generate energy from it exist. The mental benefits from a simple walk in the woods imply to me that as a species our ecosystem is not one of concrete, fossil fuels, and steel, but one of trees, water, and flowers (although there may be ways to make concrete even more effective). And if we don’t engage in such a way, then I don’t see how a finite planet can support infinite growth.

I’ve been teaching mixed martial arts based on my background in Pai Lum Kung Fu, Kajukenbo Tum-Pai, Taekwondo, and Krav Maga for a little more than eight months. This has brought up a lot of memories, intentions, and feelings of purpose and responsibility. At one point when I was younger I was given the choice of either pursuing theater or martial arts. This was simply based on time and energy, as I had been overworking myself as I do and had gotten sick. I chose theater at that time, which as a living proved one that I could not support myself with. I have been blessed with the career I have now, which I find one that I feel improves the physical, emotional, and spiritual lives of my students. My focus is on all of these aspects, although some of these may be more important to my students than others.
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Some of my students are confused about this or that technique that they are taught to do in certain situations. I’m happy to discuss these moments. We do not go to the ground for all headlocks because in most situations that is a bad idea – especially against multiple opponents. It is important to put more of one’s body weight into a defense against a club as opposed to covering more of one’s body to defend against the speed of a knife. One student did ask me about a style I never studied – ninjutsu. I promptly got some literature by Stephen K. Hayes but was very clear that I never studied the style itself. There were new techniques that I do not feel I can teach, but I can pull some from it that I can use to inform my teaching and make connections between the purpose of stances (stability, defensiveness, aggressiveness, and evasiveness) and the benefit of our guard stance which I learned as a tiger stance.

Still, at what point am I misrepresenting my experience and at what point do credentials become more important than the ability itself? I have always followed requirements for credentials and done my best to properly and honestly represent myself. Sometimes I have been proven wrong about various things. For example, despite passing various tests and submitting videos for perusal I did not become certified as a Pilates mat instructor. I did not complete the required hours teaching and taking classes as the class demanded. Yet, I use these exercises when I am training or warming up students and clients.

Is the knowledge more important than the credential? Is the credential a mark of the quality and the safety? In which case can it be demonstrated in other ways? I would certainly never wish for a doctor to operate on my heart without a medical degree. And yet, if the same knowledge was held by an individual who studied and practiced on cadavers as was done to originally gain the knowledge, I might be content. But as I type that, I am hesitant myself as I consider if I would hire such an individual.

I know I don’t post much, but I wish to provide the best to those who have entrusted their education in self-defense, personal development, and fitness in my hands. To this end I am focused on learning more every day and enrolled to get prerequisites for a Physical Therapy degree. I always try to learn more and have credentials in everything from health and life insurance to fitness to theater.

The same question applies to one of the more well-intentioned projects I’ve been a part of: www.hoshowlove.com. We are trying to help other overcome past trauma and understand the complexity of consciousness. At the same time, we are not therapists. So, while we represent literature we have read and our own experience, we do not have credentials. We just provide a space for others to support each other and try to provide the example to do the same ourselves.

I returned to school this last quarter, and this paper saved me from failing my first online course. I was changing track from my undergraduate degree in theater arts for something a little more practical, as my mother tried to convince me to do way back when. I was returning to work toward a degree in medicine – specifically in physical therapy. I had been working for the last six years or so as a personal trainer, branched out into more meditative practices, and returned to martial arts. I was focused on the body and the way it moves and functions in space. In this class, the way we learned about the mind, which was an interesting parallel for me. I particularly was intrigued by how our mind can work counter to our ability to determine the best option before us.

Even the very way we tend to approach events in life can run counter to our ability to improve. The good things in life are taken to be the individual’s responsibility, whereas the poor things to occur in the world are a consequence of the environment. (Carver et al 1980; Greenberg et al 1982; Muller and Riorden 1988) This self-serving attributional bias makes it more likely that an individual would repeat behavior to lead to the same problem in an insane manner. If one cannot honestly look at the reason that one is in the situation one is in – for good or ill – then one has little chance of changing that situation.

