“Its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog.” – Mark Twain
**************************************************

To truly prepare yourself for life or death confrontations you must take inventory of those weapons readily available to you.

When my trainers ask new clients to list the “weapons” at their disposal, they give a variety of answers. Most tend to focus on either the actual weapons they carry on their person or objects they use on a day-to-day basis that might be utilized as improvised weapons (briefcase, umbrella, pen, etc.).

This response is not confined to the”unsophisticated” trainee, either. Extremely competent, well-trained military commandos and special law enforcement personnel I train give the exact same answers!

The difference is these operators usually categorize the weapons available to them as primary (rifle or submachine gun) and secondary (side arm, knives, etc).

In both cases, however, the highly trained operator and the uninitiated almost ALWAYS fail to list their most powerful weapon.

That weapon is … Their MIND!
—-

Unfortunately today, very little effort is made to properly train your mind for violent confrontation. In fact most martial arts and combat sports go out of their way to actually negate this “primary weapon system” by focusing on defensive-based training. Their programs revolve around REACTING to your attacker’s actions rather than focusing your actions on DEFEATING the threat.

This defensive thinking causes you to hesitate as your mind tries to figure out what is happening rather than focusing on “targets” of opportunity.

By constantly drilling on blocks and on counters to attacks, and through being told never to initiate action, your mind habitually attempts to protect you by reacting to what is happening — rather than helping you to defeat your attacker.

Correct training of your mind is the CRITICAL component that unleashes your ability to take advantage of all the other weapons available to you.

Give your mind the wrong command … and you hesitate; hesitation causes fear; and fear causes you to freeze, leading to an often-disastrous result in true life or death struggle with a violent thug.

Many people give lip service to offensive or aggressive thought training.

But in my 20-plus years of training clients, I’ve seen a mere handful of instructors who can competently instruct offensive/aggressive thought training coupled with effective hand-to-hand and hand-to-weapon training.

I hope the industry changes in the future — but I’m not holding my breath.

Occasionally, I do get clients who come to me with naturally aggressive or offensive thought processes.

For example, I recently trained a female CEO who had fought off an attack in Paris.

She was traveling in a car with her husband through the busy streets of that city when they were assaulted by criminals on a motorcycle. The guy on the back of the motorcycle jumped off at a stop, broke into the back seat of their car and attempted to steal her laptop.

She immediately attacked the first target she saw — which just happened to be his helmet chinstrap. She grabbed it and repeatedly slammed his head into the door. He dropped the laptop as her husband sped off.

She sought out my services not because she had failed but because she was annoyed she couldn’t think of a BETTER target to attack!

With that mindset, 50% of my work was done. She excelled in training and is now more prepared to use her already-perfect mindset to summons better targets and weapons.

As in the Mark Twain quote above, by focusing first on correctly training your most important “weapons system” — your MIND — you significantly increase your ability to take out anyone threatening you or your loved ones.

Until next time,

Tim Larkin
Creator of Target Focus(TM) Training
http://targetfocustraining.com

PS. If you are enjoying these newsletters you’ll love my new book “How to Survive the Most Critical 5 Seconds of Your Life: is the first book every written for the everyday laymen that makes the case for using violence as your ultimate survival tool. Check it out here: http://targetfocustraining.com/book.html

And as time permits, I’ll answer selected questions.
Submit your questions at: [email protected]

If someone forwarded this newsletter for you to read, be sure and sign up for your own personal copy at:
http://targetfocustraining.com

There you’ll find the tools that can help you survive a violent criminal attack.

(c) Copyright 2003-2006, The TFT Group

“A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he’s not a man of action. You must act as you breathe.” – Georges Clemenceau

*****************************************************************

So what was lacking in the training of the 3 survivors mentioned in my last newsletter?

To refresh your memory we had a seasoned martial artist, a woman who attended numerous self defense workshops, and a 10 year veteran police officer with extensive defensive tactics training.

