My Top Book Recommendation, Meditations on Violence

Today I want to share with you an answer to a question I get asked a lot; can I recommend a book that would help immerse myself into the study of self-defense and personal protection?

Oftentimes I might get asked by a parent who doesn't want to get himself involved in martial arts. Whether they don't have the time or the interest, but they still want to be able to equip their self, armed with good information, so that they can pass that information onto their children.

They can help strengthen their children, give them a better understanding of personal protection and safety, as well as family protection.

One of the books that I couldn't recommend more, whether you're a martial artist or not, is the book by Rory Miller called Meditations on Violence.

This book, for me, it was life changing.

I've been doing martial arts almost all of my life. I've been teaching martial arts pretty much my entire adult life. I know it pretty well.

What I can tell you is that this book will shatter most misconceptions that you have about violence, about understanding fighting. A lot of times if you were to say,

"Oh, I want to take my kids to a martial arts school because I want them to learn how to stick up for him or herself, or I want to learn how to fight, I want to get some skills or that won't work in the street."

Or any of these different paradigms and ideas and concepts.

This book is going to super align them, to truly look into the mind and the actions of a predator, and anybody who is going to potentially target your child, why are they going to target your child. What is it that your child is doing to motivate them to target your child?

The author Rory Miller has not only been involved in teaching and training use of force programs to military law enforcement all over the world, but he was also in corrections for his career, and he has a lot of authority when it comes to speaking on this topic.

As well, he's a martial artist. He talks very clearly about his experience and thoughts on martial arts, so he is able to look at this with a very holistic perspective.

So once again, the book is Meditations on Violence, couldn't recommend it more.

If you're interested in the topic, the life cycle of violence, realities of violence, being able to go beyond a lot of popular myths and misunderstandings about violence...  Then this is the book for you.

In fact, if you're a martial artist, I would say this is mandatory reading. It's mandatory reading for all my adult students.  So Meditations on Violence by Rory Miller, a Comparison of Martial Arts Training and Real World Violence. Highly, highly recommended.