Podcasts about Krav Maga

Send us Fan MailIn this episode, The Pintos discuss Church, The Bible, Clown School, Horror, Krav Maga, Jiu Jitsu, The Sphere, Postcards from the Edge, No Doubt, Boy Bands, Phish, Cleveland, Derek Jeter and The Vegas Golden Knights. Thank you for listening!  Please subscribe, share and rate! https://thepintopodcast.buzzsprout.com  Chris Pinto IG:  https://www.instagram.com/chrispeterpinto  FB: https://www.facebook.com/chris.pinto.940X: https://x.com/chrispeterpintoLI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrispintoemployment/https://www.chrispinto.com/ cpinto234@gmail.comEmail: cpinto234@gmail.comMusic and Sound FX Credits: https://freepd.com/ 

Whitney Heins is the founder of The Mother Runners, host of The Mother Runners podcast, and a UESCA-certified running coach based in Knoxville, Tennessee. I was recently a guest on Whitney's podcast, and I've been looking forward to having her on here ever since.During this episode, sponsored by HUUG and Batch, we talk about:Pivoting from the Carmel Marathon to the Kentucky Derby Marathon after Carmel was postponed six weeks Running through Churchill Downs and why she does NOT recommend the Kentucky Derby Marathon if you're chasing a PRHow her dad — who was told he'd never walk again after being wounded in Vietnam — ran the Marine Corps Marathon every year and is the reason she became a runnerRunning her first marathon as a senior in college, a 3:29, on a Hal Higdon plan targeting 3:30, powered entirely by not knowing any better

Today's conversation is with Scott Weir - entrepreneur, property investor, founder of Pillow Partners and Pillow Safe Havens, and a Krav Maga instructor.But Scott's story starts in a very different place.He grew up in an incredibly difficult environment raised by a single alcoholic mother, often living without electricity, stealing food to survive, and surrounded by people heading down dangerous paths involving crime and drugs.In this conversation, Scott shares how he escaped that environment by joining the Royal Navy at just 16 years old, saving his wages while at sea, and buying his first buy-to-let property at only 17.We discuss the mindset required to break generational patterns, the importance of environment, and how Scott navigated seeing childhood friends fall into crime and heroin while he pursued a completely different path.Scott also opens up about being diagnosed with dyslexia later in life, how that completely changed the way he viewed himself intellectually, and why he now sees his neurodivergent brain as both a superpower and something that nearly destroyed his business twice.We also dive into martial arts, Krav Maga, business growth, building Pillow Partners over the last 20 years, adapting a company to survive modern economic pressures, and his outspoken views on UK politics, property ownership, and the future of entrepreneurship in Britain.Expect to learn:How Scott's childhood shaped his early outlook but did not define his futureHow he avoided the dangerous paths many around him fell intoWhy he joined the Royal Navy at 16How he bought his first property at 17The impact being diagnosed with dyslexia had on his confidence and identityWhy neurodivergence can be both a gift and a challenge in businessHow Scott built Pillow Partners into a major property management companyThe lessons martial arts and Krav Maga taught him about discipline and leadershipHow he's transformed the business to make it “bulletproof”Our concerns about UK politics and the future of property investingWhat success looks like for him approaching 50This was a powerful conversation about resilience, escaping your environment, reinvention, entrepreneurship, and creating a completely different life from the one you were born into.Get 20 lessons from 330 CamBro Conversations - https://colcambro.kit.com/60ed1b527b Get my Linkedin for Sales Guide - https://colcambro.kit.com/products/linked-in-personal-brand-for-sellingGet my Peak Productivity BLUEPRINT - https://colcambro.kit.com/products/peak-performance-blueprint Make Millionaire Money Moves - https://millionaire-fhcpmlvz.manus.space Book a conversation about Private Medical Insurance with Lewis & Mark - lewis.mitchell@wpa-hcp.org.uk and Mark.McKenzie@wpa-hcp.org.uk Connect with Scott:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottweirofficial/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottweirofficial/ Website: https://hosts.pillowpartners.com/ Connect with Col:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/col.cambro/Email List: https://colcambro.kit.com/30bde23b0c Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ColCampbell

My site:https://SemperFryLLC.comJoin Dr. Glidden's Membership site here:https://leavebigpharmabehind.com/?via=pgndhealth⁠Code: baalbusters for 25% OFFMake Dr. Glidden Your DoctorUse Code BB5 here for your 90 Essential Nutrients:https://www.azurestandard.com/shop/brand/azurewell/2326The Azure Whole Food Essential Nutrients are 1. Whole Food Multivitamin, 2. Alaskan Cod Liver Oil, 3. Fulvic-Humic Energy Blend, 4. IP6 Supreme. I also recommend adding the Core Copper.Use code BB5 for your discount.Want to Be a Producer? Click Below:https://GivesendGo.com/BaalBustersTwitter Account: https://x.com/KristosCastBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ba-al-busters-broadcast--5100262/support.

Tony learnt self defence over the weekend have you taken it up? Which form? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark Astor has been an attorney since 1994, beginning his career as a Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney, where he served as Chief of two County Court Divisions and later handled felony cases ranging from misdemeanors to capital murder. He is admitted to the Florida Bar, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the District of Columbia Bar, and the Massachusetts Bar, where he established a Boston office. Mark holds a BA from the University of Michigan, a JD from Nova Southeastern University, and an LLM from American University. In 2016, he founded Drug and Alcohol Attorneys, followed by co-founding Astor Simovitch Law with his wife, Audra Simovitch, in 2017. The firm is dedicated to helping families navigate substance use and mental health crises. In 2020, he launched Baker Act Attorneys, focusing on protecting individuals' rights within Florida's mental health system. Outside of law, Mark teaches Krav Maga and prioritizes physical fitness.

Richard Syrop is a highly experienced martial artist and instructor whose journey spans some of the most respected lineages in modern combat arts. He is a certified instructor with the International Krav Maga Federation, the organization founded by Imi Lichtenfeld and one of the oldest and most established Krav Maga bodies in the world. Under the direct guidance of Master Avi Moyal, one of Imi's top students and among the highest-ranking Krav Maga practitioners globally, Richard developed a deep understanding of practical, real-world self-defense. His training also extends into Jeet Kune Do and the Filipino Martial Arts under Guro Dan Inosanto, one of only three individuals personally appointed by Bruce Lee to carry on his art. As an Apprentice Instructor under Guro Inosanto, Richard brings a principle-based approach rooted in adaptability, timing, and efficiency. With additional experience in boxing, Muay Thai, and Wing Chun, studying under respected teachers including Sifu Augustine Fong, he has built a well-rounded and highly functional skill set. A certified USA Boxing coach, he has trained alongside former champions and top-level coaches, further refining his understanding of striking. His teaching career has taken him across the United States and internationally, including time spent living and teaching in India, where he founded the Himalayan Academy of Martial Arts in Dharamsala. Known for his clear, practical, and highly effective instruction, he emphasizes strong fundamentals, precision, and the ability to adapt under pressure. Please welcome my guest today, Richard Syrop. Himalayan Academy of Martial Arts – Dharamshala, HP, India (1) Instagram

Gershon Ben Keren is a fifth degree black belt in Krav Maga, an academic criminologist, and former close protection professional. In this episode, Gershon shares how growing up in violent 1980's Glasgow and working club doors in the U.K. helped shape his understanding of real-world chaos. He focuses on the importance of predicting and avoiding violence, especially in a real world setting. He also explains de-escalation techniques, practical scenarios, distance management, and when to fight or run away.  Links: Gershon's Website: https://www.gershonbenkeren.com/ Krav Maga Yashir Boston: https://www.bostonkravmaga.com/  

Spring renewal meets real preparedness on this week's Changing Earth Podcast. Sara shares updates from the homestead — a peach tree completing its cycle while new shoots emerge, chickens laying like crazy, and fresh raised beds going in to battle Texas weather. Then we sit down with Sara's Krav Maga instructor, 3rd Degree Black Belt Asher Lester, for a powerful conversation on nervous system regulation, breathwork, and practical self-defense. Find Coach Asher at NervousApes.com. Learn why breath control can be more valuable than another piece of gear when adrenaline hits, how to de-escalate or act decisively in the first critical seconds, and simple daily practices that turn reactivity into resilience. Asher also shares challenge-round insights perfect for Changing Earth scenarios and everyday survival. Plus — big announcement: Sara and Chin will both be at Prepper Camp 2026, August 14–16 at the Tryon International Equestrian Center. Get tickets and book lodging now at preppercamp.com! Tune in for entertaining education that helps you dream, survive, and thrive. Prepare for the worst and pray for the best — but train your body and mind so you're ready either way.

Spring renewal meets real preparedness on this week's Changing Earth Podcast. Sara shares updates from the homestead — a peach tree completing its cycle while new shoots emerge, chickens laying like crazy, and fresh raised beds going in to battle Texas weather. Then we sit down with Sara's Krav Maga instructor, 3rd Degree Black Belt Asher Lester, for a powerful conversation on nervous system regulation, breathwork, and practical self-defense. Find Coach Asher at NervousApes.com.Learn why breath control can be more valuable than another piece of gear when adrenaline hits, how to de-escalate or act decisively in the first critical seconds, and simple daily practices that turn reactivity into resilience. Asher also shares challenge-round insights perfect for Changing Earth scenarios and everyday survival.Plus: Sara and Chin will both be at Prepper Camp 2026, August 14–16 at the Tryon International Equestrian Center. Get tickets and book lodging now at preppercamp.com!Tune in for entertaining education that helps you dream, survive, and thrive. Prepare for the worst and pray for the best — but train your body and mind so you're ready either way.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/prepper-broadcasting-network--3295097/support.BECOME A SUPPORTER FOR AD FREE PODCASTS, EARLY ACCESS & TONS OF MEMBERS ONLY CONTENT!Red Beacon Ready OUR PREPAREDNESS SHOPThe Prepper's Medical Handbook Build Your Medical Cache – Welcome PBN FamilySupport PBN with a Donation Join the Prepper Broadcasting Network for expert insights on #Survival, #Prepping, #SelfReliance, #OffGridLiving, #Homesteading, #Homestead building, #SelfSufficiency, #Permaculture, #OffGrid solutions, and #SHTF preparedness. With diverse hosts and shows, get practical tips to thrive independently – subscribe now!Newsletter – Welcome PBN FamilyGet Your Free Copy of 50 MUST READ BOOKS TO SURVIVE DOOMSDAY

Ron Amram is a lifelong martial artist, self-defense expert, and internationally respected authority on violence prevention and the psychology of risk. Holding a 4th degree black belt in Krav Maga and Jiu Jitsu, along with black belts in Kudo and Danzan Ryu Jujutsu, he brings decades of experience across a wide range of disciplines, including boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, MMA, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Filipino martial arts, Karate, and Aikido. For more than two decades, he has taught, coached, educated, and consulted in an extraordinary variety of environments, working with local, state, and federal government agencies, law enforcement, corrections, military personnel, close protection teams, aviation professionals, major corporations, non-profits, women's shelters, at-risk youth, and everyday people seeking practical, real-world skills. In addition to his work on the mat, he is a multi-award-winning university lecturer specializing in professional communication, risk management, and the psychology of risk, with advanced qualifications in strategic leadership, integrated risk management, training design, and fitness. His work sits at the intersection of martial arts, self-defense, human behavior, and the realities of violence in the modern world. Please welcome my guest today, Ron Amram. Krav Maga & Martial Arts Perth | Self Defence Classes Perth | Ron Amram The Barn Balcatta | Boxing, MMA & Martial Arts Gym in Perth | The Barn Martial Arts & Fitness Krav Maga Perth, Kickboxing, Strength & Conditioning, Jiujitsu, Adults & Kids, Leederville – Perth Krav Maga Self Defence Kickboxing Jujutsu Martial Arts Classes Leederville | Combat Arts Institute of Australia

Most security breaches don't begin with sophisticated code or elaborate technical exploits. They begin with a phone call, a convincing email, or someone at a help desk who just wanted to be helpful. The human layer is often the weakest link, and the criminals who understand that are the ones causing the most damage. My guest today is May Chen-Contino. She's the CEO of Unit 221B, a threat disruption company that delivers actionable intelligence to enterprises, law enforcement, and government agencies. Her background spans cybersecurity, fintech, and SaaS leadership at companies like PayPal and eBay, and she brings a distinctly mission-driven lens to the work, shaped equally by a career in business and a background as a Krav Maga instructor. Unit 221B operates less like a typical security vendor and more like a specialized investigative unit, with a team that includes tenured ransomware experts, incident responders, and former law enforcement, all focused on one outcome: criminal arrest. May has seen firsthand how ransomware gangs operate with their own codes of conduct, how a younger generation of cybercriminals is throwing those rules out entirely, and why paying a ransom is increasingly a bet that doesn't pay off. We talk about why social engineering has overtaken technical hacking as the dominant attack vector, what organizations and individuals should never do in the aftermath of a breach, and how crimes against children online often go unreported for the worst possible reasons. May also shares a story from her own experience being scammed on eBay, and what she did about it, which tells you everything you need to know about how she approaches this work. Show Notes: [1:28] May shares her background and how she came to lead Unit 221B, a threat disruption company serving enterprises, law enforcement, and government. [1:41] May traces her path into cybersecurity, explaining how a lifelong sense of justice and a friendship built through Krav Maga training led her to a team of investigators doing real criminal work. [5:55] May recounts being scammed while selling luxury shoes on eBay, describing how a fraudulent PayPal email convinced her the sale had failed after she had already shipped the item. [8:22] Rather than accepting the loss, May engaged the scammer directly, intercepted her own shipment through FedEx, and used a photoshopped payment screenshot to flip the situation on him. [11:36] The story ends with May recovering her shoes, followed by a candid note that this approach carries real risk and is not something she would recommend to others. [12:57] May outlines Unit 221B's core work, including criminal investigations, threat intelligence, pen testing, and incident response, all oriented toward federal prosecution and criminal arrest. [16:52] The evolving threat landscape, contrasting professional ransomware organizations that tend to honor agreements with a younger generation of cybercriminals who operate without limits. [18:44] May describes this younger criminal group in detail, noting members are predominantly 14 to 26 years old, English-speaking, and motivated as much by social status as financial gain. [21:49] May explains why wiping systems and restoring backups after a breach is one of the most damaging mistakes an organization can make, eliminating evidence and removing any path to prosecution. [23:04] She walks through Unit 221B's incident response process, covering digital forensics, insider threat identification, and determining who is behind an attack before advising on next steps. [26:32] May addresses the ransom payment question directly, recommending against paying as a default while acknowledging that knowing your adversary is essential to making the right call. [28:04] The discussion covers the legal and PR dimensions of a breach, including notification obligations and why some organizations choose to go public about what happened. [31:08] May pushes back on the perception that law enforcement doesn't help, explaining that federal agencies are understaffed and must prioritize cases, but are genuinely committed to the work. [34:08] The issue of victims deleting evidence before reporting, and how frequently this forecloses any possibility of investigation or prosecution. [34:55] The conversation turns to crimes targeting children, including sextortion, and why open dialogue between parents and kids is critical to getting victims to come forward before lasting harm is done. [37:18] May reflects on a keynote she gave at Harvard's Bold Conference for young women, describing the tension between advice to build an online presence and the real safety risks that come with it. [38:51] May shares practical security guidance for young people online, including being mindful of what appears in video backgrounds, using strong passwords, and enabling two-factor authentication. [40:35] May identifies AI-assisted attacks and social engineering as the two most significant forces reshaping the threat landscape, with technology now available to both attackers and defenders equally. [43:45] May describes Unit 221B's invite-only intelligence platform, which brings together top investigators, law enforcement, and private sector experts to collaborate and move cases forward. [45:10]Listeners can find Unit 221B at unit221b.com and on LinkedIn, and anyone facing a threat or needing guidance can reach out. Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review.  Links and Resources: Podcast Web Page Facebook Page whatismyipaddress.com Easy Prey on Instagram Easy Prey on Twitter Easy Prey on LinkedIn Easy Prey on YouTube Easy Prey on Pinterest May Chen-Contino - LinkedIn Unit 221B - LinkedIn Unit 221B

What Parents Need to Know About Real Self-Defense TrainingParents often hesitate when they hear “Krav Maga” — associating it with military training, aggression, or high-intensity fighting.In this episode of The John Hallett Podcast, John breaks down the reality:Kids Krav Maga, when taught correctly, is not about fighting — it's about confidence, awareness, discipline, and safety.This conversation explains:Why responsible instruction matters more than styleWhat kids actually learn in a real self-defense programWhy training reduces aggression instead of increasing itThe critical role parents play in the processThis is not theory. This is how real programs are built.Key TakeawaysKids Krav Maga is not full-contact fighting or competition trainingThe goal is confidence, awareness, and safety — not aggressionInstructor quality and program structure matter more than the nameKids learn through games, repetition, and controlled scenariosTraining often reduces bullying and emotional reactivityParents must reinforce training at home for maximum impactWho This Is ForParents considering self-defense training for their kidsFamilies concerned about bullying, confidence, or awarenessAdults skeptical about martial arts programs for childrenCurrent members who want to better understand the “why” behind training

Tehran has just completed Season 3, cranking the tension up to another bomb-ticking, messy, 24 Jack Bauer-level finale! The espionage thriller follows Tamar Rabinyan (Niv Sultan), a Mossad hacker-agent embedded in Iran, as she fights to survive while trying to win back the trust of her agency. Hugh Laurie jumps in this season as Eric Peterson, a nuclear inspector with cloudy loyalties.   On this episode, we recap the full Season 3. We are breaking down all the season's major threads, from the twists, betrayals, and new characters, to the hidden motivations, deus ex machina moments, and all the bullets and Krav Maga. Plus, Tamar and Faraz are back in their classic cat-and-mouse chase and blackmail scenes.Tune in to hear our thoughts, comparisons, best and worst moments, and our final rating. Welcome to today's episode!

