I can’t tell you how much Tim & I are looking forward to the Weapons Course in November.
We do a pretty thorough rundown of knife, stick and gun in the basic course–what the tools for violence do and don’t do, how to use them to your advantage, and how to take out the armed man. The only issue there is how much time we have to spend on getting people up to speed with violence–defining it, getting you to go where a sociopath would go, training you to destroy targets… much of the basic course gets spent disabusing people of the social niceties and into tearing apart another man.
The topics covered in a typical 2-Day course include:
- Intro to Violence
- Target Assembly (identifying and destroying targets)
- Free Practice (how to take it to nonfunctional)
- Striking Assembly (how to break things with your mass)
- Grabs, Holds & Chokes
- Social-Antisocial-Asocial (when violence is, and is not, appropriate)
- Knife
- Stick
- Gun
- Multiple Attackers
Across two days, I figure we get to spend maybe four hours, or 1/4 of the total course on weapons.
At the upcoming Advanced Weapons Course, we’re going to spend the entire 16 hours on that topic.
That’s four times as much as the basic course!
And because we don’t have to spend any time on the how or why of base violence, we can literally hit the ground running and explore as many aspects of the use of tools as we can cram into those two days. And we’re planning on cramming in a lot.
We’ve got tons of information that we usually don’t have time to get into in the basic course… and even then, it’s only really useful to someone who has the basic knowledge and hands-on skill that comes from completing either the 2-Day or even the $99 Half-Day training. Either qualifies you to attend this one.
It’s going to be an absolute pleasure working with people who know what’s going on, how to get it done, and want to know more.
Did I mention I’m looking forward to this? Tim got into town last night & it’s all we talked about, so, yeah, I can’t wait.
See you in Vegas,
Chris Ranck-Buhr
Master Instructor
…but if you’re walking at the end, it’s worth the effort.
David L. writes:
I have been an email subscriber for some time and have purchased one of your books.
Your guidance helped me avoid a potential social violent situation yesterday. I was in a restaurant eating lunch when another customer thought I was staring at him and his girlfriend. I overhead him make the comment that if “that mf’er doesn’t stop looking at us, I’m gonna…” He was about twice as big as me, very muscular, tattooed and overall scary looking. I ignored his comments and went about reading my newspaper and thus a potential conflict was avoided. This could have easily escalated but I remembered your advice about avoiding violent situations if at all possible.
What troubles me is I feel like a wimp. Do you think I handled the situation the right way and what could I have done had he chosen to escalate the situation to a violent level?
David,
First off, I want to congratulate you on a job very well done. You successfully navigated and defused a sticky social situation that had the potential to get needlessly ugly. Everybody got to get on with their day. Nobody had to go to jail, the hospital, or the morgue.
In the social/antisocial realm, this is an absolute victory.
But it isn’t easy, is it? read this entry »
It boggles my mind sometimes, how we can be as careful and clear as possible in making the case for surviving and winning in violence and still have it come out garbled on the other end.
But I suppose people hear what they want to hear, and if all your preconceptions about violence have you in the victim role, then all violence is about victimization. And fear.
I’ve always said I’d much rather teach the resolute than the fearful — people who are resolute take the tool in both fists and
get busy swinging it; the fearful need to be coaxed to even get near the tool. (I’ve had plenty of fearful people become resolute after exposure to the tool, but having to overcome that victim-mentality just adds a needless speed bump to the process.)
Seeing yourself first and foremost as the victim in violence
colors everything that comes after.
The simple idea of gouging an eye becomes you getting your own eye gouged out. You may not have considered it before, and now you’re aware that there are people out there — in this very room! — who not only think about it, but know how, and, most chillingly, are willing to do it. Again, fear finding fear, and growing.
Someone who approaches the tool of violence pragmatically realizes two things about a gouged eye:
- If they do it first, the situation resolves in their favor and,
- They themselves are not immune to such an injury.
Number one is simple enough. It’s what separates the winners from the victims in violent conflict. The real power, however, comes from number two. If it works the same on you, then it probably works the same on every human on the planet.
This base understanding — that violence is available to everyone and no one is immune — is simultaneously liberating and cautionary. It’s liberating in that you can stop worrying about what a badass monster that guy is, how mean he is, how dedicated, how big, fast and strong he is — his eyes are just as susceptible to injury as yours are. It’s cautionary in that no conditioning, training, or skill can make you immune.
It should follow then, if this training does nothing to protect you from injury — indeed, if there is no way to protect yourself from violence — that you should be very reluctant to use the tool. That’s just being smart about it.
If given the choice, the answer is ‘no.’ The luxury of choice gives you more options than just ‘injure’ — you can ignore, talk, or run. All three of these are brilliant social tactics, and I’m sure you’ve used them all to great success.
But they don’t work when you have no choice.
If you’ve already been stabbed because stabbing is what he’s up to, ignoring it, trying to talk to him or running only keep you in the victim-space he needs to get the job done.
We have never advocated using violence while social options are open. Violence is only appropriate when it’s either injure him or die.
This should be an incredibly rare event. About the same as you shooting someone to death.
If you’re smart, a full understanding of violence should make you literally go out of your way to avoid the avoidable. For the leftovers, that very small sliver of true life-or-death situations, you take responsibility for yourself through preparation. You consider the unpleasant, the awful, the unthinkable and learn what to do should you find yourself smack dab in the middle of it.
No one wants to swim to save their life. For all of us who know how to swim, only a small percentage have ever had to swim or die. If you’ve been there, you’re really, really glad you know how to swim. If you’re lucky (or smart) enough to never have had the need to save your own life by swimming, it’s a comfort to know you could. And only the stupid would willingly put themselves in that position for no good reason.
Victims are trapped seeing themselves on the wrong end of the tool, for violence is the tool of choice for victimizers.
The resolute understand that the severity and seriousness of the tool brooks no screwing around — pulling it out is only appropriate in the most dire of circumstances because there is only one way to swing it: in both fists, as hard as you can.
Chris Ranck-Buhr
I can’t tell you how much Tim & I are looking forward to the Weapons Course in November.
