curran2009

A "must do" for the adrenaline junkie.Canyoning involves the use of abseiling, jumping and sliding to get from the top of a canyon to the bottom like Indian Joans :-)



There is usually a small amount of hiking required however nearly 90% of the time you
will be spent in the Vbras river. Which in my humble opinion is the gem of europe !



For more information contact,

http://www.bosnianadventures.com/

Banja Luka is located on the beautiful Vrbas river in the northern part of Bosnia.
The city does have a local airport so you arrive by air by flying from Switzerland,
or Turkey. You can also get a bus or drive from Zagreb in Croatia across the border
to reach Banja Luka.

When you arrive in Banja Luka, you’ll want to have a stroll and see what the city offers.
It has an incredibly rich mixture of preserved architecture and slightly
aged relics that give Banja Luka a very unique charm. The Vbars is renowned for its
breath taking beauty.Surrounded by the most amazing mountains and valleys.

The Republika Srpska is known for its friendly people, and Banja Luka is no different.
Explore the local houses and suburbs for a taste of true local life, and
try to schedule a home stay or visit. For more information checkout
http://www.bosnianadventures.com

Curran M Padake

Ever wanted to know what it was like to fire a real gun like James Bond or Clint Eastwood? In the UK shooting is restricted to clay pigeon with a shotgun or target practise using an air rifle. When you come for shooting in Bosnia the story completely changes. What’s different are the choice of weapons.


You will have a huge range of semi automatic weapons and firearms to choose from such as,

- AK47 (30shots)
- Shotgun (5shots)
- Magnum 357 (18shots)
- CZ 85B (29shots)
- CZ M70 7,65 (15shots)
- CZ M57 7,62 (15shots)
- Glock (10shots)

Our english speaking ex-military serbian firearms instructors will guide you through how to and how not to use the various weapons. Once you have completed the training you will have the opportunity to test your skills on the shooting range.

We also offer tactical pistol shooting courses throughout the year.

For more information checkout,

http://www.bosnianadventures.com/Target-Shooting.html

An attacker will act on your percieved vunerabilities. They have an inbuilt radar which is continuosly looking for physical openings such as open doors, open windows or psychological openings such as someone who looks like a victim such as bad posture.

The best defense in your arsenal is your awareness and intuition. Its about being aware of where your going, when you might be attacked etc. I am not saying that you should be paranoid about setting foot out of your house door. All I am saying is exercise alittle more caution.

So how do we go about developing our awareness and intuition ?. For the next 2 weeks as soon as you leave your house get into a habit of observing other peoples vunerabilities. You might want to visualize yourself as a potential mugger. Observe the signals that people give of.

We leave our house window open we are sending a message to a thief. We walk down the road listening to our ipod on full blast. We are sending a message to a mugger "come and sneak up on me I cant hear you". This will give you an idea of who is vunerable and who is not vunerable. You will learn what kind of behaviour attracts certain types of behaviour and you can adapt your own behaviour so not to look like a "soft target" or potential "victim".

I remember walking through Waterlook station and seeing 20 people that looked like easy targets to have their mobile phones, handbags, ipods stolen.


In the next article I will look at ways of diffusing a potentially violent situation using psychological tactics. Any questions leave a comment.

There are many reasons why people train in various martial arts. Whether its karate, krav maga or MMA. For some its more about fitness, for others its to beable to fight like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan.

One the biggest reasons we train is it gives us the feeling that we can walk the streets with confidence. Without any worries about our security knowing that we can protect our family and loved ones should trouble kick of.

We can spend hours upon hours training and become competent in our physical skills but the question is do our psychological belief structures support our physical skills ?. Say for example your sitting in the park its a sunny day your minding your own business reading a book. All of sudden someone comes out of nowhere starts, demanding you handover your wallet\purse. You standup you see an opportunity to defend yourself but you dont take action. What went wrong ?.

One of the reasons why people end up not taking action in a high pressure situation is because of beliefs. Beliefs are what makes us feel and how we make our judgements. Alot of people have incongruent beliefs about themselves. The mind controls the body, the mind will make a decision based on beliefs which are basically filters through which we see the world.

A few years ago I remember going to a seminar that covered defending against a knife. One of the instructors asked the students "What are your beliefs about personal protection". There was silence for a few seconds then a couple of people raised their hands and said "I want to learn how to defend against a knife" or "I came along with my mate", "I want to fight like Jet Li".

These reasons were nothing to do with beliefs these were desires. So how do we go about defining our belief systems ?. One way is listing 3 reasons why you train. As an example you might come up with the following.

