Blog
Surviving is winning
What is it about Senshido? Hi everyone. I’m Derek – all-round nice guy, 46-year-old father of two girls, loving husband with an enjoyable job, gentle, sensitive and with a keen interest in reading and writing, particularly history – oh yeah – and I’m mad about motorbikes. I love good food, a few pints, conversation, nature, and being a dad. I hate violence, but in fairness, loving history means that I’ve spent decades reading about it one way or another. The point is this: when asked to write a piece about Senshido, I can only truly explain it from my own […]
Read MoreIdentify your attacker, the A to J method.
‘The A to J Method’ Scrolling through the week’s newspapers today, I came across an article written about a recent spate of attacks in the South Dublin area. The article broadly states the following: The Irish police force – an Garda Síochana – have issued a warning to people in the area to be vigilant due to the increase in such attacks over the past few weeks. Both men, and women, have been targeted. In one case a knife was held to the throat of one of the victims while he was relieved of his possessions. As we Senshido instructors […]
Read MoreVerbal Diffusion-Derek’s perspective
De-escalation – its importance – and why it’s a bastard to get to grips with. A lot of people who read this will, I am sure, agree that avoidance is a lot less messy in the grand scheme of things than getting dragged into the sort of shit we ultimately have very little control over. But we’re all human, and we all see red when the right buttons get pushed. I’m a nice guy. I mean no harm to fucking anyone and I like people, but when some big smarmy looking fuck nearly runs me and my motorbike off the […]
Read MoreAwareness, do you practice what you preach?
My Belgium brother Eric Lemaire once told me: “Self-defence, in a nutshell, boils down to three things: Who you are, Where you are, and 0 What you are doing there”. The more I thought about this, the more sense it makes. Let’s explore this statement for a minute: Let us introduce our imaginary friend Joe Bloggs and use him as an example: Joe Bloggs works as a Nightclub door supervisor. While technically the same person, on-the-job Joe is different than sitting-at-home-with-his-elderly-father Joe, and again different from chilling-by-a-pool-with-a-cocktail-in-hand Joe. Why is Joe Bloggs different every time? Simple: his awareness levels vary […]
Read MoreEDCS (NON FIREARM) AND ALL THE CRAP FLOATING AROUND THIS.
We love our toys, I’m the first… how we love to show our friends the new “emerson” we carry. Looks great clipped on ready to go. Some of you might have other toys. Why not? It’s easy to sell instructionals/manuals/workshops and more… Man does it look good when the guy draws in one fluid motion and starts to thrust slash backcut the “invisible” foe in front of him…. One thing you have to grasp. The limitations of carrying an EDC/s : Here’s a few facts to consider: 1. Most people have a limited amount of time available to training. That […]
Read MoreThe most common modern-day attack:
Upon reading the title, one might conjure a vision of a new breed of MMA-trained bad guys, terrorists using Kalashnikovs and suicide vests. Truth is that, while those are (sadly) becoming common occurrences, monetary crimes are still king (and I am not talking about being held up at an ATM by a gun-toting criminal nor mugged in a dark alley by some junkie needing cash for his fix). While Personal Protection is an umbrella approach to self-defence, coving all aspects of Violence, how many of us really take the time to improve online safety? Someone once told me that Senshido, […]
Read MoreOnline Safety – Private is exactly that, Private!
Private is exactly that, Private! In the world outside of social media, the real world, we automatically limit the information we give out in conversation by how well we know the recipient. We treat our personal Information on a need to know basis, does the world really need to know what time I go to the gym, when I’m going on holidays with my family? Of course not, so I don’t divulge such Information. We have all heard the stories of people posting on social media sites that they are off on holidays for a couple of weeks, even checking in […]
Read MoreBOOK REVIEW… “THE PSYCHOPATH WHISPERER, THE SCIENCE OF THOSE WITHOUT CONSCIENCE”
Great little book summarising the works of Dr Kiehl on Psychopaths. In short, he has found that PSPTHs have “defective” (my terminology) brains and those defects are observable on EEGs and fMRIs (Functional MRIs… they produce images of your brain as it performs tasks). In other words you are born a psychopath. Sociopaths are made, not to be confused. The subjects, in the study, had to be interviewed on their past, their crimes and answer a test designed by Dr Hare (an authority on the study of psychopaths), where your answers (20 0f them) are scored 0,1,2 and based on […]
Read MoreNetworking hahahahahaha
Nothing against building contacts. But really… I never gave a flying fuck on a rolling donut what my “peers” think about what I do. I never needed anyone’s approval besides my clients. We, in the early days, looked forward. We developed and could not care less what others did or not do or said or not say. I always felt it gave me total teaching freedom. No rent, never had to buy expensive equipement, never marketed (nothing wrong with it) and left my clients happy and empowered. That simple, all I cared about. What I teach now is different than […]
Read MoreWhy should I do classes on top of seminars?
Because at seminars you barely scratch the top of senshido. You can take 75 of them, you will have made yourself a huge favor by increasing your survivability dramatically. Periodical semis are the best for people that don’t or won’t train on a regular basis. Semis don’t make you a senshido apprentice or certainly not an instructor (Laughable). Doing a senshido class on a regular basis will however change a lot. When I see a clip of “innocent victim vs evil michelin man” the people participating are doing a great job (no sarcasm)… But most of the clips end with […]
Read MoreEgo, Dereks perspective.
Derek Molyneux is no stranger to the world of martial arts. Derek has been training for almost 10 years now. Derek ran a successful business until turning his talents to writing amongst other things, he is the co. Author of the best selling “When the clock struck in 1916” a story of hand to hand combat on the streets of Dublin during the historical 1916 rebellion. In fact, it was an incident which occurred while running his business which started Derek on his journey to find Senshido. Deconstructing the ego has always been a big part of Senshido. Derek is a Senshido […]
Read MoreReality Check: Cathy’s Perspective
Cathy stands a little over 5 feet tall. A mother of two in her early thirties, and dedicated martial artist with a background in Ninjutsu (With a little Krav Maga thrown in for good measure), she thought she had found the path to true and tested self-defence. Thankfully for Cathy, her reality check occurred not in some dark alley, but during a Senshido training class: I’ll never forget the night I had my “reality check”: It was a follow up class to a Senshido seminar and I had been looking forward to it all week. I love self-defense lessons […]
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