Where's Your Dojo Contest entry Kabul Afghanistan

The Self Defense company wants to know "Where's Your Dojo?" The best video gets $1000 in the winner takes all contest. This latest submission is from LtCol Darren Poesel of the USMC. He is training servicemen, woman and contractors with The Self Defense Training System in Kabul.

What's your flavored kool-aide?

Can it be that simple? After the last training session with another local police department they were shocked at the effectiveness of two techniques, the edge of hand and the hand yoke.

The men were 10 plus year vets, martial artists and military and still had never seen anything like the program. I'm glad I'm in a position to help the good guys.

But this brings us to the too simple...too good to be true, there has to be something more. But when it comes to self defense...there isn't.

The martial arts model depends on the ability to keep people involved for years and years and invest escalating dollars and an incredible amount of time. I have said time and time again, martial arts is a method of improving yourself from the outside in. 3 Black belts and 8 degrees later, I would be a HUGE hypocrite if I said that martial arts were a waste of time. They are not, as long as you know exactly what you're getting.

1992 saw a huge shift in martial arts in the US. After the first UFC people got a first taste of how effective their training was and the misconception of what they were learning. This is something wrestlers, Judo players, boxers and kick boxers knew all along. The Gracies were the first to do it in the US (kudos there). If judo did this you would have had the same result.

After that point you had a split: the MMA crowd and the Self Defense crowd. MMA, like other sports is easily measured in its effectiveness. You win, you lose, you tap, you don't.

Self defense is not easily measured. You only know for sure if you are attacked and our methods work. This doesn't happen everyday. It is this reason that the rest of the martial arts world can hide behind the self defense label.

Think about this, you're a tae kwon do, kenpo, or karate instructor and you just watched a high ranking practitioner get decimated in the octagon. What do you tell your 200 students who have been training with you for years, spending money hand over fist?

you really only have two choices:
The fighter wasn't that good.
Your art is not meant for sport...it's more deadly than that.

If your a student you will most likely agree since you have invested YEARS and THOUSANDS in your training. You have been literally sipping the proverbial Kool-Aide for years and you are in for a penny, in for a pound.

So you continue to learn complicated, time wasting techniques that have no chance of being recalled in real world scenarios.

Martial arts "success" in the real world is based mostly on urban legend fueled by peoples willingness and need to believe.

The truth about self defense is right in front of you and its never that complicated...the truth never is.

Study martial arts for building your body, sharpening your mind and improving your community.

Damian Ross
The Self Defense Company
Martial Arts
Self Defense

Guardian Defensive Tactics: Had to be done

"Officer First Concept"
It does not matter what branch of the military, law enforcement agency or private contractor you're in, your training puts liability first and officer safety second. This is a common though among anyone forced to deal with violence on a regular basis. And why the subjects you deal with have no concern for the consequences they face, you are given constant reminders of what you can and can not do.

With ever traffic stop, every identification check and at every check point, you put your life on the line. When the time comes and the moment of truth arises, you will follow your instinct for survival.

The problem lies here: first, treating physical confrontations like verbal confrontations. While in a verbal confrontation you come in low and slow, a physical confrontation demands that you take control of the situation and you need to let the subject know who is in charge...IMMEDIATELY.

Modern training does not allow this to happen. Officers are not prepared correctly, there instincts tell the techniques they learned will not work.

So what happens? They are left to their own devices and the results are brutal.

It started with Rodney King and has continued to become a problem. since police, military and security are not prepared correctly to take control of a situation the correct way, the effective way- we will continue to see these types of situations time and time again.

No one can change human nature there are good and bad in any profession. But if incidents of resisting can be ended immediately, both the officer and the subject are better off.

The Guardian Defensive Tactics program is exactly how we prepare for the real world, when things do go south.

I want to personally thank the officers who are members of the SDC Guardian Program for helping out these past couple days. Their input was indispensable.

Guardian Defensive Tacics Part One

Day One Morning Before Guardian Defensive Tactics (GDT) Shoot

Over the years I have had the opportunity to train members of law enforcement and military. Unfortunately I always meet them after the incident, a close call where they realized that their training and preparation was inadequate.

So they pay out of pocket and spend their own time to do something about it. This is the purpose of Guardian Defensive Tactics. To give first responders the stuff that works. It is based on an effectiveness basis. The criteria is simple OFFICERS LIFE FIRST.

There is no political correctness, and liability ends when you are attacked...period.

