The Martial Artist philosopher...Wussy

Don't let the fancy belts, trophies and titles fool you. The martial arts are filled with wussies. I've known guys who were terrors in the ring and push overs in the street. I've known men who were awesome street fighters who barely spent time in the gym and I've also known men who were bad asses before they ever started training. Some got worse when they started believing the bullshit, others became unholy terrors who you didn't want to mess with even on their worst day.

Let's get one thing straight, I'm not sadistic and I don't enjoy when people get injured or hurt. That being said, I will not hesitate to act if I feel there is the chance of me or my loved ones being endangered in anyway. I really don't mean to glorify violence...OK maybe in an effort to get your attention to buy product...moving forward, the fact remains that people who do not live violent lives need to understand the reality of what it takes to survive in the real world. In order to survive and win you must adopt and attitude of "whatever it takes" and "at all costs." The predators in the world are willing to take the next step, regular people with jobs, mortgages and taxes, for the most part, do not know how are when to take that step. This is where I come in.

If you chose the doctrine of "Non-violence" and are willing to be raped, robbed, murdered, harassed and bullied in order to live by your principals of being "civilized" and "non-violent" then I really have nothing to say to you. The irony is, it's these "non-violent" people are the ones who object the most violently.

My philosophy is simple, let's call it the Guard Dog State of Being. You can play with me and cuddle with me. I'll play fetch, take pictures with stuff strapped to my head for the Christmas card, whatever you want as long as everybody's safe. But as soon as there's danger, the switch gets flipped and I will rip through you like tissue paper. I don't care who you are, you better pack a lunch because it's going to be a long day. Now after the threat is gone, the switch goes off and I'm back to playing fetch. No intellectualizing, pontificating or analyzing, just doing my job.

Predators, bullies and other criminals are like rabid dogs. If you were walking in the park and came upon a rabid dog would you think twice about putting him down? No of course not. In the same breath, you'll be able to care and love for another dog without reservation. The problem these people have is that they project their reasoning skills and belief systems on criminals. They don't know what it's like to be strung out and desperate, they don't know what it's like to really not give a crap about human life, just give me what I want now.

The people who take this position are well-meaning but have no idea or have been extremely lucky when dealing with real criminals and predators in the outside world.

So after 30 plus years in the martial arts and self defense, I've heard a lot of bullshit. In fact, I've wasted more time learning useless crap than other guys have spent training. But the one thing I can't stand is the martial arts wussy. This is the guy who has watched too much Kung Fu and read the Tao of Pooh one too many times. He loves being the Mr. Miyagi type (incidentally it when Miyagi had to kick a little 18 year old ass...he did!) The living Yin and Yang, the embodiment of the martial spirit, Confucius of the strip mall.

(Coughs..horseshit!) These guys are living a fantasy if they think they can "diffuse" any situation by talking. This strategy will work when: the predator just wants to verbally abuse you and doesn't feel like having a physical confrontation or the predator isn't really a predator, but a blowhard who when faced with someone who is willing to go the distance, will back down.

That being said, I occasionally get the following arguments from the "non-violent" sect in the martial arts world. These are the people who will be the first to tell you about their training and accomplishments. These are the guys who have the trophies lined up around their homes. These are also the guys who can't fight worth a damn outside the ring.

The following is the RED FLAG LIST of a Martial Arts Wussy

1. "Violence Never Solved Anything"
In the words of the late comedian Richard Jenni, "Violence may not have solved anything, but it sure stops a lot of shit." In most cases violence or the threat of violence is the only thing that does solve anything. If that wasn't the case cops and soldiers would be armed with stuffed animals a patchouli oil. You can compromise all you want, but there is a line that can't be crossed. Tactically, it comes down to distance. Say all you want, but if you cross that line, it's over.

2. "I teach violence but I'm against it."
You teach violence? I teach people how to realistically defend and defeat violence. Now I know they mean, I teach people to deal with violence but I couldn't help myself. But really, it all depends on your definition of violence. If violence is unprovoked and unjustified then I'm against it. If it is provoked and justified, I'm all for it. Nothing sets the record straight like an old fashioned ass whooping.

3. You can always "reason" with the attacker.
This only works if you end on the attacker's terms. Most scumbags will take and take until you're in over your head. When you clearly indicate that you are not to be taken lightly you either leave or engage. The longer you wait, the less of an advantage you have while said scumbag musters his forces.

4. Nobody "WINS" a fight.
Well, it's clear to me who the winner is. See the one walking away, he's the winner. See the one lying in a pool of his own piss and blood, there's the loser...any questions? Of course somebody wins the fight, my grammar school kids know who wins the fight. Don't take me down the spiritual road because I've won a lot of fights and every time I felt pretty damn good about it, mainly because I wasn't the other guy.

