So I pointed out many flaws in RBSD. How it’s taught by cops, bouncers, soldiers.
Occupations where they are all walking into situations where there is no surprise there is violence. Sometimes the moment they put the uniform on, the body unconsciously prepares and dumps chemicals. It most certainly does so for cops arriving somewhere after a call, or soldier engaging in a mission. THe element of surprise even in an ambush might not entirely be a surprise, at least no physiologically.
I point out the same can be said about the Dojo, that surprise attacks in the dojo can never be real.
But here is the thing, if you TRULY care about counter assault, the dojo should still try to simulate surprise even if it’s not perfect. Because what? We give up because we can never simulate it?
My school was very concerned about simulating surprise. There are a number of drills we do to largely simulate all the chemicals of genuine surprise. I don’t think I’ve seen even other RBSD or Krav Maga schools do anything like it, not even close. Even ones that integrate modern aliveness and training equipment didn’t do this. Even some really acclaimed teachers don’t make these things part of the curriculum.
But my school did. My school would do stuff like this consistently. We have what we call ‘soft’ adrenaline and ‘hard’ adrenaline drills. Different progressions for when blindsided, and then we fight until we get a good position or we think someone is neutralized.
I would point out however that before you focus on getting shocked into an ambush, you should generally have dynamic and alive training. I don’t mean statically learning techniques and then just doing hard sparring or rolling. I mean learning, then conditioning the response under light pressure(My MMA coach would say ‘don’t make him look good and don’t make him look bad’) and then finally drills or sparring with full resistance.
If you do not have training that has broken rhythm, timing, movement with a threshold of failure, you should not do any drills simulating the hard chemical dump of an assault. You will get bad habits and you might get hurt. Especially if the ‘attacker’ doesn’t really offer resistance, it’s creating a false sense of security. Or the ‘attacker’ does resist fully, but because there is no aliveness in most of the training, someone gets hurt because there is no sense of how to handle chaos, it’s a panic response more than a predatory one. But if any of this happens, it’s only a sign to go a step backwards and work on fundamentals. These drills exist to make a predatory response and good skills come out under a surprise attack more than actually teach such skills.
I would love to go into detail about some of these drills, but they are not mine to teach. If you’re a student of mine looking to certify or doing a private lesson I can teach them.
But if you want to learn them, go to wilson practical defense for the counter assault drills.
What I want to talk about more so is the fact that it’s strangely not acknowledged by many people who do personal protection training.
I remember in MEDITATIONS OF VIOLENCE where Rory Miller says everyone who has an occupation that experiences violence sees what it is through the lense of their own experience. Police see it in the context of what happens during arrests. Doormen through dealing with those drunks. It’s like we all get a piece of it, and that’s how we see it. The ‘counter assault’ they experience is different from what civilian types have to deal with. I stated above that they are always prepared for it. What I did not state is that they also have plenty of procedures and coordination for it.
Very few self-defense experts are civilians that got jumped, most are guys who have occupations of violence. I can see why, most civilians get jumped once, and most can barely remember it when it happens. They don’t know how to process it, much less teach how to handle it. Most civilians face violence as duels or fights for dominance more than counter assault. It’s rare to meet a person in a civilian role that got ambushed more than once, unless they live in a really terrible place.
Perhaps I am wrong, and I very much can be wrong. But because they do not face violence in the same way as civilians do, that most instructors end up having a bias in their training that reflects what worked for them, regardless of context. A great deal of them are not being attacked by bigger and stronger people. Sometimes incidentally they are, perhaps an officer going in to arrest a schizophrenic power lifter(A cop that trained with me had to do that) or by coincidence some drunk or high MMA fighter. But often facing violence against a stronger opponent is pure chance, they aren’t selected for that reason. If they get suckered, they get suckered going into a hostile situation, with a partner or two watching their back. Police and soldiers often have guns, bouncers are often dealing with people drunk and therefore uncoordinated. These men are not often hunted or stalked. The only ones that are often are soldiers, and that isn’t a sucker punch, rarely even a knife attack. Most of it is military vehicles against vehicles, rifle against rifle. The victimization of soldiers is vastly removed from a civilians context. Most of all of these men and woman require a certain level of physical fitness. They are never isolated, they are rarely unaware via the nature of their job, they have people watching out for them. Surprise, real surprise is rare.
A civilian on the other hand is going to be selected specifically because they are weak and isolated. Unless you’re two men bumping chests going ‘Come at me bro!’ chances are the person attacking you honestly believes they are superior. They know or at least believe you have no help coming. They very likely think you are unarmed.
Often most people who teach personal protection talk about this, many even address it very well and generally do teach people to fight from a disadvantage. Many are highly intelligent men, capable of problem solving and empathizing with those they are teaching. I say go practice with those folks.
But I bring this up because many turn to these guys because they rightfully view them as badass. We don’t often live violent lives, most of us never face situations where our lives are threatened. While they face it everyday. Of course they understand violence well. Of course they are worthy of respect. The same goes for Boxing/Muay thai/MMA/BJJ/Wrestling guys. They are badasses, often fighting full contact getting slammed, with powerful punches and kicks thrown to take their heads off. But that doesn’t represent most people, that is not the typical civilian. But like the soldiers, cops and others, they can be intelligent and empathetic enough to come up with some great stuff for people truly interested in personal protection.
I only want to point out that they have seen it from a perspective most of you never will, unless you enlist in the military or police. They had experienced it with a support system, something you won’t have.
Sometimes being trained by a fucking normie is a good thing, because maybe that normie will think “I’m a normie. What shit will I face?” and actually train for it.
My teacher Rick has actually faced violence in his life, some of it working jobs that could be seen as ones with an expectation of violence. But he also had instances where he was a civilian facing it, and as a result his specific slice of violence just happens to conform with that. This isn’t just a free advertisement for him, but to point out that you’re more likely to get good instruction for your own needs by someone teaching who comes from the same place as you.
I honestly think for this reason so much of his training to be comfortable with the physiological consequences. Because that frankly is the biggest detriment to personal protection for regular people. It’s very easy to teach the physical skills needed to defend themselves. Honestly assuming they don’t crack from the chemical dump of an ambush, most combat sports athletes would maul lots of pure self-defense people. But look at the caveat, if they don’t crack, which many do.
To be honest I’m shocked more people have not come up with similar drills.
What's the deal with Adeel? 