Criminals target unsuspecting individuals. They are like electricity, taking the path of least resistance. They look for opportune times, vulnerable or weak women. Be in control of your safety, always being alert and aware of your environment, keeping presence of mind, never acting fearful, whether you are young or old, male or female, in good shape or sickly.

Carry a personal protection device or an ear piercing personal alarm. Threaten a potential assailant with a stun gun, sending a blue line of electricity between the test probes, and chances are he will back off. Point a pepper spray towards him and yell “back off” and chances are he will. Criminals for the most part don’t want to deal with someone who is going to give them a lot of trouble.

The key to protecting yourself during a possible assault is having presence of mind. Presence of mind is having self-control so maintained in an emergency that you can do the right thing.

Know ahead of time what you are going to do. Know how to use the protection device you choose. Practice with it several times, not actually spraying the pepper spray or stunning anyone with the gun, but pretending. Become so familiar with it that it becomes second nature and you have no doubt you would use it without hesitation.

It’s easy to tell someone to keep their presence of mind during a potential attack, but when something like that actually happens, it can be quite another thing to actually attain that ability. Sometimes fear wants to take over and it isn’t easy to override it.

To rise above the fear and empower yourself is essential, though. That is why it is so important to practice pulling out your pepper spray or your stun gun and focus your mind on what it would feel like to be able to protect yourself from a would-be assailant. What would it feel like to turn the tables on the intruder? To have the presence of mind needed to take control?

Don’t hesitate to turn your anger on the aggressor. He will probably not have a weapon, but instead will be looking for a woman with a pony tail he can grab or loose clothing he can easily rip off. Prison time for rape with a weapon can be 15 – 20 yrs., whereas without a weapon it may be 3 – 5 yrs. So take control and take down the assailant by keeping your presence of mind and using your non-lethal weapon.

With all the practicing you have done with your self defense weapon and with your mind, you are now in control of the situation. Your presence of mind has made you able to face a situation that may have once caused you to panic. You are in control and the aggressor will be on the ground or running for his life.

You can live a life that is not controlled by fear of the unknown assailant. After making sure pepper sprays and stun guns are legal within the area you live, you will be able to take with you the confidence you need to enjoy life to it’s fullest no matter where you might be. Have the presence of mind to control an emergency situation and the common sense to not leave a weapon where a child can find it. Stay alert, trust your instincts and enjoy the life you have been given with carefree abandon.

Karleen Lindsey would like to see the world be a safer place for women. Her research into pepper sprays and stun guns has convinced her they are the perfect non-fatal self protection weapons for women to easily carry and use to halt perpetrators in their tracks.

Try to avoid yelling “Surprise!” when you use your Cell Phone Stun Gun. These little babies pack a punch by delivering high voltage to an attacker. They are one of the top self defense weapons you can buy.

Stun Guns provide a non-lethal means of self defense. If you are worried about killing the attacker you shouldn’t be. This personal protection product is not harmful but will incapacitate an attacker.

Picture this, an attacker is approaching you on a dark street. You are carrying a stun gun (good!). The stun gun is buried in the bottom of your purse (bad). What do you do? You cannot tell the attacker “Wait a minute. I know my stun gun is in here somewhere”. Unfortunately this is what happens. Most people that buy a stun gun shove it the back of a briefcase or into an overcrowded purse and it is not immediately available when it is needed. What do you think is going to happen when the attacker sees you going through your purse frantically looking for something?

That is one of the great things about a Cell Phone Stun Gun, at first glance you would swear it was an ordinary cell phone! The other nice thing is that you can carry it out in the open or put it on a belt clip and no one would ever notice it. You keep it readily available to use. They are small enough and weigh in at less than a pound but boy, do they pack a wallop! You can instantly send over 800,000 volts into an attacker. Don’t let that figure scare you. Remember, a stun gun will not harm anyone permanently but it will put an attacker on the ground and give you time to escape.

The cell phone stun guns are one of the best options for self defense because they are based on the surprise factor. They can clip on your belt, purse, and you can keep them on the sun visor in your car. They are very easy to use and very effective for protection. Most people have time to grab their cell phones when an attacker approaches but they don’t have time to dial 911. You don’t have to do anything but pull out the phone and press the button to deliver the volts to the attacker. A criminal will not see it coming but instead think you are trying to call the police.

One thing to keep in mind with stun guns is that you have to physically press the device against the body of the attacker. If the stun gun is not activated long enough they are not always effective if an attacker is under the influence of heavy narcotics or drugs. The body type of the person is always a factor also. The good thing about the cell phone stun gun is that it delivers the largest amounts of volts so it is one of the most effective.

It would be rare for an attacker to be real concerned if they saw a regular old cell phone in your hand. They would not even consider that you could possibly do them harm with a cell phone. In this situation you would usually have the opportunity to use the cell phone stun gun immediately and effectively. You can disable the attacker before they even knew that your “Cell Phone” was actually a cell phone stun gun.

Visit Your Greatest Protection for quality personal protection products. Pick out the Cell Phone Stun Gun that best meets your needs.

This is sort of an interesting question. Nobody has ever come up with a good answer for it, and yet people have tried virtually everything in the world to keep those errant students. I mean, they were doing good, they were blown out and excited, and then they disappeared.

The answer for this problem, and a way to keep enrollment high, and to even better it, is possible through something called Matrix Martial Arts. Matrixing is a technology that was designed for the martial arts. The fact of discovering why students drop out became known almost by accident.

To understand this problem of student drop out we must understand that there is a problem with the martial arts themselves. I don’t care what you are teaching, be it karate or kung fu or wudan or that rare form of Kenpo, the fact of the matter is that you are teaching by having students memorize random strings of data. With respect, I offer that this is the most inefficient method of learning that there is.

