I don’t know Randy King personally but we do know a lot of similar people so I had been watching his online videos and reading his posts for some time. I’ve always appreciated his focus on the “dirty truth” of self-defense – ie the It’s Not Just Beat Them Up truth. When he announced he was writing a new book on self-defense, The Timeline fo Self-Defense, I was intrigued. More so, I will freely admit, when I recieved an Amazon gift card as a present.
First thing, this book was a bit of a slog for me to read through. Not because of the writing style (which is excellent) nor the organization (also excellent) nor the subject matter. I found myself blowing through sections with no problem until he’d drop some nugget of wisdom that would make me have to put the book down and ruminate for days. This last week I was solo camping and decided that would be the perfect opportunity (ie lack of excuses) to sit down and fully engage with this book.
I am trying to avoid spoilers so I will be somewhat vague. Sorry not sorry. Buy the book. It’s worth it.
One of the first things that struck me about the book is that it lives up to the setup of Mr King’s 80/20 method – the majortiy of the book is focused on preventing violence – stopping it before it has a chance to get physical – while acknowledging that that isn’t always possible. But I have read too many martial arts books that claim to be about self-defense and then spend 2 pages on prevention and 145 pages on how to break someone’s nose. Mr King’s candidness about how things actually work, that you WILL screw up; he has a story about not realizing he’d stabbed in the leg for some time after an altercation is great. He doesnt bravado you through it – he admits he didn’t realize because of hormones and assumptions. And I for one appreciate that level of honesty in a self=defense instructor.
So truthfully I think the book limits itself by presenting itself as a self-defense book. It really is a self-help book. Reading it you are required to take a long look at yourself, your beliefs, your assumptions, and be honest about it. I knew it was going to be good when Mr King starts off by saying that self-defense really begins with the Three Pillars (again I’m not giving you all three. Go buy the book), the first of which is Setting/Having Boundaries because (and I’m paraphrasing here) “In order to protect your self you have to think your self is worth protecting”.
Mr King. Randy, if I may. If by some chance you are reading this review I need you to know the impact this simple statement had on me. I went full meme mode. Put the book down, walked down to the creek, and stared at the water for what felt like hours. How have I been in this business (martial arts) for this long and no one laid it out that simply for me? Okay, they probably did, but I am notoriously thick skulled.
So yeah, buy the book. Seriously. It is now in my very small set of recommended books when people ask me about “real self-defense” alongside the works of Rory Miller, Peyton Quinn, and Kaja Sadowski.
