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The fastest way to ingrain the TFT System into your subconscious is to follow a specific path of instruction. Now there are two ways to accomplish this.
At a recent live training session I noticed one guy doing very well, right from the start of class.
Slow, deliberate, focused on his targets, rarely talking. Everything we ask to maximize your results.
At a break, we passed each other and he introduced himself as David Morris.
I complimented him on how quickly he was picking things up. And that’s when I discovered not only did he have every DVD program we’ve ever produced, he also had all the DVDs I’d helped create back in the mid-90’s after we’d taken this material into US Naval Special Warfare Command.
(David was a walking advertisement for just how easily you can learn TFT from DVDs.)
Then I asked what he did.
“I teach people about urban survival.”
I’m going “Really?” as my mind raced a bit… have I befriended someone who back home runs around in camouflage pants waving banners proclaiming the world is about to end? (We’re very careful about who goes through a TFT class.)
“I show you how to survive ‘in place’ versus trying to leave your home in a true crisis situation.”
It wasn’t something I was all that familiar with but at least I was less concerned, as this guy certainly was polite, highly-disciplined, and serious about training.
“I’ll send a copy of my course for you to review.”
I thanked him and, frankly, never thought about it again until a package arrived the following week.
True to his word David had sent a book (a complete summary of his course) and a deck of playing cards he’d created with survival tips on each card.
While I knew some of the stuff he explained, there were things he wrote about I hadn’t seen before (prior to the diving accident that ended my chance at becoming a SEAL, I’d gotten a pretty intense course on survival thanks to Naval Special Warfare).
Fast forward to our next live training… and David is back (he wanted his people to know about TFT and chose to experience it twice so he could better talk about it).
After talking with him over dinner, I realized here was someone who approached his own controversial subject matter (Urban Survival) exactly as we always have done with TFT… from a highly-disciplined, low-key, almost matter-of-fact perspective.
And that’s why I believe it’s something you should consider incorporating into your own personal protection plan.
A few of our TFT members have seen David’s material, and already implemented his recommendations. If you haven’t, use this link to see what “Urban Survival” is about now.
What you’ll discover is a very logical process for laying out a plan for surviving any type of disaster… and why it must focus on surviving “in-place” – right where you are now.
And don’t blow this off by equating the words ‘Urban Survival’ with radical civil violence and people overthrowing governments.
David’s goal is preparing you for ALL catastrophes… not the least of which are natural disasters, events that seem to happen with more frequency and regularity today.
What’s perhaps most surprising about his course is the fact it doesn’t focus on having a bunch of fancy survival stuff in place.
In fact, I suspect you may be surprised as you learn that survival depends MORE on your mindset than you skill set (as you can see, what David talks about dovetails perfectly with our TFT principles).
And don’t confuse “survival” with “primitive living” – you’ll discover they’re two completely different skill sets.
Here’s the thing: if you haven’t at least previewed David’s material before, here’s your chance.
Because he’s making available to the TFT community his special offer where you follow along as he personally guides you through his complete course, actually setting up a plan for surviving disaster right where you live now.
I could go on with more details but David already has done a great job of that on his website. So go here to see for yourself.
Look, just as TFT forces you to address life-or-death violence (something no one likes to think about), this program gets you to do the same… with a subject that’s often put off until it’s too late.
There’s information here you don’t have now. And it’s meticulous thought out and handed to you in a format that can make the difference in your surviving a true crisis situation.
The cost of David’s “Survive In Place” course is only $47. And since he uses the ultra-secure ClickBank system to process orders, you’re automatically guaranteed a full 60 days to put what you learn into practice before needing to decide if you want to keep it.
And besides, he lets you keep a downloadable version of the course, regardless. So you literally can’t lose… unless you do nothing.
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Do you have David’s program? Leave a comment below to let others know why you chose it.
A couple months ago, we allowed a company that creates short news videos to shoot a segment from one of our live training sessions. We had expected to see the finished piece before it was offered to network television stations for use in local news stories. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
While the included video footage of the class was pretty good, its the stuff they included at the end from ‘other’ sources that’s causing quite a stir. Here’s what I mean…
Earlier last week I emailed everyone on our TFT mailing list a note explaining why SLOW training in TFT is not only incredibly effective… it’s also extremely safe.
At the end of the email I included a link to a news story (based on the video I described above) produced by the largest CBS affiliate in New York. I did this (even though the reporter was obviously highly biased against TFT — it was a story on women’s self defense) because I wanted you to see the footage from the class showing how slowly (and safely) everyone was training. read this entry »
Someone asked, “How would you define effective self defense?”
The short answer is “hurting people.” Much in the same way that using a firearm for self-defense is really shooting to kill. Trick shooting, like shooting to wound or trying to shoot the gun out of his hand are not seriously considered when training to use a firearm for self-defense. It’s just straight-up center of mass and keep shooting until he stops moving.
And so it must be when all we have are fists and boots. We need to have a direct one-for-one correlation between action and results.
Strike him through the side of the neck to knock him unconscious. Gouge his eye to blind him. Crush his throat to make him asphyxiate. We have actions that directly result in debilitating injury. They’re the hand-to-hand version of shoot center of mass. read this entry »
Which Is More Important in Self-Defense, the Physical or the Mental?
The knee-jerk answer is “both,” and one that I would have agreed with until recently. But the longer I’ve trained and the more experience I’ve gotten the more I’ve drifted from one extreme to the other.
