Anonymous writes:

“I wanted to find out exactly what you are focusing on and your state of mind when you are practicing on the mats.

“After all the training you have had are you focused on the bullseye of the target? And what is your state of mind? Are you calm? Angry? Enraged?”

Chris Ranck-Buhr responds:

I would describe my state of mind as a kind of heightened mono-focus — the confident and distractionless excitement of the predator. I look at what I have in front of me, pick what I want to do and then make it happen.

None of it is about him, what he wants to do, or what he’s trying to make happen.

While it’s intense and mentally exhausting to keep it up for an hour, it’s ultimately calm and devoid of emotional content. It’s much more unconsciously analytical and physical, like catching and throwing a ball, than theatrical. While there might be emotional content before the ball is thrown to you (performance anxiety, what-ifs, etc.) and after you catch and return (elation at a good throw, self-criticism of poor execution), the act itself is best left untouched by emotion. Now imagine that moment of catch-and-throw extended across an entire mat session.

One thing I noticed recently is that I don’t see faces when I’m on the mats.

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Much is made of the fact that we teach bare-handed killing — it’s the sensational tag line for media reports on what we do, and it’s the first thing people notice when they see us training. (Not so much with the knife and stick, as lethality with weapons is expected. After all, that’s what they’re for, right?)

Just the other day one of the instructors at the TFT San Diego Center lamented about the difficulty in talking to people about what he does. The conversation just stops dead at the killing part.

So why do we do it?

The primary reason is to clearly draw the line between what should be expected to kill the man, and what, in general, won’t.

Debilitating injury is the only thing that means anything in violence, so we train to smash, crush, rupture, break, dislocate or otherwise ruin parts of the body that have important jobs to do. He can’t walk on a broken ankle, for example. If that piece of anatomy is required to sustain life, then he begins to die when it ceases to function.

The brain bleed, crushed throat, broken neck, lacerated liver, ruptured spleen, etc., can all lead to death.

We show you how to do these things so you know where that line is.

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I was recently asked how I go about helping the passive and meek develop the intent to cause injury.

This opens up an interesting pillowcase of rattlesnakes along the lines of the nature/nurture debate… is intent innate, or can it be taught and learned?

There’s evidence for both sides.

The most unlikely people become human demolition machines with a little training while the biggest, baddest guy in the room faints at the mention of gouging an eye and can’t bring himself to stomp people when they’re down.

Size, stature and presentation say nothing of what’s really deep down inside. You can’t tell, just by looking, who’s got a hard core and who’s got cream filling. Especially when the hard core will act demure to hide that fact and the sponge-cake crew will bluster and scowl to mask their fear.

Some people show up for training pre-set with intent — all I have to do is show them where to put it. I’ve had others take a year or more before suddenly throwing the switch and doing good work the way it needs to get done on the mats.

So, nature or nurture? It’s equal parts both.

• On the nature side, everyone’s a killer.

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On March fifth & sixth I had the pleasure of teaching, with Tim and other instructors, a 40+ person seminar in Las Vegas. I taught 13 of these last year, and after a little break, this was the first one for me this year.

It was really, really good to be back at it. I consider myself only as good as the last class I taught, and through the participants’ hard work the resume I shredded Friday night was rewritten nice and shiny on Monday morning. Everyone truly gave it their all and I was more than pleased with the results.

Saturday is always the make-or-break day for the class — we do a “zero to 60 in no seconds” with a video presentation of real violence and graphic injury so everyone sees the same thing when we use the words “violence” and “injury”. This can be a hard start, and we go straight from that to the physical work. By lunchtime on that first day everyone knows how to wreck seven targets on the human body to:

• blind a man
• knock him unconscious two different ways
• make him asphyxiate
• knock the wind out of him
• cripple him two different ways
• kill him if they need to

All with their bare hands. And by this time they’re all making their own decisions about which injuries they cause and how they stitch them together, one after another. Simultaneously, we do our best to scrub the nonessential (& dangerous) social considerations that everyone naturally tries to bring into the work — the talking, communicating, deference for personal space that make social life work but gets you killed in life-or-death violence.

