Q&A: Abuse and Training

I read something about coaches hitting or dragging athletes around when they make mistakes. Some see this as abuse and others as standard that produces winners. But this reminded me of the post about abusive teachers not being very effective. Any thoughts? Where is the line? Is it different or the same for sports? Should athletes or martial arts students tolerate what might be considered abuse because they want to be there or is there a line they should look for between conditioning and abuse?

The line is when it transitions from conditioning to abuse. What you’re describing? That’s abuse.

The line is consent. You go to someone; say, “I need to get better at this, push me.” That’s the road to conditioning. That’s training. You’re consenting, you’re signing up, and you’re asking someone to push you until you can do things you didn’t believe were possible.

In a lot of ways, Martial Arts training is all about this. It’s asking someone to help you push yourself past the illusory boundaries you believed were real.

Also, important to understand, this requires mutual trust. You’re trusting your instructor that they have your best interests at heart, and that they know what they’re doing. They trust you to give your all, and that you’re trying to improve.

This relationship is a two-way street. It’s not a relationship of equals, but you are working with your instructor to improve.

This is also true of coaches. A good coach is there to talk you through. To teach you about the game you’re playing. To guide. To help you learn. To push you. Because that’s why you’re there.

There’s a simple truth, personal growth is uncomfortable. Sometimes it hurts. It requires you to do things you don’t want to. A good coach, or instructor, will put a path in front of you and tell you to go. To push you. While also paying attention to ensure you don’t harm yourself in the process. It’s the goal you’ve set in front of yourself, and telling you how to get there. They’re there to help you get there safely.

An abuser doesn’t care what you want. Their goals are what’s important. There’s no two way street. You do what they say or else. Your well being is, at best, an afterthought. They may tell themselves that they get results, that they’re providing a necessary lesson. Tough love. But, in the end, you’re not working together, they’re just working you over until you do what they say, or you break. At best, you might get somewhere in the vicinity of where you wanted to be unharmed. More likely, you’ll be wounded (emotionally or physically) along the way. Your safety wasn’t a consideration, just the end abuser’s goal.

Physical abuse, like you’re describing, happens, but it’s somewhat rare. Emotional abuse is far more common and insidious. Again, it’s not cooperative. The difference is just whether the experience is physically or emotionally painful. Ironically, this is the easier of the two to recognize subjectively. If you have an instructor or coach that makes you feel like shit, who is pressuring you and using your connection to your teammates to push you past your established physical limits, that’s emotional abuse.

The worst part is this transition can happen after consent is given. You can ask for a push, and the instructor turns around and pounds on you. This doesn’t really change the line. You trusted them, and they violated it. Unfortunately, for many, the realization that something’s amiss only happens when a serious harm occurs. The lesser injuries, stresses, and psychological strain, tend to get missed.

The thing about abusive teachers is, they’re not effective. I can say that from personal experience. I had a swim instructor nearly kill me when I was younger. All I learned was to stay the hell away from swimming pools.

Abusive methods can result in short term behavioral changes. That is to say, yes, you can pound on someone to, maybe, make them do what you want right now. But, it comes with steep long-term costs. Anyone who says that abuse builds character, or toughens people up is coming out of a position where they really do not care about the well being of their charges.

Not everyone who’s abused realizes it. Depending on your background, this is one of those incredibly counter-intuitive statements. Someone who thinks that coming away from a lesson or training feeling wounded may legitimately believe that’s normal. That everyone feels that. If they’re still getting some value out of their training, they may even believe that this is the way things should be. This is where a lot of abusive coaches and instructors come from. They went through this kind of hazing, so they believe it must be necessary.

The hard part about this is, there’s a gray area which is entirely subjective. It’s abusive if the behavior is harmful, but not abusive, if both participants can build from it. As with a lot of social interactions, context is key.



Q&A: Handgun Accomidations

How can my character who is missing a thumb use a handgun? Can some kind of handicap device to built? Or would you recommend using their non dominant hand that does have a thumb?

So, this kinda depends on a couple things. In general, the first suggestion would be to learn to shoot off hand. It’s easier, and you don’t lose much accuracy with practice.

