Geoff Thompson and Fence Concepts

Conditioning Research is an informative, well-written website on all things related to health, nutrition and exercise.  Here is an excellent post and YouTube clips regarding fence concepts, as put forth by the great Geoff Thompson.  We have posted before on his protégé, Al Peasland, and his fence concepts.  Think of a fence as your protective barrier.  There is much more to it than that, and I am oversimplifying a bit, so definitely check out the clips and learn from one of the premiere real-world self-protection masters.  Great stuff! 

http://conditioningresearch.blogspot.com/2009/10/fence.html

Know the Law That Governs You

Something that we have probably not talked about enough on this blog is the law and how it views use of force.  As you might expect, it is going to vary from state to state here in the U.S., as well as in other countries.  So, I highly recommend that you get online and read the local code that governs you wherever you live.  Whenever we talk about use of force, I am always a little surprised at what people do NOT know.  For instance, several individuals have expressed disbelief over not being able to legally shoot an assailant after disarming him.  Granted, if that assailant is still attempting to harm them, it is a different story altogether.  But, if he is no longer exhibiting threatening behavior, and they shoot him anyway, it is basically an execution.  If some guy throws the first punch, and I render him unconscious, AND I CONTINUE to beat him, the law is not going to look at me with a friendly eye.  It is easy to be vengeful and angry for his crime against me, but that doesn’t absolve me of committing my crime.  We have to make the distinction between force and excessive force, and if we use deadly force, we need to be able to articulate why.  Ignorance of the law of the land is never a good excuse, and I really don’t want anyone to transform an act of self-protection into a prison sentence.  Be safe and use your heads!

The Mental Skills of Self-Protection

One aspect of training that is often lacking in the realm of martial arts is mental skills.  This involves learning situational awareness, developing a winning mindset, target hardening, understanding the fear response and how it affects the human animal mentally and physiologically, understanding intuition and how to inform it, understanding pre-incident indicators to violence, reading facial expressions and body language, confrontational management OTHER than fighting, etc.  A lot of people mistakenly think that self-protection is all about kicking butt–especially the un-initiated who have never trained before.  Sadly, much of the time, those who run the local dojos don’t pay much lip service to the mental game, or what I like to think of as “walkin’ around sense.”  It is our opinion, and the opinion of many experts we respect, that it’s best NOT to have to fight, and to avoid violent confrontation if at all possible.  Fighting is what happens when all other self-defense measures have failed, including running (i.e. flight) from an adversary.  Probably 95 percent of self-protection is mental.

Maybe many instructors assume people already have the mental game down—the people had enough sense to seek out training in the first place, right?  I find this is not necessarily the case.  It is also possible that the instructors are not well-informed themselves—it’s hard to teach what you don’t know!  We have periodically talked to people who have had years of martial arts training in one or more styles, and find that when do address aspects of mental defense, they have an “aha” moment.  They say things like, “Wow, I never really thought about that at all.”  Sometimes we’ll say, “Well, this defense against. . .(fill in the blank) is great, but how did you get there in the first place?  How did this guy get this close to you to put this on you?”  Sometimes the simple things seem so obvious, but they really aren’t to a lot of people, and it is a terrible disservice to many individuals who truly believe they are getting what they need to survive an encounter and to protect their loved ones. 

I had some interesting experiences when I was young that helped me begin the process of target hardening long before I even knew what it was.  First of all, my mother had fairly keen intuition.  She knew a thing or two about violence, and told me stories of her childhood (and adulthood) that I took very seriously and internalized.  I believe they fed my own intuition which, Gavin de Becker says, must be educated to serve us well.  I think this can be accomplished through direct personal experience, and through indirect sources, like the people we know or read about.  A disproportionate amount of the population is conditioned out of using intuition, and de Becker says that we are the only species that dismisses the information it provides.  This sixth sense is, in essence, our subconscious mind picking up on anomalies, or breaks in the pattern of our environment.  The subconscious can alert our conscious mind in many ways, including a sense of foreboding, goosebumps, a feeling, a persistent thought, and a myriad of other signals that tell us that something is amiss.  This reminds me of something I encountered with my mother when I was in grade school.  I was completing work on a science project at a local state park, it was early evening, and we were packing up for the day.  The park was empty, but we noticed as we made our way back to the truck that someone was watching us.  We kept vigilant as we walked across the parking lot, and a guy in an old, run-down car started circling the parking lot, almost like wolves in the wild circle around their prey.  We both had that sense of foreboding, the hairs on our arms and neck stood up and my mother looked at me and said, “We have to run.”  This was obviously not the response this guy was expecting, and we startled him as we sprinted to our vehicle.  He quickly changed direction, hit the gas, and his tires squealed as he sped out of the parking lot.  I guess we broke into his decision loop, and this is a good example of threat assessment and confrontational management that does not involve fighting at all!  We informed a park ranger, and he drove off quickly to investigate.  What his success was, I will never know, but I believe to this day that we both won what could have been a very ugly encounter had we been less aware and turned off our intuition.

