Leveling the 'playing field'... with the use of weapons of self defense. For every self defense book or video sold there seems to be hundreds of knives, cans of pepper spray, key batons, and various other self defense products on the market. It's big business too. There are some big players out there spending lots of advertising dollars chasing down the self defense "product" customer. I am not a big fan of these type of self defense products. Here's why... It is my belief that there are two important elements in successfully using a self defense weapon. First, it must be available and ready to use when you need it. Simple enough. But really, unless you are anticipating an attack what are the chances you will have the weapon in your hand, ready to use. Okay, you might say if you are walking to your car in a dark parking lot you might have your pepper spray or key baton in hand. Or maybe you are in an unfamiliar place and feel uncomfortable so you get your weapon ready. Maybe... But most attacks happen when you are least expecting them. Even if you have a little time, can you imagine trying to fumble through your pockets, glove box or purse trying to find, snap open (or whatever is required to get the thing to work) your weapon? Through my experiences in adrenal stress training I can tell you it would be next to impossible to do this quickly and effeciently under a strong adrenal rush (which would almost certaninly occur). Even if you have the weapon ready when that dreaded time comes, there is another serious problem. That is that unless you can disguise it, your attacker is going to immediately know that you possess a weapon. Here lies the second important element of using a self defense weapon. Surprise! Without the element of surprise chances are you will not ever get to use the weapon at all. This is especially true if your attacker is bigger and stronger (which they usually are!). A better scenario is if you know how to take just about anything in your environment and turn it into a viscious weapon of self defense. I learned a whole system of doing just this a number of years ago. Since the technology is pretty dangerous (for your attacker, not you) I decided not to teach this, except to a few family members. Over the past few years we have been getting more and more questions on how this works and requests for seminars on the subject we decided to descretely teach this to some of our students. Recently we filmed the entire process and now have it on video. It is available at www.self-defense-weapons.com if you would like to read about. It truly levels the playing field against bigger and stronger attackers. Shihan Michael Pace