5. You may in the fight, but you'll lose in court.
When people start talking about the legal ramifications of defending what you think is right I give them the big GB (get bent). So what you're telling me is that money and the cost to defend your actions is more valuable than what you think is right, your life or the lives of the people around you. Defending your actions depends more on the lawyer you have and the jury or judge you pick. The laws of self defense are vague but it all comes down to: was your life in danger, did the attacker show intent on injuring you and was the attacker capable of inflicting serious injury. Some states have "exit at all costs" laws where you are required to leave no matter what. This gets problematic when you can't leave the scene. It all goes back to lawyer, judge and jury. But that still doesn't solve your problem...what do you do in the heat of the moment? Hey, you may be happy getting sand kicked in our face and hanging your manhood on "financial" and legal. Me, I'm not compromising my manhood for anything.

6. Just walk away from bullies.
Easy for you to say. We've all had to deal with bullies and we were all taught to stand up to them. There's many a kid who spent time hitting the heavy bag thinking about that bully. We were taught to stand up to him and let him know that I'm going to fight back every day until you stop. Nowadays there is a zero-tolerance policy against fighting and bullying. This is good for paper work but bad for kids. Bullying is wrong but it's a right of passage. What happens when you;re bullied at work or in the real world. What quality of life are you creating? I remember being terrified of an older kid when I was in 3rd grade. But I was pushed to the point where one day I had enough and I kicked his ass all over the playground (thanks to two years of wrestling!). That kid did not bother me or my friends ever again :).
Today the programs against violence n schools are a joke. They don;t have an answer for the "Then what?" question. As in, when the reasoning doesn't work, when the deescalation breaks down and we are backed into a corner..then what? The best answer I have heard was "take a self defense course." But don't think they are going to recommend one. Because of perceived legal exposure, you're not going to get any recommendations. This is where we step in, I'm going to show you exactly how to systematically take someone apart.

Listen, you can quote all of the Bruce Lee you want, but at the end of the day, it's what you are willing to do for what you're willing to risk. The Japanese have the expression "Save face" which loosely means, "Don't make me look weak." Sometimes, somethings are not worth it. But I ell you this, I don't fight the world, I never have, I just don't let people push me around. Am I fighting over a parking space, no but if you do something that causes the people I care about discomfort, I will let you know. That's how I choose to live my life. The problem I have is that people know they're right, they know what they want to do but they are just too scared to do anything about it then they hide behind quotations and dime store philosophy. Hey, I choose to live a life without fear. You can say what you will, I've worked in some of the roughest parts of North Jersey, New York City and Pennsylvania. Don't tell me I don;t know violence. The problem is, I know it all to well and still I tolerate other opinions in hopes of reaching the person reading this blog who doesn't want to post, but just wants the truth.

The Self Defense Training System, The Most Lethal Self Defense Program in the World
Damian Ross
The Self Defense Company
Martial Arts
Self Defense

42 Year Old Man Cowers to 18 Year Old

Louis CK Episode 9: "Bully" made me want to puke.


The episode was bookended, as usual, by funny stand-up, but in between was a long, dark, intentionally non-comic story about the power that teenage bullies can still have on grown-ass men. It was deliberately uncomfortable. The confrontation ends with Louie's date getting turned off, viewing him and weak in spite of her intellectual compulsion to side with Louie seeking a non -confrontational path can't stand to see a grown man back down to a child.

I have to be honest, this situation was so foreign to me I couldn't relate. In fact, it pissed me off that there are grown men out there who are such blatant pussies that and they try to justify and rationalize it by simply "not engaging in a physical fight." Because he vast majority of people have never been in a fight or have never even thought or prepared for being in a fight. This is the wussification of the modern world. My generation has been told that: fighting and violence are wrong.

Let me make one thing crystal clear, violence and fighting are wrong when it is unjustified or used for ill-gotten gain. Let me make another point, there will always be people, nations and countries who will use violence as a means to gain control over weaker targets. And finally, the idea that violence is ALWAYS WRONG is an unnatural concept that goes against your instinct.

The show however gave a REAL REACTION when Louie's date said, "I know, I agree with you, but you're weak and it turned me off."

Let me ask you, what will you do when placed face to face with a bully? Get the girl and save the day? Or pray that the bad man goes away. Or fall prey to the "wussification of America".

Here's another factoid: most people avoid pain and discomfort. This is natural, you hunt when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired and fight when you're threatened. It's natural to stay comfortable. As a result,we have been trained to avoid pain and we justify it. The result: record obesity rates, army recruits who can even make the minimum physical standards and 42 year old men who when threatened by children, back down when they should be taking them over their knee.

I know, you talk a good game, "I would just kick his ass." My next question is, what have you done in the last 6 months that would prepare you or more to the point, enable you to kick anyone's ass? Have you lifted weights? When's the last time you completed a pull up? Do you even own a pair of running shoes? If you don't prepare, you're not prepared.