Normally, first metacarpis creates a natural resting point for a handgun grip (and most firearms), allowing the weapon to transfer recoil into the user. If your character is completely missing their thumb (as in all three bones are missing), this resting point will be absent, and without some kind of careful accommodation (such as a completely custom grip, or surgery), it would probably be impossible to control recoil.

If the thumb had been lost as the result of trauma, it’s likely that the first metacarpal would still be intact, meaning their grip would be less secure, but recoil would be manageable. Again, using the off hand would probably be preferable, but it would be possible for them to use a firearm with the thumbless hand.

There’s an additional consideration here. Some firearms are not designed to be used in the left hand. This isn’t a unique issue for your character. How ambidextrous friendly a handgun is varies by the individual models, sometimes even within different generations of the same gun.

Generally speaking, there’s three tiers of ambidexterity in handguns. Firearms that cannot be reversed at all, ones that are normally ambidextrous, or mostly ambidextrous, and ones that can be easily converted depending on the hand.

What this means for you is, you may need to check the specific firearm you’re thinking of.

The issues to look at on a handgun are the grip, magazine release, slide release, and safety.

Asymmetric grips are a little unusual in handguns. They’re more common with sporting rifles. In cases like this, you’d need an entirely separate replacement grip to fit the off hand. In a few rare cases, it may not be possible to replace the grip at all.

Asymmetric magazine releases are more common. This includes things like the 1911, Glocks, Beretta 92, and some SIGs. These use a simple push button magazine release, which is mounted at the bottom of the trigger guard. It’s easily accessible with your thumb, while holding the firearm with your right hand. However, depending on your grip in your off hand, you may need to adjust the pistol significantly to kick the magazine out when holding the gun left handed.

Additionally, because these magazine releases rest under the middle finger while holding the gun with the left hand, it’s possible to accidentally drop the magazine when firing, due to recoil on some models, for some shooters.

There are several, semi-common, magazine release methods that are ambidextrous. A pair of levers located in line with the trigger guard, which can be pressed down to release the mag. Sometimes, instead of a single push button, there will be one on either side of the frame. These usually will work if either button is pressed. Finally, an older style is a simple mechanical catch at the base of the grip which holds the magazine in place. Pressing this back will allow the user to reload. This last variation poses a unique challenge to your character, because, you press the catch back with your thumb, then pull down on the magazine with one of your other fingers, without a thumb, it would be significantly harder to reload a firearm that uses this style of magazine release.

To be fair, reloading may pose a unique challenge to your character, as you use your thumb to manipulate the magazine. This might be less significant if they’re simply discarding partial and spent magazines, but that’s expensive.

The slide release is a lever or button which will allow the slide to close after it’s been locked open. Usually, it will lock open after cycling with an empty magazine. This significantly speeds up reloading on an empty firearm, and provides useful information to the user that the gun is dry. In many cases, this is mounted along the slide, and can be accessed by depressing it with your thumb. However, if you’re holding the firearm in your left hand, you may need to reach over the slide to close it and cycle the first round into battery.

Swapping the slide release over to the opposite side is sometimes possible, but requires the user to replace the slide, and release lever in most cases. Now, some manufacturers do release entire kits, or mirrored versions of their pistols for left handed shooters. Though, fully mirrored weapons are something of an oddity.

It’s also worth noting that, replacing the slide will sometimes also reverse the ejection port. This isn’t a huge thing most of the time, but can make the gun more comfortable for a left-handed shooter, as the brass will be ejected away from their face rather than towards it.

Also, as a bit of random trivia: Many first person shooters feature reversed ejection ports on their firearms, so that the gun ejects brass in front of the user. There’s no technical reason for this, it’s done to make the gun more mechanically interesting when fired.

Ambidextrous safeties are more common, but it’s entirely possible a left-handed shooter will have to reach over the weapon to adjust these controls.

Now, I’ve been saying left-handed, on the assumption that your character is right handed. If your character is left handed, it will probably be easier for them to operate a firearm with their right hand, and stabilize with their left. Reloading would still be a challenge, however, simply because of the size, and weight of the magazines.

