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I have been enjoying a great new show on Spike TV called “Deadliest Warrior” where experts pit historical warriors against each other to determine who would win a fight. If you haven’t seen the show, combinations such as Spartan vs. ninja and pirate vs. knight are played out. Weapons, armor, and tactics are compared and tested scientifically.

At the conclusion of the show, a computer simulation is run to determine which warrior would compare most positively in a real face to face fight.

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I recently had the chance to attend some “reality based” self defense training with a friend of mine who had never practiced martial arts before. On our second class, my friend had his wrist broken - most likely by an overzealous beginner during a gun takeaway exercise.

What happened?
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From first-hand experience I can tell you that about 90% of what the world believes about martial arts and self defense comes from movies and TV. There are many unrealistic portrayals about self defense - so let’s tackle the idea of dueling.

When you watch the hero of your favorite film face off with his arch-enemy and duke it out for 4 minutes without mussing his hair - that has virtually nothing to do with self-defense. Fighting in sport and television has little to do with self-defense. That’s dueling.

Most of the time, these media fights play out like the bar fights I’ve witnessed. They are essentially mutually agreed upon combat. Once you’ve agreed to fight, it’s no longer self-defense.

Real self-defense usually involves a sudden and violent surprise attack where a predator tries to overpower a target. Usually the target is not attacked from the front, with lots of warning, on mats, under bright lights, after stretching for 20 minutes, and while wearing special training clothes. Frequently attackers work in groups, carry weapons, and refuse to fight fair.

Every tool in your arsenal including screaming, running away, pulling out a gun, calling 911, using pepper spray, throwing a mean round-house kick to the temple, etc. is 100% useless unless you can effectively deal with the initial attack.

Self defense has only one goal - get to safety.

It isn’t about winning a fight or arresting your attacker (unless you’re a cop and we call it defensive tactics). Self defense isn’t about teaching your attacker a lesson, or getting an ego boost out of kicking a guy’s butt at a bar.

I hope you’ll take these words to heart and let them inform your training choices and your mindset.

Once in a while, I like to poke my head behind the web stats curtain and take a look at what the wizard is doing behind the scenes. Today, I found an interesting trend that I need to share.

It seems that - visitors to this blog who come via twitter have a 10% lower average bounce rate.
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Did you miss the Superbowl ads, or want to re-watch them. I’ve got them all here for you.

Anyone who’s ever had a loan or a savings account understands how compound interest can exponentially grow either a debt or an investment. So let’s apply the same principle to personal development.

Think of something you’d like to get better at. Anything at all.

Now, for the next year focus on doing a little better each day. Each day you intend and work at doing 1% better than the day before. This is a nice do-able chunk right?

If you do this, theoretically you should see a 3778% improvement by the end of the year.

Imagine if the thing you focused on was income. Let’s say your income today is $50,000, and you increase it 1% each day. At the end of the year, your income should be $1,889,000.

Mission Centric Training™ is a term I coined a few years back when training civilians, law enforcement, and military personnel. It became clear that each of these groups of people had different goals, operating rules, equipment, training levels, etc. Training them all the same way is a mistake.

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Hollywood remakes everything these days. Apparently it’s less risky to bank on the success of something earlier than to create something new. I shuddered when I heard that Hollywood is going to remake The Karate Kid - a movie which requires no remake in my opinion.

Apparently 1984 star Ralph Macchio has mixed feelings but has given a nod to Jaden Smith (Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s son). Jackie Chan is set to play Mr. Miyagi.

Normally I couldn’t care less about what hollywood does. In the end, it’s all business designed to make money. In fact the original Karate Kid spun off three less than stellar sequels (OK #2 was OK), a cartoon series, luchboxes, toys etc. No problem.

I believe, and many agree, that the original movie is an icon of American culture. It fostered a youth interest in martial arts that is still in effect in the US and abroad. It promoted the positive virtues of martial arts in a way that shied away from the violent aspects shown in the movies of the day.

I was personally inspied by the movie and, to this day, if it’s on cable I’ll try to watch it. It helped start me on my lifelong path in the martial arts. So, yes I take it perhaps a little personally when I hear of a remake of a film so close to my heart.

I hope they change the story and go for a whole new “thing”. Jaden is, after all, only 10 so the high school bully thing isn’t going to play so well. I hope that Jackie Chan plays the Miyagi role with respect for what Pat Morita had created. And I hope that perhaps this movie will inspire a new generation to watch the original.

I’m guessing that we’re going to see a lot more China-themed advertising. I think this one is pretty cute.

Psychological studies of consumer behavior shows that “anticipated regret” is an extremely powerful motivator. Anticipated regret is essentially a fear of future loss. It’s one of the factors that keeps losing gamblers going.

So how do we put “anticipated regret” to proper use for ourselves?

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