Wim Demeere Podcast

An update on what has been going on on my end the last few months and some upcoming changes for the future. TL;DR: The self-defense and martial arts stuff doesn't go away; I just expanded my scope on it.

The shownotes with links mentioned in this episode: https://wimsblog.com/173

July and August are usually when Wim trains hard: public classes stop and client work slows while people are on vacation. That plan failed this year. Heat waves in Belgium started at the end of June, six or seven of them, and the attic office in an old house built to hold winter heat made the desktop unsafe to run. He worked downstairs or from the car and spent July restructuring the blog instead: a site that began in the late 1990s, restarted on WordPress almost 20 years ago, with problem plugins removed, old posts cleaned up, and older articles linked so they still work for search.

He then fed the blog and the full podcast catalog into an AI archive he uses as a second brain and a sparring partner, not as a writer. It tells him whether he already covered a topic, with dates and links, pushes back on a line of thought, and recaps voice-mode brainstorms from the drive to clients. After a recording, it drafts a preliminary bio, summary, takeaways, and a link list he checks. The same pass named what he now calls the interconnected violence framework: six layers, from technical and physical self-defense up through psychology and physiology, relationships, community and institutions, societal and structural conditions, and geopolitics. The point is not a pivot. Martial arts and self-defense stay. The tagline is Understanding Violence: You, Society, World, and every wider layer is supposed to come back to the individual.

• The usual summer training block died in the attic office. The replacement work was backend: bad plugins out, old posts cleaned, older articles linked. Readers never see most of it, and the site does not function without it.
• AI is an archive and a critic. It does not write posts, arguments, or copy in his voice. Sources it offers get checked, and bad ones get dropped. Show-notes drafts are preliminary. He still verifies the links.
• The framework has six layers: technical and physical; psychology and physiology, including adrenal dump and fight, flight, or freeze; relationships, including domestic coercion and control; community and institutions, including gangs, crime, and policing; societal and structural conditions; geopolitics. A distant layer still changes the odds at the individual level.
• Women's self-defense talks, including the latest with Tammy Yard-McCracken, sit on more than technique. Pandemic and scarcity episodes with Toby Cowern, and wars from Ukraine to the Middle East and Iran, run the other way: start wide, then scale down to parking-lot fights, energy costs, and daily safety.
• Nothing in the training content is being dropped. The framework is a living project. Feedback is how he checks whether the wider lens still matches what readers came for.

Support the podcast and get instant access to dozens of bonus episodes, HUNDREDS of exclusive videos, and much more: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere

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Website: http://www.wimsblog.com/

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Dawn Armstrong is the founder of ThinkSafe Seminars in Tucson, Arizona, where she teaches civilian situational awareness, conflict management, travel safety, workplace violence prevention, and basic physical defense. She holds a 4th degree black belt in Kenpo and is certified as a Situational Awareness Specialist, with additional training through Gavin de Becker and Associates and Vistelar. She works with corporations, organizations, and the public, and also works with 500 Rising, which is why her material sits next to what martial artists already teach on prevention and women's self-defense.

The second part of our talk with Q&A from my Patrons is here

The shownotes with links mentioned in this episode: https://wimsblog.com/172

Dawn describes ThinkSafe Seminars as a civilian program built so people do not have to learn situational awareness only after something goes wrong. She defines awareness as more than "pay attention": scanning during transitions, locking the car with the habit she calls close and click, and practicing those habits in daily life so they transfer to work. Wim compares that to driving and parenting. Dawn uses stories to reach people who have never experienced violence, and she separates a knee-jerk reaction from a more thoughtful response. They also cover assertive versus aggressive action, social excuses that let you leave without a scene, and students who jump into heroic action when the setting does not allow it.

The second half is about why people still skip training. Dawn says the general public still treats the material as common sense, while larger organizations are building behavioral threat assessment teams that bring security, HR, and other departments into a single process. They talk about self-presentation, students who dismiss techniques after two months on the mat, the slogan "teach men not to attack women," and the victim-blaming charge aimed at instructors who teach options. Dawn's line is that an attack is never the target's fault and that people still need options. Wim adds agency, insurance-style negligence, and predator timing. They close on concealed carry treated as a complete plan, and Dawn's classroom question: what are you willing to fight for, from a wallet up to a child in a car or when taken to a second location.

