To tighten up our seminars I spoke with a number of instructors to collect data on where they saw problem areas — what kinds of things did our clients have the most trouble with?

I had my list, but I was interested in getting some different perspectives, to create an exhaustive list and see where we could tweak things to whittle that doubtlessly huge list down over time.

Everybody hit me with the most common errors they saw over and over, I added it to my list and the grand total was…

…three.

It turns out we all had the same list.

The thousands of people we trained over the last couple years all had a hard time nailing down the same three things:

1. Being too far away.

   The natural proclivity is to want to stay at arms’ length and reach out with a limb to touch the man, usually connecting with the target only once the limb is fully extended, pretty much removing body weight from the equation. Also, if the man happens to stumble back from the limb-slap, you’re now two steps away from him.

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10 years ago Tim trained a group of business executives in a Target-Focus Training class held just blocks from Ground Zero.

The class ended only 2 days before the tragic 9-11 events at the World Trade Center towers in New York.

In 3 weeks we’re hosting a 2-day live session in Las Vegas that will wrap up on Sunday… the 10th anniversary of that fateful attack.

We’re planning a few special things for the class to be announced next week (including copies of the DVD video series shot back at that class in 2001).

Time is short… as is space.

Flights into Vegas are cheap… as are hotels compared to even 3 years ago.

It will be a class to remember.

Use this link to read more about the training. Just click the Las Vegas, Sept 10-11 link in the calendar to join today.

Personal regards,
Ralph Charlton,
TFT Group

Here we go again, if only because putting the loop on infinite repeat is less enervating than personally shouting into the whirlwind:

I claim “self-defense” as my moral imperative and as such, I will be able to plead it in the aftermath. But I cannot in good conscience use it to describe what I practice and train.

“Self-defense” as a moral imperative, preceding the action, means I am choosing only to use violence when provoked or threatened. I won’t go looking for it and will do everything in my power to avoid it. Many of the things badasses believe are worth the risk to their own lives and livelihood — a personal slight, loss of property, territory, or social status — really aren’t. I can think of few things more stupid than dying over a barstool. Or doing prison time for the same.

“Self-defense” as a legal ruling, after the action, is society giving you a pass for a criminal act, ruling a criminal act as non-criminal. Living by the moral imperative above makes it more likely such a finding will occur in your favor — if you didn’t go looking for it, did everything you could to avoid it and still found yourself in the middle of it, chances are good the State will understand. Not a guarantee, but better than if you use violence frequently to get your way.

“Self-defense” as an action, however, is balling up and hoping for the best.

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The singular element that ties the last three blogs together…

Who Needs Self-Defense?

Two People Talking, or a Blunt Instrument?

From the Mouths of Killers

…Is the fact that the prison gang enforcer in the last post only ever sees himself as the attacker… the standing man… even when he’s on the ground.

He just plain doesn’t identify with the downed man — for that would be identifying with the loser, the victim, the one getting done. In the absolutes of his experience, that means identifying with the dead. And in his world, anyone who does that enters into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He enjoys an impressive win rate and continued life due entirely to the directness of his action, which can only proceed from an uncluttered perspective. When looking at the picture of the upright man and the downed man he never sees a puzzle or a problem to be solved, but only a solution almost completed.

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