When I first started training back in the ’80s, I put the physical before everything else. After all, if you don’t know what to do and how to do it how can you hope to mount an effective self-defense? Punching, kicking, targets, techniques, joint breaking & throwing — these are the nuts and bolts of self-defense. With them you have a chance. Without them you have nothing.
How to explain, then, the superior technicians who were getting their asses handed to them on the streets?
And how to reconcile that with the crude bruisers I knew who had no training but plenty of notches in their knuckles?
As I moved my personal training slider from an infatuation with the physical execution and toward the attitude to get it done I noticed a direct effect on that physical execution.
Do words matter when you train for your own self protection?
Indulge me as I look at the 8 year “War on Terror” (I know the current administration has banned this phrase but let’s call a spade a spade) and compare words and methods from 2 opposing sides.
First, here’s the opening paragraph from a captured Al-Qaeda training manual:
“In the name of Allah, the merciful and compassionate…To those champions who avowed the truth day and night……And wrote with their blood and sufferings these phrases…The confrontation that we are calling for with the apostate regimes does not know Socratic debates…, Platonic ideals…, nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun…. Islamic governments have never and will never be established through peaceful solutions and cooperative councils.
They are established as they [always] have been:
* by pen and gun
* by word and bullet
* by tongue and teeth
Next up is a video from the US Army touting its modern “Combatives” program: read this entry »
Is it possible to learn how to swim by watching a video? Maybe, but I think we’d all feel a lot better if you actually got in the pool…
Life-or-death self-defense is admittedly unpleasant business. It’s all the stuff you’d really rather not think about, and so most of us don’t, hoping instead that it simply never becomes an issue for us.
Statistics favor this approach much in the same way that the vast majority of people will never need to swim to keep from drowning…
…Until they get dumped in the water.
That single freak occurrence could end their life.
If they haven’t prepared for that moment there’s not much they can do for themselves — they’re going to have to rely on the expertise of those around them to save their life. And if they’re caught out alone…
Like swimming to not drown, life-or-death self-defense is something that yields to preparation.
Having a plan, and then going through the motions of that plan not only grant you peace of mind, but also greatly improve your chances for survival. read this entry »
I love the television shows where physicists, doctors, self-defense experts and computer visualization artists all get together to look at what goes on inside the human body when it gets used as a punching bag.
Like the show Fight Science:
Of course, things go wrong when everyone involved assumes the human body behaves like a punching bag — as if it’s suspended from the ceiling by a chain or anchored to the ground by a weighted base. read this entry »
Going toe-to-toe, blow-for-blow with someone who is bigger, faster and stronger is an incredibly iffy proposition.
Unless you have the conditioning to go the distance (to outlast the exertion over several minutes of struggle and have the ability to absorb the punishment from non-specific trauma, e.g., “take a punch” or 20), the physical strength to overpower him, and the skill of fighting to bob, weave, block, counter and grapple with him, you’re going to lose.
If fighting is hard, being any good at it is even harder.
Being a good fighter requires a huge amount of dedication, time and effort to build your athleticism and skill. You need to “weaponize” yourself by getting on the bigger, faster, stronger curve and pushing it as hard and far as you can. You need to get in the ring, get knocked out and choked out, in order to practice — and perfect — the craft. Those who excel in this realm are models of single-minded drive, physicality, and art.
Simply hurting people, by comparison, is easy.
How easy? Easy enough that one of our Master Instructors has a 6′4″+, north-of-300-pound relative who doesn’t have a spleen anymore because his five-year-old nephew ruptured it during a rough-housing session. read this entry »
“Do you really live in the Cause State every day? Do you find that it affects you negatively in any way (socially) and if so, how do you deal with that?”
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Jason,
The Cause/Effect State is really just a paradigm to illustrate the roles of winners and losers in violence — the winners do the hurting while the losers get hurt.
It’s about making the decision, ahead of time, to be the one doing the hurting. It’s understanding that defense, blocking, countering, and backing up are what victims do, and leaving that for the victims. If it’s act or react, you want to be the one doing the acting. read this entry »
Note: while Greg M. is a police officer, as always, there is much to be learned from these comments to him.
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Greg M. writes:
“I recently started receiving your training e-mails and they are full of great information. I am going to pass them on to my training staff for their input.
Now the question.
I clearly see the use for your methods when that ‘oh shit’ moment comes. Most regular citizens can come to that point very fast if confronted on the street. However, I am a Police Officer in Georgia. Like cops everywhere, I know that critical moment can come at almost any time I am in uniform (or at work at all).
I am trained to use ‘only that force necessary to stop the assault/control the suspect.’ It seems there is a SEVERELY thin line between TFT and necessary force. If you make the wrong decision, you could be in prison or in a box. The fact is that lots of people that may attack cops are not trying to kill them.
Perhaps I am over thinking things, but reacting with the mindset of striking with the intent of doing maximum harm could be devastating to my life. Also understand that making the choice not to do so may end up with a call to my wife from the Chief.
I know that I am not the only one that has these thoughts. I have seen videos of cops getting executed because they were afraid of excessive force complaints.
Your comments would be appreciated.”
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Greg,
The issue here is understanding where TFT slots as another tool at your disposal as a law enforcement professional working within your force continuum (note: the force continuum is a precise definition of how police officers and other agents must deal with the subject of escalating violence). read this entry »
Note: while Greg M. is a police officer, as always, there is much to be learned from these comments to him.
