|
Tim, I understand that as a Navy CQC instructor you were charged with reinventing their hand-to-hand combat program. What was wrong with the program they had previously?
To clarify, as a junior naval officer I was a member of the group of Spec War Operators involved in the initial program to evaluate the CQC options to update the Navy Spec Wars CQC program. I had recently switched to Spec War Intel after a severe diving accident ended my quest to be a SEAL operator.
The senior command I was assigned to had the elite of the senior SEAL leadership. By virtue of my prior martial arts background, I was absorbed into this group I had no business being in. Also, being the youngest guy, I could act as a punching bag for the senior guys. I had no illusions that they took me under their wing for my skill sets, which at 24 were minimal in the Spec Ops world.
At the time (1988), the senior SEAL operators in the program realised the world was changing from a Cold War superpower stand-off to the national and tribal conflicts we see today. This meant much more messy fighting (house to house) and putting hands on people was going to be a reality again. The program of CQC at that time didn't address this coming change in warfare.
In this process of reinvention, did you primarily seek to improve the techniques used for operational efficacy, or the method of teaching and learning the skills as well?
The program was designed for the operator [soldier] who had been ‘in country' long enough that his initial fitness had waned via sleep deprivation, vigorous op' tempo, mild dehydration, etc. Therefore, the training was designed to address this fact and make sure it was synergistic with tools (firearms, knives, blunt instruments). The assumption was that the system needed to assume multiple attackers with tools and that the operator worked with full military kit and on a variety of real terrains (grass, gravel, concrete). Also the program couldn't rely on the operator being bigger, faster and stronger than his opponent(s) since those were unreliable factors in warfare.
The program ultimately was designed to be a ‘train the trainer' program because it was essential that operators train operators. The more than 200 instructors produced taught thousands of US/NATO Special Op's personnel worldwide.
In creating Target Focus Training, have you had to refine that original program for civilians?
Basically, the only changes are that we don't instruct any of the unit-specific, scenario-based training that our military/LEO [law-enforcement officer] units use, since civilians don't operate in a unit nor see typical profiles like a car stop, work road blocks, or execute high-risk warrants.
The idea that violence is different for a civilian or that you can't teach the ‘secret' info that the military/LEOs get is hype from instructors that pretend there really are secrets out there in the world of violence. Unfortunately, there are plenty of folks that want to believe there's some ‘secret squirrel' unit out there with the ‘real stuff'.
Nearly all reality-based combat systems cover pre-fight communication, body positioning, etc. In your book, How to Survive the Most Critical 5 Seconds of Your Life, you offer insights and instructions regarding how to evaluate threats and deal with fear. However, the skills needed to de-escalate/defuse conflict do not come naturally to many and can be refined to be far more effective with training. Does TFT deal with this aspect of self-protection?
There are hundreds of folks out there who deal with de-escalation/defusion, but no one focuses on the realities of violence. We define that as how to recognise an asocial violent situation ASAP. To learn this is a physical training evolution not a lecture-based module.
Most of what is taught out there in the RBSD world (pre/post-fight indicators, body positioning, etc.) doesn't jibe with the physical reality of real violence. To prove this, anyone can view acts of violence ad nauseum on the Internet.
Those subjects you described can be lectured on indefinitely and provide lots of filler, pretty charts and cool acronyms, but really are of no real value to the client when it comes to how to deal with imminent violence. The only way for a client to get that vital info is to make sure you are in the correct training environment, which is what we do with TFT.
Acting in the face of fear is certainly made easier by having confidence in one's physical abilities - a key point made in your book - yet an adrenaline dump can still debilitate someone with little or no experience of its physical effects. If not controlled, the adrenal response can prevent a person responding well, or in time, or at all. Soldiers, police, etc. are therefore given a lot of high-pressure scenario training to mentally prepare them to deal with fear and adrenaline, and many reality-based defence systems do the same. Does TFT use any such methods? If not, through what methods are students prepared to act effectively while experiencing fear and its physiological effects?
Scenario-based training is of little use to the civilian. Violence is made up of very random, ‘black swan' events and many of the ‘scenarios' I've seen other systems use are a dangerous delusion for the client.
I prefer to educate the client via video clips of murders, assaults, stabbings and shootings, then ask them how do you create scenarios to deal with these random acts? The clear answer is, you can't! So I can't in good conscience sell that idea once you are inculcated with the reality of violence via this method of education. Our approach is to give our clients principle-based information on the physics and physiology of injury to the human machine. They then can apply it as the situation unfolds and dictates. The adrenaline dump and other concerns are taken care of within the physical training we do on the mat. This method has been validated by numerous clients who unfortunately have had to use their training to protect their lives.
Of course, this runs counter to many in the industry but I've never had anyone challenge me after I present my information. And there were many naysayers that came into my seminars hoping to do just that. It's not that I'm right and they are wrong, rather I just keep pointing to real acts of violence as the standard, rather than my opinion. It's merely ego for an instructor to showboat cool techniques that fly in the face of the real world of asocial violence.
For those who've never experienced TFT and are thinking of taking a class, please explain briefly what the training process involves, as the approach is quite unique.
The premise for the initial two-day TFT seminar came about when I gathered together my top instructors (TFT has 47 instructors including 11 master instructors) and I posed this question to them:
"On Monday morning, you know that a loved one is going to face an asocial violent assault (assume multiple attackers with weapons) and that you won't be there to protect them. You have from 9am Saturday morning until 5pm Sunday night to prepare them. With your years of training and knowing what you do today, what would you choose to teach them?"
That difficult question produced the incredible seminar we give to clients on dealing with the unthinkable reality of asocial violence.
It forced us to distil years of training into the essential tools that anyone can learn to effectively handle a violent situation.
The seminar modules include striking, joint-breaks, throws, knives, blunt weapons, firearms and multiple attackers.
TFT also offers extensive training by correspondence using the internet, DVDs and books, etc. How does this process work, given TFT relies on having a partner to practise on?
For the last five years TFT has run a distance-learning beta test outside the USA in Europe, South America and Asia, and produced outstanding results with clients. We are now getting ready to offer a full online training experience based on the success of the TFT beta program. The gold standard has always been training with another live human and the challenge wasn't in people getting training partners but in getting ongoing, competent instruction. TFT doesn't offer questionable weekend certifications; I refuse to become a credential mill like some other RBSD programs. What I will provide is my best TFT master instructors teaching our program. This gives you instruction from our best people direct to you anywhere in the world. I see this as the real future of TFT and the only way to not dilute the training while maximising our reach to our worldwide client base.
When you remove the vetting process that's available when teaching students face-to-face, does it raise any concerns that your material may be taught to the ‘wrong people' - i.e. the asocial and anti-social?
I understand why that question is asked but it goes to show how little most sane, socialised people understand about the world of asocial predators. I make it a point to inform people that the best people in the world at murdering other human beings have ZERO training in combat sports and martial arts. They don't seek out formal training because they already understand what makes the tool of violence work.
The issue to worry about is not the predators getting this information but that sane, socialised members of society are not receiving this vital information. Predators don't seek out TFT since they already understand how to do violence. The people that need this instruction are your typical readers of Blitz magazine.
That is the issue that concerns me, because if good, law-abiding people don't understand the tool of violence (and when to use it) then it will only be available to the predators - and that is disastrous for society.
I'd like to discuss body impact conditioning and why this is not included in TFT. While we cannot, as you've pointed out, condition vital points such as the throat, eyes and testicles, it's also true that we naturally move to protect these targets, leaving other, more robust areas of the body to take the punishment. For example, the turtle position if grounded and being pummeled: the hands and legs are drawn up to best protect the head, ribs, groin and other vital organs more accessible from the front of the body, the spine is exposed but rounded, etc. TFT recognises the reality that a TFT practitioner in a bad situation (e.g. a multiple attack) is likely to be hit, so is it not considered important to have a body that's as durable against impact as possible? And does it not also make sense to condition the body for striking?
The question boils down to injury versus non-specific trauma to the human body. The human body is capable of taking a good deal of non-specific trauma (something that's heavily dependent upon the mental toughness of the individual), whereas no human body can withstand injury.
Injury, as we define it in TFT, is wrecking something on the human machine (either a structure or sensory target) so it no longer functions, regardless of whether the recipient feels pain.
To illustrate this, we show lots of video of sports injury where by accident an injury occurs and competition ends. The body conditioning you speak of is great for non-specific trauma as seen in most combat sports, but of little relevance when it comes to injury. You can't condition your body to ‘tough out' an injury.