As a young teenager, I also had the privilege of training with a progressive instructor in Tae Kwon Do.  Every month we had “street night”, when we dressed in our street clothes and discussed situational awareness and improvised weapons.  I wonder how many other schools do this sort of thing.  Mr. Story certainly gave us all plenty to chew on in our young, impressionable minds, and I am certain that it shaped me in a very good way for the future.  I have always been keen on avoiding bad situations, and extremely cautious in what I consider high-risk areas.  My college studies and jobs took me to high-risk areas frequently, day and night, but I can happily say that I never became a statistic in all those years.

You know, we have read some great books on self-protection.  One of my favorites is still Gavin de Becker’s Gift of Fear.  It is all about intuition, and the pre-cursors to violence.  I also like Erin Weed’s book, Girls Fight Back—it is especially great for educating young women, and I think of it is a practical companion book to the Gift of Fear.  Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence is a great read on human behavior.  The great Geoff Thompson, who lives on the other side of the pond, has a great book called Dead or Alive, and I really like Al Peasland’s Fence Concepts.  Those guys in the UK are really good about addressing the mental aspects of self-protection.  While you read, keep in mind that though many aspects of human behavior are universal, there are subtle cultural differences between Great Britain and the states; situational awareness is highly contextual.  In other words, you approach self-protection differently wherever you go, from the moment you step out of your house, to traveling into the city, to traveling to other cities and beyond the borders of your state and country.  One good example of this is the presence of firearms—this little equalizer changes the nature of the game quite a bit, and how you might approach certain volatile situations.  Other countries restrict the use of firearms more, or prohibit them altogether.  Attack Proof, by John Perkins, is a very interesting book on personal protection.  I love Bruce Siddle’s book entitled Sharpening the Warrior’s Edge.  This text gives you the scientific scoop on survival stress and how it affects our performance in combat situations.  It is geared more towards the law enforcement and military communities, but it has merit for anyone interested in self-protection because no matter how you slice it, a lethal encounter on the street is a combat situation.  I also learned a lot about survival stress from Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.  I took this blurb from Amazon.com that describes Grossman: “A former army Ranger, paratrooper, West Point Professor of Military Science and author of the classic book, ON KILLING, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman is currently the Director of the Killology Research Group and one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of human aggression and the psychology of combat.”  His CD set, The Bulletproof Mind, is absolutely outstanding, and I had the special privilege of seeing this amazing man speak to a group of LEO’s a few years back.  It had a huge impact on me!  I am currently reviewing Kelly McCann’s new release: Combatives for Street Survival.  His videos and writing are always practical, and he has tremendous insight into inter-personal human aggression, as well.  Great scenarios in that book.  It may sound a bit odd for civilians, or anyone outside of the bodyguard profession, but I even recommend reading up on surveillance counter-measures.  You would be surprised at how often the most ordinary people among us are targeted and stalked—it doesn’t just happen to celebrities or the very rich.

I have to mention one other great instructor who focuses a lot on winning mindset: Brian Willis.  Brian is a speaker, writer, trainer, and retired Canadian LEO.  His work is mostly geared towards law enforcement, but is equally valuable for the civilian community.  I read his Excellence In Training Weblog, and receive his Winning Mind newsletters.  They are so well-written and informative, and POSITIVE.  Links to both sites are in our blogroll.