An example of this is the beauty standard of areas with easily available food and areas without easy to access food. In the areas without easy to access food, there was a greater tendency of individuals to prefer more voluptuous women. (Anderson, Crawford, Nadeau, and Lindberg 1992) These women got that way both through biology and through personal choices. While appearance isn’t the only thing that is considered in a relationship (thankfully kindness and intelligence seem to be primary according to Vitzthum et al 2022), that craving will be expensive and difficult to satisfy in a society where food is hard to come by.

The way that we adjust to situations in life also can make a bad environment worse. One of the ways that this can happen is through the mere exposure effect (Zajonc 1968; Bornstein 1989; Montoya et al 2017). Through a variety of rationalizations, one can adjust the goalposts of an acceptable situation to excuse an abusive relationship, a changing climate, or declining wages compared to corporate profits or inflation. The excuses can range from a thought of it could be worse, this is temporary, or simply pretending not to see the water slowly being turned up on the proverbial frog.

As a martial artist, I am always trying to control my breath. This is for many reasons, making a stronger punch, engaging the diaphragm, and to keep my heart rate low. Getting one’s blood pumping too much in a fight causes tunnel vision, which happens when the pupils dilate. If one slows the breath, one slows the heart. The same thing happens when we get angry. Fighting while angry is a terrible idea. In that situation you also are likely to misconstrue an act to be aggressive in nature, perhaps leading to violence when that isn’t necessary. (DeSteno et al 2000; Huber et al 2015; Keltner et al 1993) I tell all my students that there are three ways to win a fight, first through words, next with our feet, and finally with our fists. The first two ways come first.

Another way that our behavior can make situations worse for ourselves is through some of the patterns that have been noticed when within a group. The deindividuation that occurs allows for a more instinctual response, the direction of which the knee may jerk in a dark manner. For example, an increase of 200% in suicide baiting has been observed (Mann, 1981) when the individuals are in a group as opposed to as an individual watching such a tragic event. Groups allow for horrific excuses of behavior, up to and including genocides (which are only perpetuated by groups of people given a reason to consider themselves a group or nation separate from another).

There are many possible reasons that the deadening of an internal moral compass occurs when someone attends a party, protest, or simply chooses to follow a club of some variety. One possibility is that because one becomes part of a mass, then one believes oneself safe from individual consequence either by passing from individual to collective guilt or by the difficulty of being pinpointed as the perpetrator of whatever previously abhorred act. Another possibility is that one can give up responsibility to individuals higher up in a group with a more clearly defined hierarchy. One way of testing this may be to compare the types and number of egregious acts performed by a strict hierarchical organization like the NKVD or the Einsatzgruppen to that of a more disorganized group like the Tulsa Race Riots or the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. I believe that shocking scientific assumptions about authoritarian styles and the connection to abusive behavior could be made from studies about orders though. (Milgram, 1963)

Irving Janis examined the dangers of groupthink in the 1950s. Groupthink stems from shallow examination of info, not considering alternatives, and a sense of invulnerability or moral superiority. It is more comfortable to remain within information that confirms one’s worldview, especially if the other worldview is evil. If there is a strong leader, that also provides a focal point that the group can organize around and take orders from. It is more efficient to just follow the order of the approved authority with one’s peripheral processing system and avoid using the central processing system to carefully consider one’s actions every step of the way. If one is in a group, it often leads to self-censorship to keep oneself toeing the party line and in the good graces of other members of the tribe, faction, or party. This perpetuates the problem of filter bubbles aggravating confirmation bias. Also, in order to avoid cognitive dissonance, the person will eventually start to rationalize away the opposing perspective.