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Anonymous writes:

“Denver Colorado, three years ago. A friend on mine (we were both Rangers in Vietnam) was out for his 60th birthday celebration with friends. They all decided to leave the restaurant where they had dinner and return to his house for cake and drinks. They separated and headed for their cars.


”Bill’s car was in the dark parking lot next to the restaurant. He was about fifteen feet from his car when two men stood up between two cars and advanced towards him. One was carrying an aluminum baseball bat.

“
Bill stopped and stood there, waiting for them to move. They did. Bill stayed next to brick building as the two men came at him. As the man with the bat stepped closer and raised it to swing, Bill stepped in and grabbed the man by the head — Bill is six-foot-three and 260 lbs. — he kneed the man in the groin and yanked his head around, tossing him into the wall. The second man hit Bill in the head with his fist. Bill reached out and grabbed the man by the throat, turned him around and slammed him into the brick building with such force that it cracked his skull, dropping him.


”The whole encounter took maybe ten seconds. The two men never said a word. Someone from the group he was with saw the fight and called the police. They arrived several minutes later. Bill thought it was all over… But really, it was just starting.


”The man with the bat — when Bill grabbed him and swung him around into the wall — the force of the move cracked the man’s neck. He lived for three days on life support, then died. The second, who’s head was smashed into the wall, suffered brain damage. He can’t talk clearly, or walk a straight line.


”The local Assistant DA filed Manslaughter charges against Bill when the first man died. Bill was arrested, booked and charged. The case was tossed out by the District Attorney, apologies made, charges dropped and his record cleared, but the damage was done.


”For two years the families of the two men filed civil actions against Bill for wrongful death and grievous bodily harm. It took two years, but both suits were tossed out by the judge.

“Two years, over $24,000 in legal fees, and being arrested for defending yourself in a two-against-one fight for your life.

“How does one ‘survive’ that? How does someone, who fought for his very life, survive the outcome of his actions by a public that is all to ready to blame the winner? The fact that he, Bill, was a combat vet in Vietnam didn’t help his case any. What most people don’t realize is that we survived by using such force, such tactics, that there is no ‘stopping’ once contact is made. If you stop — you die.

“But how do we survive the aftermath?”

Chris Ranck-Buhr responds:

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Dan H. writes:

“I am working my way through your DVD series “Surviving the Most Critical 5 Seconds of Your Life”, and I understand and appreciate the series of actions based on response, etc.  

“My question is one of getting the first strike and the initial injury to get the process started.  

“Will you share with me the mind-set, readiness, or just general info on setting up this first strike?  Seems to me this is the most critical time as my attacker is still at full capacity.”

Chris Ranck-Buhr answers:

You are absolutely right — everything hinges on that initial injury. Violence is a struggle until someone gets a debilitating injury, and then the situation landslides in the favor of the person who dished it out. Everything after that is academic — injuring an injured man is easy work.

The first rule is…

…INJURY NOW!

This means don’t waste time looking for an opening or waiting to see what he’s going to do. As soon as you realize it’s on, break something inside of him. No assessment phase, no dropping into a fighting stance, no waiting to block, counter or otherwise engage with his skill or athleticism. Violence ain’t chess at 90-miles-per-hour. It’s demolition derby.

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Charley G. writes:

“I am an instructor in the art of Shaolin Kempo. When I train with my Master he makes it very clear that what we train in Kempo may look pretty at times but is also a good, solid self-defense system. There are a lot of techniques that are utilized in our system, and as instructors we are taught to use pieces of them to deal with real situations.

“However, we don’t do this with students until they reach a certain rank. I want those I teach to be able to use what they learn to really defend themselves. At the same time I don’t want to confuse them or sabotage their training.

“Judging by what I’ve seen on your website I’d very much like to try it out and perhaps incorporate it into my current training for my own benefit before adding any element of TFT to my teaching.

“Do you think it would be beneficial or harmful for me to add TFT to my training?”

Chris Ranck-Buhr answers:

[Before I get to your excellent question, a quick note on the title: I purposely chose the most outrageous one possible. I know that's not what you're asking (you're not trying to "fix" Kempo) but I have trained people who admitted that they were looking to do just that -- to find that ineffable thing they felt was missing in their training and figure out how to get the same results we do.]

The reason the various schools, styles and systems exist at all is because of a focus on technique over results.

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