SELF DEFENSE FACT: FIGHTING IS HARD. HURTING PEOPLE IS EASY.
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 struggle and have the ability to “take a punch” or twenty), the physical strength to overpower him, and enough fighting skill to bob, weave, block, counter and […]
THE OL’ ONE-TWO
Give ‘Em the Ol’ One-Two The first piece of actual (as opposed to pretend) violence instruction I ever recieved came from an elder stevedore named Don. Don was built like a couple of barrels of beef jerky lashed together with steel packing straps. Solid, gnarled, experienced. He was one of the black belts at the […]
ANTI-SOCIAL AGGRESSION AND TRAGEDY ARE AVOIDABLE
(Though this incident occurred in 2009, and plenty other anti-social aggression incidents just like it have come to pass since then, it stands out as horribly indicative of the essential problem.) One person ends up dead, another is a newly minted killer, and a family will never be whole again: Was this antisocial aggression avoidable? […]
PERSONAL SELF-DEFENSE: THERE ARE NO “EASY” TARGETS
How hard would you stomp on a man’s neck during personal self-defense if your life depended on it? Hard enough to break it, right? And how hard to you think that is? Probably with everything you’ve got. The human body is tougher than you’d think — it can take an awful lot of punishment before […]
SELF-DEFENSE LESSONS: YOU CAN’T WAVE AN INVISIBLE GUN
Everyone, whether in self-defense lessons or not, recognizes the lethal power of firearms – So much so that something as simple as pulling one out of a case or holster can change people’s minds. Guns are often the exclamation point at the end of an argument. If what we know how to do with our […]
ARE YOU AGGRESSIVE, BADASS, OR DEADLY?
How serious are you? You can tell how high the level of committment to injure is in a person by where they place themselves to get the job done. Angry or aggressive fighters will go toe-to-toe, literally stepping up to the man and then reaching out with their limbs to cover the intervening distance through […]
THE TARGET FOCUS TRAINING EXPERIENCE
The successful use of violence could not be simpler: In every instance there is, amid the chaos, a sudden moment where everything changes, where one person recoils, or begins to grow visibly weaker, or drops to the ground. And then the winner takes advantage of that lapse to finish it. That magic moment is the […]
SELF-DEFENSE Q&A: WHERE DOES TFT FIT INTO LAW ENFORCEMENT?
Greg M. writes: “I recently started receiving your training e-mails and they are full of great self-defense 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 […]
IS LETHAL FORCE SELF-DEFENSE USEFUL IN YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE?
I would hope lethal force self-defense isn’t useful in your everyday life… As we say at our courses, we sincerely hope you never have to use what we’re teaching. But like a fire extinguisher or handgun, when you need it, nothing else will do. You don’t buy one looking forward to the opportunity to use […]
“But I Don’t Want to Kill Anyone!”
I was recently reading an article on self-defense in which the author was speaking of violence as if you could pick and choose the level of seriousness of the interaction, i.e., if he just wants to ‘kick your ass’ you kick his ass back, not *really* hurting him, but teaching him a lesson. If he’s […]