What makes a character so compelling that readers will forgive almost anything about the plot? How do you move beyond vague flaws and generic descriptions to create people who feel pulled from real life? In this solo episode, I share 15 actionable tips for writing deep characters, curated from past interviews on the podcast. In the intro, thoughts from London Book Fair [Instagram reel @jfpennauthor; Publishing Perspectives; Audible; Spotify]; Insights from a 7-figure author business [BookBub]. This show is supported by my Patrons. Join my Community and get articles, discounts, and extra audio and video tutorials on writing craft, author business, and AI tools, at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn This episode has been created from previous episodes of The Creative Penn Podcast, curated by Joanna Penn, as well as chapters from How to Write a Novel: From Idea to Book. Links to the individual episodes are included in the transcript below. In this episode: Master the ‘Believe, Care, Invest' trifecta, how to hook readers on the very first page Define the Dramatic Question: Who is your character when the chips are down? Absolute specificity. Why “she's controlling” isn't good enough Understand the Heroine's Journey, strength through connection, not solo action Use ‘Metaphor Families' to anchor dialogue and give every character a distinctive voice Find the Diagnostic Detail, the moments that prove a character is real Writing pain onto the page without writing memoir Write diverse characters as real people, not stereotypes or plot devices Give your protagonist a morally neutral ‘hero' status. Compelling beats likeable. Build vibrant side characters for series longevity and spin-off potential Use voice as a rhythmic tool Link character and plot until they're inseparable Why discovery writers can write out of order and still build deep character Find the sensory details that make characters live and breathe More help with how to write fiction here, or in my book, How to Write a Novel. Writing Characters: 15 Tips for Writing Deep Character in Your Fiction In today's episode, I'm sharing fifteen tips for writing deep characters, synthesised from some of the most insightful interviews on The Creative Penn Podcast over the past few years, combined with what I've learned across more than forty books of my own. I'll be referencing episodes with Matt Bird, Will Storr, Gail Carriger, Barbara Nickless, and Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer. I'll also draw on my own book, How to Write a Novel, which covers these fundamentals in detail. Whether you're writing your first novel or your fiftieth, whether you're a plotter or a discovery writer like me, these tips will help you create characters that readers believe in, care about, and invest in—and keep coming back for more. Let's get into it. 1. Master the ‘Believe, Care, Invest' Trifecta When I spoke with Matt Bird on episode 624, he laid out the three things you need to achieve on the very first page of your book or in the first ten minutes of a film. He calls it “Believe, Care, and Invest.” First, the reader must believe the character is a real person, somehow proving they are not a cardboard imitation of a human being, not just a generic type walking through a generic plot. Second, the reader must care about the character's circumstances. And third, the reader must invest in the character's ability to solve the story's central problem. Matt used The Hunger Games as his primary example, and it's brilliant. On the very first page, we believe Katniss's voice. Suzanne Collins writes in first person with a staccato rhythm—lots of periods, short declarative sentences—that immediately grounds us in a survivalist mentality. We care because Katniss is starving. She's protecting her little sister. And we invest because she is out there bow hunting, which Matt pointed out is one of the most badass things a character can do. She even kills a lynx two pages in and sells the pelt. We invest in her resourcefulness and grit before the plot has even begun. Matt was very clear that this has nothing to do with the character being “likable.” He said his subtitle, Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love, doesn't mean the character has to be a good person. He described “hero” as both gender-neutral and morally neutral. A hero can be totally evil or totally good. What matters is that we believe, care, and invest. He demonstrated this beautifully by breaking down the first ten minutes of WeCrashed, where the characters of Adam and Rebekah Neumann are absolutely not likable, but we are completely hooked. Adam steals his neighbour's Chinese food through a carefully orchestrated con involving an imaginary beer. It's not admirable behaviour, but the tradecraft involved, as Matt put it—using a term from spy movies—makes us invest in him. We see a character trying to solve the big problem of his life, which is that he's poor and wants to be rich, and we want to see if he can pull it off. Actionable step: Go to the first page of your current work in progress. Does it achieve all three? Does the reader believe this is a real person with a distinctive voice? Do they care about the character's circumstances? And do they invest in the character's ability to handle what's coming? If even one of those three is missing, that's your revision priority. 2. Define the Dramatic Question: Who Are They Really? Will Storr, author of The Science of Storytelling, came on episode 490 and gave one of the most powerful frameworks I've ever heard for character-driven fiction. He explained that the human brain evolved language primarily to swap social information—in other words, to gossip. We are wired to monitor other people, to ask the question: who is this person when the chips are down? That's what Will calls the Dramatic Question, and it's what he believes lies at the heart of all compelling storytelling. It's not a question about plot. It's a question about the character's soul. And every scene in your novel should force the character to answer it. His example of Lawrence of Arabia is unforgettable. The Dramatic Question for the entire film is: who are you, Lawrence? Are you ordinary or are you extraordinary? At the beginning, Lawrence is a cocky, rebellious young soldier who believes his rebelliousness makes him superior. Every iconic scene in that three-hour film tests that belief. Sometimes Lawrence acts as though he truly is extraordinary—leading the Arabs into battle, being hailed as a god—and sometimes the world strips him bare and he sees himself as ordinary. Because it's a tragedy, he never overcomes his flaw. He doubles down on his belief that he's extraordinary until he becomes monstrous, culminating in that iconic scene where he lifts a bloody dagger and sees his own reflection with horror. Will also used Jaws to demonstrate how this works in a pure action thriller. Brody's dramatic question is simple: are you going to be old Brody who is terrified of the water, or new Brody who can overcome that fear? Every scene where the shark appears is really asking that question. And the last moment of the film isn't the shark blowing up. It's Brody swimming back through the water, saying he used to be scared of the water and he can't imagine why. Actionable step: Write down the Dramatic Question for your protagonist in a single sentence. Is it “Are you ordinary or extraordinary?” or “Are you brave enough to love again?” or “Will you sacrifice your principles for survival?” If you can't answer this with specificity, your character might still be a sketch rather than a person. 3. Get rid of Vague Flaws, and use Absolute Specificity This was one of Will Storr's most important points. He said that vague thinking about characters is really the enemy. When he teaches workshops and asks writers to describe their character's flaw, most of them say something like “they're very controlling.” And Will's response is: that's not good enough. Everyone is controlling. How are they controlling? What's the specific mechanism? He gave the example of a profile he read of Theresa May during the UK's Brexit chaos. Someone who knew her said that Theresa May's problem was that she always thinks she's the only adult in every room she goes into. Will said that stopped him in his tracks because it's so precise. If you define a character with that level of specificity, you can take them and put them in any genre, any situation—a spaceship, a Victorian drawing room, a school playground—and you will know exactly how they're going to behave. The same applies to Arthur Miller's Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, as Will described it: a man who believes absolutely in capitalistic success and the idea that when you die, you're going to be weighed on a scale, just as God weighs you for sin, but now you're weighed for success. That's not a vague flaw. That's a worldview you can drop into any story and watch it combust. Will made another counterintuitive point that I found really valuable: writers often think that piling on multiple traits will create a complex character, but the opposite is true. Starting with one highly specific flaw and running it through the demands of a relentless plot is what generates complexity. You end up with a far more nuanced, original character than if you'd started with a laundry list of vague attributes. Actionable step: Take your protagonist's flaw and pressure-test it. Is it specific enough that you could place this character in any situation and predict their behaviour? If you're stuck at “she's stubborn” or “he's insecure,” keep pushing. What kind of stubborn? What kind of insecure? Find the diagnostic sentence—the Theresa May level of precision. 4. Understand the Heroine's Journey: Strength Through Connection Gail Carriger came on episode 550 to discuss her nonfiction book, The Heroine's Journey, and it completely reframed how I think about some of my own fiction. Gail explained that the core difference between the Hero's Journey and the Heroine's Journey comes down to how strength and victory are defined. The Hero's Journey is about strength through solo action. The hero must be continually isolated to get stronger. He goes out of civilisation, faces strife alone, and achieves victory through physical prowess and self-actualisation. The Heroine's Journey is the opposite. The heroine achieves her goals by activating a network. She's a delegator, a general. She identifies where she can't do something alone, finds the people who can help, and portions out the work for mutual gain. Gail put it simply: the heroine is very good at asking for help, which our culture tends to devalue but which is actually a powerful form of strength. Crucially, Gail stressed that gender is irrelevant to which journey you're writing. Her go-to examples are striking: the recent Wonder Woman film is practically a beat-for-beat hero's journey—Gilgamesh on screen, as Gail described it. Meanwhile, Harry Potter, both the first book and the series as a whole, is a classic heroine's journey. Harry's power comes from his network—Dumbledore's Army, the Order of the Phoenix, his friendships with Ron and Hermione. He doesn't defeat Voldemort alone. He defeats Voldemort because of love and connection. This distinction has real practical consequences for writers. If you're writing a hero's journey and you hit writer's block, Gail said, the solution is usually to isolate your hero further and pile on more strife. But if you're writing a heroine's journey, the solution is probably to throw a new character into the scene—someone who has advice to offer or a skill the heroine lacks. The actual solutions to writer's block are different depending on which narrative you're writing. As I reflected on my own work, I realised that my ARKANE thriller protagonist, Morgan Sierra, follows a hero's journey—she's a solo operative, a lone wolf like Jack Reacher or James Bond. But my Mapwalker fantasy series follows a heroine's journey, with Sienna and her group of friends working together. I hadn't consciously chosen those paths; the stories led me there. But understanding the framework helps me write more intentionally now. Actionable step: Identify which journey your protagonist is on. Does your character gain strength by being alone (hero) or by building connections (heroine)? This will inform every plot decision you make, from how they face obstacles to how your story ends. 5. Use ‘Metaphor Families' to Anchor Dialogue and Voice One of the most practical techniques Matt Bird shared on episode 624 is the idea of assigning each character a “metaphor family”—a specific well of language that they draw from. This gives each character a distinctive voice that goes beyond accent or dialect. Matt explained how in The Wire, one of the most beloved TV shows of all time, every character has a different metaphor family. What struck him was that Omar, this iconic character, never utters a single curse word in the entire series. His metaphor family is pirate. He talks about parlays, uses language that feels like it belongs in Pirates of the Caribbean, and it creates this incredible ironic counterpoint against his urban setting. It tells us immediately that this is a character who sees himself in a tradition of people that doesn't match his immediate surroundings. Matt also referenced the UK version of The Office, where Gareth works at a paper company but aspires to the military. So all of his language is drawn from a military metaphor family. He doesn't talk about filing and photocopying; he talks about tactics and discipline and being on the front line. This tells us that the character has a life and dreams beyond the immediate scene—and it's the gap between aspiration and reality that makes him both funny and believable. He pointed out that a metaphor family sometimes comes from a character's background, but it's often more interesting when it comes from their aspirations. What does your character want to be? What world do they fantasise about inhabiting? That's where their language should come from. In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a spiritual hermit, but his metaphor family is military. He uses the language of generals and commanders, and that ironic counterpoint is part of what makes him feel so rich. Actionable step: Assign each of your main characters a metaphor family. It could be based on their job, their background, or—more interestingly—their secret aspirations. Then go through your dialogue and make sure each character is consistently drawing from that well of language. If two characters sound the same when you strip away the dialogue tags, this is the fix. 6. Find the Diagnostic Detail: The Diagonal Toast Avoid clichéd character tags—the random scar, the eye patch, the mysterious limp—unless they serve a deep narrative purpose. Matt Bird on episode 624 was very funny about this: he pointed out that Nick Fury, Odin, and eventually Thor all have eye patches in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Eye patches are done, he said. You cannot do eye patches anymore. Instead, look for what I'm calling the “diagonal toast” detail, after a scene Matt described from Captain Marvel. In the film, Captain Marvel is trying to determine whether Nick Fury is who he says he is. She asks him to prove he isn't a shapeshifting alien. Fury shares biographical details—his history, his mother—but then she pushes further and says, name one more thing you couldn't possibly have made up about yourself. And Fury says: if toast is cut diagonally, I can't eat it. Matt said that detail is gold for a writer because it feels pulled from a real life. You can pull it from your own life and gift it to your characters, and the reader can tell it's not manufactured. He gave another example from The Sopranos: Tony Soprano's mother won't answer the phone after dark. The show's creator, David Chase, confirmed on the DVD commentary that this came from his own mother, who genuinely would not answer the phone after dark and couldn't explain why. Matt's practical advice was to keep a journal. Write down the strange, specific things that people do or say. Mine your own life for those hyper-specific details. You just need one per book. In my own writing, I've used this approach. In my ARKANE thrillers, my character Morgan Sierra has always been Angelina Jolie in my mind—specifically Jolie in Lara Croft or Mr and Mrs Smith. And Blake Daniel in my crime thriller series was based on Jesse Williams from Grey's Anatomy. I paste pictures of actors into my Scrivener projects. It helps with visuals, but also with the sense of the character, their energy and physicality. But visual details only take you so far. It's the behavioural quirks—the diagonal toast moments—that make a character feel genuinely alive. That said, physical character tags can work brilliantly when they serve the story. As I discuss in How to Write a Novel, Robert Galbraith's Cormoran Strike is an amputee, and his pain and the physical challenges of his prosthesis are a key part of every story—it's not a cosmetic detail, it's woven into the action and the character's psychology. My character Blake Daniel always wears gloves to cover the scars on his hands, which provides an angle into his wounded past as well as a visual cue for the reader. And of course, Harry Potter's lightning-shaped scar isn't just a mark—it's a direct connection to his nemesis and the mythology of the entire series. The rule of thumb is: if the tag tells us something about the character's interior life or connects to the plot, it's earning its place. If it's just there to make the character visually distinctive, it's probably a crutch. Game of Thrones takes character tags further with the family houses, each with their own mottos and sigils. The Starks say “Winter is coming” and their sigil is a dire wolf. Those aren't just labels—they're worldview made visible. Actionable step: Start a “diagonal toast” notebook. Every time you notice something strange and specific about someone's behaviour—something that feels too real to be made up—write it down. Then gift it to a character who needs more texture. 7. Displace Your Own Trauma into the Work Barbara Nickless shared something deeply personal on episode 732 that fundamentally changed how I think about putting pain onto the page. While starting At First Light, the first book in her Dr. Evan Wilding series, she lost her son to epilepsy—something called SUDEP, Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy. One day he was there, and the next day he was gone. Barbara said that writing helped her cope with the trauma, that doing a deep dive into Old English literature and the Viking Age for the book's research became a lifeline. But here's what's important: she didn't give Dr. Evan Wilding her exact trauma. Evan Wilding is four feet five inches, and Barbara described how he has to walk through a world that won't adjust to him. That's its own form of learning to cope when circumstances are beyond your control. She displaced her genuine grief into the character's different but parallel struggle. When I asked her about the difference between writing for therapy and writing for an audience, she drew on her experience teaching creative writing to veterans through a collaboration between the US Department of Defense and the National Endowment for the Arts. She said she's found that she can pour her heartache into her characters and process it through them, even when writing professionally, and that the genuine emotion is what touches readers. We've all been through our own losses and griefs, so seeing how a character copes can be deeply meaningful. I've always found that putting my own pain onto the page is the most direct way to connect with a reader's soul. My character Morgan Sierra's musings on religion and the supernatural are often my own. Her restlessness, her fascination with the darker edges of faith—those come from me. But her Krav Maga fighting skills and her ability to kill the bad guys are definitely her own. That gap between what's mine and what's hers is where the fiction lives. Barbara also said something on that episode that I wrote down and stuck on my wall. She said the act of producing itself is a balm to the soul. I've been thinking about that ever since. On my own wall, I have “Measure your life by what you create.” Different words, same truth. Actionable step: If you're carrying something heavy—grief, anger, fear, regret—consider how you might displace it into a character's different but emotionally parallel struggle. Don't copy your exact situation; transform it. The emotion will be genuine, and the reader will feel it. 8. Write Diverse Characters as Real People When I spoke with Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer on episode 673—Sarah is Choctaw and a historical fiction author honoured by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian—she offered a perspective that every fiction writer needs to hear. The key message was to move away from stereotypes. Don't write your American Indian character as the “Wise Guide” who exists solely to dispense mystic wisdom to the white protagonist. Don't limit diverse characters to historical settings, as though they only exist in the past. Place them in normal, contemporary roles. Your spaceship captain, your forensic scientist, your small-town baker—any of them can be American Indian, or Nigerian, or Japanese, and their heritage should be a lived-in part of their identity, not the sole reason they exist in the story. I write international thrillers and dark fantasy, and my fiction is populated with characters from all over the world. I have a multi-cultural family and I've lived in many places and travelled widely, so I've met, worked with, and had relationships with people from different cultures. I find story ideas through travel, and if I set my books in a certain place, then the story is naturally populated with the people who live there. As I discuss in my book, How to Write a Novel, the world is a diverse place, so your fiction needs to be populated with all kinds of people. If I only populated my fiction with characters like me, they would be boring novels. There are many dimensions of difference—race, nationality, sex, age, body type, ability, religion, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, class, culture, education level—and even then, don't assume that similar types of people think the same way. Some authors worry they will make mistakes. We live in a time of outrage, and some authors have been criticised for writing outside their own experience. So is it too dangerous to try? Of course not. The media amplifies outliers, and most authors include diverse characters in every book without causing offence because they work hard to get it right. It's about awareness, research, and intent. Actionable step: Audit the cast of your current work in progress. Have you written a mono-cultural perspective for all of them? If so, consider who could bring a different background, perspective, or set of cultural specifics to the story. Not as a token addition, but as a real person with a real life. 9. Respect Tribal and Cultural Specificity Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer on episode 673 was emphatic about one thing: never treat diverse groups as monolithic. If you're writing a Native American character, you must research the specific nation. Choctaw is not Navajo, just as British is not French. Sarah described the distinct cultural markers of the Choctaw people—the diamond pattern you'll see on traditional shirts and dresses, which represents the diamondback rattlesnake. They have distinct dances and songs. She said that if she saw someone in traditional dress at a distance, she would know whether they were Choctaw based on what they were wearing. She encouraged writers who want to write specifically about a nation to get to know those people. Go to events, go to a powwow, learn about the individual culture. She noted that a big misconception is that American Indians exist only in the past—she stressed that they are still here, still living their cultures, and fiction should reflect that present reality. I took a similar approach when writing Destroyer of Worlds, which is set mostly in India. I read books about Hindu myth, watched documentaries about the sadhus, and had one of my Indian readers from Mumbai check my cultural references. For Risen Gods, set in New Zealand with a young Maori protagonist, I studied books about Maori mythology and fiction by Maori authors, and had a male Maori reader check for cultural issues. Research is simply an act of empathy. The practical takeaway is this: if you're going to include a character from a specific cultural background, do the work. Use specific cultural details rather than generic signifiers. Sarah talked about how even she fell into stereotypes when she was first writing, until her mother pointed them out. If someone from within a culture can fall into those traps, the rest of us certainly can. Do the research, try your best, ask for help, and apologise if you need to. Actionable step: If you're writing a character from a specific culture, identify three to five sensory or behavioural details that are particular to that culture—not the generic version, but the real, researched, lived-in version. Consider hiring a sensitivity reader from that community to check your work. 10. Give Your Protagonist a Morally Neutral ‘Hero' Status Matt Bird was clear about this on episode 624: the word “hero” simply means the protagonist, the person we follow through the story. It's a functional role, not a moral label. We don't have to like them. We don't even have to root for their goals in a moral sense. We just have to find them compelling enough to invest our attention in their problem-solving. Think of Succession, where every member of the Roy family is varying degrees of awful, and yet the show was utterly compelling. Or WeCrashed, where Adam Neumann is a narcissistic con artist, but we can't look away because he's trying to solve the enormous problem of building an empire from nothing, and the tradecraft he employs is fascinating. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, readers must want to spend time with your characters. They don't have to be lovable or even likable—that will depend on your genre and story choices—but they have to be captivating enough that we want to spend time with them. A character who is trying to solve a massive problem will naturally draw investment from the audience, even if we wouldn't want to have tea with them. Will Storr extended this idea by pointing out that the audience will actually root for a character to solve their problem even if the audience doesn't actually want the character's goal to be achieved in the real world. We don't really want more billionaires, but we invested in Adam Neumann's rise because that was the problem the story posed, and our brains are wired to invest in problem-solving. This connects to something deeper: what does your character want, and why? As I explore in How to Write a Novel, desire operates on multiple levels. Take a character like Phil, who joins the military during wartime. On the surface, she wants to serve her country. But she also wants to escape her dead-end town and learn new skills. Deeper still, her father and grandfather served, and by joining up, she hopes to finally earn their respect. And perhaps deepest of all, her father died on a mission under mysterious circumstances, and she wants to find out what happened from the inside. That layering of motivation is what turns a flat character into a three-dimensional one. The audience doesn't need to be told all of this explicitly. It can emerge through action, dialogue, and the choices the character makes under pressure. But you, the writer, need to know it. You need to know what your character really wants deep down, because that desire—more than any external plot device—is what drives the story forward. And your antagonist needs the same depth. They also want something, often diametrically opposed to your protagonist, and they need a reason that makes sense to them. In my ARKANE thriller Tree of Life, my antagonist is the heiress of a Brazilian mining empire who wants to restore the Earth to its original state to atone for the destruction caused by her father's company. She's part of a radical ecological group who believe the only way to restore Nature is to end all human life. It's extreme, but in an era of climate change, it's a motivation readers can understand—even if they disagree with the solution. Actionable step: If you're struggling to make a morally grey character work, make sure their problem is big enough and their methods are specific and interesting enough that we invest in the how, even if we're ambivalent about the what. 11. Build Vibrant Side Characters Gail Carriger made a point on episode 550 that was equal parts craft advice and business strategy. In a Heroine's Journey model, side characters aren't just fodder to be killed off to motivate the hero. They form a network. And because you don't have to kill them—unlike in a hero's journey, where allies are often betrayed or removed so the hero can be further isolated—you can pick up those side characters and give them their own books. Gail said this creates a really voracious reader base. You write one series with vivid side characters, and then readers fall in love with those side characters and want their stories. So you write spin-offs. The romance genre does this brilliantly—think of the Bridgerton books, where each sibling gets their own novel. The side character in one book becomes the protagonist in the next. Barbara Nickless experienced this firsthand with her Dr. Evan Wilding series. She has River Wilding, Evan's adventurous brother, and Diana, the axe-throwing research assistant, and her editor has already expressed interest in a spin-off series with those characters. Barbara described creating characters she wants to spend time with, or characters who give her nightmares but also intrigue her. That's the dual test: are they interesting enough for you to write, and interesting enough for readers to demand more? As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, characters that span series can deepen the reader's relationship with them as you expand their backstory into new plots. Readers will remember the character more than the plot or the book title, and look forward to the next instalment because they want more time with those people. British crime author Angela Marsons described it as readers feeling like returning to her characters is like putting on a pair of old slippers. Actionable step: Look at your supporting cast. Is there a side character who is vivid enough to carry their own story? If not, what could you add—a specific hobby, a distinct voice, a compelling backstory—that would make readers want more of them? 12. Use Voice as a Rhythmic Tool Voice is one of the most important elements of novel writing, and Matt Bird helped me think about it in a technical, mechanical way that I found really useful. He pointed out that the ratio of periods to commas defines a character's internal reality. A staccato rhythm—lots of periods, short sentences—suggests a character who is certain, grounded, or perhaps survivalist and traumatised. Katniss in The Hunger Games has a period-heavy voice. She's in survival mode. She doesn't have time for complexity or qualification. A flowing, comma-heavy style suggests someone more academic, more nuanced, or possibly more scattered and manipulative. The character who qualifies everything, who adds sub-clauses and digressions, is a different kind of person from the character who speaks in declarations. This is something you can actually measure. Pull up a passage of your character's dialogue or internal monologue and count the periods versus the commas. If the rhythm doesn't match who the character is supposed to be, you've found a mismatch you can fix. Sentence length is the heartbeat of your character's persona. And voice extends beyond rhythm to the words themselves. As I discussed in the metaphor families tip, each character should draw from a distinctive well of language. But voice also encompasses their relationship to silence. Some characters talk around the thing they mean; others say it straight. Some are self-deprecating; others are blunt to the point of rudeness. All of these choices are character choices, not just style choices. I find it useful to read my dialogue aloud—and not just to check for naturalness, but to hear whether each character sounds distinct. If you could swap dialogue lines between two characters and nobody would notice, you have a voice problem. One practical test: cover the dialogue tags and see if you can tell who's speaking from the words alone. Actionable step: Choose a key passage from your protagonist's point of view and read it aloud. Does the rhythm match the character? A soldier under fire should not sound like a philosophy professor at a wine tasting. Adjust the ratio of periods to commas until the voice feels right. 13. Link Character and Plot Until They're Inseparable Will Storr made the case on episode 490 that the number one problem he sees in the writing he encounters—in workshops, in submissions, even in published books—is that the characters and the plots are unconnected. There's a story happening, and there are people in it, but the story isn't a product of who those people are. He said a story should be like life. In our lives, the plots are intimately connected to who we are as characters. The goals we pursue, the obstacles we face, the same problems that keep recurring—these are products of our personalities, our flaws, our specific ways of being in the world. His framework is that your plot should be designed specifically to plot against your character. You've got a character with a particular flaw; the plot exists to test that flaw over and over until the character either transforms or doubles down and explodes. Jaws is the perfect example. Brody is afraid of water. A shark shows up in the coastal town he's responsible for protecting. The entire plot is engineered to force him to confront the one thing he cannot face. Will pointed out that the whole plot of Jaws is structured around Brody's flaw. It begins with the shark arriving, the midpoint is when Brody finally gets the courage to go into the water, and the very final scene isn't the shark blowing up—it's Brody swimming back through the water. Even a film that's ninety-eight percent action is, at its core, structured around a character with a character flaw. This is the standard I aspire to in my own work, even in my action-heavy thrillers. The external plot should be a mirror of the internal struggle. When those two are aligned, the story becomes irresistible. Will also made an important point about series fiction, which is where most commercial authors live. I asked him how this works when your character can't be transformed at the end of every book because there has to be a next book. His answer was elegant: you don't cure them. Episodic TV characters like Fleabag or David Brent or Basil Fawlty never truly change—and the fact that they don't change is actually the source of the comedy. But every episode throws a new story event at them that tests and exposes their flaw. You just keep throwing story events at them again and again. That's a soap opera, a sitcom, and a book series. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, character flaws are aspects of personality that affect the person so much that facing and overcoming them becomes central to the plot. In Jaws, the protagonist Brody is afraid of the water, but he has to overcome that flaw to destroy the killer shark and save the town. But remember, your characters should feel like real people, so never define them purely by their flaws. The character addicted to painkillers might also be a brilliant and successful female lawyer who gets up at four in the morning to work out at the gym, likes eighties music, and volunteers at the local dog shelter at weekends. Character wounds are different from flaws. They're formed from life experience and are part of your character's backstory—traumatic events that happened before the events of your novel but shape the character's reactions in the present. In my ARKANE thrillers, Morgan Sierra's husband Elian died in her arms during a military operation. This happened before the series begins, but her memories of it recur when she faces a firefight, and she struggles to find happiness again for fear of losing someone she loves once more. And then there's the perennial advice: show, don't tell. Most writers have heard this so many times that it's easy to nod and then promptly write scenes that tell rather than show. Basically, you need to reveal your character through action and dialogue, rather than explanation. In my thriller Day of the Vikings, Morgan Sierra fights a Neo-Viking in the halls of the British Museum and brings him down with Krav Maga. That fight scene isn't just about showing action. It opens up questions about her backstory, demonstrates character, and moves the plot forward. Telling would be something like: “Morgan was an expert in Krav Maga.” Showing is the reader discovering it through the scene itself. Actionable step: Look at the main plot events of your novel. For each major turning point, ask: does this scene specifically test my protagonist's flaw? If not, can you redesign the scene so that it does? The tighter the connection between character and plot, the more powerful the story. 14. The ‘Maestra' Approach: Write Out of Order If you're a discovery writer like me, you may feel like the deep character work I've been describing sounds more suited to plotters. But Barbara Nickless gave me a beautiful metaphor on episode 732 that reframes it entirely. Barbara described her evolving writing process as being like a maestra standing in front of an orchestra. Sometimes you bring in the horns—a certain theme—and sometimes you bring in the strings—a certain character—and sometimes you turn to the soloist. It's a more organic and jumping-around process than linear writing, and Barbara said she's only recently given herself permission to work this way. When I told her that I use Scrivener to write in scenes out of order and then drag and drop them into a structure later, she was genuinely intrigued. And this is how I've always worked. I'll see the story in my mind like a movie trailer—flashes of the big emotional scenes, the pivotal confrontations, the moments of revelation—and I write those first. I don't know how they hang together until quite late in the process. Then I'll move scenes around, print the whole thing out, and figure out the connective tissue. The point is that discovery writers can absolutely build deep characters. Sometimes writing the big emotional scenes first is how you discover who the character is before you fill in the rest. You don't need a twenty-page character worksheet or a 200-page outline like Jeffery Deaver. You need to be willing to follow the character into the unknown and trust that the structure will emerge. As Barbara said, she writes to know what she's thinking. That's the discovery writer's credo. And I would add: I write to know who my characters are. Actionable step: If you're stuck on your current chapter, skip it. Write the scene that's burning in your imagination, even if it's from the middle or the end. That scene might be the key to unlocking who your character really is. 15. Use Research to Help with Empathy Research shouldn't just be about factual accuracy—it's a tool for finding the sensory details that create empathy. Barbara Nickless described research as almost an excuse to explore things that fascinate her, and I feel exactly the same way. I would go so far as to say that writing is an excuse for me to explore the things that interest me. Barbara and I both travel for our stories. For her Dr. Evan Wilding books, she did deep research into Old English literature and the Viking Age. For my thriller End of Days, I transcribed hours of video from Appalachian snake-handling churches on YouTube to understand the worldview of the worshippers, because my antagonist was brought up in that tradition. I couldn't just make that up. I had to hear their language, feel their conviction, understand why they would hold venomous serpents as an act of faith. Barbara also mentioned getting to Israel and the West Bank for research, and I've been to both places too. Finding that one specific sensory detail—the smell of a particular location, the specific way an expert handles a tool, the sound of a particular kind of music—makes the character's life feel lived-in. It's the difference between a character who is described as living in a place and a character who inhabits it. As I wrote in How to Write a Novel, don't write what you know. Write what you want to learn about. I love research. It's part of why I'm an author in the first place. I take any excuse to dive into a world different from my own. Research using books, films, podcasts, and travel, and focus particularly on sources produced by people from the worldview you want to understand. Actionable step: For your next piece of character research, go beyond reading. Watch a documentary, visit a location, talk to someone who lives the experience. Find one sensory detail—a smell, a sound, a texture—that you couldn't have invented. That detail will make your character feel real. Bonus: Measure Your Life by What You Create In an age of AI and a tsunami of content, your ultimate brand protection is the quality of your human creation. Barbara Nickless said that the act of producing itself is a balm to the soul, and I believe that with every fibre of my being. Don't be afraid to take that step back, like I did with my deadlifting. Take the time to master these deeper craft skills. It might feel like you're slowing down or going backwards by not chasing the latest marketing trend, but it's the only way to step forward into a sustainable, high-quality career. Your characters are your signature. No AI can replicate the specificity of your lived experience, the emotional truth of your displaced trauma, or the sensory details you've gathered from a life of curiosity and travel. Those are yours. Pour them into your characters, and they will resonate for years to come. Actionable Takeaway: Identify the Dramatic Question for your current protagonist. Can you state it in a single sentence with the kind of specificity Will Storr described? Is it as clear as “Are you ordinary or extraordinary?” or “Are you the only adult in the room?” If you can't answer it with that kind of precision, your character might still be a sketch. Give them a diagonal toast moment today. Find the one hyper-specific detail that proves they are not an imitation of life. And then ask yourself: does your plot test your character's flaw in every major scene? If you can align those two things—a precisely defined character and a plot that exists to test them—you will have a story that readers cannot put down. References and Deep Dives The episodes I've referenced today are all available with full transcripts at TheCreativePenn.com: Episode 732 — Facing Fears, and Writing Unique Characters with Barbara Nickless Episode 673 — Writing Choctaw Characters and Diversity in Fiction with Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer Episode 624 — Writing Characters with Matt Bird Episode 550 — The Heroine's Journey with Gail Carriger Episode 490 — How Character Flaws Shape Story with Will Storr Books mentioned: The Secrets of Character: Writing a Hero Anyone Will Love by Matt Bird The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger How to Write a Novel: From Idea to Book by Joanna Penn You can find all my books for authors at CreativePennBooks.com and my fiction and memoir at JFPennBooks.com Happy writing! How was this episode created? This episode was initiated created by NotebookLM based on YouTube videos of the episodes linked above from YouTube/TheCreativePenn, plus my text chapters on character from How to Write a Novel. NotebookLM created a blog post from the material and then I expanded it and fact checked it with Claude.ai 4.6 Opus, and then I used my voice clone at ElevenLabs to narrate it. The post Writing Characters: 15 Actionable Tips For Writing Deep Character first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Coach Donavin Britt on Building Las Vegas Combat Academy, Mental Toughness, and Protecting Gym Culture   Host Pete Deeley interviews Coach Donavin Britt on The Jiu Jitsu Mindset, discussing Britt's path from apprenticing under instructor Roger Donofrio into becoming a Krav Maga and self-defense-first gym owner who later added jiu-jitsu and MMA. He describes earning high-level training under figures including Sgt. Major Nir Maman (as the first American certified instructor), Darren Levine, and John Whitman, and discusses the importance of standards, mental toughness, and having a purpose bigger than oneself. Britt addresses misconceptions and quality-control issues in Krav Maga, his motivation to compete in jiu-jitsu (including winning at NAGA while representing Krav Maga on his rashguard), and how sparring and competition serve as stress tests while differing from real self-defense. He recounts a memorable fight from the 1990s loss-prevention work in Oakland involving a drug-impaired suspect who required a rear-naked choke to stop, using it to emphasize the need for a varied skill set. Britt also strongly condemns misconduct in martial arts settings, details removing a student with a troubling history involving women to protect members, and argues men and coaches must "guard the mat" and enforce clear consequences to keep women safe. He shares a transformative student story about a teenager, Angel, who was assaulted and regained confidence through training and sparring, connecting it to mentorship, accountability, and coaching built on consistent care and firm parameters. The episode ends with Deeley inviting Britt to return for further discussion.   00:00 Welcome Back + Coffee & Kids Program Plug 00:33 Meet Coach Donavin Britt 01:36 Life Without Martial Arts? From Student to Instructor via Apprenticeship 02:29 How Krav Maga Instructors Are Really Made (Not a Weekend Cert) 03:53 2008 Crash, Failed Smoothie Franchise, and Betting the Last $500 on a Gym 06:26 Building Las Vegas Combat Academy: Growth, Identity, and the 'Krav Guy' Label 08:38 Crossing Into Jiu-Jitsu: Competing at NAGA and Repping Krav on the Gi 13:36 Iron Will & Legacy: Training for Something Bigger Than Yourself 14:21 Work Ethic Roots: Poverty, Family Pressure, and Grandfather's Alaska Story 19:22 How Martial Arts Learning Differs: Physicality, Emotion, and Self-Defense Intent 22:44 Calling Out Toxic Gym Culture: Protecting Women and 'Guarding the Mat' 27:49 Gym Dating Drama: Standards, Respect, and Zero Tolerance for Fights 29:06 Most Memorable Fight: Loss Prevention Brawls in 90s Oakland 33:53 Competition vs Real Violence: Why Sparring Matters (and Its Limits) 37:58 "It's Just Pain": Teaching Kids Hurt vs Injured & Fighting vs Self-Defense 40:21 Cross-Training and Combat Sports Programming That Improves Self-Defense 42:48 Student Transformation Story: Angel's Sparring Breakthrough 49:52 Coaching, Accountability, and the "Rules of the Tribe" (Maximum Effort) 53:48 Final Thoughts: Self-Help Through Martial Arts & Closing the Conversation