I still can't believe their are people who walk around like Louis CK. The episode infuriated me so much that I went and ran 6 miles last night (even after working out an hour and a half already). I was so pissed that I wanted to poses Louis CK and pimp slap that kid. I also felt bad for him because he is a victim of the Great Wussification.

Human beings are naturally lazy and avoid pain and discomfort at all costs. If left to our own devices humans would wind up looking like the human characters in Wall-E.
A blubbery mass of atrophied muscle. The less you have to fight scrape and survive, the more you will look like this. You need to train yourself to overcome the HUMAN LAZINESS GENE.

Lois CK blames a lot of his problems on his age. His show and other shows like it (Men of a Certain Age) focus on getting older and being a wussy. I submit to you this, if you're a wussy when you're older, you were a wussy when you were younger. You just choose to believe some revisionist history. It always "If I were younger..." Dude, you're 42, not 72. Get a grip tell that bullshit to these guys:

The cast of the expendables whose average age is close to 50. Do you think any of these guys are worried about 18 year old bullies?

What's you're excuse? Stallone is 65 years old!!! I'm not saying that you need to be like this...just more like this.



Say what you want about his cushy Hollywood lifestyle or rumors of HGH (Humn Growth Hormaone), he STILL has to do the work!!! If Louie looked like Stallone, he wouldn't have had a problem...he probably wouldn't have an act either so at this point he stuck being a pathetic, man-child, loser.

But you have a choice. You can continue to live a Louis CK life, to which I've nothing to tell you except Thank You. Because as long as there are people like you, people like me have to fight less. The more sheep for the wolves to feed on the less chance of them bothering me or my family.

You know what the irony is, the more you prepare for war, the more you have peace. When everyone knows who the man is, everyone knows his place. When you're prepared for conflict, people know it and don't mess with you. Why bother with you when there's always a soft, white Louis CK coming around the corner.

To be more Stallone than Louie CLICK HERE

Damian Ross
Louis CK Episode 9: Bully
martial arts
self defense
the expendables
the self defense company
the self defense training system

I Want to Believe in Fairy Tales

There is no doubt that I want to believe that you could simply touch somebody and knock them out or manipulate their force in such a way that you could dance them around with the ease of a puppet master and emerge from a confrontation without even breaking a sweat or sustaining injury.* A note on this before I get started. You can train to sustain physical injury and endurance but it is only through hard work, NOT the magic secrets I refer to in this article.

How the heck, in this day and age do methods like Aikido, Systema, various forms of Chrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Kung Fu and other mystical and unbelievable methods of defense exist? The answer is easy. People believe because they want to avoid the pain of reality.

Fear forces them to ignore the harsh truth: physical contact comes with a certain degree of discomfort and if you haven't played a contact sport over the age of 12, you're in for a rude awakening. If the last time you were on a football field or a wrestling mat was in high school, you tend to forget over the years. One of the things our mind does is forget pain and focus on the good. It's a survival mechanism, if your mind didn't do this, you would see a lot more single child families in the world.

How did this all start?
Originally styles like Aikido were developed to study the movement of force and manipulation of power through harmonizing with the force. It's an abstract study not a literal translation. Aiki literally means "joining spirit" and "do" meaning "the way of". If it had a "jutsu" at the end as in Akijutsu, it would refer to the technique and skill. Over the years these terms have been twisted and perverted to meant the needs of whoever decides to use them for marketing but in the beginning "do" was a symbolic form of fighting like judo and "jutsu" was the combative system like "jujutsu".

Enough of the history lesson. Over time people started throwing the term self defense around like it was going out of style and it soon became the punchline of the martial arts world. If you look at every martial arts advertisement under the sun you will see self defense as a benefit. And sure you an use a combat sport as self defense though there are a lot more efficient means of saving your own ass, but this isn't a sales pitch, it's a blog so we'll save that for the SDTS website. Listen, when they learned they could make a buck teaching self defense (present company included) a lot of systems BECAME self defense.

Over time styles like Aikdo and other forms of martial art have evolved or more to the point "sprouted up" claiming unbelievable benefits to the practitioners. You see these types of systems claiming Chinese, Japanese, Filipino African and even Native American origins.

And why not? Who doesn't want to have super human powers? Who doesn't want to be able to poke a man and watch him flip all over the place.

I submit to you two video samples of new Russian Martial Arts.






I know what you're thinking "How could he just throw those people around, they are attacking him?" Listen, faith healers appear to cure the incurable. When people want to believe something, they believe it and react accordingly. They do this because their desire to possess that skill is so great, they abandon all sense of reason. I offer this classic:



Hey, I'm sure the majority of his students were like "WTF?!?!" I'm sure the Chi Master himself didn't expect it either. The power of suggestion combined with a willingness to believe is an incredible combination capable of great things, until a non-believer walks into the room.

