No – Not The Movie…

I have been informed that Grand Master Eizo Shimabukuro will be coming to North America in September of 2008.  This Master karate teacher is a living treasure and has trained 1000’s of students over the course of his life.  He is to be honored for his selfless lifetime of sharing the many virtues of Okinawan karate with his personal students.

Shorin Ryu is the distinct form of karate that Master Shimabukuro is mostly known for although he is a student of almost every (still living in his time) one of the “who’s who” Masters in Okinawan Karate.  Although Master Shimabukuro trained USMC troops in Okinawa for decades, his Shorin Ryu style has become one of the most popular styles of karate on the planet.  His students “by association”, meaning those who have been trained by his students have grown like a brushfire across the globe.  There are probably 10’s of 1000’s of Shorin Ryu students who have never trained with, or met him.  His teachings live on through them and will continue to do so forever.

Master Shimabukuro has an itinerary of stops for his sparse USA/Canada visits.  I have inquired as to his itinerary and if highly regarded Shorin Ryu practitioners would be allowed to train or visit with him during this visit.  The reply hasn’t arrived to date.  Eizo is getting along in years and the barriers are starting to be erected – or so it seems, to enable his many “personal” students to spend time with him.  It would be a rare treat to train in one of his seminars, be they simply oral teachings or physical training and instruction of proper techniques, kata, and weapons.  We’ll post back again if he will be available to Shorin Ryu students who are of his lineage but not personal students.  Keep kicking!

You Don’t Even Have To Be Close!

The new Mace Pepper Spray Gun fires 7 blasts up to 25 feet!  No more worry about the small (but effective) key-ring pepper sprays that shoot a maximum of 8 feet and offer 5 sprays and you’re empty.  This little sweetheart fires 7 blasts continuously before reloading, from the safety of 25 feet away and will fire upside down or from any angle.  The Mace Pepper Gun has a Trigger Activated LED Light to allow you to put some serious light on your attacker and also allows for a better and more effective aim.

Sure, I understand that it isn’t right for hanging on your keychain but why ever let it come to that?  There’s a place for every size and style of defense spray.  Right now, this new creation is the boss!  If you are being attacked in your car or you see someone or even more than one intruder running up on your vehicle for example, you’ll be awfully happy that you’re packing the mace pepper spray gun.  Don’t even let them get their hands on the door handle – open the window and let fly.  Don’t forget you’ve got plenty more where that came from, even if it’s 4 or 5 guys, instead of one.  The high intensity LED light will disorient an assailant and then comes the fire! 

I’ve been stunned by the highest volt model stun guns on the market and although painful, they just last a split second or two unless held against a person’s body.  We’ve found that the body naturally recoils from the stun gun “hit” instinctively but that doesn’t necessarily mean your assailant is out of the game by any means.  Why chance the physical contact?  Men are much larger than a woman and can’t be held in place for 3 -5 seconds of continued bursts from a stun gun, by a woman or even most men for that matter. 

Mace pepper spray, by contrast,  needs only one sold hit and the damage is done.  Send your attacker packing, howling blindly in pain, while you put your car in gear and drive away smiling.  I’ve also been tear-gassed in my good old USMC training, many years ago, shot in the face with my own pepper spray to see how it stacked up (no kidding – honestly) and I will say hands down, that I’d rather take a quick poke of intense, non-lethal electricity delivered from the 900,000+ volt stun guns than a good blast of pepper spray in my face.  You can expect semi-blindness, tears pouring out of the eyes, nose running like a spigot, coughing, burning feeling in the lungs and burning skin that’s so painful, it feels like scalding water was thrown in your face.  It definitely STOPS people and puts them in a condition that makes it easy to get away from them if need be.  Also, it doesn’t wear off for 30 to 45 minutes.  A bucket of water will speed things up but in 1/2 hour, you or your loved one will probably be at home, work, the Police Station but most of all – safe!

What do the cops use to disperse a crowd effectively?  Stun guns?  Tasers?  Nope – they tear gas them and the wildest crowds just fall to pieces.  Take a lesson!