Janelle Gabriel shares how Krav Maga prepared her to face an unexpected assailant who harassed her and her husband while they were on vacation. Her heightened awareness and mental preparedness gave her the confidence and advantage she needed to protect herself. She opens up about what first drew her to Krav Maga and how her dedication to the discipline helped her grow from a student into a lead instructor. Finally, she offers her powerful perspective on why martial arts training is especially important for women. Don't miss this inspiring and thoughtful episode! Check out Andrea's books here: Amazon.com: Andrea Harkins: books, biography, latest update

Tammy McCracken is a self-defense professional, psychotherapist, and international instructor whose work lives at the powerful intersection of violence dynamics, trauma recovery, and transformational leadership. She is the Founder and CEO of 500Rising, an organization built from decades of experience in both mental health and self-defense. Through 500Rising, Tammy provides education and instructor training across North America and Europe, with a strong focus on empowering women and girls through realistic, experience-based learning. Tammy is also the founder of Kore Self-Defense & Krav Maga in the Northern Virginia and DC Metro area, where she serves as program advisor, teaches general training classes, and directs the instructor college training program. Her leadership extends internationally as a core member of the renowned Violence Dynamics teaching team established by Rory Miller. She is a certified Conflict Communication Instructor, Situational Awareness Specialist, Krav Maga Instructor, scenario development trainer, and facilitator. As a psychotherapist specializing in acute and complex trauma recovery, Tammy has worked with both survivors of violence and perpetrators, giving her a rare and deeply informed perspective that shapes how she teaches self-defense and develops instructors. She earned her Expert Rank in Krav Maga in Israel through Krav Maga Global, becoming the third woman in North America to achieve that rank and the first fully certified female instructor on the East Coast within the organization. In addition to her hands-on training and clinical work, Tammy has authored numerous articles, developed a self-defense course for The Great Courses, contributed a chapter to Rory Miller's most recent book, and appeared on multiple podcasts sharing her expertise. In this episode, we explore the realities of violence, the psychology behind conflict, the responsibility of instructors, and how true empowerment is built through both competence and compassion. Please welcome my guest today… Tammy McCracken. 500 Rising – Home Krav Maga Northern Virginia | Self-Defense | Kore Self Defense Events Calendar – KMG – Krav Maga Global

What is Krav Maga supposed to be?In this episode, I sit down with Ryan Hoover for a direct and honest conversation about evolution in self-defense, the difference between teaching and coaching, and why many systems lose their way.We speak openly about:Why Krav Maga must evolve or become irrelevantThe difference between an instructor and a coachHow ego and insecurity damage studentsWhy wrestling and boxing are foundationalThe myth of one-on-one fighting as “self-defense”The reality of October 7th and how it changed perspectivesWeapons, mindset, and the emotional cost of violenceWhy lineage matters — but blind tradition does notWhy decision-making under stress matters more than technique collectionThis is not a debate about styles.It is a discussion about responsibility.If you are serious about self-defense, coaching, leadership, or building something that actually works under pressure — this episode is for you.Growth requires discomfort.Stagnation is a choice.www.kravmagaisrael.com

Vampiro digs mid-90s Japanese wrestling, getting new guys over, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Krav Maga (not necessarily in that order). He's got great stories about "calling it in the ring," what it means to be fired up, and the lost art of selling. He's also talking about the great Lucha Underground vignettes, the Will Ospreay vs Ricochet match, and his own legendary bout with Pentagon, Jr. And he thinks season 3 of Lucha is so good, he's not sure WTF they're gonna do for season 4!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Two years ago, the Hoosiers of Indiana University were losing every game. Then, in January this year, something remarkable happened - they became the 2025–26 College Football Playoff National Champions! Eric has been inspired by this incredible transformation, guided by Coach Cignetti's leadership. What stood out for him was the total absence of hype, excuses, or a victim mentality. Instead, Coach Cignetti relies on three pillars: standards, preparation, and accountability—the very principles that drive success for any business owner, and yet, they are often the things we neglect. So, inspired by the Hoosiers' journey, Eric shares five ideas today- not to challenge you, but to inspire you and get you thinking. The Anti-Excuse Philosophy Winners don't explain—they execute. Slow markets, price-sensitive clients, societal shifts, and global events will always exist and cannot be controlled. What you can control is how you react to them. When finding excuses becomes a habit, the excuse itself starts to function as the business model. So, instead, focus on moving forward, facing reality, and finding new opportunities. Standards Are Not Aspirations Standards are practical, not theoretical. They are evident in the business's day-to-day operations. They define what "good" means, how fast you respond, what quality looks like, which clients you accept, and how disciplined you are financially. Values only matter if they are lived and enforced. So, if you're tolerating average behavior, you are actively training your business to lose.  Preparation Beats Motivation Preparation matters more than motivation. High performers rely on repetition, fundamentals, and systems rather than waiting for inspiration. Reviewing the basics, using checklists, and showing up consistently will reduce stress and improve your ability to react when the unexpected happens. Readiness comes from preparation, not from waiting for perfect conditions. Confidence is built through daily repetition, not excitement. Culture Is What You Allow A business's culture is defined by what you allow, who you promote, and the behavior you either allow or ignore. Allowing toxic behavior, even once, sets a standard. Culture is also reflected in boundaries, pricing, calendars, and the willingness to say no. If a business feels chaotic, it is because chaos is being allowed and rewarded. The Scoreboard Never Lies Results tell the truth. Your revenue and margins matter, but so does your energy, health, client quality, and sanity. Being busy is not the same as winning. The market does not reward effort. It rewards outcomes. So, if the scoreboard says you're losing, it is time to change how you're playing the game.   Bio: Eric Rozenberg Eric Rozenberg is a business coach and the founder of Event Business Formula, the only platform exclusively designed to help business owners in the meetings and events industry grow and scale sustainably. He has guided thousands of entrepreneurs to improve operations, gain clarity, and achieve lasting results.  Before launching his coaching business, Eric spent over 20 years producing award-winning events—sales meetings, incentive trips, and conferences—for Fortune 500 companies in more than 50 countries.  He hosts The Business of Meetings, the industry's first and largest podcast focused on business ownership, featuring over 250 episodes with top leaders and experts.  Eric made history as the first European to serve as Chairman of the International Board of MPI (Meetings Professionals International).  He is also the author of two books: Meeting at C-Level, endorsed by 20 influential industry leaders, and Before It's Too Late, a powerful memoir about grit, family, and his journey to America.  Eric lives in South Florida and enjoys pickleball, tennis, and Krav Maga. Connect with Eric Rozenberg On LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Website Listen to The Business of Meetings podcast Subscribe to The Business of Meetings newsletter  

In this episode, John Hallett and Josh Hammerling break down one of the most misunderstood topics in martial arts and self-defense:Competition training is not the same as self-defense training.They discuss why beginners shouldn't expect to out-fight trained competitors, how Krav Maga uses the 80/20 rule to build real-world survivability, and why so many viral videos take techniques completely out of context.This conversation covers:Why specializing beats being well-rounded — and why self-defense is differentThe danger of expecting advanced techniques from new studentsHow awareness, de-escalation, and decision-making matter as much as physical skillWhy internet comparisons between martial arts often miss the pointTraining for reality, not ego or trophiesIf your goal is to go home safe, not win a match, this episode explains what realistic self-defense training actually looks like.Train with us:Rocky Mountain Self Defense & FitnessCastle Rock, ColoradoLearn more about Krav Maga, fitness, and integrative defense training at RMSDF.

Is Krav Maga a martial art?Language is not just how we describe reality. It is how we organise it. When the language is sloppy, the thinking that follows is sloppy. You cannot have clarity downstream if the foundation is vague or emotionally loaded.Krav Maga operates in the realm of force, harm, violence, and authority. That is dangerous ground. Mislabeling something here does not just confuse discussion. It confuses outcomes, and in this world outcomes are often life and death.Most people use words like self-defense, fighting, sport, and martial art interchangeably. They are not the same. In this episode, I unpack why those distinctions matter, where Krav Maga actually sits once the language is taken seriously, and why the line between sport and martial practice is far less clear than people assume.This isn't about labels or branding. It's about clarity, responsibility, and understanding what we are really training for.www.kravmagaisrael.com

There's a lot of martial arts content online that looks impressive—but taken out of context, it can confuse people fast.In this episode of The John Hallett Podcast, we break down one of the biggest misconceptions in self-defense training: the belief that any system—Krav Maga included—can magically neutralize a highly trained fighter.That's not reality.If someone has years of boxing, wrestling, or BJJ experience, and you've been training for six months, you're already behind. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling fantasy.What Krav Maga is designed to do is far more honest—and far more useful.It focuses on teaching the 20% of skills that solve about 80% of real-world problems:Awareness De-escalationGross-motor, high-percentage movementsDecision-making under stressThat matters because most real-world attacks aren't clean, technical, or fair. They're chaotic. Emotional. Close. And often involve people with little to no formal training—not elite competitors.We also talk about how social media creates false comparisons:Competition techniques shown as “self-defense”Advanced movements taught to beginnersVideos designed to “debunk” other systems by changing the contextThat's not education. That's confusion.Self-defense isn't about winning exchanges or proving superiority. It's about using the right tool for the right moment—or better yet, avoiding the fight entirely when possible.One example we discuss: a training scenario where de-escalation was the correct answer—but a student defaulted to striking simply because they were “in range.” That choice escalated a situation that didn't need to become violent.That's a training failure—not a technique failure.The takeaway is simple:Context mattersProbability mattersPrinciples matter more than flashy techniquesAnd most of all, how you train is how you default under stress.If your training ignores awareness, escalation control, and decision-making, no amount of technique will save you.

Go to https://m.youtube.com/@peacewalkerlife for more. - Thank you for listening to my podcast! After seven seasons and almost 300 episodes I have decided to pause this broadcast. I am focusing my efforts on our YouTube Channel. There you will find hundreds of videos including interviews, defensive tactics, verbal de-escalation, Krav Maga, leadership, self defense, training tips, conflict resolution and a whole bunch more. Thanks again for listening and supporting! Keep Going!

End of the Year Wrap-Up: Training, Stress, and the Long Game of Self-DefenseThe John Hallett Podcast – 2025 ReflectionAs we close out the year, this episode of The John Hallett Podcast isn't about highlights, hype, or quick wins. It's a hard, honest look at what actually builds real self-defense skill, physical capability, and mental resilience over time — and why most people misunderstand all threeEnd Of The Year Wrap Up The Joh….This conversation moves from belt testing stress to reacting vs responding, fitness mistakes, long-term mindset, and why consistency beats intensity every time.If you train for real life — not sport, trophies, or social media — this episode matters.Training Under Stress Reveals the TruthOne of the recurring themes in this episode is stress testing — specifically belt tests and controlled pressure environments like Throw Down the Gauntlet.Here's the reality:Stress exposes gaps you didn't know you hadFatigue breaks sloppy technique fastYour brain shuts down long before your body doesStudents often know techniques… until stress shows up. Names disappear. Movements degrade. Decision-making collapses. That's not failure — that's informationEnd Of The Year Wrap Up The Joh….This is exactly why pressure testing exists:Not to embarrassNot to punishBut to reveal what still needs repsReacting vs Responding: The Difference That Keeps You AliveA major teaching point in this episode is the difference between reacting and responding under threat.Reacting:Panic-drivenEmotionalAdrenaline hijacks the brainOften sloppy, excessive, or legally dangerousResponding:TrainedIntentionalBuilt through reps and pressureAllows decision-making under chaosKrav Maga uses instinctive movement — but instinct must be refined, not left raw. The goal isn't to erase reactions; it's to shape them into controlled responses through repetition and stress exposureEnd Of The Year Wrap Up The Joh….Why Most People Stall at Intermediate LevelsOne of the blunt truths discussed is how people plateau once they're “not beginners anymore.”This is where ego sneaks in.Intermediate students often:Rush techniquesStop respecting fundamentalsConfuse familiarity with masteryAvoid slow, boring refinementThe reality: You don't outgrow basics — you deepen them.Intermediate belts are closer to white belts than they think. That's not an insult. It's a reminder that real skill takes time, humility, and thousands of reps done correctlyEnd Of The Year Wrap Up The Joh….Fitness Matters — But Only If You Respect the MovementThis episode also hits a nerve in the fitness world.Moving fast doesn't mean training well.Common problems:Sloppy burpeesCollapsing coresRushing repsChasing sweat instead of structureIf you don't respect the movement, you're just practicing dysfunction.Strength, conditioning, and Krav Maga all overlap — but only when movements are intentional. Strong bodies recover better, fight better, and age better. Weakness becomes invisible… until something goes wrongEnd Of The Year Wrap Up The Joh….The 10-Year Reality Nobody Wants to HearOne of the most important — and unpopular — truths in this episode:If you want real self-defense skill, think in decades — not weeks.That scares people. It shouldn't.A year of training will absolutely make you safer. Ten years changes who you are.This isn't about perfection. It's about staying in the game long enough for skill to compoundEnd Of The Year Wrap Up The Joh….Who This Episode Is ForThis episode is for:Self-defense students tired of shortcutsInstructors refining how they teach under stressAdults who want real confidence, not false assuranceAnyone who understands that skill is built, not boughtIf you want honesty instead of hype, this one hits home.

