Ng was dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 1980, for theft of heavy weaponry, and served only 2 years of a 14-year sentence, after which release, he met Leonard Lake, and the two began kidnapping, raping, barbarically torturing and murdering anywhere from 11 to 25 men, women and children. Every single body found on Lake’s property in 1985 showed signs of rape and torture, even infants. The two men filmed home videos of themselves committing these crimes, and the videos still exist as private property of the State of California, which will not release them to the public.

Among the reports from the courtroom, Ng and Lake filmed each other clubbing victims, male and female, adults and children, with homemade spiked bats, chaining them to tables and sawing their limbs off, raping them before and after, and forcing them to watch their family members receive such tortures. Lake took cyanide when captured. Ng fled to Calgary, Canada, where he was arrested and fought extradition back to the U. S. for 6 years, before losing, being tried and convicted of 12 counts of murder and multiple other charges, and being sentenced to death in 1998. The trial cost $4 million. Ng and his lawyers are still appealing all verdicts, regardless of the home videos he and Lake made, which were shown as evidence against him. The total cost for his legal proceedings has reached $20 million.

Keep it real and stay safe.

This is a excerpt from an article found in Cosmo. Magazine.

Habits That Help

Rape is a crime that occurs because of the offender’s predatory behavior, and you can never protect yourself one hundred percent from becoming a target. But every woman should make sure her day-to-day behavior isn’t putting her at a higher risk.

Since it’s often the consistency of a target’s habits that gives a determined predator his cues, try occasionally to vary the path you take to and from work (stick to a few routes you know well). This way, a predator can’t assume that you always get home at a specific time.

To protect against home-invasion rapists, something as simple as locking your doors and windows, including your garage door, even when you are in your home can make a big difference. It sounds obvious, but predators scout in advance for women who leave doors unlocked while running errands and watch to see if you enter your home without a key. Speaking of windows, make sure all of yours are securely covered by curtains or shades at night. Exposed windows broadcast whether you are alone and when you go to sleep.

These serial assailants search for that brief moment of vulnerability when you are by yourself and distracted or off in your own world. In the 1990s, a serial rapist stalked Manhattan’s usually safe Upper East Side, attacking more than 18 women in their 20s and 30s, usually between 1 and 4 a.m., as they entered their brownstone buildings.

My team in the prosecutor’s office at the time theorized that he counted on his victims being tired at that hour and he knew some were off guard because they had been drinking. He still has not been caught.

If you’re in a similar situation, instead of heading home alone, ask a friend if you can stay with her or take a taxi together. Presenting yourself as alert, aware, and able to call for help quickly will make you appear more empowered and less like a woman to target.

Here is the link for the whole article.

Keep it real and stay safe.

In this video Joshua describes how to build an early alert system out of a stick and cans (and when necessary, string) if you find yourself needing to stay in an abandoned house or building in an emergency situation.

For a complete write up on this and other safety tips for staying in an abandoned building or house read his article in Survival Quarterly Magazine Volume 2 Issue 2. You can find out more about Survival Quarterly Magazine at www.SurvivalQ.com.

Prepping has become quite popular these days with a lot of people. T.V. shows, radio, Podcasts and of course the sales of these items. I have recently began my quest on prepping, still pretty new to the game. Everyone “preps” for different reasons, Economic collapse, Government take over and of course Zombies just to name a few. Are these people crazy? Well lets tone it down a notch. Maybe your not the End of the World prepper, but lets take a look at some good reasons to prep ( I’m not saying these fore mentioned reasons aren’t good reasons ). I’m also using the mindset that everyone preps in some way shape or form. Example: Using your seat belt, you don’t get in an accident every time you’re in the car,but yet we still prep for it, Fire drills at school, same thing and so on. Okay with that said, how about a Fire drill at home. Do you do it? You should “Prep”. Does everyone in the house know what to do? Do you have a safe spot to go to outside of the home? You should “Prep”. Having a “Bug out Bag” prepped doesn’t have to be for the End of the World, if there is a Fire in the home, how about some extra shoe’s, change of clothes, warm clothes if you live in cold climate, extra set of keys for the vehicles for shelter if you need it? Have you stored your B.O.B. outside of the home? It doesn’t do much good if you can’t grab it. This is just one scenario to prep. How about,
Home invasion,
Car stranded in the middle of no where,
Are you prepped at work for different scenarios?
Nothing wrong with prepping Financials.
So one doesn’t have to be the extreme “Prepper” for the End, there are many reasons to Prep. Pick your reason and be prepared.