Memorizing random strings of data is an oral tradition that worked in feudal times, when people couldn’t read nor write. Now, how ever, the written word has come into its own, and people can avail themselves of such things as computers, mind mapping, and good, solid logic. This thing of logic becomes recognizable when one uses Matrix Martial Arts.

Matrixing is the analysis and handling of flow and force. It is a method for laying out a gridwork of martial arts techniques, and being able to quickly and efficiently sort through the techniques until you have the exact and only answer. It is so efficient that people who learn matrixing achieve intuition with their art within months, not years, as is common with the traditional arts.

When matrixing methods are established, when students are enabled to view all the martial arts in logical fashion, one thing becomes plain, there are a lot of blank spots in the martial arts. No matter how many random strings of data one memorizes, it can’t compare with being able to see all the data. And, obviously, students who could see all the data were able to progress much faster.

And, students who left early in their training were found to be confused by the blank spots they had encountered in their studies. Learning the martial arts were like learning languages with half the consonants gone. The data ceased to make sense, so they departed.

The truth of the matter is that students aren’t going to stick with what doesn’t make sense. No matter how much incredible fun they are having, the brain rejects the data, the hardware loses the software, the student refuses the martial arts, simply because the subject has become confusing, and has not been made logical and simple. In a word, no matter whether you teach karate or kung fu or that rare and esoteric style of Tai Chi, you will not be able to keep students unless you matrix your art, and matrix your students, and, the fact of the matter is…you , too, may someday feel like hanging up your gi.

Al has 40 plus years  experience in a variety of arts, and is a writer for the magazines. You can find out about matrixing, ow to keep your students, and lots of other things by getting his free ebook at Monster Martial Arts.

This concept, that working Karate does not resemble the Karate that people are taught in schools, is actually true throughout the martial arts. Shaolin done in combat does not look like wu shu taught in the kwoon. Forms Kung fu doesn’t resemble fighting kung fu, and so on.

The reason for this is that there is pretty, and then there is functional. A fellow teaches, or learns karate, and the instructor shows him something that looks good. Once one starts applying force to the technique, however, the technique must sometimes change to work.

Take a look at the classical kung fu back stance. The stance is so low on the back leg that the ankle is unable to support the weight of most attacks. Thus, one must change the shape of the form in order to really make it work.

Or, take a look at the basic middle block as done in most Karate schools. It swings from the side and there is no real weight behind it. The correct way to do this block is to shoot it out from the center of the body, which would put structure behind the move.

The examples I have just given you, incidentally, represent the reasons why many classical arts fall apart in the Mixed Martial Arts ring. The artists have been trained to look good, and not to make it work. To make something like Karate work in the MMA, or the UFC, one is going to have to change the whole structure of the thing.

Changing the structure of a martial art, if it makes the art work, is not bad. Unfortunately, many teachers will protest loudly, and one has to wonder why. After all, the fact that an art now works should be good for all.

I suppose what is behind some teacher’s inability to change is the love of the mystery. What is happening is that they don’t understand what they are doing, but they have become convinced that if they just keep doing what they are doing, they will, eventually, understand it. Thus, they become blind to change, and, sadly, to what works.

The good news is that most martial artists I have encountered are not so resistant to change. I show them basic principles from Matrix Martial Arts, for instance, and they embrace the change. Thus, hold to the past only so long as it works, change to the modern when the old fails, and watch the True Martial Arts explode in the dojos of the planet.

Al has 4O years experience and his website is Monster Martial Arts. Go there and pick up a free book on Matrixing, Find Out if Matrixing is for you.

The very first move of Karate, as demonstrated in the first form, called Heian One, or Pinan One is a step to the side with a low block. The fact of the matter, however, is that Karate was not designed for blocking. Yes, there are blocks in the art of Karate, and it can be adapted to blocking and striking, but it was not designed for blocking except by the way.

Karate was designed to guard the king of Okinawa. The Imperial bodyguards were trained to use their art in a room filled with warriors from different countries. Soldiers with different weapons and ways of fighting, while the Okinawans had to remain unarmed.

Thus, would you really use a high block against a samurai sword? Would you try to shunt a bullet aside with a shuto? Because these were the types of weapons that the Okinawan bodyguards had to confront.

Consider also that the first order given to troops in such a situation, if they were to attempt to kidnap the king of Okinawa, would be to restrain the bodyguards. This means that samurai would step forward and grab wrists, perhaps preparatory to tying the hands of the bodyguards, or merely moving them from the throne room, or otherwise controlling them. And this means that the first defense of the bodyguards, as described by the first technique in karate training, would be to step in, dropping the weight and arm, thus escaping from the technique, and possibly head butting those who tried to grab them.

That’s right, an evasion for a wrist hold, then a violent step forward to close with and punch and shove the samurai, or whoever the warriors were. This would disrupt the attackers. This would allow the king to be removed from the throne room.

Now, take a close look at the form. This is the only application that really makes sense. This is the start of what the Okinawans who created Karate-do had in mind.

If the samurai drew a sword, the bodyguard had to close with the samurai. This is the reason for the big steps in the form, to enable the bodyguards to get so close that the samurai couldn’t draw their swords. This explains the moves of forms that have been adapted to block and counter moves that, really, don’t make sense in such a situation.

If a samurai attempted to close with a bodyguard and restrain him, the bodyguard had to break the grip, head butt, then push forward. This is the truth behind the first technique of karate, and this is the start of how the art was designed to work. Thinking about the movements in this manner reveals an art that is true beyond belief, but only if you can put aside the way you were taught and believe in the true art known as karate.

Al Case began his study of karate forty years ago. He has been a writer and columnist for magazines. He uses the science of Matrixing to uncover the Truth about the Martial Arts. Get his free ebook about Matrixing Technology at Monster Martial Arts.