Miracle On Route 34: Part 1 Ginny gets a wonderful Christmas surprise. Based on a post by BiscuitHammer, in 3 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories. Author's Notes: Someone asked me to write a funny and erotic Christmas tale, but since I can't be normal, it is taking on a radical twist that I hope people will find amusing. I've tried to make Santa awesome but also give him some flaws that the ladies will find both charming and irksome all at once. I wasn't going to call it anything lame like 'Here Cums Santa Claus' (in spite of my love of Elvis) so I eventually settled on ripping off a classic and beloved Christmas movie, naming it 'Miracle On Rural Road 34'. Couldn't help myself with the 'Yes, Virginia' quip, of course. As for Superman, Oatmeal and the Easter Bunny, well, get used to more groaners like that, because I like them. Merry ho-ho and keep your stick on the ice! , Management Chapter 1. Ginny Hale sighed forlornly as she sat on her chesterfield in the dim room, the only light provided by the crackling fireplace and some scented candles spread around to make the house smell like gingerbread. She'd made gingerbread cookies earlier, but they were predictably burnt and now her kitchen smelled like a Christmas elf's ass. She took another sip of red wine from her oversized glass, unable to decide who or what to be mad at, the weather, for bringing this god-awful blizzard on Christmas Eve, her so-called friends for ditching her after she'd gone to all this work to put together a nice party, or herself for going crazy and buying this (admittedly nice) chateau way out here in the boondocks. Still relatively new to her negotiator position, Ginny had landed a huge deal for the company she worked for and the payout bonus was one of the biggest ever seen in-house. Though she had an office, she had often worked from her cramped apartment downtown, where a glorious chaos only she understood reigned. But the payout had been large enough for her to purchase a very pretty home in the country, not more than ninety minutes from work. Her boss was so pleased with the deal that he said she only had to come in once a week, to pick up whatever she needed to work on. It had seemed like a great idea at the time, but now she found she was quite lonely. Few people were will to put forth the effort to come out and visit her. In fact, only three had since the summer when she bought it. Hell, even her boy-toy, Chad from Accounting, could not be bothered and was now just fucking Lily in the secretary pool instead. Bing Crosby was singing 'White Christmas' to her while she moped. The big bay windows to her back porch showed the fury of the storm outside. Driving snow had been battering the countryside for two days now and her boss had called her to just stay safe and not try to come into the city. He was a nice old man and she liked him. He'd actually taken a chance and given her the job, after she'd fucked him. She hadn't invited him to her little soiree, because his miserable old bat of a wife was hovering around him constantly these days, certain he'd been tipping on her. But even without Old Man Reese, she'd invited upward of twenty people and none of them had shown. Not even Claire, her best supposed friend, had made it out. She was probably too busy being pinned and screwed by her boyfriend anyway, Guido or Nunzio or whatever his name was. Dean Martin came on, singing 'Marshmallow World'. Normally this was one of her favorites, but tonight it just reminded her that she was alone for Christmas. Again. With another sigh, she drank the rest of the wine in her glass and reached for the bottle, turning it over. It was empty. Damn. She'd have to open another one. She walked slowly into the kitchen, wearing her ratty old fox-themed footie pajamas, having decided that if she didn't have to dress up for anyone, she was dressing at all. She took a deep drink of spiked egg nog from the jug of it she'd prepared while she found another bottle of zinfandel and burped very loudly. She wrestled the cork off of the bottle and poured most of the contents into her oversized glass, muttering that she didn't have to answer to anyone about what she did, she was a big girl. She slumped back down on the couch while John Lennon asked her what she'd done for Christmas from the stereo system. "Up yours, John;" she said testily as she drank more wine. She stood unsteadily, blinking for a moment to try and clear her head. She might have had a bit of a wine fog going on, since she'd nearly polished off two bottles of Old Vine Zinfandel in under two hours. Convincing herself that walking was not a bad idea, she tottered over to the bay windows, reaching a hand out in front of herself to make sure it encountered the glass before her face did. "Will you look at that shit out there;" she muttered to no one in particular. After all, there was no one around to hear her. Well, almost no one. "Hi, Oatmeal," she said sweetly, grinning lopsidedly at the bearded dragon that sat in a terrarium near the bay doors. "Looks like you're my Christmas date; again;" The tiny lizard said nothing but assumed a darker shade of purplish brown. "Same to you too, bugface." Ginny muttered sourly, annoyed at being spurned by a reptile with a brain smaller than a sugared peanut. She lumbered back to the kitchen, trying unsuccessfully to eat several pieces of the Turkish Delight she'd tried to make, but they were sticky and runny, most of the reddish-pink mess ending up stuck to the front of her pajamas. "Son of a fucking reindeer!" she spat, attempting to remove the pajamas, her sticky fingers having trouble with the zipper. She finally kicked the thing off and left it in a corner of the kitchen, now wearing nothing except her panties and a halter top. She stomped back into the spacious living room, thoroughly annoyed. While the music played, she looked around for something to do, taking another pull from the egg nog jug she'd brought with her. The hot tub. It sat near the bay windows, set into the floor and was large enough for five or six people. She'd been hoping that maybe a few people of the dozens she'd invited would show and maybe they could have a fun pool party. She'd even told everyone in the invitations to bring their swimsuits. But of course, no one showed. She was beginning to suspect she could live in Buckingham Fucking Palace and still no one would come to see her. This was, literally, the fifth Christmas she'd spent by herself. The timing for friends never worked out and her parents were always off in Monaco or some such place, avoiding the weather. Her mom had already called earlier that night, so she wouldn't hear any more from them for a few days now. She sighed yet again and pulled off her underthings, stepping into the water. She was drunker than she wanted to admit, though, missing her footing, squealing and tumbling into the tub with a splash. Ginny came to the surface, sputtering and hissing in outrage. Why couldn't anything work out? Oatmeal just stared at her impassively. "You win this time, gravity;" she growled, displeased with her inelegant entrance. Well, at least she'd been smart enough to put down the jug of nog before trying to get in. She turned on the jets and retrieved her beverage, taking another big pull as the tub rumbled to life. Ginny laid back her head against one of the padded rests and tried to relax, to let her frustrations go. She turned on the jets and allowed one to massage her lower back while sipping at a glass of wine. She tried to put the frustrations of the holiday behind her, to let go of the feelings of rejection and somehow not belonging. "Why did I but this new fucking home if no one was interested in visiting? Everyone said they thought it was so great, but months later, still no visitors. Do I really not matter that much?" It annoyed her to think not only that she was alone, but that doubtless most of the people who had ditched her were at home getting laid. Claire was doubtless face down and ass up on her bed, getting plowed from behind by Guido. Even Mr. Reese, the old geezer, was probably getting some, either from his wife or maybe one of his secretaries. She sighed heavily and sat up, putting her now-empty wine glass aside and deciding that just because she was alone on Christmas Eve didn't mean she wasn't owed at least one good orgasm. She leaned forward and rested her forearms on the padded edge of the hot tub, positioning herself so that one of her jets, the one she'd named 'Juan', was right behind her. She felt the flow of water begin to caress her and she rested her head on her forearms as she wiggled further back, feeling the jet more strongly now as it pushed against her ass and her cunt. With a sigh, she found the perfect distance and pressed her face down into her arms, letting Juan work his magic. Water pressure massaged her cunt lips, strong enough to part them and to tease her clit, sending thrills through her. She shuddered and sighed loudly, forgetting, for now, how much men sucked. She bit the knuckle of her index finger, lost in reverie. God, if only it were a man fucking her. "Alone; on fucking Christmas; where's, ah!, where's the justice in that?" She was sweating now and panting as the relentless jets battered her nether tinglies, the sensations overwhelming her steadily. She clenched her teeth and her fists, straining as she fought to hold on a little longer. She moaned very loudly, her whole body shaking as Juan delivered a wonderful orgasm. She panted and groaned shamelessly, knowing that no one was around to see her in her pent-up, frustrated lust, expending it on her Jacuzzi jets. The scintillating lights behind her eyes, however, were over all too quickly and the climax subsided, replaced by a juddering sensitivity that made Juan's caress too much to bear. She collapsed against the edge of the hot tub, moving her ass away from the jet. "Alone; again;" She may have needed the orgasm, but it did nothing to improve her mood. It didn't help that the song 'This Christmas' by Shoes had begun playing as the cumming ended. When it finally felt like her legs would work again, she turned around and slumped into a corner of the tub, as far from Juan as possible. Ginny stayed still for some time, until her feet and fingers felt that annoying level of pruny that made everything awful to touch. With the heat of the water and all the alcohol she'd drunk, she was feeling rather light-headed, so she turned off the stereo and shut off the lights. She found a plate of her fucked-up and burnt gingerbread cookies and left them on a table near the fireplace along with the jug of nog before beginning to head upstairs to bed. "Yeah. Fuck this day. And fuck tomorrow too. Maybe if I stay drunk enough it'll just fly by. Fuck Christmas." The second floor was an open space in the middle, looking down onto the main floor. A set of stairs led up on either side and the bedrooms were spaced around the gallery. She'd loved the design when she bought it, but this only increased her frustration when no one ever came to visit. "Gorgeous fucking house; ten acres of beautiful nature filled with deer and ugly-ass wild turkeys; a fucking pond people could skate on; shit, I even found a patch of landrace back there! What's not to love about my new home? Why aren't people shitting themselves in jealousy?" She reached the master bedroom, sighing at how big it felt since she had no one to share it with. She stood in front of the mirror, looking at her naked body and sighing. She was trim and fit, with nicely-sized boobs, she kept her cunt shaved smooth and her full lips were simply made to suck cock. Her skin was fair and even and her dark brown hair was long enough to pull on if you were fucking her ass or taking her from behind. So what the hell was wrong? The bed was certainly big enough for two (or maybe her and two guys who didn't mind getting close), but she plunked herself down into it and stared at the ceiling, waiting for the room to stop drunk-spinning. It took longer than she wanted it to, but things finally slowed down an she breathed deeply. She reached over with her hand and fumbled around inside the drawer of the nightstand. She finally withdrew an elegant glass dildo, a barely opaque white with bright red stripes curling around it to simulate a candy cane. It had been a Christmas gift from Claire, who had jokingly given it to her until she found a man for herself. That bitch. "Well, Frosty," she sighed, examining him. "Looks like it's you and me tomorrow. I promise to not get out of bed except to go to the bathroom or get more booze, okay? Because I'm here for you;" And with that she kissed the dildo and put it aside. She turned out her lamp and sighed deeply as she lay in the dark, waiting for sleep to take her. "Fuck Christmas;" A noise from downstairs. Her eyes snapped open. She was sure she'd heard something. Her heart pounded in her chest. She took deep breaths to try and calm herself, reasoning that she'd been drunk and it might just be hangover noises. Maybe just something like branches scraping on the roof or across the walls? Ginny felt a flush of anger and slowly rose, getting out of bed and putting on a plush yellow robe. There were definitely sounds downstairs. She grabbed her rape whistle and her high-school field hockey stick off the wall before quietly opening the door and proceeding out of the room. Her cheeks flushed with fear and anger. How dare someone invade her house? And in this fucking weather! "Burglars? Ruffians? Escaped cons?" "Well, at least if they see you they might have their way with you and break your dry spell." She shook the vile notion from her head, wondering where the hell that'd come from. Could she be that desperate to get laid? Ginny walked as quietly as she could, hearing noises on the roof. Raccoons? Looking to get in from the cold? Fucking trash pandas. She rounded the corner of the gallery and put her foot on the top step, her hockey stick ready. She crept down the stairs, still hearing the noises. They seemed to be coming from her living room. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to identify anything that might be amiss. Then she saw him, a symphony of red trimmed in white, the huge ass swaying back and forth as the intruder was bent over her at the base of her Christmas tree, doing God only knows what to it. He seemed to be humming to himself. She walked up silently until she was maybe ten feet away from him, her hockey stick over her shoulder, ready to swing. He didn't hear her or took no notice of her. "I don't want to hurt you," she growled through clenched teeth. "But you'd best get the fuck out of my house or I'll hit you so hard Google won't be able to find you." The person in red paused in their activities and then stood up slowly. After another moment's pause, they stood up and turned around slowly. He was slightly taller than average and quite a bit fatter than societal norms allowed. He had a fat face with dancing blue eyes and red cheeks. Beneath the tapered red hat was long, silvery-white hair and a very full beard and moustache. The intruder looked at her and grinned. "Shouldn't you be in bed?" he asked with a voice that could only be described as jolly. Ginny said nothing. She seemed to be rooted to the spot. She wanted to say something, anything, but she seemed to have been robbed of the power of speech. "W, who;" she finally managed to stammer. "Yes, Virginia," the visitor said quietly but pleasantly in a soothing voice. "There really is a Santa Claus." She blinked and shook her head, trying to articulate a coherent thought. The big man in red chuckled, clearly amused by her predicament. "Your egg nog was very good," he mentioned as he walked forward a little. "Your cookies needed a little work, but I appreciate the effort. Maybe a cookbook next year?" "Stay still!" she snapped, suddenly coming out of her stupor and holding the hockey stick behind her head as if she was winding up for a hit. "I'll deck you, old man!" "Oh, there's no need for that," he said cheerfully, totally unconcerned by her threat. "It's been a rough year for you, hasn't it, Ginny?" "Why do you know my name?" she asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Of course I know it," the man claiming to be Santa said jovially. "I'd be pretty lousy at my job if I didn't, right?" "If you're really Santa," she said tightly, still not understanding why she hadn't knocked this guy's head off his shoulders yet. "Then what was I doing the night of October seventeenth last year?" He tilted his head to the side a little and pursed his lips. "Are you sure?" "C'mon, you haven't got all day." "Very well," he said, sighing. "You were sitting in McPhearson's Pub, waiting vainly for Greg from IT to show up, because you'd given him a blowjob in the bathroom earlier that day and promised him more. But he went off with Becky from Accounts that night instead of meeting up with you." She blushed furiously at the memory. "I; that wasn't the day I meant! I meant the sixteenth!" He shrugged. "You had the day off and were really frustrated. You slid a condom over that very field hockey stick and used it on yourself, just to see what it was like." Ginny dropped the stick very suddenly. "How the hell do you know that, you perv?" The man shrugged. "I know all about you, Ginny. And every other boy and girl in the world" "Don't give me that horseshit!" she hissed, glaring at him. "I had too many Christmases where I didn't get what I want to buy into that cockamamie story!" "Well, you weren't exactly the most exemplary child, were you?" he reasoned. "I mean, you weren't horrible, it's not like you were out kicking puppies into woodchippers, but you spent more time in the naughty column that the good column, didn't you?" "What did I ever do that was so naughty?" she demanded hotly, her fists bunched up at her sides. "You and your brother could get rather friendly, couldn't you?" the man calling himself Santa pointed out. She faltered for a moment. "Lots of siblings play doctor. And those atomic booty bombs where I kept jumping in the air and landing on him were just playful." "While naked?" Santa asked, raising a bushy white eyebrow. Ginny blushed. "But that wasn't what landed you on the naughty list," he added. "What got you blacklisted was that you lied about doing your homework or cleaning your room while you were messing around with your brother. Your mom and dad would ask you to do your math and you'd slip away to play doctor instead and tell them you'd finished your homework after. Lying is naughty, right?" "Woah, hold the phone here," she said loudly, holding her head as if she was suddenly dizzy from a revelation. She didn't seem to notice that her robe had opened slightly, exposing her cleavage. "Are you fucking kidding me? Fibbing to my parents kept me from getting the gifts I wanted?" "Were the rules unclear?" Santa asked. "I thought the songs on the subject were so easy to follow." Ginny pinched her eyes in exasperation and then scowled at him. "I'm drunk," she concluded, trying to convince herself none of this was real. "I'm drunker than Sarah Palin and you're not really here. I'm still in bed and this is all bullshit." Santa shrugged. "I was putting stuff under your tree until you arrived and enjoying the nog. I won't mind if you go back to bed." "No, you're not getting off that easily," she said in annoyance. "You broke into my house in the middle of the storm of the fucking century and I want answers, dammit!" He shrugged. "Fair enough. Ask away." Her eyes narrowed again. "Aren't you on kind of a time crunch? Unless I'm the last person on your delivery list, don't you still have a shit ton of houses to visit? Say, a few hundred million?" He waved it off. "I've got it covered, I promise. I have all the time in the world for you, Ginny. I always have." "What, so you sub-contract out?" she said snidely. "Got FedEx making the rounds for you? Or maybe your 'Elves'?" She mentioned the last bit with air quotes. "Goodness, this has been a bad year for you, hasn't it?" he said sympathetically. "But to answer your question, I am capable of being many places at once." "Oh, so now you're the Kwizatz-Haderach?" she asked archly. "Hey, it's not just cinnamon I put in my Christmas cider." Santa chuckled. "It's rather complicated to explain." "So do you, like, clone yourself?" she asked, her guard seeming to slowly come down. "No, not at all," he said, shaking his head. "It involves Cherenkov Radiation, a Holmes field, a Gellar field and, to quote a friend of mine, 'a lot of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey; stuff.'" "So it's some sort of deep quantum shit?" she asked, her body finally relaxing. He nodded, smiling. "Yes, it's very temporal and quantum. I can be many places at once. It's why I don't have to pay for billions in window repairs every year by going supersonic around the world." "So even while you're talking to me, you're delivering presents?" she asked, the sheer depth of the conversation hitting her now. She walked over to a stool and sat on it. "Like I said, it's difficult to explain without breaking out the chalkboard and calculator," he answered. "The magnetic lines between the poles help, especially the one that emanates from the Fortress of Solitude." Ginny blinked. "Fortress of Solitude? As in Superman? You're friends with Superman?" "Of course not!" the jolly man laughed. "There's no such thing as Superman, silly, he's a comic book character. Had you going, though." "Holy shit, Santa's a troll," she exclaimed, looking at him in bewilderment. "Well, okay, let's assume that this is all real and not a vivid hallucination resulting from a brain tumor. If I've been such a brat all these years, how do I make up for it? How do I get off the naughty girl list?" "Well, a little restraint would be a start," Santa suggested. "I'm not saying go out and become a Carthusian nun or a Buddhist priestess or anything, but you might try laying off the rampant promiscuity." "Why is that so bad?" she demanded. "What's so wrong with wanting to get banged?" "Nothing," he said simply. "But inevitably you get yourself into some kind of weird situation and end up lying your behind off and lying is a naughty thing to do. So try keeping your legs bolted together a little more." "Really;" she said, clearly not impressed. "Celibacy lessons from Santa Claus. Now I've heard everything." "According to my report here and speaking frankly, it's taken guys a lot less attractive than me a lot less effort to get you out of your clothes." Santa mentioned. "This coming from a guy who could clearly use a few P90-X sessions!" she shot back hotly, standing up, her robe opening further as she stomped toward him. He looked down at himself for a moment and guffawed. "Oh, right, I keep forgetting about that; hang on;" The man held his hands out to his sides and began to glow. The luminous display lit up the room progressively and Ginny held her hand in front of her face when it became too bright to look at for several seconds. When the light finally died away, leaving them once again in the softly lit living room, Ginny gaped in shock at what she saw. He was tall, powerfully built, with chiseled muscles, an eight pack and flawless, healthy skin. He'd removed his coat but the red pants remained, stretched tight over muscular thighs. Long, wavy, copper-colored hair fell past his shoulders and the full beard was reddish-gold. The sapphire-blue eyes stared down at her, still glittering with mirth. "Holy Jesus on a pogo stick;" she breathed, her voice little more than a whisper. "You're a total lumbersexual;" "This is what I really look like," he said, spreading his hands out to the sides and showing her his body. His chest rippled as the muscles flexed with the motion. "But kids react to the fat old man disguise better." "I'll bet mothers don't," she murmured, coming forward as if compelled and reaching out to touch his chest and washboard abs. "It's like you're Photo-shopped." He smiled as her hands caressed his abs. "You make me want to not get off the naughty list." "I think I know what you really want for Christmas;" he said slyly. Ginny paused and looked up at him in disbelief. "Are you kidding?" "No, I can't lie." the man in red pants replied. "I thought it was Superman who couldn't lie." "Well, the writers had to get that idea from somewhere, I guess." Santa mused. "In any event, if you want, you could end up on the good girl list by being rather naughty." She stared at him. "So; get laid by Santa for Christmas?" He shrugged. "There might be some other goodies in the bag for you, but I think we both know what Ginny really wants and needs for Christmas." "This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy!" she thought to herself, wrestling with her sensibilities. "If this is all just a dream, then I can fuck hunky Santa and have no regrets. If this is real, I can fuck sexy Santa and remember it in the morning! It's win-win!" "Well, this is super-easy," she declared. "Santa, I want you to fuck my brains out for Christmas." "With pleasure, Ginny!" he said, laughing merrily. "Whatever you like, however you want it. I have to keep the kiddies happy." "Good, but just don't say 'kiddies' anymore, because that's kinda creepy," she said, throwing her caution to the wind. She knelt down in front of him, putting her hands on the oversized silver belt buckle and undoing it. Letting it drop, she put her fingers on the front of his pants, caressing them over the crotch. Her mouth went dry. "That'd better not be a secondary present sack you're teasing me with;" Ginny hooked her fingers into the top of the velvety pants and pulled them down, revealing his cock. She drew in her breath slowly, her eyes widening. "Jesus," she muttered. "You're hung like a fat kid's Christmas stocking;" "Thanks, I make due." Santa said cheerfully, watching her admire his cock. "By the way, shouldn't I call you something else?" she asked, looking up at him while her hand reached up to take his huge shaft, wrapping around it, barely. "I mean, most people call you Santa Claus, but isn't your name Nick or Kris or something?" He shrugged again, grinning. "Nick, Kris, Klaus, Pelznickel, Joulupukki, Kanakaloka, Dun Che Lao Ren, Weihnachtsmann, Swiety Mikolaj, Hoteiosho, Jultomten, I don't mind, Ginny. I just like hearing you say my name the way you think of me." "Hmm, Santa;" she replied, smiling as she stroked her hand along his shaft, eyeing it hungrily. How the hell was she going to fit that all in her mouth, forget her aching cunt? "Ah, don't use that word," he chided, holding up a finger. "Some words are still naughty, even when you're an adult." "Stay out of my mind then, creeper." Ginny said as she leaned forward and swirled her tongue around