Opportunities to attend 2007 classes are quickly fading like shadows in the night.

Here in North America all that's left is:

• Toronto, 1-day, October 13 (special international pricing now applies).


• Dallas, 1-day, October 26 (live Z-health training provided for you at this session as part of your registration).
  


Read about the 1-day classes, special pricing and Z-Health info here

• Miami, 3-days, November 2-4 (the ONLY full training scheduled for the next 6 months in a hot, new facility).

Check out the Miami class here:

Tim Larkin
Target-Focus Training
http://www.targetfocustraining.com

Labels: Dallas self-defense class, Miami self-defense class, Toronto self-defense class

Todays entry deals with the real goal behind Self-Defense.

This definitely is not what you'll read in most Self-Defense Books, see in Self-Defense Videos, or hear taught in Self-Defense Courses. But I think you'll agree this unquie perspective really makes the thought of dealing with violence much easier.

See what you think...

THE AWFUL TRUTH ABOUT VIOLENCE -- A MANIFESTO

For too long fallacies have held sway while common criminals exploit fear and ignorance; the simple facts that govern the effective use of violence as a survival tool are well known to them, and denied to the law-abiding, successfully socialized citizen.

Know, then, these simple facts and let your power increase:

Violence is available to everyone.

You are a predator born with stereo vision for hunting prey and teeth for ripping and tearing flesh. You are a member of the only species that makes an art of war. The average human body is an awesome engine of destruction, driven by the most dangerous thing in the known universe--a human brain. You are a survival engine, the descendant of winners; your ancestors didn't get you here by laying down and giving up. They made the losers do that. Violence is your birthright.

Violence works on everyone.

Superior physical ability, knowledge, experience and iron will are all trumped by the thumb in the eye. There is nothing anyone can do to make themselves immune to the laws of the physical universe. Bullets are not swayed by opinion or presence, they are maddeningly impartial.

Another way to state this, and the above, is: "Violence: anyone can do it and no one is immune."

These two facts, taken together, are simultaneously reassuring and terrifying. Reassuring in that you can get it done on anyone. Terrifying in that anyone can get it done on you.

We tell ourselves comforting lies to get over it ('if I do this-and-such a technique there's nothing he can do' and 'if I'm stronger/faster/meaner I'm better off'), but you're much better off accepting the reality of it: all you can ever really do is level the playing field.

Knowing how to use violence as a survival tool--and being willing to do so--puts you on nice, flat terrain, even and equal with the worst of humanity. You can see the people who still have their heads in the sand, asses up, and the predators who stalk among them taking advantage.

Before you knew how to grab the tool of violence in both fists and swing it hard and sure you were at a disadvantage. Now that disadvantage is gone, and in its place is the stone--cold truth--you're responsible for you, all alone. Either you can rely on yourself or you can't; either you'll get the job done or you won't.

You have a choice: you can be afraid, or you can be resolved.

Violence is biomechanical.

It is purely the interplay of physics and physiology. Magical thinking and psychic powers are trumped by the tire-iron to the head.

All violent acts are identical.

Regardless of the infinitude of circumstances leading up to the violent act, and the myriad of outcomes on the other side, the actual point of violence--where injury occurs--is always the same. The thumb in the eye, the boot in the groin, the bullet in the brain--they are all identical in that they are injuries.

Violence is about destruction, not competition.

The breaking of the human body, the shutdown of the human brain, these are the things that success in violence are made of.

Anything that takes the delivery of injury and tries to transmute it into a tit-for-tat exchange (his technique vs. my technique, defense, etc.) is missing the point, and will very likely get you killed.

To believe you are engaged in a competition is to plant your head in the sand. Violence is simply one person injuring another. The serial killer who just wants to murder will be undeterred by counters.

The one doing the violence tends to prevail.

Violence is one person injuring another person. This is the definition of the effective use of violence. While all violent acts have injury in common, they also share another trait: at the end, the person walking away is typically the one who did it.

The one getting the violence done to them tends to get injured.

Defense wounds are found on corpses. 'Nuff said.

It takes no training or physical conditioning to murder someone.

Serial killers are rarely impressive physical specimens. They tend not to lift weights or take kung-fu. They are, however, intimately familiar with the contents of this manifesto.

Violence is neither good nor evil.

It is a tool, and as such it takes on the moral color of the user--but only after the fact. Bludgeoning someone to death with a claw hammer can be murder in one instance and justified homicide in another--but in both cases someone bludgeoned someone else to death with a claw hammer. Knowing how doesn't make you a bad person.

The goal of violence is injury. Period.

This is last because it is most important--you will not forget it. Anything that advances this goal is useful to you; anything that ignores, postpones, or otherwise hinders this goal can get you killed.

After all is said and done, the only thing you need to remember is... INJURE HIM... NOW!

Labels: competition, injury, self defense, self protection

INJURY
Injury is a crushed throat, a broken knee, a torn out shoulder.

I got an email this morning from one of our instructors getting ready to do a 15 minute TFT presentation in South America. An interested group sprung the opportunity on him at the last minute and he asked me if I had any ideas for the 'closer', i.e., the One Idea to get across so that if you get nothing else out of a TFT presentation remember This One Thing.

Here's my response:

Get them off of the idea of 'technique' (which is what they'll see & try to compare to other techniques they've seen) and into the idea of injury. Most people think about 'fighting' inside their own body, or, at the most, at the end of their fist. In violence they need to shift their focus outside themselves and deep into the other guy's body. What's getting broken? How will that effect him? What does that do for me?

This is the difference between technique and injury.

• Technique is a punch, a kick, a cool joint lock.
  
• Injury is a crushed throat, a broken knee, a torn out shoulder.

While techniques can cause injuries, injuries can happen sans technique. You can break an ankle by stomping on it, dropping your knee on it, even falling and sitting on it with your butt. The technique is immaterial; all we really need is bodyweight driven through vulnerable anatomy. If it's precise and 'fancy', fine. If it's haphazard and 'ugly', that's fine, too--as long as it's bodyweight through anatomy we'll end up with injury.

Injury changes everything in your favor.

When people see and think 'technique' they see coordination and think difficulty. They see the need for years of practice to perfect that technique. They do not expect themselves to be able to do it until they've spent that time perfecting it.

When people see and think 'injury', well, injuries happen all the time, and often due to nothing more than clumsiness, whether on the part of the injurer or injured person. (As an aside, a simple fall is a great example of this: how does someone break their wrist when they fall? They throw their hands out to break their fall and if they land just right we get bodyweight (their own) through vulnerable anatomy (the wrist joint at its pathological limit, meaning it doesn't bend backwards any further without tearing something). All of this is braced and driven home by the planet, resulting in a broken wrist.)

Injuries are less mysterious and easier to 'get' than techniques. While very few people have experienced 'good technique', most everyone has experienced injury.

So, if you can get them all to make the mental flip outside of themselves and into (through!) the other guy's body, replace the idea of technique with the facts of injury, you're well on your way. And so are they.

Chris Ranck-Buhr
Master Instructor
Target-Focus Training

http://www.targetfocustraining.com/

Labels: fighting, injury, technique

The special 3-day class in San Diego September 28-30 is a go!

I'm looking to do this class only once, so if you've wanted to attend a live training but haven't because of conditioning, age, injuries... whatever... check this out now.

When you register, there's another bonus we've just added that I know will get you excited.

http://www.targetfocustraining.com/email/1timeclass.html

Personal regards,
Tim Larkin
http://www.targetfocustraining.com/

Labels: Dr Eric Cobb, San Diego Training, self-defense classes