We have repackaged the language to reflect modern red zone, green zone terminology. This way we can present our product to police departments and military institutions across the country with little resistance.

Before today, the training you received was liability based, now it's officer based. I'm looking forward to putting this program together.

Damian Ross
The Self Defense Company

How About Giving Your Training Dummy a Hand?

Build a better mouse trap, that's what I say. SDC Instructor Dan Neddo has done just that. In his studio he has literally given his training dummy a hand and added a little wrinkle to SDTS instruction.

By using PVC and bungee cords he has added another dimension to his training and instruction







With a pair of old shoes or boots plus a dolly to your training dummy (SEARCH for THE RACK post on this blog to get directions)and you have the greatest training partner of all time. Never late, won't get sick, complain or get hurt.

Create solutions NOT excuses.

Damian

Damian Ross
Dan Neddo
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July 18 marks the 25th anniversary of the McDonalds Massacre

Slaughter at McDonald's in '84 changed how police operate
By Jim Kavanagh

At 3:40 p.m. on July 18, 1984, Huberty carried a long-barreled Uzi semiautomatic rifle, a pump-action shotgun and a handgun into a McDonald's in San Ysidro, an enclave of San Diego, California.

Witnesses said the unemployed welder and security guard started shooting immediately, and kept on shooting for 77 minutes until a police sniper on a nearby rooftop ended the siege with a bullet through Huberty's heart.

When the carnage ended, Huberty and 21 victims -- including grandmothers, an infant, children on bicycles and teenage McDonald's employees -- lay dead inside and outside the restaurant. Nineteen others were wounded.

San Diego police Capt. Miguel Rosario, a patrol officer back then, was the first cop on the scene, believing he was responding to a single accidental shooting.

Carrying a standard-issue .38-caliber revolver with six bullets, the Marine Corps veteran was in for the fight of his life against a much-better-armed opponent.

"Talk about feeling inadequate," Rosario said. "He's got an Uzi, I've got a .38, and I'm thinking it's a robbery gone bad and his buddies are going to encircle me."

Rosario would later play a key role in beefing up officers' weaponry and training to stop violent criminals.

When Rosario arrived at the McDonald's, he saw people hiding behind cars in the lot. He didn't know what was going on, but "I got that little sick feeling in the pit of my stomach," he said.

He looked up to see a man -- Huberty -- open a side door of the restaurant, the Uzi across his chest. The two men eyed each other, and then Huberty moved aggressively. The SWAT-trained officer ducked behind a parked pickup truck, "and he started opening up on me," Rosario said.

He was badly outgunned and knew it. Worse, he believed he had more than one adversary.

"I wouldn't have minded taking him on one-on-one," Rosario said in his transplanted South Bronx accent. "But if he had buddies in there and they had shoulder arms, I would have been in a world of hurt."

Huberty fired about 30 armor-piercing rounds at the officer, who could hear them striking metal posts and skipping off the asphalt.

From behind the truck, Rosario radioed in a Code 10 -- "send SWAT" -- and seconds later a Code 11 -- "send everybody."

San Diego's SWAT team then consisted of patrol officers with extra training who carried their special equipment in their squad cars, Rosario said.

Huberty retreated inside as other police units arrived. Rosario ran back to his car to retrieve his Ruger Mini-14 military-style rifle. Two patrol officers fired shotguns to cover Rosario while he took up position. But he couldn't get a clear shot.

Reporter Monica Zech had a bird's-eye view of the scene. She was giving traffic reports from a small airplane for local TV and radio stations.

"I looked down and could see that there was people ducking for cover, and there was a fire truck there with everybody behind it," she recalled. She saw two boys lying on the ground, tangled in their bicycles after being shot by Huberty, and people hiding behind the low walls of the restaurant's playground.

Circling at 3,000 feet, Zech alerted authorities to close nearby Interstate 5 and the Tijuana border crossing a few blocks away because drivers were heading straight into the line of fire.

The bright sunshine and the eatery's smoked windows made it hard for police to see inside, but eventually Chuck Foster, a police sniper on the post office roof next door, got a clear view of Huberty near the counter. Foster dropped him with a single shot through a glass door.

The battle was over, but the lessons were just beginning.

Police clearly needed more firepower and a new strategy, Rosario said.

"The time had come where you had to have a full-time, committed and dedicated, highly trained, well-equipped team ... that were committed to shooting, being in shape and being able to respond rapidly anywhere in the city," he said.