the fat head of his cock. She flicked it around the tip and then slowly took it inside her mouth, tongue rolling against it. "The hell? How can his cock taste like mint?" "Just wait til you taste my cum." Santa said, leering. "Fine, but it better not taste like turkey gravy or we're gonna box." Ginny said as she pulled her mouth back for a moment. She pumped her hand gently along the shaft, studying her quarry intently. It was definitely the biggest cock she'd ever taken on, and the best-tasting. She'd been experiencing trippy magic all evening, maybe she could fit this monster in her mouth this one night; She put the head back in her mouth and relaxed, slowly pushing down the shaft. She moaned as she felt him slide to the back of her mouth and then to her throat. She felt him tremble and lay a huge but gentle hand on the back of her head. "Holy shit; I'm deep-throating Santa Claus;" Ginny took a deep breath through her nose and then tried to relax. Her whole body was tingling with excitement and the whole minty cock thing was throwing her off. Her tongue undulated along the underside of his shaft while the fingers of one hand formed a ring around the base of his cock and the other cupped his balls, fondling them. Ginny was proud of her cocksucking skills and if there was anyone she ever needed to impress with them (aside from her 11th Grade math teacher), it was probably Santa. She calmed herself and began pulling her mouth back along his length, humming and letting her lips vibrate softly on his sensitive skin. "Now I know why Mister Bondi gave you that A in math," Santa chuckled. "You're a very naughty girl, Virginia." "Hmm, only for you, Santa baby;" she cooed as she pulled her mouth off his cock long enough to respond, stroking slowly and swirling her tongue around the head again. She then slid back down the entire length, moaning in pleasure. She could feel her nipples getting hard and her cunt was very, very wet beneath her robe. Both his hands were on the back of her head now and holding her gently but firmly. She began to slowly bob back and forth, thrilled at how she was able to take this enormous beast of a cock all the way in her mouth. Sure, maybe there was some weird physics involved that compressed space and time or some shit, but she didn't care and he certainly didn't seem to mind. "Hmm, very good, Virginia;" he said softly, stroking her hair. No one ever called her Virginia and she didn't know why it gave her a tingle when he did. His cock was very full and very hard now, like a pulsing iron rod covered in mint-flavored velvet. She almost giggled at the thought of how crazy this all was. She really hoped it wasn't a dream. Her thumb began to squeeze along the underside of his cock as her hand followed her mouth up and down his length. The shaft glistened wetly and the mint was making her drool. She undid her robe and let it fall away, the air of the room kissing her flushed skin. Her hands now took hold of his powerful thighs and she began moving back and forth along his cock more quickly. She could feel his hands flexing in her long, dark hair, caressing her skin. Breathing through her nose, she moaned as she sucked ardently, her cunt almost aching with desire. She was hoping he would last long enough to fuck her when he went rigid suddenly and groaned, gripping her head tightly and his hips shuddering. Ginny's eyes widened as she felt him began to cum inside her mouth, spurting strongly. She began swallowing hastily, almost in a panic as Santa pumped his hips against her face. "Holy shit! Fucking eggnog?" He kept cumming and she was sure she might actually drown when he pulled his huge cock out of her mouth and pumped it furiously in his hand, spattering her tits and stomach with his glistening load. She'd never seen so much cum in her life. It tingled on her skin. Finally, Santa relaxed, allowing Ginny to put her mouth back around his cock and suck the rest of his cum from him. He was sighing and breathing rather heavily, apparently having enjoyed himself. She eventually released him and smiled up at him wickedly. "So," she cooed, winking while she gently pumped his cock with her hand. "Am I back on the good girl list?" "Oh, I'd think so," he said, grinned. "But it's not like I've given you your whole present yet." "Jeez, you can still go?" she asked almost in disbelief but also delighted. She really needed to be fucked hard now. "Your cock taste like mint, your cum tastes like nog, your ass probably tastes like hot cocoa or nutmeg and you can keep it up all night?" "Up all night is kind of my thing, at least once a year." Santa said cheerfully. "So how would you like for me to give you the rest of your present, Virginia?" "Well, golly, Santa," she mused, making a show of thinking while she stroked his cock. "Since you seem to be the gift that keeps on giving, how about we just wing it?" He nodded and she stood up, keeping hold of his cock and gently led him over to the large chesterfield, hoping it would hold his rather muscular frame. She knelt on it, resting her arms along the raised back and smiled at him, wiggling her behind. She wouldn't believe how wet her cunt was. "You gonna hurry down my chimney, Santa-baby?" she asked, smiling slyly. "I can't believe you just said that!" he laughed jovially. He may not have been older, fatter Santa, but the laugh still definitely suited him. He stepped up behind her and took gentle hold of her hips. She could feel him press against her ass and she shivered in anticipation. He slid his massive cock up and down between her ass cheeks, teasing her until she was writhing in desperation. He seemed to know instinctively what she loved most. Which only made sense, since he was Santa. "Ready, Virginia?" he asked as he pressed the huge mushroom head against her sticky cunt. She nodded eagerly, unwilling to speak. He slid the head in, parting her lips and penetrating her. She groaned loudly as he began to stretch her inner walls. With a slow, steady push of his hips, he pushed the entire length of his cock deep inside her. It robbed her of her breath, she'd never felt so full in her life, even that one time she'd been so horny she'd fucked her parent's bedpost. "Ah; uh;" she gasped, eyes wide. The sensations were like nothing she'd ever experienced. His cock completely filled her to a delightful stretch that didn't hurt except in the good way. His iron shaft throbbed in time with her heartbeat. It was wonderfully warm but also strangely cool all at once, tingling, like mint again. How the hell could her cunt taste peppermint? "Language, Virginia;" he chided again as he pressed in just a little bit further. By right his cockhead should have bruising her brainstem, but there was no doubt some weird physics shit involved that she decided not to think about. She was getting fucked by Santa, after all. She pressed her forehead against the back of the couch and tried squeezing her cunt around his titan cock or pressing back against him, squirming her ass against his hips. She shuddered in delight, loving how he felt inside her. His hands reached under her body and squeezed and massaged her tits, sending delicious thrills through her. He began to move slowly back and forth, pulling back until just the tip was inside her and pushing in steadily, almost robbing her of breath. She began to feel like a blacksmith's bellows very quickly. The feel of his cock sliding inside her, stretching her and touching deep inside in ways she hadn't known were possible; "Oh my god;" she gasped, fingers digging into the back of the couch. "You're tearing me apart and I love it;" "Only the best for my Virginia," he said, his ruddy cheeks taking on a flush tone as he fucked her. Her fingers squeezed the meat of her thighs and hips or flexed on her ass cheeks. His heavy balls slapped against her cunt as he drove inside her. Strong yet gentle, forceful and commanding yet accommodating. She felt dominated yet exalted somehow. His hand wrapped in her hair and she groaned loudly as he pulled on it, craning her neck. She shuddered in pleasure, feeling her spine almost accordion as he thrust inside while pulling her head back. Her could feel the pulse of his cock through her whole body. Her nails scratched along the couch, almost clawing it. "Uh, you're gonna make me cum so fucking hard;" she wailed, feeling the sweat forming on her skin. "Oh my gawd;" "You're going to make me cum hard too," he panted, thrusting deep inside, thumping his hips against her ass. "You feel wonderful and tight, Virginia;" "Oh, God, he's gonna cum in me;" she realized. "Santa's gonna fucking cum in me and he's not wearing anything! Will my birth control work? Shit, will my kids always smell like mint?" "Oh, God, cum in me!" she panted, thrusting herself back against him and grinding shamelessly. "Fucking cum in me, Santa!" "Ya want me to cum in you?" he hissed, his body beginning to tremble. It felt like his cock was getting bigger inside her. "Want my cum in you?" "God, yes!" Ginny squeaked, clenching her teeth. "Fucking cum in me and make me scream!" They strained against one another desperately and then she cried out as a massive orgasm crashed over her. It battered her senses as she felt his hot-yet-tingly-cool cum bathing her insides relentlessly. Her cunt was making greedy sucking sounds as she came, her whole body shuddering almost uncontrollably. She squeezed and clenched and rippled her tight tunnel round him, reveling in the way he stretched and penetrated her ever more deeply. She collapsed against the chesterfield, panting heavily, her body drenched in sweat. His massive, hard cock was still deep inside her, pinning her to him. She felt like she was made of lead, an exquisite exhaustion while pleasure crawled over her languidly. That was beyond anything she had ever experienced. But he didn't seem to be done with her. His powerful hands took hold of Ginny and turned her around so she was squatting on the couch, her knees spread wide and her arms slung across the high back. She looked up at him in weary astonishment as he nestled himself between her legs and pressed his cock against her sopping cunt again. "Ah!" she wailed as he slid deep inside her again, his huge cock splitting her wide. Her nails dug into the couch again and she clenched her teeth as she sucked in her breath. Ginny tried to regulate her breathing while Santa began sliding in and out slowly, looking down at her with those penetrating blue eyes. "Jesus," she grunted, feeling almost like a rag doll in his hands, which gripped her hips. "Gonna fucking kill me with that thing!" "Oh, let's hope not," he replied, thrusting into her strongly. "I'm nowhere near done with you." She gazed up at him, trembling as he fucked her good and hard. She bit her lip as he squeezed her thighs, before moving his hands up to squeeze her tits, pinching her nipples. She groaned shamelessly as the delicious sting electrified her senses. She tried to squeeze herself around him, baffled by how big he felt inside her. She gasped and whimpered as he slapped her cunt lightly. She reached forward and raked her nails over his powerful chest, leaving red marks along the defined muscles. She ground her hips against him wantonly, thrilling to the look of pleasure on this face. "Uh, fuckin' wreck me;" she gasped, feeling another massive climax building inside her. "Make me cum on that beautiful cock, Santa!" "I'll take 'Things Virginia Never Thought She'd Ever Hear Herself Say' for a thousand, Alex!" he laughed. He reached down and took her ass her hands and pulled her closer, smiling warmly yet wickedly into her eyes as she sank further onto his cock, which penetrated her to the deepest depths yet. She could feel the head pressing against her womb. It didn't hurt, but she felt fuller and more stretched than ever. She felt him squeeze her ass cheeks while he thrust into her. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held on tight, bumping up and down on his powerful thighs. She moaned loudly and bit his shoulder, trying not to shriek. She tried to squeeze herself around him again, finding that she could barely control her muscles, let alone fuck. She bit down as the warmth spread through her, tears of pleasure in her eyes. He thumped his hips against her even more strongly and they strained against one another. Then he growled and released himself, pumping her once again full of his tingling cum. She shuddered and cried out loudly, her head spinning from the unreal ecstasy. Crushing herself to him, Ginny held on desperately, like a ship battered by an unrelenting storm. They both slumped onto the couch, breathing heavily. She felt small and almost cocooned in his embrace. She was covered in a heavy sheen of sweat and could feel the thrilling tingle of his cum trickling out of her cunt. It wouldn't be a stain on her couch, it was a mark of honor. Their hearts pounded in rhythm as the orgasm passed over them and slowly flowed away. "Holy shit;" she whispered, her body still limp in his arms. "I think you've ruined me for sex. I should be mad;" "You have to admit, it makes sense that I'm better at gift-giving than anyone else on the planet." Santa reasoned, smiling and stroking her hair while she sat in his lap. "I'd say you were a little pent up there." "Mild understatement," she moaned, finally raising her head and smiling up at him. "Thank you, first of all. That was the best thing I've ever felt in my life." "I aim to please," he said cheerfully, caressing his thumb across her cheek and enjoying the shining look in her eyes. "Kinda my thing, after all." "So," Ginny purred, walking to fingers up his broad chest. "Is there a Mrs. Claus?" He shrugged. "There has been, of course." She paused suddenly and looked up at him, her smile replaced by a deadpan look. "What do you mean, there has been?" He seemed somewhat confused by her change in demeanor. "Well, there has been a few in the past, of course, there was Seeki first, then there was Ahoop, followed by Annalina, then Layla, Martha, Juliana, Gretchen and Jessica, Santarina, Kasey, Mary;" "I see," she said stonily. "You've had more wives than Elizabeth Taylor had husbands." "Well, to be fair, they've been spread over a long period of time." Santa replied. "And they were all special to me." "So then I'm not special." Ginny said flatly. "Well of course you are," he said, not understanding her mood swing. "You're my Virginia." "And Becky down the street is your Becky, and Sarah in the blue house is your Sarah and Hilda in Dusseldorf is your Hilda," she concluded. "Everyone's equally special to you, aren't they?" He didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry, I'm not being fair," she sighed. "I just; well, I thought maybe this; ya know, tonight, was truly special. And clearly you're not good at lying." "Well, no, not at all." Santa agreed, still holding her and wondering how he could comfort her. "I can't lie." "Like, literally can't?" she asked, now curious more than anything. "It's part of your genetic makeup that you can't lie?" "No, nothing like that," he admitted. "But after spending centuries with kids and teaching them to always tell the truth, I haven't tried telling a lie in so long I don't even know how to do it." "You don't know how to lie?" she mused. "If I did, it wouldn't be the least bit believable," he said. "Like, if I said right now that your breath smells wonderful and not like old eggnog and vomit, I somehow doubt you'd believe my lie." "No shit," Ginny replied, giving him a stony look. "You're a horrible liar. You've got the subtlety of a cement truck. Good thing you're Santa and don't have to date to charm a girl." He held her close, hugging her tight to comfort her. She sighed deeply, still impaled on his hard cock, which showed no sign of abating. "God, I can't believe you've still got wood after cumming like a fire hydrant three times," she said, her mood softening. She was having the best sex of her life, she reminded herself not to ruin it by being crazy. "How long can you keep going?" He shrugged his muscular shoulders. "How long do you need me to?" "Actually, it doesn't surprise me that's your answer." Ginny said, smirking. "If you've got the time, I've got another itch that needs scratching." He grinned. "So you haven't broken in that hot tub yet, have you?" "Oh, Santa;" she purred, leaning in and biting his earlobe. "Like you don't make me wet already." He picked her up and carried her toward the Jacuzzi, deftly turning it on with his foot and bringing it rumbling to life. He stepped down into the churning water, setting her one of the seats. As he stood up, she leaned forward and hungrily took his enormous cock into her mouth, sucking ardently. She moved forward and knelt in the water, her hands on his hips again or stroking his balls. He picked her up bodily and turned her upside. Ginny squeaked in surprise at first but found his hips in front of her and began sucking again on his tool without delay. He buried his face in her cunt, tongue snaking deep inside her and she groaned gutturally, Holding her in place with one powerful hand, her teased her taint and then pressed a finger into her ass. "Jesus!" she gasped, almost choking on his cock as he wormed the finger down into her tight tunnel. "Oh, fuck! Your finger is bigger than some dicks I've fucked!" She attacked his cock again eagerly, bobbing back and forth like her life depended on it. She squirmed in his grip as he lashed her cunt with his tongue and fingered her ass. Her fingernails dug into his thighs and her knees locked around his neck. His cock throbbed in her mouth, still thrilling her with its unique and incredible taste. He turned her around again and paid her on the edge of the hot tub, spreading her legs wide. She looked on wantonly as he pushed his tongue back inside her again. He gripped her thighs to hold her in place and she groaned and squirmed, squeezing her tits and pulling on her nipples. Her breath came in ragged gasps as he drove her to the limit of her sensations. Ginny shook and thrashed as she cried out loudly, cumming on his face. He didn't let up, lapping at her essence eagerly. She lay like a dead thing for several seconds before her chest began to rise and fall. Her eyes opened, gazing back at him. She couldn't feel her limbs, just floating on a tingling ocean of deep colors. Santa looked up at her and smiled, pulling his tongue out of her cunt and kissing her clit gently. She shivered at the touch. "One hole left, Santa," she breathed, her body glistening. "Got any left in you to perfect my Christmas?" "Always for you, Virginia." Santa said warmly, standing and raising her gently into a sitting position. He settled down into the water on one of the seats and then pulled her onto his lap, facing away from him. She moved her hips around until she found his rock-hard cock, waiting for her. She placed her puckered knot against it, giggling as she thought about what he was about to do to her. She took his shaft in her hand and held it steady while she sank down, very slowly. Ginny gasped and shivered as the head pushed aside the tight ring of muscle, popping inside her. Then she sighed as she lowered herself, feeling his massive cock stretching her tight tunnel wide. God, she felt so full it was unreal. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, her ass cheeks pressed to his lap. He was all the way inside her ass and her held her closed as she settled back against him, purring in sensual pleasure. "Umm, it's never felt this good in my ass before," she said softly, her arms reaching back to curl around his neck. She gyrated slowly on his lap, moaning softly. "A gal could get used to this." His muscular arms wrapped around her and caressed Ginny's body, massaging her tits. She loved how she felt pinned to him. She had finally found the measure of her body and began to squeeze her tight ass around his cock. She squirmed in slow circles on his lap, wishing she had some music to fuck him to. Her stereo system suddenly came on and began playing 'It's Cold Outside'. She giggled and squeezed his neck gently at his thoughtfulness. "You think of everything, don't you?" she purred, lost in her pleasure. "I can't wait to make you cum again." He smiled wickedly and pulled gently on her nipples, causing her to groan at the welcome sting. She pressed her ass back into his lap, squeezing again around his throbbing shaft. The water bubbled and churned around her waist, the heat leaving her skin shining. She began to pant as she moved her hips faster, stopping the circular motions and started to move up and down, his cock sliding in and out of her. Santa took hold of her hips and let her bounce on his lap. Ginny leaned forward, gasping as she fondled her tits, overcome with a liquid heat as his cock impaled her faster and faster. Water splashed around them as the fucking took on an almost frantic pace. Ginny had never felt anything in her ass like this before, nothing even close to this good. She could very easily become an addict. "Uh, fuck!" she grunted, slamming her ass down on him while one hand snaked down and began massaging her cunt and clit. His hands steadied her and helped moved her up and down. She could feel his hips trembling beneath her, his fingers flexing and squeezing her skin. Her panting became a long, drawn-out keening. She clenched her teeth, shuddering and straining as she tried to prolong the fucking; Ginny screamed and pushed herself back against his massive chest violently, thrashing as she clenched his cock inside her ass while he came. His cream flooded inside her, the unreal hot-cool tingling transporting her. He growled in her ear, almost crushing her comparatively tiny frame against himself. She collapsed, utterly exhausted, her chest rising and falling as the world spun around her. She felt him holding her gently, caressing her body in unique ways that seemed to; regulate her blood flow and nerve sensations, making the post-orgasmic bliss she was feeling last as long as possible. She felt herself smile and hum at his consideration, understanding this this is who he was and what he was meant to do. Ginny then did something she almost never did during sex, she leaned her head back, pressed her lips to his and kissed him deeply and with great affection. She held it for as long as she could and then sank back into his embrace, sighing in contentment. "Wish you were advertising for a Mrs. Claus at the moment," she said softly. "I could get used to this." "I like things the way they are," he replied, hugging her. "Every year I get to reward you for being a good girl. What could be better than that?" "True, I guess," Ginny agreed. "I'm only human, all this sex could kill me." "Hey, I'm human too, you know," he chuckled. "Just because I'm immeasurably older than you and subject to quantum laws even my smartest elf couldn't explain doesn't mean I'm a member of some other species." "Okay, that's fair, although I'd still fuck you if you were an alien or some extra-dimensional being." Ginny admitted. "You've come in me a lot tonight, daddy. Do I need to” "No," he said cheerfully. "I'm not sterile, but you can't get pregnant unless I decide you will and I've never allowed it." "I wonder what a Santa kid would be like," she mused. "More like you or the mom?" "No idea," he confessed. "There's not exactly a manual, so I've never taken a chance." She slowly leaned forward and began to rise, shivering as she slid off his long cock and it popped out of her. She knelt and turned around to face him, not sure she could stand yet, looking up at his still hard cock and giggled, pressing her finger against the head. "Well, I think you can take him off duty, sir," she said sweetly. "I'm pretty sure that I'm all fucked out for the night, if not the whole season." He chuckled and let his cock soften, looking into her eyes and caressing his cheek. "Hopefully that was what you needed for Christmas." "Definitely, Santa." Ginny said, giggling. "Is it greedy to want the same present again next year?" "Not at all," he replied, grinning. "It cuts down on elf-labor hours if I can give people a gift mysteriously." Santa paused in speaking, going silent and looking around, as if listening for something. Neither of them touched the controls, but the motor for the jets turned off and all that could be heard was the howling roar of the winter storm outside. Ginny looked at him in confusion, wondering why his features hardened and a scowl crossed his normally jovial face. "That's no storm," he said in a low, growling voice. "Not a regular one, anyway." "What does that mean?" she asked, his reaction worrying her for reasons she couldn't readily explain. What the hell was a 'not regular' storm, according to Santa, or anyone else for that matter? He stood up and strode out of the hot tub, taking her by the hand and pulling her out with him. Their naked bodies glistened with water but this was the farthest thing from her mind. "What's going on?" she asked, his consternation beginning to frighten her now. She watched as he tossed her the robe she'd been wearing earlier and then started pulling on his pants and sturdy black boots. "It's just a winter storm! Isn't it?" "I wish that were true," he replied, his expression grim. "Listen to me very carefully, Virginia. I'll need you to follow me instructions precisely. Do you understand?" She nodded. "Okay, but” "Good," he said, cutting her off, his eyes flashing. "It's very important to your safety." "Can you at least tell me what's happening?" she pleaded. "Krampus." Santa muttered darkly as he wrapped bright red straps around his wrists, tightening them. "I should've been more careful." "What's Krampus?" she asked, going pale and she paused in putting on her robe, one of her tits hanging out. "Krampus isn't a what, Krampus is a who," he said, his eyes scanning the layout of her expansive living room. "He's also called Black Pete in some places and legend says he's supposed to be my evil henchman who punishes wicked children." "I take it that's not true, then?" she asked, looking around like he did, wondering what he was searching for. "Not even close," he growled. "Pardon my French, but Krampus is an evil sonofabitch. He was, at one time long ago, my dedicated helper, but he turned down the path of darkness, becoming twisted and diabolic. Forget punishing children, he wants to destroy Christmas, like it never happened." "What's that got to do with us here?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from trembling. "Can he reach us in this storm?" "This storm is his doing, I recognize it now," Santa said, striding over to his huge Christmas bag and beginning to rummage in it. "A massive storm always precedes his arrival. It can be mistaken for a regular winter storm if you're not paying