So, it depends on the exact condition of your character’s hand. If they’re right handed, and only missing a digit or two from their thumb, it might still be easier to use it in that hand. If they’re left handed, firing right-handed is probably the way to go. If they’re right handed, and the thumb is completely missing, down to the wrist, then the left hand is probably the way to go. Though, it is possible there might be some kind of custom wrist locking grip, I’m unaware of, that would allow them to operate it in their dominant hand without issue.



Q&A: John Wick

so on the topic of hitmen, how do you guys feel about john wick? like, his skills and how he fights and how vengeful he is compared to real hitmen?

Compared to people who may not, actually, exist?

We’ve talked about this before, but the sort of “master assassin,” for characters like John Wick, Leon (from The Professional), Vincent (from Collateral) or Agent 47, probably, maybe, don’t exist. There are certainly assassins out there who’ve escaped capture, but it’s an open question if this kind of top grade, professional killer exists.

The idea of their existence makes sense. At least, the idea of former intelligence officers, and people similar skill sets going private, and killing for money, makes sense. It does happen with mercenaries and some organized crime groups (Cartels in particular actively court ex-special operators in their territory), so it makes sense.  But we don’t know that they’re real.

Within that context, it’s complicated.

Up front, I like what I’ve seen, but I’ve never sat down and watched the films in their entirety. Keanu Reeves is still a fantastic actor, and he puts in an excellent performance. He’s also spent a lot of time working out the technical aspects. So, his weapon handling, and hand to hand work looks authentic. This includes a lot of stuff with handguns you don’t usually see outside of CQB training.

In particular, the films are very good at showing Wick quickly transition between multiple stances and approaches. This has left some people with the perception that the Center-Axis Relock stance is some kind of firearm enhanced hand to hand style, which it’s not. He rotates between that and more conventional shooting stances as the situation warrants.

In particular, Wick’s stance shifts plugs one of the weaknesses of CAR. It’s more difficult to acquire targets if you don’t know exactly where they’ll be, while more traditional stances handle that better, and allow for faster aiming, but leave the user’s weapon more exposed. 

So, all of this makes sense, and looks consistent with someone who had significant combat training from some source. The only real nitpick here is that Wick’s training is a little bit too up to date for the character’s backstory. CAR is a very modern stance, and it hasn’t really disseminated into the general population yet.

I’m far more inclined to cut it slack than I am with something like Taken, where the character’s hand to hand training is unworkable for his situation. But, it’s a little out of place. That said, it is the right tool for the job.

Now, I’m going to blame The Internet, at large, for something. This is unfair, because I know better. But, the, “he’s avenging his dog,” meme is what got me to pass on the film originally. If you’re looking at that and saying, “this is the reason,” then, no, it doesn’t make sense, but it’s not the real motivation.

I hate being the one to kill a joke like this, because inevitably, someone’s going to say, “yeah, but we all understood that,” and someone’s going to pipe up that they didn’t get it was a joke, or just keep quiet.

So, no, this isn’t a guy taking revenge for his dog, it’s a guy who used to work for the Russian mob, who thinks his old boss is trying to wax him being proactive and taking apart the organization. That’s reasonable. Maybe even three films reasonable, depends on how thorough he wants to be.

There is one thing that bugs me a little. So, Wick’s hand to hand is (mostly) Judo, his handgun stances range between CAR, Isosceles, and Weaver. This is all entirely reasonable for someone with a background in the American military, police, or intelligence communities. It’s a little weird on someone who was supposed to be a hitman for the Russians. At least, with the character’s background, and the film’s apparent time frame (CAR is a very recent pistol stance.) It’s not a deal breaker, and I still think it’s some of the best action sequences I’ve seen in years. So, this is more of a nit-pick than a serious criticism.

So, on the whole? My impressions of the films have been extremely positive. I’ve simply haven’t kept up with my to-watch list of films.



Q&A: Prosthetics

Do you have any thoughts in general on disabled characters fighting or disabled people wanting to learn to fight in general (inside or outside of a classroom setting)? Realism is important but I find the way people dismiss the idea overly pessimistic so as to be kind of unrealistic in itself. But I suppose it depends on the disability and who the characters are fighting. Edward Elric is the only positive example I can think of that doesn’t put Ed on the sidelines for missing limbs.