Each survived their violent encounter but none of them survived and won. My question to you was what was lacking in the training of each of the survivors?

Well according to the literally thousands of responses you readers gave me, here are the top 2:

1)      Mindset
2)      Will

Mindset by far was the most popular response. Often it was coupled with another term like “aggressive-mindset.” Most who responded with this answer felt the survivors’ training failed to develop the proper mindset to survive and win these encounters.

Those that offered “will” as the lacking ingredient usually stated that the training of the 3 survivors failed to provide them the “will” to use violence.

Some of you provided some very well thought out responses and your efforts are much appreciated. This exercise helped me to confirm that most people are being led off track by buzz words and tough talk favored by many chest-thumpers in the self protection industry.

All the talk about ‘mindset’ in this industry makes everyone sound the same. Most people still believe you need to be in a certain ‘state’ to be able to respond to violence. Color charts are drafted and everyone feels good about how to get ready to ‘kick some ass.’

And then there’s ‘will’.

Some people stated that the 3 survivors lacked the will to do injury and this was a failure of their training. But how do you train will? Think about how useful will is when it comes to things like losing weight or working out.

Believe me, many in this industry will tell you that’s exactly what to do. They’ll lecture you on mindset and come up with numerous drills to ‘install the will-to-kill.’

But neither mindset nor will is what lacked in any of the survivors training.

Large amounts of the training in all 3 of the survivors’ cases were devoted to proper mindset and will. Yet, as properly noted by you, it was not there when they needed it.

That is because mindset and will are NOT training objectives.

Proper training develops everything needed to survive and win. The problem is there is very little proper training offered to the general public.

We just got word from a TFT instructor traveling through Europe who saw an old training partner. This training partner was short and obese and had not trained in years yet recently he survived, and won, a violent encounter with 2 thugs.

When asked what happened he said he was in the city walking home one night when these 2 thugs, much bigger than he, jumped him.

The instructor asked what happened next.

The training partner said, “I knocked out the first guy and ran after the second but I got too tired and couldn’t keep up, so I just walked home.”

The instructor asked if there was any more to the story and he said “No.” He’d just been attacked by 2 thugs and he pretty much treated it as no big deal, even though this was his first encounter with real violence outside of ‘training.’

The fact that he was trained properly provided this man with the ability to survive and win a nasty criminal encounter against 2 bigger, stronger and faster thugs.

Here’s the thing. He wasn’t concerned about mindset nor did he have to rely on will to take action.

He was never told his obesity was a detriment to his ability to injure someone. He was given the skills necessary to get the job done using his human machine not by trying to look and move like some athletic instructor.

When the time came for him to use the skills, he was able to easily recognize the situation and apply his training. He didn’t need a color chart, to talk tough or to practice sticking his thumb into oranges to have the will to attack the eyes.

When his time came, his training worked seamlessly in the real world — something that didn’t happen for the 3 survivors in the last newsletter.

So be wary if you navigate the world of violence relying on mindset and will.

Neither of these, together or alone, provides you with the proper training. And it’s proper training that seamlessly gives you the necessary elements to survive and win, something many hope to tease out of the ‘mindset’ and ‘will’ debates.

So now the question becomes, “How do we know what proper training looks like?”

I’ve written about this in the past but as we dig deeper into the subject of “not just surviving but winning” I’d like to hear your take on what you think proper training is.

And as time permits, I’ll answer selected questions.
Submit your questions at: [email protected]

Until next time,

Tim Larkin
Master Close-Combat Instructor,
Creator of Target Focus Training

“When Violence Is The ONLY Answer”

PS. Check out the newest TFT DVD Series “Throwing: The Art of Head Trauma, Dumps, Drops & Throws.  Throwing (with its smooth motion and flowing arts) has long been regarded as the premier technical skill in the realm of fighting. Here’s how to make it happen. http://targetfocustraining.com/throwing.html

(c) Copyright 2007, The TFT Group