On this episode, we break down the survival mindset and practical skills needed to stay ready — mentally and physically — in a dangerous world. You'll get real talk, actionable strategies, and no-nonsense truth about what it takes to be “hard to kill.”

In this episode we have Paul Reavlin of Revgear with us via Zoom!Paul is a long-time name in the sport of Muay Thai here in the USA with being a title sponsor for major tournaments, equipment manufacturing and sponsoring fighters.We discuss how Revgear had it's beginning with Paul selling equipment out of the back of his car up through what he has seen in trends in martial arts as well as what he sees happening in the Muay Thai industry.Follow Revgear: https://www.instagram.com/revgearFollow Paul: https://www.instagram.com/paulreavlin/Support the showLeave a message or text us 24/7/365!+1-805-456-3316

In this episode, I sit down with BJJ Brown Belt Kyle Rocke from Crazy 88 MMA to talk through how he found Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and what shaped his early development on the mats. Kyle shares what originally drew him toward martial arts, how his time in the Marines influenced his mindset, and how he moved from Krav Maga into BJJ. We look back at his first year training at Ivey League MMA, including those late 11 p.m. classes, the early learning curve, and the challenge of balancing training with everyday life. Kyle reflects on the people who guided him, coaches like Danny Ives and the upper belts who played key roles in his progression. He also revisits the early moments that confirmed he was on the right path, including how his background in rock climbing helped him adapt to training in the gi. We continue by examining his growth from white to blue belt and the lessons that carried him into purple and now brown belt. Kyle talks about managing plateaus, injuries, and periods of self-doubt, as well as what has kept him consistent through the grind. He shares how teaching and mentoring others changed his perspective, and how competition shaped his development and his thoughts on competing again. Outside of BJJ, we talk about how training has impacted his life at work, at home, and in how he stays grounded. Kyle opens up about the habits, hobbies, and routines that help him stay balanced and what advice he gives beginners who struggle to maintain consistency. We wrap up with a quick rapid-fire round.

Join me with Adael Bryant—soldier, elite fighter, Krav Maga, Muay Thai, and BJJ martial artist—as he reveals the raw truth behind combat, trauma, and inner war. Discover why Warrior Nation exists: to rebuild men and women with strength, discipline, purpose, and unbreakable brotherhood. No warrior walks alone. In this podcast interview we also discuss EP, executive protection work as Bryant and myself have worked on many protection details through our security company in Jerusalem, BHS. We share some secrets of our trade and behind the scenes tips for security professionals. We finish by discussing Adael's initiative to combat PTS through his Warrior Nation platform.Support Us on Patreon: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/cryforzion⁠Follow Adael Bryant here:Website: warriornationofficial.comInstagram: @adaelbryant@warriors_nation_wnhttps://bhsglobalsecurity.com/#Podcast #Israel #BreakingIsraelNews #DoronKeidar #TheDoronKeidarPodcast #adaelbryant #warriornation #warrior  

Be a Voice for the Voiceless Guests: Andi Buerger, Alma Tucker, Dr. Pamela J. Pine, Brian Searcy and Bruce Ladebu BIOS:  Andi Buerger, JD, international speaker, author, and survivor of child sex trafficking, advocates globally for victims of exploitation. She founded Beulah's Place, rescuing 300+ at-risk teens, and later co-founded Voices Against Trafficking, uniting voices worldwide to defend human rights. Her books and the internationally distributed Voices of Courage magazine empower survivors and honor human rights champions. In 2025, the Voices of Courage television series debuts, expanding her mission to inspire justice and hope. Website: https://voicesagainsttrafficking.com/ Alma Tucker, Notable Achievements: Founder and Executive Director of International Network of Hearts, an institution and pioneer in providing care for victims of human trafficking with international presence in both Mexico and the United States. Founded the only shelter in Baja California dedicated to supporting children, adolescents, and young women in vulnerable situations, recognized by the United Nations as one of 12 Mexican shelters dedicated to victims of human trafficking. Clinical Psychologist with 35+ years of experience in education, training, human rights, and victim support. Alma founded the first and only group home in Baja California designed for young survivors of human trafficking, with over 200 children coming through the shelter since 2010. Named 2024 Citizen of the Year in Baja California by Grupo Salinas for altruistic work on behalf of children. Nominated for and received 2024 San Diego Magazine's Celebrating Women Award as a Trailblazer in the NonProfit category. Honored with “Alma Tucker Day” by the City of National City, in recognition of contributions to justice, healing, and the global fight against human trafficking. Charter Member in the Board of Voices Against Trafficking. Honored in 2022 and 2024 by the Soroptimists Together Against Trafficking for dedication to raising awareness through trainings in San Diego and supporting children. Received a Social Impact in Tijuana award given by the digital media outlet El Tijuanense in 2025. Advocated and helped launch the International Amber Alert Program in Mexico, aiding to the search and rescue of missing children. Invited to the White House in 2019 to discuss issues related to human trafficking along the US-Mexico border. Spoke at the Vatican in Rome and Dubai through the Global Sustainability Network on human trafficking. Honorary academic member of the National Commission of the Ministry of the Interior to Prevent Human Trafficking in Mexico since 2017. In 2014, INH collaborated with UCSD researchers who published a study in 2015: Vulnerability Factors and Pathways Leading to Underage Entry into Sex Work in Two Mexican-U.S. Border Cities. Starting in 2011, INH held its annual binational conference on human trafficking at the Chula Vista City Council Chambers, convening federal and local authorities from both sides of the border. Dr. Pamela J. Pine, PhD, MPH, has been an international health, development, and communication professional throughout her adult life, supporting the lives of poor and otherwise underserved groups in over 30 countries worldwide (from Albania to Zambia), with the past more than two decades focused on childhood trauma and protection. Since 2000, she has been a dedicated advocate focusing on the critical issues of child sexual abuse (CSA), including trafficking, and other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). With extensive experience in trauma-informed programming, she aims to educate and empower individuals, communities, organizations, and companies around the world to prevent abuse and recognize the signs of abuse and its long-lasting effects on children, adolescents, and adults they become, as well as on their families, communities, organizations/companies, and societies. She was the Founder and CEO of the free-standing international non-profit, Stop the Silence® - Stop Child Sexual Abuse, Inc., and became the Director of Stop the Silence® - A Department of the Institute of Violence, Abuse and Trauma (IVAT) in January 2021 when the original organization became a part of the larger non-profit. Dr. Pine is also a professor of public health as well as a multimedia artist working in oils, watercolor, pastel, clay, song, and the written word (she is a best-selling author of adult and children's books and a poet, and an award-winning photographer), which she uses in her work to open hearts and minds. She is the 2025 Voices Of Courage Award® recipient. Dr. Pine has been a regular expert on leading media outlets such as: NBC, CNN, PBS, iHeart (formerly ClearChannel) radio, and many others. Articles about her and her work have been featured in the Washington Post, Washington Times, The Maryland Gazette, TruEntertainment Magazine, Women's Calendar/Women's Radio, On Purpose Women's Magazine, and many others. Please see: https://www.ivatcenters.org/stop-the-silence and https://www.drpamelajpine.com. Connect with her via email at pamelap@ivatcenters.org. and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamela-j-pine-3123b78/ Brian Searcy, Col (Ret) USAF, is a #1 International Best Selling Author! Situational Awareness Expert. After a decorated senior leadership career in the USAF as a commander and combat veteran, he transitioned into executive roles as a business entrepreneur, writer, publisher, and public speaker. He founded The Paratus Group to use his decades-tested and proven leadership and training experience to solve a need for relevant, effective, trustworthy principles, training methodologies, and programs to allow for the learning of Leadership and Situational Awareness. The Leadership Abilities and Situational Awareness Mindset and Behaviors that are developed allow Critical Decisions to be made in the complex dynamics of the Home, Schools, the Workplace, and our Communities to both grow as leaders and to make us all safer. Bruce Ladebu spent 20 years as a professional adventurer, explorer, and guide, traveling to some of the wildest places on earth, including first ascents in the Arctic and an expedition on the polar ice cap. He also spent time over four winters in the Canadian Rockies following and photographing wolves and other wildlife. He has guided hundreds of clients in climbing, survival, wilderness expeditions, and other adventure sports. Since then, Bruce has started a number of organizations and has advised leaders in many nations, along with speaking in those nations. He has extensive training in tactical skills and has trained in multiple combative arts, including Krav Maga, Silat, and Systema. He has completed two multi-week courses in executive protection. Bruce has also spoken in churches all over the US and around the world, including doing pastors' conferences and large crusades! In the early 90s, Bruce traveled through the ex-Soviet Union countries and saw the terrible conditions children were forced to live in, including the marketing of young girls and boys forced into sex trafficking. Then, in 2009, after witnessing labor slavery firsthand, Bruce worked to develop a strategy to rescue these individuals, and the Children's Rescue Initiative was formed. As of August 2025, Bruce and his teams have personally rescued 2,600 children and adults from labor slavery/sex trafficking and given them a start at a new life. Bruce has a master's degree in Christian Leadership. His first book was published, “Out of the Slave Fields," and he's working on a second book about his life story.”  Video Version: https://www.youtube.com/live/wDMQ9K3JBRU?si=d03ZvATb6ifg4cXb Chat with Teresa during Live Show with Video Stream: write a question on YouTube Learn more about Teresa here: https://www.webebookspublishing.com   http://authenticendeavorspublishing.com/

"When you've been through a bunch of stuff like your mom dying at seven years old, you become somewhat resilient to a lot of things. I mean, pain is just pain."  Resilience is born from struggle—not comfort. It's forged in the moments when life takes something from you and you have to rebuild, harder and wiser than before. From childhood loss to standing on his own at nine years old, Tony Cohen's life shows that hardship isn't the enemy; it's the teacher that builds backbone, grit, and purpose.  Tony Cohen shares how the pain of isolation and early loss shaped his strength, how learning to fight back against bullies led to confidence, and why controlled aggression—channelled through boxing or Krav Maga—can help men reclaim their edge. He speaks about failure, rebuilding, and how resilience isn't found in privilege but in persistence.  Tony is a master Krav Maga instructor, entrepreneur, and founder of FeelSafeDaily, a platform teaching real-world personal safety and empowerment. His story is one of self-reliance, purpose, and the kind of masculinity built through earned strength.  Learn more & connect:  • FeelSafeDaily – Reveal your confidence code @ https://feelsafedaily.info  Also in this episode:  • Russell Brunson https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2qUDKqTsz00csykCYgdLuA  • Book by Alex Hormozi – $100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No https://a.co/d/dxdKREn You're invited to come to a Sovereign Circle meeting to experience it for yourself. To learn more, go to https://www.sovereignman.ca/. While you're there, check out the Battle Ready program and check out the store for Sovereign Man t-shirts, hats, and books. 

Episode 100! A milestone conversation between John and Josh straight from the RMSDF gym.This one's all about training etiquette — the unspoken rules that make you a great student, partner, and martial artist.From keeping your gear clean to controlling your ego, this episode dives into the habits that build respect and longevity in training. John shares lessons from decades of teaching Krav Maga and martial arts — and why etiquette is more than manners, it's part of survival.You'll laugh (especially when Josh gets punched), but you'll also walk away with a deeper understanding of what separates good students from great ones.