Also, the question is posed from a defensive way of thinking, which is not how the predators you face look at violence. While such approaches seem logical to sane, socialised people (how to protect yourself in a turtle position, etc.) the reality is that predators focus on delivering the violence to you, not on how to receive it and counter. This is not semantics, nor suggesting some sociopathic outlook on the subject, but necessary to understand that how you think about this material directly affects how you will perform under stress.
The other thing is, what you're describing is ‘fighting.' And contrary to how it may appear, TFT is not about teaching you to fight. Fighting involves the tit-for-tat, you-hit-me-I-hit-you stuff we're all used to seeing in martial arts and combat sports. TFT is solely focused on teaching you to quickly (a la the book title, How to Survive the Most Critical 5 Seconds of Your Life) and effectively stop an aggressor dead in his tracks. Now.
In violence, the person who lands the first injury is usually the person that walks away as the winner. So your focus in an asocial violent attack is to get an injury on the other guy, period... then continue to injure him/them until he/they are non-functional.
Keeping in mind that TFT is all about rapid destruction of enemies rather than ‘defending' their attacks, it would still seem to logically follow that, since the enemy is at the same time trying to ‘do violence' to us (assuming we have missed the chance to attack pre-emptively), then we are more likely to be successful in using the tool of violence ourselves if we at the same time limit exposure of our own target areas. Are TFT striking methods done in such a way as to simultaneously protect one's own vulnerable targets, or is that considered unnecessary in the tactical paradigm of TFT?
TFT instructs clients on how to injure the human machine via strikes powered by bodyweight. A byproduct of learning how to strike correctly is that many of the exact movements many people use as ‘blocks' to protect themselves turn into strikes that incapacitate the other guy, rather than just avoiding a particular attack by blocking it. TFT instructs clients on penetrating with your bodyweight and delivering a strike that causes injury to the other guy, which triggers the somatic reflex response in his body to react to the trauma. Blocking and countering are competition-based methods that put you far behind the power curve when facing a predator hell bent on ending you.
An example would be, rather than blocking a punch with an arm block, you would take that extra step of penetration and strike the side of the neck with your forearm. The movement is similar but the results are radically different. If you just block the arm, you merely stop that particular vector from hitting you, but the attacker retains full ability to continue to press the attack. Adding the extra penetration and striking the side of the neck results in a big change in the attacker via interruption of nerve flow and blood pressure, resulting in a fainting response, which completely shuts down the attacker from pressing any further attack while his body responds to the trauma. This approach allows you to continue to put in additional trauma to get him to a non-functional state. Therefore, understanding how to put trauma into the human body via striking with bodyweight achieves the direct protection to your person by shutting down the other guy's brain. When the human body reacts to trauma from injury, the brain is temporarily shut down, so the other guy is unable during this reaction to trauma to command his body to press another attack. Those that advocate blocking and countering may or may not indirectly achieve ‘protection' for that one attack, but this leaves the attacker's brain functioning and able to press on. TFT teaches a more direct method - to protect yourself via injury [to the predator].
Many in the industry see violence as some sort of duel between two parties that both know what is going on. This is pure fantasy, which you may quickly dispel if you just familiarise yourself by watching acts of violence and how it goes down. I expect this to cause some ‘Yeah, but's from others in the RBSD, combat sports and martial arts community and I'd just refer them to the real acts of violence readily viewable in a variety of media that illustrate this fact.
For the sake of time efficiency and additional skill training, many martial artists and pro fighters use cardio/conditioning drills that incorporate or have a direct correlation with their combative techniques. Can TFT trainees do this, or does the nature of TFT prevent it?
The mat time we do in TFT has a great cardio component. The military used that part of the program to incorporate a physical fitness aspect that was mission-focused with the CQC effects.
While adding cardio is fine if done for efficiency in an overall physical fitness program, all too often in the situation you describe it's added in place of training for violence, since many RBSD programs don't like dealing with the real issue of true asocial violence directly. As noted above, violent conflict is often over in just seconds and believing you'll add to your skills for handling it with enhanced fitness training is an exceedingly dangerous myth.
If I'm an MMA or karate fighter and enjoy my sport but also want a skill set specific for the street, can I concurrently train in TFT and my combat sport without negative effect to either one? Further to this, if I'm not a competitive fighter but like to hit the heavy bag for my cardio interval training, will this compromise my ability to learn or deliver TFT's striking methods?