In addition to all of the aforementioned, I read magazines and other blogs, most of which I try to share with you on this blog.  I learn so much from talking to people, too.  All of this informs what I do and shapes my perspective.  Not everyone would go about this subject with the same fervor, but I would say that self-protection takes education and training, and it becomes a way of life.  I have a lot to accomplish, and I want to preserve my life to see that through; it is a relatively small investment of time and effort when I put it in those terms.  In any case, I hope you’ll catch up on a little reading and construct a mental defense to complement your physical skills: fortify your mind and body!

OODA Cycle

Many months back, I geared up to write about the OODA loop/cycle.  This simple acronym stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act.  We talk a lot about this decision loop concept in the Gutterfighting class and in self-defense presentations.  I culled my resources about Colonel John Boyd, who originated the theory of OODA (and created a model), and began to write on conflict and winning.  But honestly, I don’t know that I can do a better job than what has already been done here, so why reinvent the wheel?  It is a worthwhile read:

OODA Cycle by Ken Gould

Saturday Meetup

I wanted to thank those who attended our self-defense meetup yesterday.  We decided to create a meetup group in order to reach out further into the community and help people become more aware of the need for self-protection.  What is startling to me is the fact that every group we have ever talked to, since we began talking in front of groups, has been touched by violent confrontation, either directly or indirectly.  This shows a dire need for awareness!  Martial arts training, in general, almost always addresses what to do once you are in the battle, but a very important question is this: how did you get there in the first place?  How can you avoid it most of the time?  People do need some basic fighting skills, but knowing how to avoid confrontation is just not addressed as much.  Nor is confrontational management that involves tactical communication.  When I say awareness, I don’t mean simply acknowledging that violence persists, although so many shove it far away in the darkest recesses of their minds that it may as well not exist to them.  I mean that people need understanding about pre-incident indicators, setting proper boundaries with others, body language, how manipulators operate and their interviews of potential victims, looking for and developing escape routes and plans in times of emergency, the physiological effects of survival stress, developing cover stories and learning when and how to be more protective of personal identity, and generally informing their intuition so it serves them in times of need.  Something we talked about afterward was the fact that a lot of people do have some pretty awesome physical skills, but if they don’t learn to develop the proper winning mindset, those skills don’t mean diddly squat.  Truly.  We had many good questions yesterday, and we learn so much from talking to people, especially women.  Again, we are grateful for them taking time out of their off-day to come and hang out with us!

Blink and Rapid Cognition

 

I recently finished reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.  I spent considerable time going through the book; I am totally fascinated by the human brain and human behavior.  It is by no means a hard read—it reads like a great novel—but it is quite compelling and I saw it as a launching pad to do some further reading human decision-making, facial expressions and emotion, behavior and affect, etc.  Blink is about rapid cognition, and making decisions in a blink of an eye.  We all make snap judgments every day, but how well-informed are they, and do they serve us most of the time?

Gladwell explains the concept of thin-slicing, which is the ability of our subconscious mind to pick up on patterns (and anomalies), situations, and behavior based upon “very narrow slices of experience.”  All this processing takes place behind a locked door, he explains, and it is an “automated, accelerated unconscious version” of cognitive processing, which occurs consciously.  Since we cannot unlock the door, all we can do is carefully program the subconscious mind with experiences that uphold whatever we consciously believe to be true.  It is like what Gavin De Becker talks about in the Gift of Fear—informing our intuition, which can be done through the right training, experience and mental exercises.  Sometimes, under duress and/or time pressure, the subconscious mind will spit out a response based on whatever is familiar, which can be something totally stereotypical—something which you may not even consciously uphold.

The key to good rapid decision-making (with more favorable results) is frugality.  In all the stories he related, where snap judgments were spot-on, the expert decision-makers edited information, and used very little of it to find patterns quickly.  Notice I used the word “expert”.  These are people who have gained much wisdom based on years and years of experience, and have learned how to accurately interpret whatever comes out of that locked room, or little black box of the mind.  Experts have depth of understanding, vastly different from knowledge.  We are living in the information age, and knowledge is more readily accessible than it probably ever was in history, but does it follow that people, as a whole, know how to apply it?  Knowledge, in and of itself, is not power.  Knowing how to apply it really IS powerful.  I am reminded of Brian Willis’ discussion on competency, and how trainers must move towards becoming unconscious competent articulates: performing skills unconsciously, which is most efficient, and having the ability to explain those actions after the fact.  Obviously, the information that is gathered for rapid cognition has to be the right information—being able to zero in on pertinent details and discarding irrelevant information is the mark of true proficiency as it relates to good, fast decision-making in any field of endeavor.

