Principles of Personal Defense!

Just re-read Jeff Coopers’ concise manuscript entitled “Principles of Personal Defense”. The concepts put forward in his book are indeed timeless, and to that end I would like to urge you to get your hands on this classic book. In my opinion, much of the experience, research, and study put forward by this man has led to the current ‘Reality Based’ trend.

 

 

 

 

 

These are the 7 Principles that are expanded upon in Mr Cooper’s book: 7 life saving and dynamic principles that will ensure that you not only survive a violent encounter, but actually PREVAIL!

1) ALERTNESS!   

2) DECISIVENESS! 

3) AGGRESSIVENESS!

4) SPEED! 

5) COOLNESS!

6) RUTHLESSNESS!

7) SURPRISE!

Talent vs Determination!

In my opinion Talent is over-rated!!

Whilst training in a more competitive arena I have seen my share of ‘super-gifted’ natural athletes walk in through the door.  As often as not these winners of the genetic lottery get a few quick results, then get bored and move on to the next best thing.

My experience has been such that it is usually the people without a lot of natural athleticism that stick it out long enough to get good, Really Good!

This blog post has to do with two factors that in essence will influence just how good you’re going to get: Talent and Determination …

(By ‘Talent’ I mean natural athletic talent.  Great balance, strength, flexibility, speed, reaction time, etc.  And by ‘Determination’ I mean how hard someone is willing to work to get better) .

Although my main focus leans towards the capability in defending oneself in a live ‘street’ encounter, with or without weapons, against one or multiple armed or unarmed adversaries, I have found a recent post by Stephan Kesting to be both very valid and in retrospect very enlightening

Combative students of all disciplines can essentially be divided into four categories:

1. Low athleticism, low determination, 2. Low athleticism, high determination, 3. High athleticism, low determination and 4. High athleticism, high determination.

I’m 100% convinced that determination is WAY more important than talent!

In addition, I’m amazed at how often talent and determination DON’T go together (category 3 above).  Maybe it’s just because those guys dripping with raw talent have always had everything so easy that they often quit when the going gets hard.  Once the ‘low-hanging fruit’ is gone, they’re gone too!

But on the other hand, I’ve seen out-of-shape people with two left feet turn themselves into warriors many times.  That’s because they’re category 2 people (low athleticism, high determination): they achieve through sheer determination, coming to practice, showing up, working through the problem at hand and doing the hard stuff!

Now obviously to get to the ultra-elite level in any sport requires both talent AND determination.  Michael Jordan in basketball, David Beckham in Soccer, Marcelo Garcia in BJJ – these people all have talent AND have spent thousands of hours obsessively honing their skills.

So if you’re not very talented you may have to accept that you’re probably never going to win the black belt division of mundials (the BJJ world championships).  But you know what?  That’s true of almost everybody – talent or no talent, determination or no determination.  

Out of 100,000 people who start BJJ, only one of those people is ever going to medal in that event.  So if that’s your only goal then the chances are (very) high that you are going to fail. 

But if your goal is to get really good at grappling, to become confident in your self-defense skills, and to get in shape then your chances of succeeding are very high, if you just stick with it!

But even if you were born with two left feet YOU CAN GET GOOD.  You can get VERY good.  You just have to keep on training, keep on learning, try to improve your weak areas and build a game around your strengths.  

Leave the athletic prodigies to their own world.  If you’ve got stick-to-it-ness though, then just as in the tortoise and the hare parable, you could win in the long run!

BE Safe guys and keep training as though your life depends on it!

Formulating Your Personal Defense ‘Game Plan’!

These past couple of weeks I have been pretty busy re-defining my ever evolving Personal Defense ‘game plan’ and working hard at both outlining (documenting) and simplifying the content thereof. As always continuing my journey to constantly ‘chip away’ at the un-essentials and retain only that which is beneficial to both my current and future combative development and prowess. Considering that there are many other dedicated and proficient like-minded Warriors out there who may benefit from these insights I decided to post this new entry to my blog.

Much of what I will be posting here is by NO means new. To the contrary these concepts have been around for a long time, used to great effect and espoused upon in depth by many proficient Warriors, coaches and Defensive Tactics instructors before me. In Your quest to define a Personal Defense ‘game plan’ (the various elements of which will be expanded upon in subsequent blog entries), it is necessary to begin with the fundamentals, the absolute bare minimum that one must have in place in order to successfully negate an attack on your person. What follows is the beginning of what I hope will prove to be a very beneficial journey for you the security conscious individual, one that will no doubt help ensure that you remain a Hard Target!

When we consider the realities of urban confrontations it is amazing just how constant the dynamics have remained, regardless of whether these events occurred 100 years ago or 100 days ago. These confrontations that I speak of are often unannounced high-intensity, short-duration events characterized by sudden and extreme violence. Add to this the likelihood that these events will occur at very close range and often in poor light, some very valid points arise >>

Aggressive, pro-active fighters tend to Win, whereas defensive, reactive fighters tend to Lose!

There are many instructors out there who make mention that in a potential life or death struggle our primary aim should be to ‘survive’. Well in my opinion that is a ‘no-brainer’ as we all obviously would want to live to see another day! However, I am of the opinion that you should NOT just focus on your ‘survival’ per se, as doing so is a Very short-sighted and limited approach, one which is sure to both set you up for failure and perhaps end tragically in your untimely demise. 

In terms of combat, ‘survival’ should be seen as one of the by products of having cultivated a Winning mind and a Warrior-like spirit. That ‘never-say-die’, aggressive and pre-emptive attitude is what will ensure that you are able to ‘work through’ the situation at hand thereby enabling you to overcome the obstacle/s in your path. In essence we want to focus on WINNING and not just merely ‘surviving’!

Understand the rules of engagement under which you operate!

When faced with a tactical problem requiring a possible deadly force decision, ask yourself >> “will someone be killed or seriously injured if I don’t act against this person/s?”. If the answer is “no”, or there is any doubt then wait.

All your available resources (techniques, tools, tactics etc.) will only come into play if you are Aware of the unfolding situation, and the trick here is to react prior to the adversary launching his attack. In other words you must act first, and cause him to react to you. Get ahead and stay ahead of the unfolding event. Should there be any hesitation you will be truly lost!

Once this important concept is understood and appreciated it will be noted just how critical Situational Awareness really is!

Good situational awareness allows you to analyze the unfolding circumstances allowing you to approach it from a position of advantage, rather than be taken by surprise by it. Avoid uncontrollabe situations and maintain your combative advantage.

Good situational awareness does not only centre around information presented by the adversary, but also personal knowledge of your own abilities, your environmant, and the real time situation that you now find yourself in. With good situational awareness you begin to project your actions into the future. Simply seeing and being aware of the potential problem at hand is not enough. What you actually tend to do when the problem begins to unfoldis also very important, This is the point in the thought process where most problems develop.

The next entries in my blog will present various concepts, that if taken to heart and practiced in earnest, will help re-define and enhance your current and future situational awareness.

BE Safe and keep training as though your life depends on it!