Who doesn’t get all pumped up after watching a high adrenaline action movie. Two hours in front of the screen watching Rocky or Never Back Down and every couch potato like me dreams of a lean and mean self ready to pounce on the bad guys in a flash. Well, as you already know, it is not as easy as it looks. In Training for Sudden Violence, Rory Miller tells you about all the hard work that you need to put in to stay safe.
Rory Miller would know. As a former corrections sergeant and tactical team leader, Rory Miller is a proven survivor. He instructs police and corrections professionals who, in many cases, receive only eight hours of defensive tactics training each year. They need techniques that work and they need unflinching courage.
Training for Sudden Violence: 72 Practical Drills
Author: Rory Miller
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Ymaa Publication Center (July 7, 2016)
ISBN: 159439380X, 978-1594393808
A fight is as much about a mental state as it is about the body. But it is not just how ready you are to fight someone. When it comes to the crunch time, it is more about your body’s automatic responses. And that is why it is equally about mind. It is like when you have been driving for years.
Cruising in the traffic, you suddenly brake and slow down and allow the car in the next lane to merge, although there is no indication of the other person wanting to do that. That is intuition. For some reason, you know the idiot in the next lane is going to cut you and jump in your lane. Without a lot of thought, you take your foot off the accelerator and slow down as the car slides into your lane. All of this happens in seconds or mili-seconds. There is no conscious decision to take that foot off the accelerator, it just happens. That is your response to certain stimuli.
And that is what saves you from a mishap. Rory Miller stresses this need of training your mind and body in Training for Sudden Violence when he drives home the importance of Drill and Practice. No matter how many training videos you watch or self-defense classes you take, you can gain the important seconds that are going to save you from an assault only by making your responses in the field, automatic.
Training for Sudden Violence is not a book you can read lazing on your couch. This is practical guide to hand-to-hand combat. It is an exercise book that you need to refer to with your fighting buddies and work with the situations on the mat. Only the author rightly points out that there are no mats in the real world.
If you work in a world where assaults or possibility of an assault is as common as picking up a coffee, this book is for you. The book outlines various attack positions with photos and instructs you how to get out of the attackers grip. He tells you how to carry out the drills safely and paints various scenarios that people in law and enforcement and similar professions may encounter. The main differentiation in this book is that it is more of a practical workbook. A workbook that demands you have a drill partner who is ready to play the role of an attacker. It is not something you can follow or do alone, on your own.