Most of what goes on in martial arts and combat sports works because people quit.

They quit because it hurts, or because they're exhausted, or because they start to listen to the little voice that's telling them everything will be a lot better if they'd just give in and give up.

More often than not it's a combination of all these things, at once; the question gets asked often enough, with each blow, "Why don't you just quit?" until they hit that personal threshold and just can't take any more.

Any technique that isn't about career-ending, crippling injury is about compliance, about making the person submit. Convincing them to quit. This is fine when the outcome isn't critical, when what happens next is nice and social. It's great for the ring and the dojo. In fact, without this, sport becomes impossible without sickening 'accidents'; the dojo runs out of students as they succumb, one by one, to the brutal endpoint of their training.

A Killer Isn't Going To Quit

Relying on your ability to make people quit, to have a higher pain tolerance, better conditioning and an indomitable will--to outlast your foe while working him to the point where he caves--will get you killed in the place where those things don't matter.

If your would-be murderer is a quitter at heart, chances are you'll be fine. But if he isn't... if he doesn't care about pain, or how tired he is, and he lacks that little voice that the sane call caution, well, he's not going to quit. Unless you know how to remove choice from the equation, he's going to kill you. Even if it takes him a little bit of work to get you there.

If he's a killer, he knows it's not about making you quit. He knows it's not about technique, or speed, or strength. It's about results.

He won't waste his time engaging or setting you up. He'll go straight for those results, breaking you, shutting you down to the point where there's nothing you can do--not even quit--he'll remove choice from the equation and treat you like meat to be butchered.

Your only hope is to know how to get those results, too; to know why those results happen so you can make them happen every single time, and get it done first.

Are You Out Of Your League?

Toughness, bravado, ego, superior technique--these things mean nothing in violence.

Going against a killer when the prize is your life is no time to hope for the best with a suitcase full of techniques you don't fully understand--techniques that you hope will work but can't articulate why they do.

If you don't know, with surety, in your head and in your gut, the result you're gunning for and why that result occurs, you're out of your league when it comes to violence.

And in violence there are only two kinds of people: those who know what they're doing--precisely--and the dead.

Labels: combat sports, mixed martial arts, MMA, self defense

Recently I was lucky enough to have a sit-down conversation with some very talented and long-training martial arts enthusiasts. Talk turned to the idea of knock out punches. As the holy grail of any fight--in or out of the ring--I was interested in hearing their perspective on the subject, especially their mechanical understanding of the phenomenon. What it boiled down to was this: "When you hit him on the button, the body just shuts down."

When I asked for elaboration, it turned out that that one sentence was pretty much the end of it. 'The button' was the chin, so the 'how' was covered--"hit him on the chin." (Though this is an awfully thin 'how'.) The 'why' was completely missing. No one had any idea, really. It was just something that sometimes happened, and when it did it was awesome; when it didn't it meant you were in for a drawn-out scrap.

You can see hours and hours of video on the net of (mostly) young men getting knocked unconscious--and yet, there are almost as many instances (if not more) of people getting hit 'on the button' and powering through just fine. Why should that be?

Everyone who trains, whether a martial artist or combat sports practitioner, expects that what they know will work. They've been told it works, it worked when it was shown on them, and (hopefully) they were able to make it work in training. So the expectation is there--what you know works. You'd bet your life on it, right?

My question to you is 'why does it work?' Seriously. Think about it. Not just right now--spend some time on this. In the end, if you can't articulate why something works, chances are you can't make it work every time you need it to. And that's not something you can bet you life on.

Next week I'll be back with the answer. In the meantime, really give it some thought: Why does it work?

Labels: combat sports, mixed martial arts, MMA, self defense

Labels: anatomy, blackbelt, club, gun, hand-to-hand combat, knife, self defense, striking, weapons

Labels: combat sports, mixed martial arts, mortal combat, self defense, trained fighter, trained fighters, wushu

Tim Larkin's Target-Focus Training Combat Training Principles

"Secrets For Staying Alive When 'Rules' Don't Apply"

The Mindset To Survive And The Will To Win

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"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
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So what was lacking in the training of the 3 survivors mentioned in my newsletter titled, When Surviving Isn't Enough: The Critical Reason Why You Can't Just Survive An Attack -- You Must Win?

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.

Here's an example:

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.

Use this link to send me your thoughts:http://www.askdatabase.com/campaigns/?af=36081

Until next time,

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

"When Violence Is The ONLY Answer"

PS. New self defense training class: Las Vegas March 7-9, 2008. This is where you learn to win... not just survive. And you do it in just 3 days. And it stays with you forever... even if you never practice again.

At first, it may be hard to wrap you mind around because it goes against everything you've ever been told or trained for or even believed. But it's what people who win use. And when you understand it, you'll know how to win too.

Las Vegas always fills quickly so don't wait.

(c) Copyright 2007, The TFT Group

Labels: Dallas self-defense class, fighting, injury, Las Vegas self defense class

Labels: Las Vegas self defense class, self-defense classes