• Close and click is the model for ThinkSafe habits: get in the car, shut the door, lock it before the phone comes out. The same small transition habits apply when you leave an office or arrive home.
• A reaction is fast and emotional. A response is slower and aimed at ending the problem. Dawn uses a bump-and-insult drill to show how matching tone can start a fight and how a short apology can end it.
• Prepared social exits work when force would be the wrong tool. "I have to use the restroom" or "I need to talk to that person" gets you out of a wine tasting or a rising argument without announcing that you are de-escalating.
• A husband, a security desk, a nearby police station, or a gun does not replace you as the first person who has to act. People who target you wait for the gap: hallway, parking lot, or any moment you are alone.
• Dawn's planning question is what you will fight for before the moment arrives. Most students will not go to the hospital for a wallet or a car. A child in that car, or being moved to a second location, changes the answer. Figure that out at home, not mid-incident.

Support the podcast and get instant access to dozens of bonus episodes, HUNDREDS of exclusive videos, and much more: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere

New book/video email notification list: http://www.wimdemeere.com/notification/

Website: http://www.wimsblog.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WimDemeerePage/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wimdemeere

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Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/YouAreNotAres

Merch: https://wim-demeere-merch.creator-spring.com

Tammy Yard-McCracken is a psychotherapist, Krav Maga instructor, and founder of 500 Rising, a nonprofit that trains instructors and runs women's and girls' self-defense programs in North America and Europe. She founded Kore Self-Defense and Krav Maga in Northern Virginia, has taught with the Violence Dynamics instructor group, and works on conflict communication, scenario training, and instructor development.

The second part of our talk with Q&A from my Patrons is here: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere/posts/168477520/

The shownotes with links mentioned in this episode: https://wimsblog.com/171

Summary

Wim and Tammy pick up about three years after their last talk. She describes handing Kore Self-Defense and Krav Maga to her instructor team when the lease ended so she could stop splitting bandwidth between the school and 500 Rising. The nonprofit now fields training requests in the US, UK, and Europe, with early conversations about Zambia and Australia. Next steps she names are short online courses for instructors and the public, a larger US board of directors, tying that board to the European advisory council, and moving herself out of the de facto CEO role so the work is not personality-driven.

They then work through the resistance 500 Rising draws: the claim that men and women have identical personal-safety needs, the claim that women cannot defend themselves so training is pointless, and the "what about men" demand that is rarely followed by anyone building a men's program. Tammy separates a few openly misogynistic comments from people picking a fight and from people whose core beliefs are being violated. Wim and Tammy argue over ego and outdated studies, the difference between jealousy and envy, accountability when an instructor is wrong on the mat, why strangulation stats look different for women than for men, and whether MeToo-era boundary management is revenge or a new workplace rule men are still learning.

Key takeaways - Tammy's stated goal for 500 Rising is to make the curriculum outlast her. Training directors already deliver the courses. She wants the US board expanded and someone else in the top leadership seat so the organization does not vanish if the founder does. - Most online hostility she sees is not hard misogyny. A larger share is people looking for a rise. Another subset is reacting because women's self-defense contradicts a belief they have built identity around. New data that kills an old teaching point hits that same nerve. - Specialization is treated as exclusion. 500 Rising trains women and still lets men into the instructor courses. When critics ask where the men's self-defense class is, Tammy's reply has been: put one on. That offer has produced crickets. - Crime figures are a snapshot, not a verdict. Definitions change, reporting collapses when police do not act, and sexual-violence reporting in the US data they use is roughly 10 percent men and 90 percent women, with male cases known to be under-reported. Talking about one pattern does not make the other pattern disappear. - On the mat, unacknowledged errors break rapport and stop students from asking hard questions. Tammy uses the choke-versus-strangle example: a male instructor can be statistically right that strangulation is rare for men and still wrong for the women in the same room.

Support the podcast and get instant access to dozens of bonus episodes, HUNDREDS of exclusive videos, and much more: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere

New book/video email notification list: http://www.wimdemeere.com/notification/

Website: http://www.wimsblog.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WimDemeerePage/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wimdemeere

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wimdemeere/

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/YouAreNotAres

Merch: https://wim-demeere-merch.creator-spring.com

Tèja VanWicklen is a writer and self-defense consultant specializing in realistic violence prevention, with a focus on training for women and parents. She has over thirty years of experience studying multiple martial arts along with edged weapons, firearms, wilderness survival, biomechanics, and health-related fields, and has worked in stunt performance and choreography. She is the author of the book Reimagining Women's Self-Defense: Protective Offense, which supplies martial arts and self-defense instructors with frameworks for recognizing predatory intent and structuring effective protective responses.

