Linky Love

Brigid has her post up detailing her enchilada recipe. I am not kidding you really should try these.

Mom With a Gun has up a post on guns and special needs kids. We are very fortunate that our kiddos have taken to guns, safety and responsibility quickly, but even though we don’t have “special needs” children(in that sense) we still do not take chances with our firearms. Safety is the top priority. To me the safest place for my gun is under my control which generally means on my hip.

I think it is interesting how some people have tunnel vision when it comes to guns. Clearly, I am big, big proponent of carrying a gun. If the law allowed I would have my gun 24/7. It’s a very valuable tool and one I like to have at my disposal at all times, but bad guys in the ally are not the only danger or threat.

If there is a child or any person in your house that is not able to, for whatever reason, handle firearms safely, that is your first threat and it should be dealt with. I think her suggestions are good ones.

The Cornered Cat has a post up on how to become a firearms instructor. I think it is a great, great, great post.

I had only been shooting a short time and wasn’t very skilled when people pushed and pushed me to become an instructor. “We need more women in the field”  they would say. These people were kind and sincere and being encouraging. Most saw something in me and thought I had the ability to do a good job and wanted me to get the certs and move in that direction. No one was being casual or flippant, but still, what we need is more skilled and qualified people in the field not just more people, male or female.

I think that most instructors out there can do a good job of teaching someone how to accurately shoot a decent sized group, but as I have said before if we are talking about defending your life, I would think you would want the best there is to offer and that usually means someone with years of experience.

Anyway, as I read her suggestions, I thought, actually these are great for anyone who would like to become proficient regardless of there career goals.

An interesting read on Knife Fighting over at No Nonsense Self-Defense. I don’t know anything about this guy, but the idea that fighting for your life being a down and dirty business is one that I believe. When I first started working with Arete, he would show me something and then when he would come at me and I would usually freeze. I would mess everything up because I was trying to remember the moves. I was trying to get it “right”. He goes this way, so I am suppose to do this. Oh, he grabbed my wrist like, I am am suppose to pull this way. Wait what are my feet suppose to be doing?? I was so focused on the technique that I completely missed the someone is trying to kill you and they don’t really care how skilled you are at getting out of a wrist grab. He would say don’t worry about doing it right, trust your instincts(which I was terrified to do) and do whatever you need to do to get out of this and do it as violently as possible. Once I stopped being afraid of getting it wrong and I started to think solely about survival my instincts did kick in and I could get out of most things. I realize he was not trying to kill me and getting out of those situations is not like being attacked for real. I do not have a false sense of my abilities, but I think mindset is huge in surviving a violent attack. Letting go of preconceived notions about “fighting” has helped me tremendously.

3 thoughts on “Linky Love

  1. Thanks for the linky-love – much appreciated!

    Apropos of the knife fighting article – Marc “Animal” MacYoung is definitely one of those guys who knows his stuff. Plug his name into Wikipedia and you’ll get a bit more info about his background.

    • Yup, Marc’s the real deal. Nice guy, too, but don’t let him hear me tell you that — don’t want to ruin his reputation.

      Thanks for the link. 🙂

  2. I wouldn’t take MacYoung too seriously. In one of his books he suggested that a sword was a better home defense weapon for a woman than a gun; in another he wrote about having been in bullwhip fights.

    There was also a joint seminar that he did in Maryland where self defense instructors Rich Dimitri of Senshido and Dammy Franco of Contemporary Fighting Systems. Macyoung advocated a knife defense with an arm motion similar to picking up a receiver and answering the phone.

    He tried this against someone with a plastic knife who was not going very fast and wound up having his defense fail and the plastic knife sliced him across the throat. Of course it was a training knife so he wasn’t really cut.

    He turned to the audience and asked, “What just happened?’ as if this was part of the demo.

    People replied, “Uhh, you got cut.”

    To which MacYoung replied, “Yes, but how deep?” as if a knife took lots of pressure to create a serious slash to the throat.

    Anyway, It’s Christmas Eve and I should be focusing more on the good will toward men bit.

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