1. I believe I have the right to defend myself
2. I believe I have the right to defend my family and loved ones.
3. I believe that if I come up against multiple attackers, there
are things I can do to ensure my safety.

If you have a strong belief structure like this. You can go along way to ensuring your safety in a stressful moment. Whats also important is your beliefs have to be empowering.

In the next article I will discuss the psychological aspects of self defense more and how you can develop a solid intuition and see trouble before it happens.

What do you want to experience?

A deep meditative state?
Very deep relaxation?
Letting go of all stress in your life ?
Expanded awareness?
Let go of unwanted emotions and negative thoughts ?

Xphirience offers a set of audios that help guide you into a blissful state checkout

The great thing about MMA (Mixed Martial Arts)is that it provides
a format that allows people to train in a more realistic way compared to other martial arts.

MMA does however adhere to tournament rules and for those who want to simply learn how to defend themselves and not compete there are other options.

Sharif Haque a British Combat Association instructor runs classes in North London. What he teaches is which is very much MMA like but incorporates heavy elements of military Combatives and "dirty combat" fighting methods used by street criminals.

Sharif invited me along to one of his classes. The lesson began with a group warm up. Which involved running, stretching and a focus mitt session. Where we paired up and practised combination punching.

One of the warm drills was what he called spider crawling and walking like a crab. On all four. This was to help develop attributes should you hit the ground in a confrontation. Sharif's whole take on ground fighting is. If you hit the ground you wanna do whatever it takes to get up back on your feet asap. This totally makes sense as I can think a million different reason why I dont want to be on the ground choking someone out or locking someones arm MMA style. A friend of mine several years ago hit the ground in a fight and ended up cutting his hand on some broken glass on the pavement. Plus he got kicked a few times in the head by group of guys who decided to get involved in the fight.

What I enjoyed most about his class. Is his philosophy of keeping things as simple as possible but not too simple. Rather then teaching some unnecessarily complex technique to escape a strangle hold. Why not
teach something that is already natural for a person to use and build upon that. His demonstration of using a simple stomp kick followed by a strike to escape a strangle hold made perfect sense. Whatever was practised standing up was also practised on the ground. From the crab position we practised kicking. Sharif demonstrated how this could be used as a tactic if you ever hit the ground.

There was a large group in attendence and a nice warm vibe to the class. Which made me want to come back and train again :-)

For more information on Sharif's self defense classes in North London check out his website,

http://www.northlondonselfdefence.co.uk/

Baby tigers are amazingly cute. Everyone wants to own one what people dont realize is they are still wild animals and can grow up to be extremely dangerous. Often people abuse this fact and purchase the baby tigers and then loose interest in them when they grow up. The population of tigers in the wild is in rapid decline. Poachers often kill the mother to steal the baby tigers or hunt them as there is a huge demand for tigers bones and whiskers in countries like China.

Estimates that they could be as little as 3000 left. Compared to the 100,000 that existed at the beginning of the century. I mean how sad is that ?

Muay thai training in Thailand can be life changing experience. As your probably know that Muay thai is martial art that originated in Thailand. Muay Thai" was the title of the first episode/pilot of Human Weapon, a television series that aired on The History Channel and featured different martial arts around the world.







Ever watched the sun set in Thailand ? its like the whole sky is on fire as the sun sets and the sky turns to a bright orange and then to a yellow. Then everything just goes dark.
After a muay thai training session its so therapeutic just to sit and watch the sun set :-)

Theres a huge prejudice against snakes as they inspire great fear and loathing, and they are often killed upon sight. As a teenager I was very passionate when it came to reptiles. In fact my favourite pet was my royal python which use to curl up into a ball everytime he got scared ;-)



In the USA,rattlesnake hunts are carried out in many towns as an annual event. With thousands being captured, tortured, skinned and often burned alive for pleasure.



The Eastern Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus), the largest snake native to the United States is on the endangered specis list as the numbers are in serious decline. They hide under rocks where hunters find them in areas like Pennsylvania and New York. They are captured and have gasoline poured on them and killed in bizarre religious ceremonies.

This species has legal protection from hunting in Pennsylvania and New York and is listed on their state endangered laws, yet hunting still continues.

What people dont realize is that snakes do NOT pose a threat to human beings unless they are seriously provoked. Snake are extremely useful in maintaining a balance in the ecosystem by eating mice, rats and other pests.

Unless we take the conservation of this species seriously it looks like another poor animal on the list for mass extinction.