The second part of our talk with Q&A from my Patrons is here: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere/posts/163168152

Enjoy!

Support the podcast and get instant access to dozens of bonus episodes, HUNDREDS of exclusive videos, and much more: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere

New book/video email notification list: http://www.wimdemeere.com/notification/

Website: http://www.wimsblog.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WimDemeerePage/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wimdemeere

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wimdemeere/

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/YouAreNotAres

Merch: https://wim-demeere-merch.creator-spring.com

Randy King is a self-defense instructor, speaker, and author. We talk about his new book and lots more. The second part of our talk, in which Randy answers questions from my Patrons, is here.

Show notes: https://wimsblog.com/169

Enjoy!

Support the podcast and get instant access to dozens of bonus episodes, HUNDREDS of exclusive videos, and much more: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere

New book/video email notification list: http://www.wimdemeere.com/notification/

Website: http://www.wimsblog.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WimDemeerePage/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wimdemeere

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wimdemeere/

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/YouAreNotAres

Merch: https://wim-demeere-merch.creator-spring.com

Toby Cowern has an extensive background in military intelligence, survival, and preparedness. We discuss geopolitics and how the consequences of the war in Iran will impact everyday citizens. The second part of our talk, in which Toby answers questions from my Patrons, is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/157721898 Shownotes: https://wimsblog.com/168

Support the podcast and get instant access to dozens of bonus episodes, HUNDREDS of exclusive videos, and much more: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere New book/video email notification list: http://www.wimdemeere.com/notification/ Website: http://www.wimsblog.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WimDemeerePage/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/wimdemeere Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wimdemeere/ Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/YouAreNotAres Merch: https://wim-demeere-merch.creator-spring.com

Paul Silfverstråle is a long-time practitioner of martial arts, in particular the Tai Chi Chuan style I also teach. He also has extensive knowledge of Traditional Chinese Medicine, movement training and more. The second part of our conversation with supporter Q&A is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/153013420 Shownotes: https://wimsblog.com/167

Support the podcast and get instant access to dozens of bonus episodes, HUNDREDS of exclusive videos, and much more: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere New book/video email notification list: http://www.wimdemeere.com/notification/ Website: http://www.wimsblog.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WimDemeerePage/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/wimdemeere Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wimdemeere/ Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/YouAreNotAres Merch: https://wim-demeere-merch.creator-spring.com

Jamie Clubb is a UK-based martial arts and self‑protection coach, founder of Clubb Chimera Martial Arts and has authored books, courses, and a long-running podcast. We cover all these and much more in this episode. Part two of our conversation with supporter Q&A is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/150671030/

Support the podcast and get instant access to dozens of bonus episodes, HUNDREDS of exclusive videos, and much more: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere New book/video email notification list: http://www.wimdemeere.com/notification/ Website: http://www.wimsblog.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WimDemeerePage/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/wimdemeere Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wimdemeere/ Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/YouAreNotAres Merch: https://wim-demeere-merch.creator-spring.com

Mary Stevens is a Karate instructor, women's and children's self-defense instructor, and much more. We talked about her experience in India, self-defense for teenagers, and much more.

Part two of our conversation is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/147180125

The show notes and links mentioned are here: https://wimsblog.com/165

Support the podcast and get instant access to dozens of bonus episodes and HUNDREDS of exclusive videos: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere New book/video email notification list: http://www.wimdemeere.com/notification/ Website: http://www.wimsblog.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WimDemeerePage/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/wimdemeere Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wimdemeere/ Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/YouAreNotAres Merch: https://wim-demeere-merch.creator-spring.com

No gym? No problem. In this episode, I cover how to build serious strength with bodyweight exercises, cheap and DIY equipment, and more, in the most affordable way.

The show notes and links mentioned are here: https://wimsblog.com/164

Support the podcast and get instant access to dozens of bonus episodes and HUNDREDS of exclusive videos: https://www.patreon.com/wimdemeere New book/video email notification list: http://www.wimdemeere.com/notification/ Website: http://www.wimsblog.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WimDemeerePage/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/wimdemeere Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wimdemeere/ Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/YouAreNotAres Merch: https://wim-demeere-merch.creator-spring.com