Rory Kane Miller

Violence is not a game. Our theater, film, television, internet streaming video, and other media issue an onslaught of ‘action’ and ‘reality’ shows depicting mayhem and murder, ad nauseam, yet such is not to be confused with violence. Rory Miller, assures the reader of his Meditations on Violence ; A Comparison of Martial Arts Training and Real World Violence (Boston, MA : YMAA Publications Center, 2008, list $18.95) that violence between humans, one attacker or predator the other show more defender or victim, will be fast, hard, close, and with surprise (p. 117). All else is posturing: the monkey dance between two males, the group monkey dance (the pack or crowd), as Miller terms the behaviors of (mostly) males who are either showing off, saving face, or telegraphing intent with an ‘I’m going to kick your ass’ bravado. Even seasoned practitioners of the martial arts, the ‘priests of Mars’ have had little experience with close-in, surprise-attack violence. Miller, a penal corrections officer, martial artist, with years of training in search and rescue, emergency medical technical training, and other related subjects, hopes to change this by preparing all who read his book for countering violence when it occurs.

Violence is complex. Chapter 1 presents a three-by four box “tactical matrix” giving 12 possible situations arising from two variables, Awareness and Injury: Surprised / Alerted / Mutual / Attacking aligned horizontally with No Injury / Injury / Lethality vertically. Miller then asks rhetorically where in the matrix’s 12 intersections a martial artist would apply a particular martial technique, for example, the bare-hand back fist or side kick of Karate. The point is that to work from technique to situation is backwards. The complexity matrix grows exponentially when one introduces multiple players and objectives. The several goals of the martial arts themselves – self-defense, sport competition, physically fitness, spiritual insight -- make for complexity, not to mention introduction of multiple players (or attackers). Focus on self-defense is Miller’s objective. “Self defense is about recovery. The ideal is to prevent the situation. The optimal mindset is often a conditioned response that requires no thought . . .” (p. 8)

Violence for most is unknown. Miller’s second chapter, ‘How to Think’ examines assumptions about violence, what constitutes a ‘fight’ and what defines a ‘win’. Experience is the best teacher for Miller. Reason and tradition pale in comparison. After review of the relationship between objectives, strategies, tactics, and techniques, Miller provides an example of ‘thinking in the moment’ (p. 36) when undergoing a sudden violent attack. This is the ‘OODA’ loop, acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, derived from a military decision making model. Example is of one seeing (observing) a fist, realizing (orienting) the fist is punching toward you, deciding whether to block or duck, acting to duck. Problem with the OODA loop is the attacker is at step four which triggers defender’s step one. In Miller’s judgment, those who do well in ambush attacks eliminate OODA’s middle stages. Instead of orienting and deciding – take too much time – the new loop is ‘observe; act’, which means countering an attack with partial information and one “automatic reflex response.” (p. 38)

Miller’s chapters on ‘Violence’ and ‘ Predators’ review types of violence (mostly over status or image, or to gain resources) and types of criminals (first-timers who have mad e a mistake, hustlers who work the ‘system’ in prison and out, and predators for whom prison is just another pool of victims. In this context, Miller discusses the ‘chemical cocktail’ or what happens when the human body undergoes extreme stress when threatened with harm and injury, when assaulted in reality. Training and experience in martial arts is one thing; an assault is altogether something else. Shooters miss intended targets less than two yards away two out of three shots; three to seven yards away, four out of five shots. (p. 58) When under stress, technique suffers. What happens to the body is reduction of peripheral vision and hearing, blood leaves legs and arms, fingers and toes and pools in internal organs, fine motor skills and coordination are thrown out of sync. Additionally, the mind distorts perception of time and spatial distances and memory will fade or even entertain irrelevant thoughts and images. Point is when attacked, even when one is an experienced martial artist, the body will not respond as sharply as it does in a normal competitive environment. In fact, the uninitiated when attacked and in fear of their lives normally respond better than a trained fighter because such response is truly gut-level ‘flailing’. Miller adapts this ‘chemical cocktail’ phenomenon under extreme stress to his time-fear matrix: no time and scared versus no time and terrified; and some time and scared versus some time and terrified (p. 67). Point is when under attack you must fight the deer-in-the-headlights ‘freeze’ – not getting away, not fighting back. This is emphasized repeatedly throughout Meditations (see Index entry (p. 177) ‘freezing’, pp. 8, 11-12, 38-39, 46-47, 57, 59-62, 65, 67, 69-70, 72, 122). Most important!