The thing about characters like Edward Elric, and I suppose Adam Jenson, is that they have combat grade prosthetic replacements. (Not sure what it says that my immediate thought after FMA is the Deus Ex reboot, but, whatever.)

The thing about a disability, when it comes to combat is, it’s only a disadvantage if it impairs the user. At some levels it doesn’t matter if someone has all of their original parts, so long as they have all the parts they need.

In the case of both examples I just gave, the replaced limbs are actually upgrades. They incorporate functionality beyond the originals. Unless, they were supposed to have arm blades to begin with.

There’s historical precedence as well. Götz von Berlichingen was a 16th century German mercenary who lost his right arm to canon fire during a siege on Landshut in southern Germany. He replaced it with a prosthetic and continued to fight as a mercenary for decades. Incidentally, on the anime theme, Götz is almost certainly the inspiration for Guts from Berserk.

So, there is some, real precedence, for someone to be combat capable with a missing limb. And, of course, when you’re talking about a setting with combat grade cybernetics or magic, it’s entirely possible they may have the technology to replace lost limbs.

So, in settings like that, if your character has their prosthetic in working order, that’s not really a disability in the specific context of combat. In some cases, it’s an advantage. A metal or cybernetic replacement will be more durable than the original meat. That said, unless it’s specifically able to self-repair, any damage is persistent, and it would (probably) require maintenance and upkeep of some sort. Same thing holds true for eyes, ears, other things. If your setting allows those to be replaced with a prosthetic that is at least as good as the original body part, there’s no problem here.

If someone is straight up missing a limb, that’s going to seriously impair their ability to fight. This isn’t just a disability issue either. If you’ve two functioning arms, and one of them is seriously injured to the point where you can’t use it in the fight, that’s basically the same disadvantage as someone who lost the use of theirs years ago, or never had one.

Also worth noting that in the real world, prosthetics have come a long way in the last few years. I haven’t seen anything I’d call combat grade out there, but it will happen, sooner than we’d expect.

I mentioned it in passing, but it’s a similar story with eyes or blindness. If your character has cybernetic replacements, or has gems of true seeing fused into their sockets and connected to their mind through enchantment, it really doesn’t matter if they don’t have their original eyes, they can see. In some cases they may have superior functionality.

There’s another edge case here, a character with an enhanced prosthetic eye might not need both eyes to function, provided it offers range finding function. You can file this under, “be creative.”

Also, if you do have a character with prosthetics, you’ll probably want to spend some time focusing on that. It’s an important part of who your character is, and how they interact with the world around them. It’s also aspect of their experience which is going to be unfamiliar to most readers.

The manga version of Full Metal Alchemist pays a lot of attention to Edward’s prosthetics, and their effects on him. So, the arm isn’t just a cosmetic freebie, it’s a part of the character and something that needs constant attention and work. It’s a good model to take if you’re wanting to go this route.

I’m just going to add here, there’s nothing wrong with someone who has a disability wanting to learn Martial Arts. This happens all the time, and it can be an excellent, positive, experience for them.

Not every teacher or school is the same, and I’m sure there are some out there who don’t live up to the standards I’m about to set, but any good martial arts instructor will seek to aid each student, and adapt for their physical limitations.

I’m all for people with physical disabilities finding a martial art that fits them, if that’s what they want. It can be helpful, both on an emotional, and physical therapy, level.

If you are disabled, regardless of the severity, and want to learn a martial art, go for it. Seriously. It will require effort on your part, but that’s going true of everyone, disabled or not. Special accommodations may be necessary, but that’s part of your instructor’s job. Above all, be honest with your instructors about your limitations. 



Q&A: Women in Star Wars

Are the amount of women in the military in the new Star Wars really unrealistic? I saw a guy complaining about how the movie didn’t explain why there were so many women in positions of power when I thought this was unfair. We have Leia, Holdo, and Phasma. Leia is a Princess with a lot of power and a great reputation— of she can make herself a general even if she wasn’t good at it. Phasma might be the only high-ranking woman in the First Order. That leaves Holdo. But is it really that shocking?

