Month: June 2025

The Power of the Break I’ll start by making an admission: I learned everything I know about ESD by teaching it.  I’ll start by making an admission: I learned everything I know about ESD by teaching it.  What? Well, I created an Empowerment Self Defense curriculum called ASSERT about 20 years ago, before I knew that ESD was already “a thing.” I created it out of necessity. You see, my oldest son was being bullied in middle school (years 5-7 for my international friends.) He had been assaulted and robbed by upper classmen on more than one occasion, and he

Notes on the Journey: On Breaking Boards You don’t fear the raging river. You are the raging river. The first time I broke a board was after I’d already been on the mat for several hours—our regular Saturday afternoon hour and a half session, followed by a three hour Rapid Assault Training class. “Do you want to break a board?” My instructor asked as we were wrapping up for the day. The important part to this story is, I’d already done some drills—in a manner that was at least correct-adjacent—and had successfully been able to remove a fully grown man