Rory Miller is a US corrections officer turned martial arts author and instructor whose work focuses on real-world violence rather than sport or tradition.

I first saw his works while browsing the site of a well-known Chinese martial artist called Dr Yang, Jwing-Ming, who practises the Chinese martial arts and runs a publishing company, YMAA.

Here’s a summary of Rory’s ideas:

The Violence Framework

He distinguishes between different types of violence — primarily the “social monkey dance” (dominance displays and ego-based fighting) versus predatory violence (asocial, one-sided attacks). Most traditional martial arts training prepares people for the former while leaving them unprepared for the latter, which is far more dangerous.

The Hierarchy of Response

He underscores that awareness and de-escalation can completely prevent most violent encounters. Physical skills are a last resort, and the decision to act (or not) matters far more than technique. He stresses that freezing under stress is normal and must be trained against.

Stress Inoculation

He draws heavily on how the body responds to adrenaline – tunnel vision, loss of fine motor skills, and time distortion. He argues that real stress must be replicated in training for it to have any value, and most dojo training leads to false confidence.

The Legal and Ethical Dimension

He puts significant weight on understanding when force is legally and morally justified. Even if you survive, acting outside these boundaries can ruin your life. This emphasis separates his work from most self-defence instruction.

Key Books

His most influential works are Meditations on Violence, Facing Violence, Scaling Force (co-written with Lawrence Kane), and Force Decisions. Each builds on the idea that understanding violence conceptually is as important as any physical technique. The YMAA videos cover his books, but he also has some separate DVDs on techniques such as locks and infighting.

Core Philosophy

His overall message is that self-protection is mostly about awareness, avoidance, and judgement — and that when physical force becomes necessary, it should be efficient, decisive, and legally defensible. He’s sceptical of most martial arts as self-defence systems, but he values pressure testing and training.

He is less prolific these days, but I still follow him on his Substack blog. He has probably said all he can about violence and now covers a lot of material to help with improving the technique side of things, both in martial arts and self-protection. His background in martial arts is in a traditional Japanese ju-jitsu style.