We have way more than that. Even if we restrict ourselves to screen canon, that includes Sabine and Hera from Rebels, Jyn Erso from Rogue One, Ashoka from Clone Wars and Rebels. I’m also skimming over mountains of background characters from the original trilogy who, technically, have names. Even in 1983, the version of the Rebellion on screen had a substantial number of women in their ranks, and was led by Mon Mothma (Caroline Blakiston.) In the original films, Leia Organa was more than a princess. She was a politician in the Senate, a key agent and leader of the rebellion. She smuggled the Death Star plans and got Artoo off the ship at the beginning of A New Hope.

This is without dipping into the old Expanded Universe, which had loads of significant female characters, including Mara Jade. I’m still somewhat baffled that, if Disney was going to salvage anything from the EU, Mara wasn’t on the top of the pile, even ahead of Thrawn. Worth noting that in the Old EU, Leia was the New Republic’s Chief of State.  

Important to remember that in almost all of the Star Wars media, women appear semi-consistently at nearly every cross section. There are leaders, support personal, junior officers, pilots, commandos, and soldiers, with a few notable exceptions. For example, I’m not aware of another female Stormtrooper aside from Phasma (outside of EA’s Battlefront games.) That could simply be a personal oversight.

Star Wars hasn’t always been extremely female friendly. There’s always the infamous metal bikini, and some of the stuff with Xizor was more than a little rapey in the old EU. I’m also not inclined to wave this off; it is a problem, and something that needs to be considered in the larger discussion.

However, complaining about fairness is a trap. It tries to derail the overall discussion with irrelevant minutiae. “But, it’s not fair, because it should have been [insert male character who hasn’t appeared in print since 1996 and is probably no longer in canon here] instead of…”

It’s not that there can’t be an intelligent discussion on fairness, it’s just that in this context, the discussion would be pretty damn short: “Is it fair to evaluate the competency of a candidate based on their genitalia?”

This also doesn’t mean that everyone in a position of power is the right person for the job, or even the best qualified. There’s nothing fair about it, but their genitals are irrelevant to that discussion. Someone whining about how “it’s unfair there are so many women in positions of power,” is deliberately conflating these two threads.

So, is the number of women on screen realistic? Maybe. I’d argue that, if anything, it’s still a bit low. Slightly over half of the human population are women, so it’s entirely reasonable to have a setting where your military is pretty evenly split. Is it realistic for women to hold positions of power in a setting where modern day gender discrimination doesn’t exist at all? Yeah.

The person you’re reacting to has no interest in an honest discussion. They’re not shocked, they’re throwing a petulant tantrum, because they see female representation as a zero-sum loss of prestige for themselves. Realistic? No. Fair? No. Shocking? Only in so far as they can milk it. They’re horrified of the idea that they might need to engage with women as human beings, and as a result, they’ve gone to the internet in search of a venue to cry about it, where they hope someone will toss some concessions their way.

Also worth noting, on average, people like your example here will start complaining about, “over-representation,” when the number of female characters exceeds ~30%. Long before you’re actually including a greater than average number of women to your story. Just, something to consider, the next time someone starts crying about how there’s too many women in a story, when more than half of the cast are male.

So, let’s move on to world building: It’s entirely possible that a resistance or other underground organization would include disproportionate female membership. This time with 20th century examples:

During World War II, the French resistance (the Maquis) made extensive use of female operatives for both support and combat roles. This was in part because the French military had been decimated prior to the occupation, but it was also pragmatic, because women would draw less attention from the Nazi occupation.

Similar examples occurred with German Intelligence operations in the United States during WWII, where the vast majority of the adult male population was subject to the draft, and as a result, men were far more conspicuous. This strongly incentivized the use of women as spies.

Another example, this time after World War II, is slightly more ironic. During the Algerian revolution, the rebels made extensive use of female operatives because the occupying French forces were resistant to interact with them, and as a result, they had easier access through, and around, security.

The Maquis are particularly relevant when discussing Star Wars, because there are intentional parallels between the Rebellion and the French combination of surviving military units mixed with and reinforced by civilians with limited combat training, engaging in guerrilla hit and run tactics.

When you’re making your own setting, there’s no reason you should think you need to adhere a specific quota of characters by gender. Except, maybe, to check yourself, and make sure you’re not being biased. Otherwise, yes your character’s gender is an important part of their identity as an individual, but that doesn’t dictate what their jobs can (or can’t) be, unless you’re baking rules like that into your setting. Star Wars doesn’t, and it’s stronger for that.

