Edgework Related Links - Crisis Intervention

Donna Martin
is a psychotherpist who works with the founder of Hakomi therapy, Ron Kurtz, in teaching workshops entitled "Loving Presence." She is also an innovative yoga instructor, teaching in a method which focuses on awareness and relaxation, similar, in many ways, to Feldenkrais' "Awareness Through Movement."

You have a kid whom someone claims has attention problems, or is hyperactive, or is a defiant child. Maybe you are going through some difficult times - divorce, illness, financial trouble - and it affects your children. Unless you have a child who is clearly and profoundly mentally ill or traumatized, don't start with therapy, much less medication. Start with this website. Get the book. Sincerely and completely initiate the procedures there. In most cases, children whom others are already writing off or giving up on ARE literally transformed. And so are parents. Let's say you are going through a nasty divorce. You hate each other, and honestly think you have good reasons to do so. But unless you are a useless scrap of protoplasm in human skin, you still desire the best for your children. What this book and work can offer is an "operating" system for parents that appeals to both disciplinarians and nurturing, gentle people. Even though you disagree in every other area of existence, you can come to common ground regarding the children, so that despite your conflict, your children still have a chance to thrive.

This is the book I use in coaching parents. I cannot recommend it highly enough. (I must admit that the tone of the book is sweeter than my own. If you happen to be on the gruff side, get past the writing style. The information is first rate).

There is no escaping having “a story”. It’s what sustains our myth of a consistent identity from one moment to the next, enabling us to pay our bills and brush our teeth. A goal of my work is to give you the understanding and tools to locate yourself outside your story, from where you can have better perspective, respond more effectively, and experience the joy of freedom. Just because ‘all God’s chillun’ gotta have a story doesn’t mean you have to be lost in yours. To help people get beyond their stories and become their own therapists, I created Making the Moment Matter and authored its accompanying workbook in 1994. Since then the program has helped people from many stages of life get bigger than whatever the universe throws their way.

was founded by Don Gulla. Don is one of the pioneers in the development of a seamless integration of grappling, defensive tactics, and higher use of force. I've studied, all too brielfy, with Don, and he's a brilliant instructor. I'd trust him with my safety and that of my family.

is the discussion forum/blog of Chris LeBlanc, an exemplary trainer who specializes in close-quarter combatives/defensive tactics for law enforcement.

Threat Assessment and Security

Meido Consultants

is a UK based company, founded and directed by David Rubens, MSc in Security and Risk Management. Meido specializes in threat assessment, international security, business consultation (particularly focused on - but no exclusive to - operations in Eastern Europe and Japan), and training in executive protection. I personally enrolled in Meido's Close Protection Officer training program and it was exemplary.

Recommended

Phyllis Chesler is one of the great figures in modern feminism. Unlike many of her contemporaries and successors, she has not succumbed to the pernicious tendency among all too many of the Western left-wing to refuse to condemn oppression and violation if it is part of a culture other than that of the West. Courageous, clear-eyed and ferociously intelligent.

This is one of the most useful services I have ever found. For a small monthly fee, one has a lawyer on call, 24 hours a day. This includes consultation and document review. They also have powerful identify theft protection that is pro-active, including: continuing monitoring of your credit file, fraud alerts sent on your behalf to all three credit agencies, and identity restoration in which licensed investigators work with law enforcement, the government and credit cards companies on your behalf. I have used PPL on numerous occasions for consults for estate planning, assessing risk of potential law suits, copyright issues and traffic violation questions. It is perhaps the best return I've ever gotten for such a small investment of money.

This blog is a compendium of the most recent news about Ibogaine, a very powerful psychoactive substance that, remarkably, makes the brain unresponsive to opiates for a period of approximately six months, and furthermore, detoxes the brain from such stimulants as amphetamines and cocaine. Finally, some research indicates that it also has a profound affect on chronic alcoholism. This is one of the most important discoveries in the treatment of addictions, but because the substance is also profoundly psychoactive, research as been very sparse. Two researchers are working on analogues that do not have the psychoactive properties. However, it is still an open question if these properties (in which one - avolitionally - reviews, with hallucinatory intensity, all of one's "sins.") - is an integral part of what makes the substance curative for addiction.

The Zero
The Zero focuses on the work of Andrew Vachss, a lawyer who specializes as an advocate for abused children and who also writes outrageous lurid suspense thrillers which function as stealth communications of his fury regarding child abuse. His novels often serve as an introduction to the public of specific information regarding initially unbelievable, but horrible true aspects of child abuse, including stalking, internet crime, and child sexual slavery, both on our own American streets and in South East Asia.

Kristen Kahlen, MEMO Communications
Paula Reynolds, Paula Reynolds Design
If you are reading this, then you are either new to my site, or mercifully, no longer suffering the old one. One may perhaps make a case that a book should not be judged by its cover, but a business should definitely be judged, in part, by the face it presents to the world. It is quite a legitimate response to be cautious when a business claims that its work is of highest quality, yet its presentation on its website or other promotional material is anything but professional.

Realizing that my company faced this dilemma in its most graphic form (my old website), I fortunately secured the services of the two companies who have created this current site. Kristen Kahlen of MEMO Communications was the writing and project manager. What I most deeply appreciated was her taking the time to interview me for several hours to understand what it is that I do. She wanted to catch Edgework so that the text and design would be true to my work and to me. Paula Reynolds of PBR Design, responsible for visual design, spent considerable time in consultation with both of us to ensure that image was not only congruent with the words, but made the text live.

It was a pleasure to work with two such professionals, both willing to roll with changes in text, placement of images, nitpicking small quibbles on color and design, and major revisions as well. More important than any recommendation I might make is the site – I believe it speaks for itself. And if there is any concern that a site you might desire would end up looking just like mine, visit the links to their sites and think again. Their respective visions are far broader than this site alone – this is only one exemplar.

The website of Terry Dobson, seminal figure in the development of American aikido, rolicking wild man, and only one of two non-Japanese live-in disciples of the founder of aikido. The site provides links to purchasing his books, as well as a novel and a DVD about his life.

Self Defense and Defensive Tactics

The website of George Ledyard, an Aikido/Defensive Tactics Instructor in the Seattle area.

Defend University is a research and development group dedicated to the exploration of leading edge techniques and strategies for self-defence, security and defensive tactics, for professionals as well as private citizens concerned with personal protection.

Marc "Animal" MacYoung
Marc MacYoung is the kid you knew who crammed himself in a garbage can along with the neighbor’s cat and had his friends push him down a hill, just to see what would happen. Now he’s grown up. Iconoclastic, often outrageous, opinions on self-defense and martial arts. Sometimes scattershot, sometimes absolutely dead on target.

Links to sites devoted strictly to martial arts can be accessed on Ellis Amdur's Araki-ryu website.