Many martial arts schools today focus on belt-rank as an end goal. They have black-belt clubs, accelerated black-belt training, etc. That’s fine, and I’m sure most give good instruction. I take issue with the view that a black belt – or any rank should be an end-goal. The myth that the black belt makes you [...]
In the Western world, the practice of alchemy has a long history as predecessor to modern chemistry (it’s where we get the name), school shrouded in mystery, and practice persecuted as pseudoscience or blasphemy by the powers that be. Outwardly, alchemists main goal was to produce the philosopher’s stone, a substance rumored to be able [...]
There is a lot of very bad information about self defense on the internet. A lot of this stems from forums and message boards which are usually collections of people who have such low personal self esteem they can’t wait to rip apart other people’s systems. There are the ever-popular discussions about who should win [...]
Last night I attended a talk on information security given by a representative of a major endpoint security company. They make antivirus software for those who aren’t fluent in geek. The presenter made an interesting point that I think is relevant to personal security and self defense. He showed an image of a house and [...]




