FIELD NOTES
Ideas, experiences, and investigations behind the Everyday Defense Project.
​
This is where the work is documented as it develops—through training, writing, video, and continued exploration.
FOLLOW THE PROJECT AS IT CONTINUES
Watch new videos and follow the ongoing development of EDP on YouTube.
AN ONGOING INVESTIGATION
Everyday Defense Project did not begin with a finished system.
It developed through years of training, experimentation, pressure testing, observation, and questioning.
​
Field Notes is where I explore some of the ideas and experiences behind that process.
Some entries look backward—to people and experiences that influenced the way I think. Others examine questions that continue to shape how personal protection is taught, trained, and understood.
EDP ORIGINS
THE IDEAS THAT SHAPED THE INVESTIGATION
Every system has an origin.
For Everyday Defense Project, that origin wasn't a single teacher, martial art, or moment. It was a progression of ideas, experiences, questions, and tests that gradually changed the way I understood training and personal protection.
EDP Origins explores some of the people and ideas that had the greatest influence on that process.
Some were teachers I trained with directly. Others influenced me through their ideas, their writing, their systems, or the way their work was interpreted and passed on through others.
​
What they shared was not a single method, but different perspectives on training, fighting, learning, and problem-solving. Each became part of a larger investigation into what works, why it works, and how it can be developed further.
Shaping A System
The Development of EDP
Training. Testing. Integration.
What began as a study of different fighting systems became an investigation into how a system itself could be built.
Through Jeet Kune Do, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, Pekiti Tirsia, and gunfighting, I encountered different methods, training environments, and ways of solving combative problems. Each offered something valuable, but the deeper lesson came from examining why things worked, how they related to one another, and what remained constant when the tools and circumstances changed.
​
Over time, my focus shifted from testing individual techniques and tactics to understanding how principles, strategy, tactics, techniques, and training methods could be organized into a functioning system.
Accumulation is not integration.
Learning different systems was one thing. Understanding how their lessons could be integrated into a coherent whole—and how that whole could be adapted to the individual—was another.
​
That investigation eventually led to the development of the Everyday Defense Project.
​
EDP remains an ongoing project, guided by a question that continues to shape its development
What does this individual actually need?
THE VISION
PRINCIPLES.  EXPLORATION.  A HIGHER STANDARD
BRUCE LEE
Bruce Lee's influence on me wasn't simply about martial arts.
It was about how to think about them.
Through Jeet Kune Do and the Wednesday Night Group, I learned to approach martial arts through principles rather than a fixed collection of techniques. Those principles provided roots, while the concepts-oriented approach encouraged exploration beyond a single art.
​
That became an important lesson: exploration isn't accumulation. You can explore broadly, test what you encounter, and adapt to the individual without losing the principles that give the work its foundation.