Book Review: Meditations On Violence

Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence

Rory Miller

Publisher: YMAA Publication Center (June 25, 2008)

ISBN-10: 1594391181

I first became aware of Rory Miller when he started posting on the Uechi-Ryu.Com forums several years ago (or maybe he was posting there first, and then I started; I can’t really remember). I was, at the time, a youthful aspiring martial arts instructor, just having gotten involved in Tony Blauer’s Personal Defense Readiness program, a new black belt in Aikido, and a student of a fraudulent and abusive kung fu instructor (though obviously I didn’t know it at the time). I thought I knew a lot more than I did, though I also knew there was a lot left for me to learn. Rory, I knew jack squat about, but I eventually learned that he was (and is) a correctional officer out in Oregon, with a lot of martial arts experience, and a WHOLE lot of experience dealing with violent criminals. Rory and I had a few chats back and forth on the fora – I doubt he remembers most, if any of them. I do, because it became clear pretty quickly that he knew way more about what I was trying to talk about than I did. I think a lot of those threads are gone with the shifting of the forums, which is kind of sad, mostly for me.

In any case, I’ve tried to pay attention to what Rory had to say ever since then. I read his blog regularly (and it’s one of the few websites that I’ve bothered to link to on here), and I follow whatever he’s got to say on the forums with interest that I reserve for few others there. When he announced that he was publishing a book, I was intrigued. When the reviews started rolling in, I was excited.

It actually took me two tries to get my hands on this book—the first time, my package disappeared, a pattern that repeated itself with a different Amazon order a few weeks later. Amazon replaced it, and I was delighted to see that it arrived before my weekend trip to Austin. So I opened the box up, and packed up this book along with my other belongings for the weekend trip. I didn’t really plan on finishing it, but I found I couldn’t the book down.

Meditations on Violence is a collection of thoughts, observations, and insights from Miller’s years of martial arts training and exposure to real violence and real criminals. It’s a short text, coming it at under 200 pages, but those 200 pages are packed with good information on a wide variety of topics, including the criminal mind, the complexities of real world violence, ideas about training methods and the aftermath of violence. All of it is information that is valuable for anyone who is interested in, or concerned about, self-defense. I absolutely loved the chapter on “how to think”, in which Miller does a fantastic job of laying out how to scratch your own mental programming and really examine not only what you believe, but why you believe it.

Miller has a very calm, introspective, but casual writing style. I really enjoy it—it almost feels like I’m sitting around having a conversation with him, instead of reading words on a page. He uses a lot of stories and analogies to help illustrate his examples, which resonates with my own learning style, and I think makes things a lot more memorable. It also helps that he frequently can attach a personal experience to his ideas, which lends a lot of credibility to his thoughts and concepts.

He does not present himself as a know-it-all; indeed, he makes it quite clear that there’s a lot he doesn’t know (including how to ride a motorcycle, I think). It doesn’t matter. The best thing that this book does is that it makes you think. It will force you to really, really, examine your training. It may even make you examine your lifestyle. For me, it has done both. If nothing else, I’ll look at the bibliographies of books a lot more than I used to.

This is not a book of techniques—someone looking for another wrist-lock variation or a different take on how to throw a punch may not get much out of this. Someone looking to enhance their safety and survivability will find it invaluable.

I do not, as of yet, have a “required reading” list for my students, but the day I put one together, this will unquestionably be on it.