Early on in the text, I was already contemplating how thin-slicing/rapid cognition applies to the realm of self-protection.  Obviously, in a lethal encounter, you don’t have the time or wherewithal (due to the effects of survival stress) to process very much with your conscious mind.  Gladwell explains that both high arousal and time pressure can cause serious breakdowns in judgment.  Training and experience help us to develop and hone our decision-making powers when stakes are high, and when we have very little time or experience from which to “extract meaningful information.”  He discusses Gavin De Becker’s process of stress-inoculation in training his operatives, so that they may eventually function in high-stress situations with relatively low heart rates and achieve better reaction times (De Becker’s company runs security operations to protect high-profile people).  Though it is not discussed in this book, I have read in many sources about Olympic athletes performing their events in their minds, prior to competition, including as much sensory information as possible to make the experience real to their minds—the subconscious mind really does not understand the difference.  Never underestimate the power of imagination!  Brian Willis talks about using imagination towards ANYTHING, including your own healing, in learning new skills, in preparing for dangerous encounters (as experienced by police officers, first responders, etc.).

Here are some of my favorite thoughts from the text:

“Every moment—every blink— is composed of a series of discrete moving parts, and every one of those parts offers an opportunity for intervention, for reform, and for correction.”

“Judgment makes all the difference in winning and losing.”

“When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons.  In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves.  In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.”—Sigmund Freud 

My thoughts on this book, and its implications, are not fully formed yet.  However, it has led me to some other interesting books, like Sources of Power, by Gary Klein, which is a study on how people in professions with extreme time pressure make decisions; and Unmasking the Face, by Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen, which is about reading emotions through facial expressions.  Anything I can read to increase my understanding and inform my training and coaching is a good thing!

Street Sense

 

Lately, I have been focusing more on awareness, and I am sure the past blog posts reflect this.  I honestly think I needed to work on these specific skills for a more well-rounded approach to my training.  Everything I read from seasoned experts points to the fact that most of self-protection is mental.  Al Peasland’s Fence Concepts (I recently reviewed the DVD and now I’m reading the book—excellent information) focuses a lot on awareness and confrontation management.  Peasland worked as a doorman in a rough part of the UK—running away from his post when things got hairy was simply not an option.  Nevertheless, he wanted to avoid the fight, if it was possible.  What is in his book and DVD is a culmination of techniques that worked for him, as well as his instructor, Geoff Thompson.  He does not promote any particular fighting style, but talks about integrating techniques into whatever you are already doing.  He and Geoff are well-seasoned by experience, so I trust what wisdom they have to offer.

 

Here is another smart individual.  Dennis Martin posts a lot of Marcus Wynne’s material on the combatives forum.  If you have the time and inclination, it is worth searching the forum for the material.  You can read about Wynn’es background on his website: http://www.marcuswynne.com/.  His thoughts about self-protection are much the same: “avoidance, deterrence and de-escalation.”  Yeah, it’s mental.

 

 

FROM MARCUS WYNNE

 

Cheers, lads –

I’m at a point in my book where I have this old gray beard, who’s done a few things in his time, passing a few tips that he’d picked up in a lifetime of dealing with various problems…a few of the things on this fictional list are things I’ve heard around, a few are my thoughts, some of them I’m read and seen attributed to all kinds of folks from the Marines to Clint Smith, to a tough old guy from Liverpool named Martin, and some other folks.

So here, for what it’s worth, are some thoughts from an old fictional character on fighting –

Random Tips for Winning On The Street

• The number one option for personal security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.
• Make up your mind right now about what you are willing to do to win in a fight.
• Be alert to your surroundings.
• Avoid conflict.
• There’s always someone better than you.
• Keep moving
• Action beats reaction
• There is no “second place” on the street
• Always cheat. Always win.
• Keep breathing and moving your head.
• Don’t escalate the situation. If they escalate, finish them.
• Keep your head moving and your vision in play.
• Always, always check behind you (check six); always, always check around you (check 360).
• Have the mentality to do whatever has to be done. Make up your mind in advance.
• Fight until the threat is over. Be sure it’s over.
• Watch the triangle (head (eyes) to shoulders) and the hands.
• Have a plan.
• Have a back up plan, because the first one won’t survive first contact.
• Don’t drop your guard.
• Be aggressive enough, early enough.
• The faster you finish the fight, the less hurt you will be.