Tiffini Glinka & Taylor Freeman/Pure Krav Maga The training at Pure Krav Maga follows a structured curriculum that builds real skills over time, starting with foundational movements and progressing to advanced scenarios. Classes are designed to develop striking, defenses against common attacks, situational awareness, and the ability to respond under pressure. Each phase reinforces practical […]

Tiffini Glinka & Taylor Freeman/Pure Krav Maga The training at Pure Krav Maga follows a structured curriculum that builds real skills over time, starting with foundational movements and progressing to advanced scenarios. Classes are designed to develop striking, defenses against common attacks, situational awareness, and the ability to respond under pressure. Each phase reinforces practical […] The post Tiffini Glinka & Taylor Freeman with Pure Krav Maga and Lorne Greenfield & Carder Berry with Capital Concepts USA appeared first on Business RadioX ®.

In this empowering episode of Healthy Waves, host Avik Chakraborty brings together two remarkable voices of transformation — Antoinette Lee, a U.S. Army veteran, author, and adventure sports influencer, and Trea (Asher) Drake, a Krav Maga black belt instructor, mindfulness coach, and breathwork expert. Together, they explore how breathing and meditation can unlock inner strength, emotional balance, and clarity in the most challenging times. From overcoming trauma and rebuilding life after brain and spine injury to using nature as medicine, this episode dives deep into the science and soul of resilience.   Listeners will discover: How to use breathwork and mindfulness to manage your nervous system and emotions Why time in nature is more than therapy — it's a biological necessity What it means to consciously create your “new normal” after crisis And how calmness, courage, and intention can co-exist even in moments of chaos. If you're seeking inspiration to start again, heal deeply, or find peace through stillness, this episode will remind you that flourishing isn't about perfection — it's about presence and choice.   About the Guests  : Antoinette Lee:A decorated U.S. Army veteran, former tech CEO, and survivor of a traumatic brain and spine injury, Antoinette's journey from the brink of death to becoming a motivational speaker and outdoor adventure athlete is awe-inspiring. As the author of Four Hours to Live and founder of New Normal Big Life (NNBL.blog), she empowers others to redefine their limits and create a fulfilling “new normal.”   Trea (Asher) Drake:With a Master's in Education and nearly two decades in behavioral analysis, Trea has dedicated his life to helping others master resilience through martial arts, breathwork, and mindfulness. As a certified Krav Maga black belt, meditation trainer, and expert in intentional communication, he teaches how to rewire the nervous system for calm strength and conscious living.   Key Takeaways : Conscious breathing isn't just survival — it's the remote control of your brain and body. Healing begins when you stop asking “Why me?” and start asking “What's next?” The nervous system is the gateway to resilience — mastering your breath helps regulate emotions and decisions. Nature's “medicine” (like phytoncides from trees) reduces stress, boosts immunity, and improves sleep. True mindfulness happens in daily life — five mindful seconds a hundred times a day creates transformation. When overwhelmed, ask: “What am I afraid of?” or “What can I control?” to return to center. Healing isn't passive; it's intentional courage — choosing calm, breath, and small daily steps forward. Outdoor adventures and nature immersion restore emotional clarity, courage, and spiritual connection.   Connect with the Guests   Antoinette Lee:Website: New Normal Big Life's WebsitePodcast: New Normal Big Life (available on all major platforms)X (Twitter): https://x.com/NNBLBlog   Trea (Asher) Drake:  Website:nervousapes.comInstagram and Facebook:@treakravhouston Follow him for breathwork and mindfulness programs.   Want to be a guest on Healthy Mind, Healthy Life?  DM on PodMatch — Send a message to Avik ChakrabortyDM Me Here:https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/avik   Disclaimer:This video is for educational and informational purposes only. The views expressed are personal opinions of the guests and do not reflect those of the host or Healthy Mind By Avik™️. We do not intend to harm, defame, or discredit any person, organization, or profession. All third-party content remains the property of its respective owners under fair use.   About Healthy Mind By Avik™️A global platform redefining mental health as a necessity, not a luxury. Hosted by Avik Chakraborty, it offers transformative conversations on mindfulness, healing, and human potential with over 4,400+ episodes and 168K+ global listeners. Join us to build a world where every story matters. Contact:

Anti-Abduction Mastery: Self-Defense, Human Trafficking Awareness & Family Safety Tips Dive into this raw, unfiltered Changing Earth Podcast episode where host Sara F. Hathaway (with co-host Chin Gibson) unleashes her powerhouse anti-abduction class—packed with shocking stats, Krav Maga escapes, and mindset shifts to shield your family from trafficking horrors. Perfect holiday prep: Learn no-secondary-location rules, mad dog fighting techniques, spotting victims, and free tools to thrive. Timestamps: 0:00 Intro & Martial Arts Backstory | 5:30 Trafficking Stats Deep Dive | 15:00 Social Media Traps | 25:45 Parking Lot Hacks | 35:20 Escape Demos (Zip Ties, Duct Tape, Handcuffs) | 45:00 Dating & Captivity Survival | 55:00 Actionable Home Tips. Subscribe now for survival fiction-fact blends that help you dream, survive, and thrive. Share your top safety hack in reviews!

Welcome back to Seven Minutes in Evan — the comedy podcast that's definitely not seven minutes long. In this episode, I go from puns and Harry Potter fall vibes to the weird realities of the internet, free speech, and why short-form content is basically the junk food of our brains. We talk Life Below Zero and the peace that comes from doing something with a clear start and finish… like building a patio slab or watching Alaskans hang fish all day.Somewhere in there, I talk about being a new dad, the NICU, and how your capacity for love (and fear) changes once you've got a kid. Then I spiral into a rant about comedians flying to Saudi Arabia, jiu jitsu guys comparing themselves to sea creatures, and a Krav Maga class that taught me how to beat up imaginary pigeon feeders.

Anti-Abduction Mastery: Self-Defense, Human Trafficking Awareness & Family Safety Tips Dive into this raw, unfiltered Changing Earth Podcast episode where host Sara F. Hathaway (with co-host Chin Gibson) unleashes her powerhouse anti-abduction class—packed with shocking stats, Krav Maga escapes, and mindset shifts to shield your family from trafficking horrors. Perfect holiday prep: Learn no-secondary-location rules, mad dog fighting techniques, spotting victims, and free tools to thrive.Timestamps: 0:00 Intro & Martial Arts Backstory | 5:30 Trafficking Stats Deep Dive | 15:00 Social Media Traps | 25:45 Parking Lot Hacks | 35:20 Escape Demos (Zip Ties, Duct Tape, Handcuffs) | 45:00 Dating & Captivity Survival | 55:00 Actionable Home Tips.Subscribe now for survival fiction-fact blends that help you dream, survive, and thrive. Share your top safety hack in reviews!Get Prepared with Our Incredible Sponsors! Survival Bags, kits, gear www.limatangosurvival.comEMP Proof Shipping Containers www.fardaycontainers.comThe Prepper's Medical Handbook Build Your Medical Cache – Welcome PBN FamilyPack Fresh USA www.packfreshusa.comSupport PBN with a Donation https://bit.ly/3SICxEq

This week, the Shat The Movies boys dust off their prep school blazers and follow Robin Williams into Welton Academy for 1989's Dead Poets Society. Commissioned by listener Rob F., this Oscar-winning coming-of-age drama gave the world “Carpe Diem,” a standing-on-desks finale, and enough inspiration to launch a thousand “cool teacher” clichés. But does it still move us 35 years later, or has it become too earnest for its own good? Gene and Big D wrestle with their own school baggage while debating whether John Keating is a saintly mentor or a reckless enabler who lit fires in his students without offering any guardrails. We revisit Ethan Hawke's breakout role, the betrayal of Cameron (still unforgivable), and whether Neil's tragedy hits harder as adults who now understand the crushing weight of parental expectation. Along the way, Big D confesses he usually hates “inspirational teacher” movies, Gene compares Keating's lessons to Krav Maga, and both hosts admit Robin Williams nails his most delicate performance without veering into schmaltz. Is Dead Poets Society timeless poetry, or just a prep school fantasy that collapses under its own sentimentality? Seize the day and find out. Subscribe Now Android: https://www.shatpod.com/android Apple/iTunes: https://www.shatpod.com/apple Help Support the Podcast Contact Us: https://www.shatpod.com/contact Commission Movie: https://www.shatpod.com/support Support with Paypal: https://www.shatpod.com/paypal Support With Venmo: https://www.shatpod.com/venmo Shop Merchandise: https://www.shatpod.com/shop Theme Song - Die Hard by Guyz Nite: https://www.facebook.com/guyznite

Episode 486 of The Changing Earth Podcast is live! Discover 15 timeless prep tips to prepare you for the winter—emergency kits, food/water, home fortification, plus intense fitness, and tactical skills to stay unstoppable. Perfect for National Preparedness Month! Join the Changing Earth community! Visit changingearthseries.com for signed books, audio dramas, and prepper swag. Share your prep tips on X, @sarahathaway19, and let's build a stronger, ready world. #Preparedness #Survival #ChangingEarth

In this episode, I sit down with David Bergman — one of my most senior students, a black belt, coach, and relentless learner. We explore his unconventional path into Krav Maga, how teaching shaped his practice, and why he's been experimenting with ecological training methods. Together, we unpack the difference between knowledge, skill, and attitude — and what it really takes to build competence on the mat and in life.www.kravmagaisrael.com

Save 20% on all Nuzest Products WORLDWIDE with the code MIKKIPEDIA at www.nuzest.co.nz, www.nuzest.com.au or www.nuzest.comThis week on the podcast Mikki speaks to Prof Arny Ferrando about his work in protein, essential amino acids, protein timing, aging, anabolic resistance, and how to optimise muscle retention and fat loss.Arny Ferrando is a Professor of Geriatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), where he co-directs the Center for Translational Research in Aging & Longevity (CTRAL) and holds the position of Wes Smith Distinguished Chair in Geriatrics for Longevity, Health Promotion and Frailty Prevention.His research deploys stable isotope techniques to dissect muscle protein metabolism under stress—from spaceflight, burn injury, joint arthroplasty, renal and heart failure, to aging and surgical recovery. He pioneers nutritional, pharmacological, and exercise-based strategies to counteract muscle wasting and functional decline.After earning a Ph.D. in Nutrition & Physiology from Florida State University, he conducted postdoctoral work at NASA's Johnson Space Center. He served as a U.S. Army pilot and armor officer, retiring as Lieutenant Colonel. He's driven by a lifelong athletic spirit: from West Point gymnast to powerlifter, bodybuilder, masters track athlete, and now Krav Maga instructor.He drives multiple research programs funded by NIH, the U.S. Army, and industry, and since 2023 holds a Visiting Senior Research Scientist appointment at IHMC, extending his work to human performance in extreme environments.https://www.ihmc.us/groups/arny-ferrando/ Curranz Supplement: Use code MIKKIPEDIA to get 20% off your first order - go to www.curranz.co.nz  or www.curranz.co.uk to order yours Contact Mikki:https://mikkiwilliden.com/https://www.facebook.com/mikkiwillidennutritionhttps://www.instagram.com/mikkiwilliden/https://linktr.ee/mikkiwilliden

Send us a textWhat happens when a tech whiz with a passion for helping others builds a movement instead of a business? In this compelling episode, Joey Pinz sits down with Mendy Green—founder of Rising Tide and a key force behind MSPGeek—to explore his remarkable evolution from accounts receivable clerk to tech strategist, community builder, and nonprofit leader.Mendy opens up about the importance of personal motivation, the pitfalls of forcing discipline, and why community matters more than profit. From organizing an affordable, vendor-neutral MSP conference to leading by example in an industry full of silos, Mendy shares what drives him: responsibility to others. He also reflects on his love for music, the power of perspective, and how Krav Maga training taught him more about consistency than any business book ever could.

Hadeel Ghaida is a dynamic entrepreneur, podcast host, and co-owner of Spotlight Revenue, a marketing agency dedicated to helping businesses grow through results-driven lead generation.    Hadeel is the host of The Warriorz Podcast, a show inspired by her training in Krav Maga, which has shaped her understanding of what it means to be a true warrior—resilient, courageous, and driven by purpose.    Hadeel discusses deep self-awareness and constant self-reflection, which she cultivates through journaling, gratitude practices, and poetry inspired by artists like Tupac.    She recommends that entrepreneurs take their time, follow their instincts, and build a business around what truly matters to them, not what's trending.   Website: Spotlight Revenue  LinkedIn: Hadeel Ghaida   Previous Episode: iam335-podcaster-and-co-owner-helps-businesses-grow-their-customer-base-and-increase-sales   Check out our CEO Hack Buzz Newsletter–our premium newsletter with hacks and nuggets to level up your organization. Sign up HERE.  I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!

In this episode of the Next Level Healing Podcast, Dr. Tara Perry interviews Alexandra Wyman, a remarkable mom, widow, and grief guide, who courageously shares her story of overcoming the devastating loss of her husband to suicide.Together, we explore the crucial role of supportive networks, self-compassion, and creative outlets like Krav Maga and journaling in processing intense emotions. Alexandra's journey is a testament to the strength found in setting boundaries, embracing personal growth, and finding clarity amidst chaos.This episode sheds light on the importance of suicide prevention and the need for healthy coping mechanisms. Through Alexandra's candid reflections, we discover the universal nature of grief and the shared human experience that connects us all. Her insights offer a comforting reminder that while each healing journey is unique, no one is truly alone.Tune in to hear about the therapeutic approaches that have helped us manage grief, from hypnotherapy to talk therapy, and discover how you can rebuild a meaningful life after loss.Work with Dr. Tara PerryTune in every week for a new episode of Next Level Healing. Subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and never miss an episode!

Text the Bookcast and say "hi"!Welcome to Chapter 74! My guest is Candace Kade. Candace spends her time dreaming up stories typically involving technology, psychology, culture, and/or swords. She is the author of The Hybrid Series and a certified Krav Maga assistant instructor who loves writing action-packed martial art scenes. A third culture kid, she considers Chengdu and OKC to be her homes. When she's not exploring new countries, she enjoys hiking in national parks, moving, teaching her husband Mandarin, and keeping two baby humans alive. She can be bribed with boba tea, fluffy puppies, and breakfast tacos.In our conversation, we talk about the Hybrid trilogy with a focus on the third book - Augmented - that releases in September. We also talk about writing for YA audiences, how her experience of navigating cultures impacts her writing, and she gives some incredible thoughts on writing fight scenes. You're going to love getting to know Candace Kade. Connect with Candace: website | InstagramCandace on Your Next Great Read (July 2024)Books Mentioned on the Show:Enhanced - Candace KadeHybrid - Candace KadeAugmented - Candace KadeOut of Time series - Nadine BrandesThe Selection series - Kiera CassEragon - Christopher PaoliniRed Rising - Pierce BrownMe Before You - JoJo MoyesConnect with J: website | TikTok | Twitter | Instagram | FacebookShop the Bookcast on Bookshop.orgMusic by JuliusH

Real estate can be dangerous. Every year, agents are attacked while showing homes, hosting open houses, or even pumping gas. That's why we sat down with Harry Shaw—a third-degree black belt in Krav Maga who's spent 15 years training first responders in self-defense.Harry breaks down a simple framework for staying safe: pay attention, know your environment, and take purposeful action. We talk through common real estate scenarios—from meeting unknown buyers to working alone at night—and how to prepare for them. When it comes to personal safety, the worst time to figure out what to do is when it's already happening.Resources:Learn more about Harry's work at HarrysBodyShop.comExplore free tools and training through NAR's Safety Program at nar.realtor/safety/about-the-realtor-safety-programBecome your clients' go-to Airbnb expertAirbnb has launched a Real Estate Referral Program for agents just like you. When you refer clients to list their properties on Airbnb, you not only earn a referral fee, you also gain access to localized market data that helps you stand out in your market. It's free to join, includes a quick-start webinar, and gives you real-time insights on booking trends in your area. It's a win-win-win. Sign up at mreanotes.com/airbnb and don't forget to mention you heard about it on the MREA Podcast.Connect with Jason:LinkedinProduced by NOVAIn this episode, we discuss self-defense strategies relevant to real estate agents, including scenarios that may involve personal safety risks during showings or open houses. Please note that the conversation includes references to physical violence. While we approach these topics with care and professionalism, some listeners may find the content distressing. Your well-being is important—please listen at your discretion and take breaks or skip this episode if needed. If you or someone you know needs support, we encourage reaching out to a trusted resource or professional.This podcast is for general informational purposes only. The views, thoughts, and opinions of the guest represent those of the guest and not  Keller Williams Realty, LLC and its affiliates, and should not be construed as financial, economic, legal, tax, or other advice. This podcast is provided without any warranty, or guarantee of its accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or results from using the information.

While the Sinaloa Cartel has been in headlines for the capture of infamous leader El Mayo Zambada and the infighting that is causing it's own fracture, another cartel has begun to rise to the top and take control of the country- The New Generation Jalisco Cartel aka CJNG. We went to Guadalajara- the home base for CJNG- to see what's REALLY happening with the world's most militarized drug cartel by talking to sicarios, special forces and the population that has been affected by all of it. What we found was way more shocking than we could have ever anticipated. Be sure to check out GAFE's podcast! @GAFE423 Need security or want to learn Krav Maga in the Guadalajara area? Check out the Krav Maga Academy of Guadalajara and tell them we sent you! https://www.kravmagaacademymx.com/ This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following! BetterHelp! Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/connect and get on your way to being your best self. Brooklyn Bedding! Go to https://www.brooklynbedding.com and use promo code CONNECT at checkout to get 30% off sitewide! Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices