This is not a manual on kicking ass. It's not a martial artist's guide to nirvana. It's about survival, plain and simple.

When I picked up this book, I have to admit, I half expected to see page after page of "10 steps to winning a fight," "How to win any fight on the street" and the usual nonsense. Don't expect Geoff Thompson to try feeding you that load of crap.

Geoff Thompson's experience comes from ten years of working as a doorman in some of the roughest pubs and clubs in the UK.

In this book, he explains his guidelines for avoiding dangerous confrontations, and surviving confrontations when they cannot be avoided. He has also included many statements from average street thugs, convicted serial killers and their victims.

What struck me the most as I read through it - and I'll mention the victim statements in particular - was how blissfully ignorant so many people are about keeping themselves safe in a world as obviously dangerous as ours. All of the things written in this book make perfect sense, and when you read through the simplest measures you can take to avoid putting yourself in a potentially dangerous situation, you'll probably think "Of course! Everyone knows that!" But the scary reality is that many - if not most - people don't think about these things, no matter how obvious they are.

And many people die every day over completely unimportant things, some of whom could've instead walked home safely by taking a few precautionary measures. Ask Mr. Thompson how many friends he knew who lost everything, over nothing.

In the book, he goes from 'coding up' - a simple way of using mental codes for assessing possible threats - to actual techniques, simple to use and very common sense. He goes into the different phases that serve as indicators of being set up for an attack, as well as several common behavioral patterns that you're likely to see in aggressors. There are many case examples and other self defense experts chip in with their advice as well.

I can't guarantee that everyone will find every part of the book useful, I can only tell you what I personally took out of it. I can say that pretty much every part of the book aside from the techniques were of interest to me, and I did learn quite a few things I hadn't thought about before about staying safe.

Regardless of what I learned from it myself, I believe it has something for everyone. Whether you're a seasoned self-defense practitioner or a novice in the ways of street-safe, you can learn from Geoff Thompson's experience to help yourself know more about what goes on when the shit kicks off. Who knows, maybe it'll keep your hide intact one day.