Keep it real and stay safe.

Hello all, this is Coach Joshua. This just happened to me today and I just wanted to send out a quick warning. I just got an automated call from “Card Services” telling me that they were going to lower my interest rates. One of my cards does use “Card Services” when they contact me so I thought it was legit and pressed 1 to be connected to a human being. So I get a lady who proceeds to tell me that they are going to lower my interest rates on all of my cards, Visa, MasterCard, etc. So I start to wonder, how are you going to lower interest rates for cards with two different banks? “Who is this?” I asked. “Card Services, we’re going to lower your interest rates.” she replied.

So then she says “I need to know that you still have the card and didn’t cut it up or anything, so I just need you to verify the expiration date.” So I said “For which card? I’ll tell you what, you tell me the expiration date and I’ll tell you if that’s it.” So she asked “for which card?” And I replied “Exactly. You never told me which card either. So why don’t you tell me which card you wanted the expiration date for and what it is and I’ll tell you if it’s correct.” So she said “The Visa card, it expires in 2014. We just need to verify that you still have the card. So please verify the expiration date” So I told her, “yes it expires in 2014 and I still have the card, I’m looking at it right now.” So she tells me the first four digits of my card and asks me to verify and I told her that they were correct. So then she says she needs me to read off the whole card number to verify it. I told her “Not gonna happen.” So then she asks “If you’re not interested then why did you stay on the phone? Just to waste my time?” So I replied, “Thank you, good bye.” And that was the end of that.

There was a little more back and forth during the conversation but it was just more of the “Who is this? And why do you need me to give you my information?” type back and forth, so I condensed a longer conversation for quicker and easier reading. But you get the idea.

If somebody calls you wanting you to give them your credit card number, or any information from your credit card, bank account, social security number, etc. don’t give it to them. If they want you to repeat it to verify it, let them know that they called you not the other way around. If any verifying is going to be taking place, they can tell YOU what it is and YOU can verify it. If they start to try and bully you into giving them your info, hang up.

Con men (or “Confidence Men”) have been around for a long time and are very good at gaining the confidence of honest, trusting people and then separating them from their hard earned cash or belongings. Always be wary when people ask you for any kind of personal or account information, just because they sound official doesn’t mean they are. And remember this, if they are calling from your Credit Card Company or bank, they shouldn’t need you to tell them any pertinent account information, they should already have that. If they insist that they are your creditor or bank, then let them know you will call them back and give them the information and call them back using the number on the back of your card, or the number on your banks business card or letterhead. If they really are who they say they are, they won’t have a problem with you being secure with your information, it’s important to them too.

Keep it real and stay safe.

While I understand the need for a ranking system in the traditional martial arts, allowing an instructor to know where each student is in their training, I think sometimes it might be a little misunderstood. As a society we are all about instant gratification; we want our meal now, if we buy something online we want it here tomorrow and when we train we want accolades now. The problem we can run into with this, is that we lose focus on the why and put all of our focus in the when. If your intent is only to get to the next belt or grade, then you will only focus on the belt and any of the knowledge you could be learning will mean nothing to you. It’s like the age old joke “I have a black belt!” If your entire defensive plan is predicated on your belt level then your focus is in the wrong place. Any time you decide to train in any discipline it is important that you focus more on the training itself and don’t worry so much about the belt achievements. If you focus on the training, the level promotions will happen by themselves, but if your focus is on the promotions you will be sadly disappointed when you really need the skills only to find out that the belt isn’t going to defend you from anything.

In this video, Coach Kenny continues on “Angles of Attack: Training for Zone Defense” and uses a cane to demonstrate a two handed defense utilizing the angles of attack. Remember, this will work with just about any long object like a pool cue, etc that you can improvise into a weapon. Once you are done and have opened an avenue of escape, take off. No reason to stick around and see what other options your attacker has brought with him.

Hey crew as the holiday season grows near there are many excuses to not train right? Too busy, too much food and drink etc. You should ask your self do the bad guys take the holiday off? I expect not in fact, shopping and eating out go along with the holidays, which could make your situation more vulnerable. There are so many reasons to keep your guard up this time of year, way more than the excuses no too. Enjoy your family time and eat great food, but keep on training. The bad guys still do muggings, car jack, and invade homes. Besides do want to give up all the gains you’ve made and get rusty, because you’ve decided your feeling too lazy.TRAIN, TRAIN, TRAIN.

