About me

Hi,

My name is Patrick Prendergast and welcome to my blog. I’m married with two great kids. I work in IT to pay the bills (like a lot of folks) but my passion is in defensive tactics. I was raised in a small community that, for some reason, had a penchant for violence. Getting physically attacked was a daily occurrence both by kids my age and by adults. It led to my having a heightened sense of awareness for survival and a deep dislike of any form of bullying. It also led me to Martial Arts and over the last 20 plus years I have acquired a black belt,delved into most types of fighting systems, qualified as a reality based instructor and taught martial arts.

I’ve trained in traditional martial arts, both Chinese and Japanese, I’ve trained in boxing and kickboxing and competed semi professionally in full contact, I’ve trained in MMA and reality based combat systems. I’ve done a lot but in the end I found that I still carried that same fear I did as a young boy when walking the streets of my neighborhood. I was still afraid of getting into a fight even though I had pushed myself to the extreme in hand to hand combat and knew, at a conscious level, that I could inflict some serious damage on not just one but a few individuals at the same time. And then it hit me, I was afraid not because someone might hurt me but because I did not want to hurt someone else. I was afraid because I spend all my time honing my physical skills and had not developed the mental side of conflict (except by proxy). My training to that point had focused on the point of conflict with no thought for what leads to the fight in the first place.

So I started to read anything I could get my hands on in relation to the mental side of conflict. The drivers behind it, the physical and psychological impact of violence on the body prior to conflict, what drives criminalist behavior, who is likely to be attacked and why? In the end I came to the conclusion that the best defensive strategy should be a pragmatic one that bases itself in the avoidance of conflict (though not at any cost), one where conflict is the last resort and where the greatest victory is living a life free of the fear of attack.

 It’s been an interesting journey and one that has had a marked effect upon me. I think the easiest way to describe the impact that it has had on me is how I look at the world. I see everything through the lens of self defense. If I read an article, see an object, watch the news, etc I frame it in the context of self defense. It is analogous to the situation some of you may have experienced when you are looking to buy a new car. Say you decide to buy a BMW 3i for example. You look at the car magazines; go online to review, talk to BMW owners, etc.  Suddenly you notice that you seem to see BMW’s everywhere. What has happened is that they were always lots of BMWs around but as you have drawn your mind to it you notice them more whereas before you looked for that car they were background noise. I think defensive tactics all the time and as such my mind is constantly drawn to seeing risks and opportunity in relation to self defense.

I also noticed that I have a strong desire to give back which I think is as a result of the bullying inflicted on me as a child. I would like to help, in some small way, to prevent that from happening to someone else. I’d like to share what I have learned in the hope that it may resonate with someone out there who can take what makes sense to them and as a result have a life with a little less fear, a life where they are a little more in control and a little safer.  The articles contained in the blog are my opinion, my view based on the lens in which I view the world from a self defense perspective.  I am open to new ideas, thoughts and would love to hear the opinions and stories of survival and triumph of others.

Stay Safe. Stay Alert.

P