In the first case you just need to realise that any competitive combat sport is designed to pit skill against skill and in order to do that all aspects of direct, deliberate injury to the human body have been removed from the sport. On the street there are no such rules and any untrained, unskilled individual with the intent to do injury can take out a highly trained combat sport practitioner who doesn't understand that reality.
In the second case, I strongly advise people to find an alternative form of conditioning rather than training on a bag, etc., if you are not a competitive combat sport practitioner. There are many effective ways to get in shape without having to teach yourself bad habits that can get you killed on the street. A bag is not a human body and does not move the way a human moves when struck. Using skills designed to score points in combat sport competition can completely skewer your ability to effectively injure another human. Many combat sport practitioners complain their timing is off on the street and that is because the methods used to train for competition don't equate to how the human body responds to trauma - the human body is not a stationary, hard target...
Use-of-force rules applying to TFT as outlined in your book seem very black-and-white: only use when the threat is asocial (immediate, clear, etc.) or anti-social and other options (communication, escape, etc.) have been exhausted. Very sound advice, but even if you feel justified in using full force, a court of law may see it differently. For this reason, many reality-based combat systems offer techniques and tactics to deal with varying levels of force and danger. For example: You are standing over an attacker who you've knocked to the ground, and while you're sure he'll pose you significant danger if you let him up, you also know that smashing the back of his skull into the pavement with strikes to the face could kill him. You have a clear view of your surroundings and can see no other threats are present, but a witness has also arrived on the scene and you know you will appear ‘clearly' to them to be the one committing the assault. Is your best choice, then, to stun/restrain, etc. rather than continue inflicting serious injury? What would be the TFT-trained person's likely (or recommended) course of action from this point in the scenario?
TFT focuses on the point of violence. This is the point where it is imminent and you need to take action if you are to survive. This is an area that is little discussed or trained. The scenario you present is much more the standard fare of RBSD instruction.
We assume you know how to talk your way out of a bad situation, run from trouble, etc. What most people fail to understand is when talking, running, etc. aren't an option and inaction will be tantamount to participating in your own murder.
There are no guarantees when you put your hands on another human. The simple act of pushing someone away can lead to the other guy falling over and cracking his skull on the concrete. We teach that once you clearly understand when to use the tool of violence, you continue until the individual is non-functional. That means unconscious, injured to where they no longer pose a threat, or dead. That is the best approach when the unthinkable happens.
Understand, in TFT we teach the striking of many different disabling targets not all of which are lethal (example: joint-breaking). So, one always has the option of choosing the extent of the injury inflicted. But here's the point: many people focus on situations as you have described and then fail to act when facing the far more likely scenarios of violence they will encounter, ending in the tragic consequences we read about every day.
So, do you believe that the TFT curriculum teaches all the necessary skills to enable students to assess a changing situation and act in a tactically and legally appropriate way?
Absolutely. The limitation of this format prevents me from going into all the areas we cover, but suffice to say that in the 23 years I've been teaching this, we've had no one prosecuted for excessive use of force. In fact, all report back that they clearly recognised when the attacker was non-functional and the event over.
You obviously advocate avoiding violence unless it's absolutely necessary and say you've developed a "saint-like patience" when it comes to dealing with aggressive people. However, your book also featured the old Emiliano Zapata quote: "It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees". This got me thinking about the fact that those who stand up for themselves in an assault - whether it's physical or verbal - usually suffer less from post-traumatic stress than those who don't. Those who don't are often dogged by guilt, shame, etc. after the incident. The problem is, verbally standing up for oneself is likely to be tactically at odds with the goal of avoiding violence through defusing aggression. Have you ever experienced such a situation? And how does one become immune to those natural emotional responses that either stop us walking away or make us feel ashamed and diminished for having done so?
I think everyone has experienced such incidents. The real battle is to understand that most scenarios where you want to respond with violence are actually anti-social aggression situations, which, as TFT defines them, are AVOIDABLE in regards to using violence.
Whereas in most truly asocial violent situations, these same people respond using social skills such as talking (‘What do you want? Why are you here?') when clearly the only response that will save your life is applying the tool of violence.
The defining aspect of using violence comes down to choice. This means if you have a choice as to whether or not you should use the tool of violence then it is NOT the appropriate time. The tool of violence is used only when there is no choice; when it's either fight, or die.
That is the meaning behind the Zapata quote. It also is the meaning behind our TFT tagline, ‘Violence is RARELY the answer, but when it is the answer... it's the ONLY answer.'
|