"We didn't have what we have now," Rosario said. "We have a special response team -- hostage rescue -- very elite, well-trained. It's an elite team within SWAT. We have access to helicopters now and all of that kind of stuff. We didn't have none of that back then."

After San Ysidro, the department created a dedicated unit that trains continuously and uses much more formidable weapons and tactics.

"We became pretty much special forces specialists, if you will," he said.

Police departments nationwide soon realized their own need for tactical specialists.

The San Ysidro massacre seemed to introduce a "cluster" of mass shootings in the '80s and early '90s, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University professor and author of six books on mass murder. These included post office rampages in Oklahoma, New Jersey and Michigan, and culminated with the Luby's restaurant slaughter in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, in which 23 people were killed.

Michael T. Rayburn, an independent police firearms trainer in Saratoga Springs, New York, said the San Ysidro incident and others -- including gangland battles of the 1920s and more recent episodes like the infamous North Hollywood bank shootout in 1997 and the Columbine school massacre in 1999 -- force police to keep developing new weapons and tactics.

"As police officers, we don't have wind tunnels or expensive laboratories. We've learned, unfortunately, out on the street, and we pay for it in blood and sometimes our lives," he said.

After the McDonald's massacre, other cities sought advice from San Diego on how to develop tactical teams. Now, such elite units are part of most larger departments across the country.

Another change after San Ysidro is how departments handle officers who have been involved in traumatic incidents. For the first time, San Diego debriefed all involved officers and provided professional counseling for those who needed it. Now, it is common practice.

"We saw the benefit and the need for that," Rosario said, though in 1984 he blew off steam in Las Vegas for two days in lieu of counseling.

Many departments still fall short, but awareness of the need for psychological services is much greater now than in the '80s, said Lynn Winstead Mabe, a police counselor and consultant in Grapevine, Texas.

"I truly think they're beginning to care about the psyche of their people," she said.

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Damian Ross
The Self Defense Company
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Never Throw The First Punch

Never Throw the First Punch

Damian Ross, the Self Defense Company

I can hear my father now. “Never throw the first punch.” This mantra has been drilled in your brain since you were a wee toddler. I can remember sitting in the principal’s office after one of my weekly playground scraps waiting for the question, “Who threw the first punch?” It is the quintessential deciding factor of guilt in use of force. The idea of waiting until you are physically attacked before you can defend yourself is the guideline by which all use of force and self defense cases are judged. Even in martial arts you are taught the martial arts are for defense only. This combined with “never throw the first punch” have put you at a dangerous disadvantage.

When I was working in my teens and older I noticed something incredible, the guy who threw the “first punch” usually won the fight. On the playground or in the neighborhood you can get away with not throwing the first punch simply because your attacker’s intent is not to seriously injure; rape or kill you. On the playground of on the block, the fights are usually to prove a point among people you see on a regular basis. In the outside world among grown men and women this is extremely dangerous.

In the outside world, the recipient of the first punch is usually the recipient of the second punch, the third punch, the first kick and the final stomp. Attackers or brutal and relentless and don’t think much of the consequences of their actions. My early training in martial arts NEVER prepared me for this reality.

I was trained to wait to be physically attacked; to wait for the grab, the punch or the stab. What I saw and what I experienced in my late teens and early twenties told me that it was too late to wait for that. The smart street fighters knew where to stand and when to attack. Most time, the fight was over before it started. Either someone was out cold or people were pulling the guy off before he kicked his skull in.

Never throw the first punch is some of the worst advice I ever received.

Now, I’m not a violent person. I am not one to start trouble (ending it is a different story). But the “never throw the first punch” or “martial arts are for self defense” are concepts that pertain to intentions and lifestyle not tactics. These ideas suggest that you don’t look for trouble, don’t seek to hurt or injure others and live a peaceful life. Your training IS FOR DEFENSE ONLY. You are not robbing old ladies and stealing candy from babies. You are living a law abiding life. You work, pay taxes and enjoy time with family and friends and you have the right to protect your life style and loved ones from harm.

So how can you do both, throw the first punch and live the lifestyle you want to live? In module 1 of the Self Defense Training System we show you how to establish distance and determine what your targets intentions are instantly, without question. This allows you to reveal your attackers true motives and let you get the upper hand and allow you to stop the fight before it starts. What you learn in 5 minutes took me 2 years to figure out. Hopefully you won’t have to accumulate so many knocks to the head.

Damian Ross

Martial Arts

Self Defense

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