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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.
Target Focus Training is a “principle-based” system, meaning that instead of starting with moves or techniques we seek to identify and understand the elements at work in every successful use of violence.
Once you know why the winners win and the losers lose it becomes a simple thing to discard useless movement and technique and replace them with action that makes winning the most likely outcome. Instead of doing what’s popular or cool or fun to train — or even what seems to make sense from a sane, socialized perspective — we seek to do what the untrained victorious do, to physically emulate those who spend no time on the mats and yet win in spite of that lack.
The reason an imprisoned sociopath wins is the same as a highly trained military operator… or really anyone who comes out on top in physical violence. Not because of hate or rage or training or practice, but because of debilitating injury. Period.
Before we can discuss the principles that underlie game-changing/game-winning injury, we must cover some baseline assumptions for how to make the choice to “pull the trigger” on physical violence, in other words, first principles to drive the decision-making process and initial contact.
The essential problem is one of variability in the amount of force used, or the fact that half-measures expose you to greater risk. read this entry »
It’s a terribly illuminating thing to listen to killers speak of killing with your social filters turned off.
With them on we naturally recoil, feel like prey and try to figure out how to counter all the atrocity he’s talking so blithely about.
The killer’s perspective flies in the face of principled self-defense, moral rectitude, and general fairness, these things we cling to deep down inside even when we profess not to.
With our social filters up we are shipwreck victims scrabbling at the remains of the SS Social Contract as the maelstrom that smashed it rages around us.
But if we can let all that go and simply look at the mechanics of the thing it’s all really very straightforward and simple. Not the complicated flow-chart of tit-for-tat self-defense or fighting, but the straight arrow to the heart of it and done.
In a documentary on a notorious prison gang, I was particularly struck by how an enforcer for the gang — with 11 inside kills to his name — spoke about how it all worked.
There’s a phrase that crops up about two thirds of the way through, that he must do what is ‘socially horrifying.’ It also talks about effort over skill, about doing what you’re not supposed to do. The relevance for our common interest is, I think, “substantial.”
The article is on the long side, but well worth the read. It gets right to the heart of why we train the way we train: I don’t want you to defend yourself, or play by the rules (even the assumed, unwritten ones), or go skill-to-skill or strength-to-strength.
“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.
What is a grain of sand to a big, strong, skilled and very angry man who wants to hurt you?
Laughable… less than nothing, right?
If you held it out in the palm of your hand… he’d just swat it aside.
It’s meaningless compared to his size, his strength, his anger, his skill.
…Unless it’s in his eye.
Then it’s everything.
It’s blindness and preoccupation. It’s him unable to wield his size, strength, skill and anger as a focused weapon.
The tiniest of monkey wrenches thrown into the right gears at the right time can have enormous impact.
Pitting yourself directly against his advantages is — obviously, I would hope — a losing proposition. You’ll only be able to overpower him if you’re bigger, stronger and more skilled than he is.
Going skill-to-skill alone is dicey since you have no idea of the extent of his training or experience. And hoping your motivation is greater than his is likewise foolhardy. read this entry »
The other day I posted this video on my Facebook page and got some interesting responses to it. First off, watch the video for yourself:
I posted this video because it showed excellent examples of strikes that cause injury… as well as punches and kicks that are ineffective. That alone was all I wanted people to comment on and learn from this video.
Most, however, focused on the fact the video showed security guards using excessive force against drunken thugs.
I got loads of private messages as well as comments to this effect. In fact, others reposted the video on their FB pages, decrying the fact this was outrageous behavior on the part of security and explaining how it would never fly in their country.
The general point they drove home was this type of response would land security personnel in their country in jail for excessive force. There were calls for better training for supermarket security personnel (really?).
I found this outcry humorous due to the fact that this was CCTV footage from Siberia… yes, Siberia. That part of the world has quite a “different” view on “excessive force”. As one of my Russian friends noted, he thought the security personnel were rather “restrained” in their response. Gee, maybe the world isn’t so black-and-white when it comes to violence like so many well meaning North American’s wish it were. read this entry »
The title refers to the way I like to answer questions that have nothing to do with the needs of violence — questions about legality, appropriateness, blocking, defending against this or that attack, “but what if he–”, etc.
