Mad Science MMA

By the way - I wrote a book and it's on sale this week!

Shadow of Wolves: A Kit Barker Novel Shadow of Wolves: A Kit Barker Novel

"One of the unwritten truths about training at a gym that does not speak your language is that language no longer gets in the way. You see people only for who they are, what they do, and not what they’d like us to believe about them. The same is true of how others will see us. What we’d like to present can no longer be presented, and we are only what is visible. As much as we try to observe the world on mute, we are nearly always subject to hearing people’s reasons for doing or not doing, or we share our own reasons for doing or not doing. With no explanation, there is only the done and the not done. We are only what we do. We are all, in a sense, naked."

Big Heart, Small Heart. One of the unwritten truths about training at a gym that does not speak your language is that language no longer gets in the way.

Great piece from AntiFragile Training!
"The techniques we learn in the combat sports, in the “live” arts, they work against someone who knows them. They work against someone who knows them and doesn’t want you to succeed."

If It Doesn’t Work Against A Skilled Opponent, Then It Doesn’t Work At All Often times I am presented with, tagged in, or sent a video of something terrible. Truly awful technique, nonsense, or otherwise just absurd tactic. Most often its sent as a joke, but sometimes as …

6 Reasons Your Right-Wing Friend Isn’t Budging On Gun Control There are several reasons Second Amendment advocates aren’t running to your side of the argument, and it might not be the ones you think.

Banged Up “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.” – Mark Rippetoe At this point it’s virtually impossible to find someone that hasn’t rea…

It’s Aliveness – Still | Matt Thornton' Twenty-five years ago I started talking about Aliveness. Five years later I filmed a set of videos explaining Aliveness. And as much as I’d like to move on to different topics, I’ve been reminded all too often over the last two decades that it’s still about – Aliveness.

When The Grappler Understands The Weapon Based Environment A favorite refrain from many of the non-grappling Combatives instructors and practitioners in the self-defense community is how getting too involved in “sport grappling” will get you killed in the …

Lighten up Francis This post is a bit of a cautionary posting. The self defense world is full of guys named Francis, they just don’t know it. When I hear them talking immediately this scene from the movie Strip…