• THE GOLDEN RULE: KNOW WHEN YOU’RE IN A FIGHT. IT STARTS LONG BEFORE THE BLOWS GET THROWN. MOST PEOPLE GET HURT BECAUSE THEY DON’T RECOGNIZE AN INTERVIEW OR THE IMPENDING CUES AROUND THEM THAT TELL YOU — YOU’RE IN A FIGHT.
Marcus

Condition Yellow

 

I was reviewing Al Peasland’s video, Fence Concepts.  In the beginning, he talks about the color code system of awareness that we discuss all the time: Conditions White, Yellow, Orange and Red.  As a review, Condition White is a state of cluelessness, i.e. you are switched “off”.  Consider this the sheep mentality.  I would say that most people live here 99 percent of the time.  Condition Yellow means 360 degree security—you are switched “on”.  Condition Orange involves threat assessment.  We say Condition Orange is a “nonspecific threat”; you know something is simply not right with your surroundings, and your intuition has kicked in, etc.  Condition Red involves threat avoidance: the threat is upon you and you must act. 

 

We often teach that you should leave Condition White as soon as you step through the threshold of your house, but Peasland recommends you only be in Condition White when you are asleep.  He states that Condition Yellow should be your natural state whenever you are awake: a relaxed state of awareness.  He had some interesting tips for getting into this state as part of your daily routine.  We’ve talked in other blogs about awareness games, like Kim’s Game.  He talks about ramping up your awareness skills through commentary on your environment.  Whether in a car, on the street, or in any public space, report on what you are seeing to another or to yourself, or engage in an internal dialogue about everything you are seeing and doing.  If you are out and about, it is probably advisable to keep the observations in your head so people don’t assume you are emotionally disturbed.  J  In the process of describing what you see, you are engaged in truly active observation.  Peasland says that you will eventually develop this skill so that it becomes second nature to you, and you will enjoy a heightened sense of awareness, though you are relaxed.  As de Becker talks about in the Gift of Fear, your intuitive information is more readily available to you when you are relaxed (NOT paranoid), which makes sense.  Your mind is more open to subtleties that you may miss when you are highly aroused by stress, or otherwise distracted.  I think that you will naturally begin to determine what requires more or less of your attention, and the anomalies in your surroundings will present themselves more quickly (as opposed to jumping out of “nowhere”).

 

Kim’s Game

 

I’ve begun looking for awareness exercises for our readers to improve observational skills.  One that keeps coming up in other websites’ posts is Kim’s Game.  I decided to do a little research, and it appears that the main character in Rudyard Kipling’s book Kim, plays a similar game in preparation for becoming a spy.  I’ve found variations of it on boy and girl scout sites, and according to Wikipedia, the US Marine Corp uses Kim’s games in training (KIM = Keep In Memory), though it is “not well-documented.”  I’m never certain about the accuracy of Wikipedia entries, but it really does not matter.  You can try this game yourself, and even practice with children to improve their observation skills:

 

Gather various items and put them on a tray.  Cover the items with a cloth.  Lift the cloth, and give participants 1 minute to observe the items and commit them to memory.  Place the cloth over the items again, and instruct participants to write on a sheet of paper every item they can remember.  Whoever remembers the most items, wins.

 

 

You can certainly play variations of this game while you are in public spaces.  One suggestion I read somewhere was to try it with groups of people; observe them, look away, then try to remember as much detail about their appearances as possible.  You will probably learn a lot from this one, especially about yourself.  What do you notice?  What do you tend to filter out?  Does your awareness change in certain environments?  Think of yourself as the key eye-witness!