Diversity is an important part of your media consumption habits. It helps you see the world from new perspectives. Seeing how other people look at the world and respond to it. The guy you found was, quite literally, complaining about being exposed to a perspective he didn’t want to have, because he might accidentally empathize with a member of the opposite sex.



Q&A: Desperation

How does desperation affect people who are or at least feel like their lives are at stake? Is a desperate person really more dangerous than one who feels like they have more (and maybe less costly?) options left? I feel like probably a trained fighter who’s been psychologically conditioned to deal with such situations this would be the case, but what about like…average people? Do they panic, try things that aren’t likely to work, get more aggressive, etc? Does it vary from person to person?

The short answer is, “Yes, it varies.” Not just person to person, but also within the specific circumstances of that individual. There’s no unified, “a desperate man/woman/escaped wombat will behave in this specific way.”

Desperation comes from an inability to deal with some kind of jeopardy. This may be personal to the character, or it may be a threat to something or someone that character cares about. The threat may be realistic, it may be existential, or it may be imagined. All of these things will drive that character to behave in ways they wouldn’t normally. (Or it can result in complete shutdown. That’s possible too, though it’s distinct from what we usually think of as desperation.)

At very simple level, desperation will drive people to do things that would not normally do, (assuming they act at all.)

So, two things about your question. Even highly trained individuals can succumb to desperation. This can be a threat to them, their ideology, or their friends and family. The difference is, they have wider skill set, meaning they’re less likely to get into a desperate situation. Once they are there, like their skills, their options are also far more extensive, and could be far more destructive.

This is a long way to say, “yes, you’re right, but also wrong.” They’re not really conditioned to deal with desperation, but they’ll still have options left when most “normal” people have run out, and started entertaining desperate measures.

Put it in this context: A highly trained operative may engage in desperate acts to protect a loved one. The desperation may drive them to set aside restrictions on who they will use their particular skills on. This could result in severe violence against individuals who would normally be, “safe,” from them.

Second, their actions may work against their actual goals. It’s entirely possible to act out of desperation, and drive away, or even harm, the people you’re trying to protect (including yourself.)

You can never be fully sure of what restrictions someone will set aside first when desperate. This is where the, “dangerous,” part comes in. Desperate people are difficult to predict. You can make an educated guess how someone will break, but it’s harder than when you’re dealing with someone in an emotionally stable state.

The way someone was put into desperation will affect how they act. This is not predictable. It is cause and effect, and the effect is not random, but for anyone not inhabiting that character’s mind, it’s not possible to predict.

This also means, you need to get into your character’s mind to run this stuff through. You need to get into their hopeless place, to understand what they’re willing to sacrifice. When the desperation is provoked by threats to someone else, that may include themselves.

I hit this in passing, but it’s worth expanding a little bit: Desperation can drive someone to push harder than they normally would. Often that comes with sacrifice. Your character is deciding (rationally or not) that they’re to give up things to protect other things. This is where the unpredictability comes in, because you can’t be sure what venue they’ll use.

I’ve been talking about this in the context of someone who’s competent being pushed into desperate acts by threats to someone else, but the truth is, this can still be the result of threats against them.

The difference in training is simply the number of options they have available. That said, if the initial threat is severe enough, it may cut off most of their normal options prematurely.

Also, you can never be sure how far desperation will take you. Desperation can easily give way to despair, as the losses mount. It’s entirely possible your character will simply break down.

Desperation is a useful concept to understand, and one you probably want to examine and internalize. The entire thriller genre builds off of putting characters in desperate situations, and watching them react.

Really, desperation comes down to asking your character, “what if you’re about to lose everything you care about?”



Q&A: Professional Interrogators



















And neither will your readers.








Q&A: Stunt Performers and Choreography










Appreciate them.



You believe the scene.

The scene enhanced your viewing experience.

You enjoyed it.

This is all the average movie is after.




Do it.



Q&A: Style and Your Audience





















Q&A: Audience Disconnect


You don’t want your audience disconnecting.

















Advice and suggestions for writing fight scenes.