Just ask yourself one obvious question, if all of this was really what it was cracked up to be wouldn't you thing you would see it in MMA, Football, basketball or any other professional sport. Imagine giving the ball to a guy who just waves his hand and clears the field.

Finally I present George Dillman who has perfected the bullshit into a multimillion dollar a year business. This is a segment that was presented on the discovery channel.



Quote "The skeptic was a total non-believer". No shit Sherlock, I guess it works if you get into a fight with a believer?!?!? Are you serious?!?!?! How the hell does this guy say that with a straight face. Damn he's good. If it only works on "believers" WHAT GOOD IS IT?

Personally, when it comes to saving my ass (and more importantly, the asses of the people in my life who matter more than me) I really don't give a damn what some scumbag rapist believes in. Listen, the reality is that attempted rapes, homicides and assaults are brutal and they hurt. That's life, get over it. There isn't a magic pill, potion or mystical technique. There is hard, honest to goodness work. Listen, I'd like to believe that I could knock somebody out without touching them, maybe after I some chili I could knock you over without touching you, other than that, I'm going to go to the what has been proven to work. Hit hard, it fast, hit often (repeat as necessary).

I would like to believe you could knock a guy out with out touching him, I also would like to believe that a fat man with a white beard and a red suit is bringing my kids presents on December 25th, but he's not and I have to pay for them anyway.

PS. Never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.
Scary thought 1: A person of average intelligence is not that smart.
Scary thought 2: Half of the people in the world are dumber than that guy.

Damian Ross
The Self Defense Company
Chi
The Self Defense Training System
Martial Arts
Self Defense
Death Touch

Kicking is for River Dancing

Kicking above the waist is a "NO-NO" according to most self defense experts. It leaves your groin exposed and increases your chances of slipping and falling. While these reasons are valid, they're not the primary reasons you can't kick in the street. The person who gives this explanation demonstrates their inexperience with real world confrontations.

Under real world conditions your legs are going to be doing two things: keeping you standing and moving. Your adrenaline will not allow you to "stand and spar" at kicking range. I know you may think this is what you will do, but when your facing a determined attacker they will seek to close the distance and you will do the same. Your natural instinct to attack will take over and you will want to move forward. Plus in order to control the momentum of the fight, you need to take ground and keep your target off balance (Self Defense Training System Module 1).

According to Grossman's book On Combat, as your hormone induced fear (adrenaline) increases, you're only going to be able to perform a few gross motor skills. Running is one of them. Consider if you're wearing any gear, rough terrain, ice, snow or sand and you are going to want to keep your feet right underneath you. You are going to have to.

In the melee of a fight, your best chance of winning is with high percentage, gross motor, common denominator techniques and tactics that can be applied to any situation under any circumstances. Why waste your time learning complicated, low percentage kicking methods when you could spend your time training in proven methods and getting yourself physically prepared. Don't get me wrong, I have a second degree black belt in tae kwon do and won state and regional champion titles in the early 90's. Kicking has it's place, but it's not in the street.

There are only a handful of times to kick. The primary time to kick is when attacking a downed target or to close the distance from a standing position. When you have downed a target, stomps with the heel and front kicks with the toe of the boot allow you to deliver the most amount of force into your target while affording you more mobility. Plus, keeping your hands free will enable you to engage other targets and/or keep your weapon secure.

Kicks from a standing position are basically front kick, side kick and back kick which is a variation of the side kick. These are only used as opening techniques when you have the time and the distance. Knees are excellent when they are combined with convulsive, stomping and are not considered kicks. This is demonstrated in Self Defense Training System Module 1.

Stomping in a clinch, a body grab or a bear hug that is demonstrated by the vast majority of experts, it's totally unrealistic. When someone attacks you with a body grab they will hit you with a huge amount of force. The contact alone will most likely send you to the ground. If you do manage to stay on your feet you'll won't be able to even lift your foot to stomp the shin with your attackers force bearing down on you. (Self Defense Training System Module 4). In general, larger people attack smaller people with bear hugs and body grabs. It's not the other way around unless your attacker is comfortable with this type of attack. Either way, you're still going to have a hell of a time keeping your balance.

I'm sure somebody knows somebody who did something where they kicked someone in the street. Like the saying goes: Even the sun shines on a dogs ass every once in a while.
The question is, what to you want to do? Spend your time on low percentage, unlikely methods that force you to train against your natural instinct or maximize your time, energy and chance of surviving and winning with methods designed to capitalize your body's normal fight response. Many systems train you to work against your natural instincts when in realty you should embrace them and take advantage of the millions of years of evolution that have prepared you for fight or flight.

Simple techniques with proven tactics work, lofty ideas with good intentions will get you killed.

Damian Ross
Self Defense Training System
Self Defense
Martial Arts
The Self Defense Company