Amok is a “crazy” name. Always has been. Try explaining the real Indo/Filipino definition.
When I say this - as I have for years now - it does not endear me with the Amok people. But its the wrong name at the wrong place, wrong time. As Joe says you can "get away with murder" by using a odd Filipino name over it...unless it is Amok - which is self explanatory for many. Best have a weird, foreign name. It will disguise what you are doing for years and years! How many years now I have warned, seminar after seminar to pick a good name for a course (especially knife ones) and be careful what the name of the knife is that you carry. All these military combat knife names are not good. “Seal Team Throat Slitter Six...Seven will be out out soon... NO!
Actually the knife is scary, not popular, and really never has been. There is only a very small group that is interested enough to get off the couch and do it. But it can be a VERY interested group. But still small.
The term Counter "this or that" has been around and I liked it and like to use it a lot. I may well have been a major promoter recently these last ten years in popularizing the term worldwide. (remember, years before there was Blade/Counter-Blade? There was my Knife/Counter-Knife)
But linguistically, I feel you have to have the word, first, then the counter word,
Punch/Counter-Punch. Gun/Counter-Gun. and yes...Knife/Counter-Knife...
...to sort of round things out. That's just me because unarmed courses only who teach fighting unarmed, can just easily say “counter-knife.” The dirty secret is that to fight against the knife, you have learn to fight with a knife (SOMEBODY has to play the realistic bad guy.) Calling it counter-this or counter-that is a good idea. And as you all know I couch it all in the name of
Hand, Stick, Knife, Gun.
It is a whole matrix for me. hand, stick, knife, gun versus stick, knife, hand, gun versus knife, hand, stick, gun, versus gun, hand, stick, knife. WHEW! But it is one big "counter-to-everything" program...using everything (or nothing) to counter with.
Which is somehow not presumed that I am teaching a special class for alley thugs on how to knife fight! Which I wouldn’t do. Its the local school and host’s job to screen their people.
We’ve never had this problem in the USA. Or parts of Europe. Lots of knife courses in Germany, for example. But you have to be careful in the UK and Australia. Couple of watch words...
Keep it adults. (always note the media seizes upon children and teens learning this)
Keep the adults screened and announce you will screen them.
Keep it full of local laws of self defense and rules of engagement.
Keep it presented properly and professionally.
Keep a good name for the courses.
Keep yourself looking clean! Don’t “tap-out” and tattoo and thug yourself, your shirts or your school out. AND DON’T over militarize your school either. You will also look like a militant weirdo.
And...keep it alive somehow. That is “the movement.” Like survival skills movement. All through time fighting systems have had to be hidden from the sensitivities and paranoia of temporary, local governments. Then...the Japanese invade. The Nazis invade. The North Koreans go nuts. Suddenly genocide becomes a hobby in eastern Europe or Africa. Iran goes nuts. Or the local gang goes nuts. Or a hurricane destroys a region and in three days all the food is looted from stores. And then all that hideous taboo, survival training suddenly becomes quite important. If you look at the BIG picture of world history, all things like governments and religions slip and slide and come and go. Most of us reading this now all live in a superficial, passing, cupcake world in the big picture of history. And knives cut cupcakes. Knives also protect cupcakes.
But the typical, local news airhead will never understand that or care to report it as such. And it really is "teens learn" and "children learn" knife fighting...
So...tiptoe on.
Hock