I wonder if it is possible to change one’s behavior completely just through an intellectual knowledge of the cognitive biases that human beings tend to engage in. Due to the slower speed of central processing compared to peripheral processing, I am not sure that it is possible to have complete free will in a changing world and society. Even when we didn’t live in the cyber age, we still had to react to someone asking for spare change, subtle advertising, or detours on a commute. So much of our life is instinctual and habitual reaction to the world we’ve created. I’m not a full determinist, but I also think that the biological impact of events in life from our childhood which even affect our attachment styles and self esteem far into our middle age. (Klohnen and Bera, 1998; Fraley and Spieker, 2003) If these things don’t change much except in our own mind, then how much can we shape and change who we were going to be? In my opinion, we are unfairly born into a world that constrains the sandbox within which we can each individually play by the circumstances of our birth. This biology affects everyone from Elon Musk’s children to those of a dalit of India and can make the instinctual reactions of daily life detrimentally affect the paths that one chooses to walk down in life, unless by learning about them we can overcome our limitations.

                I’ve been teaching martial arts first for Hampton Fitness and now for Premier Martial Arts. I’ve been refining my craft at the same time. Master Hensley has said, “Be unreasonable with your goals.” It’s the same sort of thought as to reach for the stars and you’ll hit the moon. Lessons like that and others are some of my favorite parts of this culture and lifestyle. We make sure to emphasize goal setting, courage, discipline, respect, focus, perseverance, and lots of other traits that all parents would wish for their children, and most people would desire for themselves.
                Even beyond the metaphysical ideals of the philosophy behind the way we teach our Krav Maga focused mixed martial arts, there are clear benefits to practicing self-defense. If one does not train, then in a high stress environment one is likely to freeze. This is part of why rape victims often do not fight back [1], although there are others dependent on each individual situation. There will always be a need to know how to defend oneself and one’s loved ones, and there are incredible health benefits associated with variety of activities necessary to truly commit to one’s best in martial arts.
                Krav Maga places an emphasis on palm strikes. This is for a variety of reasons. In a combat situation, often one ends up grappling on the ground at some point. In today’s developed world this usually occurs on concrete. If one punches and misses, striking a sidewalk or road, it could break a bone. Palm strikes are less likely to do that, and there also have been some studies that seem to indicate that this strike can generate more power behind it. [2]
                One of my favorite parts of our program is the mat chat that we have every class. This is approximately five minutes where we get to discuss aspects of the Premier Martial Arts philosophy. This ranges from subjects like kindness and responsibility to courage or discipline. These may be the best lessons I could have received from my time studying martial arts in my youth. It is wonderful to have the time set aside to assist in building true martial artists as opposed to just someone who can throw a powerful haymaker.
                Even without this scheduled aside time to instill good qualities in our students, studies have shown a tremendous number of benefits. Ones attention improves quite a bit from all the focus one must give to learn longer patterns and repeat them in high stress environments. [3] There are also reductions in the symptoms of depression. [4] This is no surprise as the improvements in one’s physical ability and the knowledge that one can protect oneself and one’s loved ones can make one more confident. At the same time however, people who study martial arts appear to get in fewer fights. [5]
                “Si vis pacem, para bellum,” or “If you want peace, prepare for war,” as the phrase goes. If one joins a practice of self-defense in order to reduce the fights one gets in, and trusts so much in that aspect of the practice that one does not learn how to use the whole body to twist and put that weight behind a punch, then one may no longer have that physicality and aura that leads the potential assailant to choose a different target. Concepts like the center of mass (or tanden or dantien), targets (both in terms of where to hit and which knuckle of the fist to hit with), and chambers are only the beginning of the details that need to be practiced and refined with every class.​

[1]https://hellogiggles.com/news/study-revealed-sexual-assault-victims-dont-fight-back/?msclkid=0a606e0ecf8a11ec9b349acff3f1f39b
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8001023/
[3] https://theconversation.com/martial-arts-can-improve-your-attention-span-and-alertness-long-term-new-study-91798
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7720472/
[5] https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0021-9010.85.4.625