Training to fight and fighting are different. To approximate ‘breaking’ people means slow, repetitive movements, pulling punches, my-turn/your-turn exchanges, sparring, gloved fists – all of which concern safety – and absent in an ambush. To respond effectively to the fast, hard, close-in, surprise attack, Miller advises learning to fight back from a position of disadvantage (blindfolded, face down, etc.); to ‘flip’ the emotional switch from ‘friendly’ to attack mode, to get used to being touched, even slapped, on the face. (p. 118) Most of all, never give up. The rest of Meditations concerns techniques for fighting back and dealing with the psychological post-traumatic stress of violence. One of the most important points Miller makes in his meditation on violence is that fighting is the least likely to affect one’s survival in a sudden, surprise assault: “It’s better to avoid than to run; better to run than to de-escalate; better to de-escalate than to fight; better to fight than to die.” (p. 84) This is a book for realists who will avoid fighting but want to be ready when one comes.

Personal note. My brother Bill, a Vietnam Veteran and retired fire fighter and Coast Guardsman, was shot with a handgun at close range this past July in a rural part of North Carolina. In our discussion about the event after his discharge from the hospital, he told me his first thought after being hit in the abdomen was ‘why did he shoot me?’ But he did not freeze in front of the assailant. In fact, he cinched his belt feeling the evisceration of his bowels, and ran away – ran low to the ground and weaving side to side and for at least a hundred yards and then got into the underbrush by the roadside. He survived by running away and he attributes this to training at Quantico for boarding freighters on the high seas. Training does work, but the reality of violence remains in a category by itself. show less

Over 350 years ago, Miyamoto Musashi finished the Book of Five Rings. It is a standard on the shelf of Martial Artists throughout the world. Sgt. Rory Miller's book should be sitting right next to it.

In an era where manuals on self defense are usually little more than picture books, Sgt. Miller shines. There are no "what to do if" scenarios. What the book does have is one man's experience with personal violence, and that experience is extensive. He goes over the different causes and types show more of violence and the people that instigate it. He breaks down and breaks through the expectations brought about by movies, television and yes, your martial arts instructors.

What Sgt. Miller also does very well is describe how training in the classroom or dojo could be altered to better reflect an actual situation. There is in depth discussion on that most important topic: How not to be a victim.

There is not a doubt in my mind that this book will save lives. Buy it, study it thoroughly, and take it to heart. show less

This book opens with a forward which begins with a diatribe about bridging the gap between fantasy and reality--between what exists in novels, and what exists in real life. I'm a writer, and so it was this particular goal that attracted me to this book, a description of something I know little about--violence between adults in real-life situations, outside of the dojo, off the movie screen, out of the book. I got this as a reference for when I do have those violent scenes to write, but don't show more know enough to write them realistically. You see I write horror, fantasy, and science fiction. While fantasy and science fiction fight scenes are relatively easy to write--I make the rules in my own universes--my horror is largely based on the universe that exists, the real universe, and on evoking real horror in the readers, so the violence must not come off as fantasy.

I think this book serves this purpose well, bridging the gap between fantasy and reality, though clearly he and I lie on different sides of that divide. I'm not a martial artist, but I've known a few, and I think that this is a book that would interest anyone looking to bring their academic studies out of academia and be capable of applying them in real-life situations if necessary, and I highly recommend it both as a reality check for writers, and as a tool for real-life fighters. show less

I thought this was a fascinating, honest, and thoughtful book. As a recent student of martial arts, I have always been afraid that if I really devoted myself to the art, I would unlearn some good self-defense habits I had spent much of my life internalizing so as not to forget them when I was really in danger. A friend of mine suggested I read Meditations to get some better understanding of some of the differences between violence in real life and the artful violence of sparring and show more practice. Miller is very clear about survival and thought process, and explains some of the changes that happen to a person when s/he is in danger - and how to start to combat those to maximize your chances of survival in the worst situations. If you are curious about how the brain works in different situations, or want a non-apologetic look at violence and how it might arise and how it might feel, or if you enjoy reading books by thoughtful people, I would recommend giving this one a try. show less