Going Badger: A Woman's Guide to the Fine Art of Going Honey Badger on a Bad Guy

By Jeff Norman

So, what is "GOING BADGER?" Ok, take this little test. A stranger pushed you down. What's your response? Confusion? Fear? Attempt to rationalize that this person is either nuts or you somehow offended him? Maybe take a moment deciding how to react while the adrenaline slowly kicks in? All of the above? Now picture this same stranger pushing down your mom, child or grandchild. Feel any different? I'll bet you do, because now you likely feel NO fear and have NO response delay.

The protective response we feel when protecting loved ones is different that the protective response we feel for ourselves, (remember the story of the mother lifting a car that pinned her child?) And the thought of someone intentionally hurting a family member can unleash an instant fury in us with no confusion whatsoever to cloud our response like a Mama Bear and her cubs.

Educating that "fury" to protect YOURSELF is what "GOING BADGER" is all about…

"GOING BADGER" isn't just another collection of specific self-defense moves countering specific attacks, because real attacks are dynamic. A tit for tat, "if he does this, I'll do that" by the numbers approach against a static attack will not only overload your memory, but then trusting those moves to work against an actual attack will get you hurt or worse. All the information in GOING BADGER is relayed in a conversational, often humorous, non-scary way, with the lofty pursuit of growing a "Badger Community" with continued support to women as its ultimate goal. Video demonstrations are also available on Going Badger's website for those who want to see live applications of the moves, tools and tricks described in the eBook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667819686

Book preview

INTRODUCTION: HOW I ENDED UP IN YOUR SHOES

Ok. Forgive the stereotypical pink cover, but we figured it would make any self-respecting scary bad guy too embarrassed to be seen checking out some girly pink guide meant only for you women. Full disclosure. This isn’t written by some similarly scary guy trying to transform you into anything or anyone you’re not. Even after twenty years in the Marines, decades of familiarity with various styles of martial arts and earning black belts in Jujutsu, I was never all that scary, so know up front that this guide is instead a discussion of things that any other protective dad would want his precious daughters to know. It’s not intended to frighten, bully, intimidate or preach. It’s simply to give all you precious daughters, moms and grand moms, you who can’t spend hours a week training, the confidence of owning a toolbox of easily learned, effective, retainable responses to handle an attack.

So, scary? At least not intentionally, BUT I DO have an uncanny grasp of the obvious, and I’m pretty good at reducing complicated things to simplicity. Complexity has always annoyed me, much less doing things that don’t make sense. The ability to streamline procedures while achieving greater efficiency really paid off when I was an avionics quality assurance chief having retired with a handful of kudos and awards, and through it all I found that it just takes the ability to look past the way we’ve always done it and actually go through the process of re-thinking it AND finding an alternative, and hopefully, better, way. You can’t just say Jeez, this doesn’t make sense and continue on, you need to challenge whatever doesn’t hold up to any more scrutiny than face value.

This is why Michael Janich’s training philosophy and techniques appealed to me. He’s the creator of Martial Blade Concepts that I’ll link to in the appendix. In sharing the same propensity to abandon what doesn’t make sense, he’s filtered out what folks jokingly call bullshido from legitimate self-defense techniques that can work for everyday folks. Irreverent is the term he uses. Not disrespectful, irreverent. The dismissal of so-called secret techniques buried in centuries of hidden knowledge for, ok, but does it work?

Tradition is great. My family clings to our family traditions, and I spent many years immersed in traditional Japanese Hakkoryu Jujutsu, learning the history, its language, its courtesies. ALL Martial Arts can be a beautiful thing to behold, in its many forms and with its physical demands, prioritizing discipline and respect. I especially like that it takes a person out of his or her comfort zone.

But for those simply looking for useable self-defense techniques, pursuing mastery of a martial art style can be a long road, and in most cases will not translate very well to realistic self-defense needs that one may require outside of a school’s dojo. Eric Mayes, one of Michael’s certified instructors, elaborated on Michael’s utility of technique saying that most of his own students (me included) are broken, meaning that some are older and are no longer the super-human specimens they once were. Some had injuries resulting in the limited use of a limb or two, some are just physically smaller and weaker, impaired in some way, and some really didn’t want, or have the time, to devote years to a traditional martial art at this point in their lives and are simply seeking a legit self-defense concept devoid of uniforms,