Rejected Romeo Turns Violent

In the parking lot of a Mall in a nearby city, a male employee became enamored with his co-worker, a part time worker who also attended an area Junior College.  Reports came in and at first painted the picture of a couple who were dating before a breakup of their relationship.  The truth is finally out and actually they were not “an item” but rather the young lady in question was constantly being sexually harassed by the male employee, who finally ended up assaulting her by hiding in the back of her car after the Mall closed, in hope of assaulting her without interference from fellow workers or law enforcement officials.

The young lady had to complete an audit of items in her department and was not finished for about 45 minutes after normal working hours.  Of course, everyone working at the store (a  large chain store) knew about the audits but had completed their departments with plenty of time to spare.  Now the young man – 21 yrs. old had often been seen draped on her counter, where she was in charge of selling fine perfumes and other women’s toiletries and had been warned in a friendly manner, to stay away from her department and keep his visiting confined to the lunch room or outside of the store.  Many employees had wrongly gotten the impression that they were flirting with each other, due to the attacker’s constant presence in the woman’s department where the victim worked.  She had in fact, talked to him many times and her polite manner was confused as “having an interest” in him, when nothing could have been further from the truth.

With almost everyone out of the store, about an hour after closing, the security guard opened the door and locked it behind her as she walked out to her car, not waiting for her to get in safely or even escorting her to her car – which would have been the right thing to do.  Workers can’t park up close to the store and are given orders to park in the outer fringe of spaces so that customers could get into the closer spots.  Lighting for this section was inadequate for safety reasons and the assailant, determined to be using alcohol and carrying a pipe with crack residue found inside, used this opportunity to sneak into the back of her car and flatten out to remain hidden, until his target had gotten into the vehicle.  “He wanted me to do horrible things,” she said, “he wanted me to drive him to his apt. to party and have sex with him.”  He told me if ”I didn’t follow along with him, I’d just turn up as another statistic”, she then went into fight or flight mode and attacked him right inside her car, scratching his face and swinging her purse at him, in an attempt to ward him off and send him packing.  He didn’t go and she was badly bruised from the wrist grabbing and the fistfight that ensued.  She was not going quietly she told authorities.  A police cruiser happened along, moving slowly through the parking lot as scheduled, when the Police officer spotted commotion in a vehicle and burned his tires up to the front of her car and turned on his lights and called in for backup.

This one lone policeman may have saved that girl’s life or at the very least saved her from a savage beating and probable rape.  The attacker remains in custody this week awaiting his arraignment which should have been today or tomorrow.  I’ll see it on the news – maybe tonight.  He got what was coming to him but not what he wanted.  I hope they lower the boom on this idiot.

The young lady and victim in this crime, could have saved herself a lot of scratches and bruises if she were better prepared.  If that were my daughter, I’d have equipped her with a super loud personal alarm flashlight, to scope out the interior of the vehicle before getting inside and allowing her to set off the alarm if she spotted an assailant hiding inside.  This criminal, like most, hate attention and apprehension.  At the first sign of a flashlight sweeping inside the car, followed by an alarm that is even higher pitched than a car theft alarm – he would have had both features working against him and probably would have either decamped immediately or made up some lie about his reason for being there.  No physical confrontation would have been needed. 

Another great self defense product for this young lady to have in her hands besides her car keys, would be a canister of Mace Pepper Gel.  This specially formulated blend of Mace which is like a soft and sticky wad of gum is delivered like a stream of “silly string” on steroids!  It has a range of 18 feet – and hit with pinpoint accuracy.  Another great set of features are that – once sprayed it plasters itself onto the attacker like glue.  The more he wipes it away, the more he actually works it deeper into his skin, inflicting more intense pain and burning.  The other cool benefit is that this pepper gel by Mace, allows for no cross contamination, which means you can thoroughly Mace someone in the same room or right in the seat of your car and no invisible particles become airborne and  bother anyone except the target.  It won’t affect the user at all – they remain unaffected as the would-be attacker becomes blinded and suffers a severe burning sensation, blurred or no vision, due to watering eyes and it won’t wear off without washing it off and waiting out the pain.  It’s estimated that the intense burning will wear off in about 30 to 45 minutes.

Guys don’t let your Moms, Sisters, Daughters or loved ones work under similar conditions — leaving at night and in lonely parking lots, without a personal alarm and some Pepper Gel by Mace.  You’ll rest a lot easier if you follow my advice.