Soft versus Hard Target

 

Really and truly, you want to avoid situations that require self-defense skills.  In everyday life, fighting is the action of last resort when all else within the realm of self-protection has failed.  Those among us who have something to prove might disagree with me, and I say the fight on the street is a brutal testing ground.  Though I do train my physical skills every week, I am keenly interested in target hardening.  How do I make myself less desirable to the predators of society?

 

But let’s step back.  What is a soft target?  A soft target lives in a state of cluelessness, or in what we call Condition White.  He or she is highly accessible—personal boundaries are fluid, or not established at all.  Often, the soft target looks insecure, is oblivious to people in his or her vicinity and has poor situational awareness, in general.  Very little attention is paid to personal responsibility, and no control is exerted over personal space or environment.  The soft target is predictable.  You think of a sheep mentality, and you have your soft target, ripe for the picking by a hungry, opportunistic wolf.  Take a good long look at yourself.  Does this sound like an accurate description of you?  Be honest, and take a moment to step outside of yourself and see things from a third party’s perspective.

 

“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” –Anaïs Nin

 

So, what is a hard target?  A hard target is armed with the capacity to perceive and accept the threat, whatever it may be.  He or she is equipped, both mentally and physically.  This requires pre-meditation, planning and practice.  It also requires a total shift in mindset.  Metaphorically speaking, there are wolves in the landscape of life that have made it their personal mission to prey upon others to fulfill their needs.  Believe it, just as you believe the sun will rise tomorrow.  You must become like the sheepdog: vigilant and ready for the threat in the event that it appears.  The sheepdog is in what we call Condition Yellow, as soon as he or she steps out the door each day.  This state of awareness involves 360 degree security at all times.  Contrary to what you may believe, it is not a state of paranoia, though it may seem like it to others, and even feel like it to you for a while.  When you make the firm decision to make awareness a part of your everyday life, it will be exhausting in the beginning.  I speak from personal experience on this.  You will feel jumpy, or hyper-vigilant, and you will think you have to look at everything all the time.  Accept this as part of your training, though.  It is a necessary stepping stone along the path.  Eventually, you will learn to be in tune with your intuition, and move into more relaxed awareness.

 

The hard target is also unpredictable in daily patterns, and is action-oriented.  Knowing and understanding pre-incident indicators and body language are important—awareness of them informs your intuition.  Being able to perceive and evaluate a situation properly and quickly, is critical for winning.  The hard target is concerned with minimizing risk, taking security precautions at home, in the car, on the street. . .wherever.  If this individual has done everything he or she can do, and despite all efforts, steps into a critical Condition Red situation, the hard target is prepared for flight, to stun and run, or fight until the fight is done.  Nevertheless, with the right mindset (and even some confrontation management skills), violent conflict can be avoided most of the time.

 

Like anything worth doing in life, expanding your awareness takes practice and persistence.  I plan on posting some awareness exercises, but in general, get in the habit of taking note what you see when you drive around in your car, walk around in public spaces, etc.  If anything looks like it is just not right, observe it in more detail, or leave immediately.  I was recently in a restaurant, sipping coffee and reading a book.  I watched a man briskly walk in a door on one side of the restaurant, look around, and walk out the door on the other side.  Many people had come and gone, but something about him made me stop reading and take note.  An inner voice nudged me to leave the premises.  Instead of trying to analyze this, I did leave, though my original intent was to finish reading my chapter.  As I walked to my car, another car arrived.  Two men exited the vehicle while one stayed inside.  The two men stared at me as they walked toward the restaurant.  I was not alarmed in any way, but something again nudged me to go.  So that is exactly what I did.  I do not believe there was any incident—it is a restaurant I frequent.  Maybe it was just time for me to go, and there was no harm in leaving.

 

One other thought.  Try to minimize your distractions that engage you so fully that you cannot be alert.  Walking out of a grocery store with a cell phone pinned between your ear and your shoulder, carrying an armload of bags and fumbling for your car keys is not a great idea.  Do not willfully hamstring yourself so that you are unable perceive the world—life does not stop for you.  Besides, have you seen the way people race through parking lots?  This slogan from Baader-Meinhof, a German Terrorist organization and self-proclaimed “communist urban guerrillas”, gives you some insight into the minds of those who victimize:

 

“When you are hungry, it is foolish to hunt a tiger when there are plenty of sheep to be had.”