Meditations on Violence

Rory Miller, a martial artist and veteran correction officer, sets the expectations students bring to the dojo against the violence that martial arts were built to handle. He draws on jailhouse brawls, tactical operations, ambushes and thousands of hours spent with criminals. Early sections cover the myths and metaphors of training, how to judge sources of knowledge, and the difference between strategy and tactics. Miller then examines types of violence, adrenaline, criminal thinking, and fighting under drugs or altered states. Later sections weigh old and modern training, read early Japanese kata as a form of military training, and place self-defense in a wider context. The aftermath of surviving violence gets its own section, with advice for supervisors and instructors.

Writer and designer Kaci Lambe Kai, who is training to become a Krav Maga instructor, studies it as part of her work on self-defense.