Keep it real and stay safe.

A little different than our instructional or review videos, this video is just for fun. In this video Coach Joshua takes you on a trip to the semi-annual Machine Gun Shoot in Knob Creek Kentucky. This is how the big boys do it and it was absolutely outstanding.

Joseph Edward Duncan III watched and stalked the Groene-Mckenzie home and family for days, planning his dreadful deed. Duncan entered the home duct taped and zip tied the Mother, 13 yr. old son and Boyfriend. He bludgeoned these three victims with a claw hammer. He also kidnapped the 8 yr. old Daughter Shasta and 9 yr. old son Dylan. He held them for weeks in a secluded campsite repeatedly rapeing and torturing both children. Weeks later Duncan was spotted with Shasta at a Denny’s, after his capture and with Shasta’s recollection of very good details they found Dylan’s body. He has been shot to death and the body burned. The police then put together the pieces of who Duncan was, he had a long history of sexual assault and murder. He was in and out of Juvy and Jail.
The cops found themselves wondering why Duncan had ever been released from prison. He was clearly an example of a habitual offender who had managed to slip through the cracks of the system.

I have said many times”it’s not what you train it’s how you train it”. We all know if you want to improve a technique that repetition is the key. We know that to enforce into muscle memory that repetition is the key. This same concept can also be bad for you depending on how your training. I have noticed even in myself many many times that I’m being a bad ‘BAD GUY”. What I’m saying is if you train in a system that teaches a specific Reaction for a Specific action not using resistance or aliveness then you could be training yourself to be compliant. Yes I know there could be a pain factor or injury factor because your system is “Too Deadly” to train like that, but please keep an open mind. Example: Bad Guy grabs Good Guy’s wrist, Good Guy then puts an awesome lock on the Bad Guy, down goes Bad Guy screaming like a girl. Whoo Hoo! Good Guy way to go. Lets break this down a bit, for as many times as I’ve trained to be the Good Guy I have also trained to be the Compliant Bad Guy, which is bad for our training. We need to keep in mind that the “Real Bad Guy” isn’t going to be compliant and therefore don’t train yourself to be compliant.

I have noticed myself doing these things in my own training and even in some of my vids. We are all in a constant evolution of training and sometimes we need to go back and remind and refresh what we are doing.

Keep it real and stay safe.

In this video Coach Joshua demonstrates using the ATAX in a close quarters situation vs a rifle.

This is our latest video review, reviewing the Dog Tag Knife by A.R.S. Knives (http://www.lastditchblade.com). In this video, Coach Joshua demonstrates building an expedient urban survival shelter using the Dog Tag Knife. As you watch the video please note that in a real situation you should build the shelter next to the wall. In this video I built it out away from the wall for better viewing.

This is our latest video review, reviewing the Shanghai Shank by A.R.S. Knives (http://www.lastditchblade.com). In this video, Coach Kenny covers the excellent aspects of this knife along with some different carry options and presentation in a combative situation.

I have heard time and time again that during an aggressive conflict watch the eyes, because if you watch his eyes you’ll know where he is going to strike next. I’m sorry, but I have to disagree. His eyes are darting all over the place; you’re not going to be able to get anything from that. Not to mention, if I’m looking at his eyes way at the top of his body, I can’t see anything lower down towards the bottom of his body. I want to see everything.

I will often look towards the center of his torso. This way I can see his head, both hands and both feet, there won’t be any surprises. But even then, it’s not like I just pick a spot and stare at it; my eyes are moving around too, checking every movement and scanning for targets and opportunities to enter. The torso is just a good focal point where I can see everything if nothing is happening at the moment (and don’t expect that to last for too long either).

Also, by watching the torso, I can be looking for tell-tale signs of a weapon. If his arm is straight down to his side, but his hand is tucked slightly behind his thigh, he probably has a knife and is getting ready to start jacking me. Or, if I see his hand come straight up his side to his hip, then he is getting ready to draw something like a knife or gun. I want to know this immediately so I can do whatever I can to foul his draw. If I’m looking at his eyes I may not see that movement. And believe me, he can draw without having to look, offering me no indicator if I’m staring at his eyes.

The eyes can be good indicators of an attack, which I will write about in another blog. But don’t focus so much on them that they distract you from the real threats; hands, feet and potential weapons.

Keep it real and stay safe.