I’m the first to admit it’s snarky and over-the-top — racing straight to an extreme to make the point. But the point stands:
The worst among us are the best at violence; they are feared because they are socially unencumbered and shockingly direct in their action.
The winners in violence aren’t thinking in terms of what their victim will do, or about protecting themselves. They just hurt people.
The losers (and potential losers) in violence are preoccupied with a whole host of things that just don’t matter.
…Or, another way to look at it, anything that doesn’t result in an injury is a waste of your time.
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.
It boggles my mind sometimes, how we can be as careful and clear as possible in making the case for surviving and winning in violence and still have it come out garbled on the other end.
But I suppose people hear what they want to hear, and if all your preconceptions about violence have you in the victim role, then all violence is about victimization. And fear.
I’ve always said I’d much rather teach the resolute than the fearful — people who are resolute take the tool in both fists and get busy swinging it; the fearful need to be coaxed to even get near the tool. (I’ve had plenty of fearful people become resolute after exposure to the tool, but having to overcome that victim-mentality just adds a needless speed bump to the process.)
Seeing yourself first and foremost as the victim in violence colors everything that comes after.
The simple idea of gouging an eye becomes you getting your own eye gouged out. You may not have considered it before, and now you’re aware that there are people out there — in this very room! — who not only think about it, but know how, and, most chillingly, are willing to do it. Again, fear finding fear, and growing.
Someone who approaches the tool of violence pragmatically realizes two things about a gouged eye:
If they do it first, the situation resolves in their favor and,
They themselves are not immune to such an injury.
Number one is simple enough. It’s what separates the winners from the victims in violent conflict. The real power, however, comes from number two. If it works the same on you, then it probably works the same on every human on the planet.
This base understanding — that violence is available to everyone and no one is immune — is simultaneously liberating and cautionary. It’s liberating in that you can stop worrying about what a badass monster that guy is, how mean he is, how dedicated, how big, fast and strong he is — his eyes are just as susceptible to injury as yours are. It’s cautionary in that no conditioning, training, or skill can make you immune.
It should follow then, if this training does nothing to protect you from injury — indeed, if there is no way to protect yourself from violence — that you should be very reluctant to use the tool. That’s just being smart about it.
If given the choice, the answer is ‘no.’ The luxury of choice gives you more options than just ‘injure’ — you can ignore, talk, or run. All three of these are brilliant social tactics, and I’m sure you’ve used them all to great success.
But they don’t work when you have no choice.
If you’ve already been stabbed because stabbing is what he’s up to, ignoring it, trying to talk to him or running only keep you in the victim-space he needs to get the job done.
We have never advocated using violence while social options are open. Violence is only appropriate when it’s either injure him or die.
This should be an incredibly rare event. About the same as you shooting someone to death.
If you’re smart, a full understanding of violence should make you literally go out of your way to avoid the avoidable. For the leftovers, that very small sliver of true life-or-death situations, you take responsibility for yourself through preparation. You consider the unpleasant, the awful, the unthinkable and learn what to do should you find yourself smack dab in the middle of it.
No one wants to swim to save their life. For all of us who know how to swim, only a small percentage have ever had to swim or die. If you’ve been there, you’re really, really glad you know how to swim. If you’re lucky (or smart) enough to never have had the need to save your own life by swimming, it’s a comfort to know you could. And only the stupid would willingly put themselves in that position for no good reason.
Victims are trapped seeing themselves on the wrong end of the tool, for violence is the tool of choice for victimizers.
The resolute understand that the severity and seriousness of the tool brooks no screwing around — pulling it out is only appropriate in the most dire of circumstances because there is only one way to swing it: in both fists, as hard as you can.
Target Focus Training is a “principle-based” system, meaning that instead of starting with moves or techniques we seek to identify and understand the elements at work in every successful use of violence.
The title refers to the way I like to answer questions that have nothing to do with the needs of violence — questions about legality, appropriateness, blocking, defending against this or that attack, “but what if he–”, etc.
