Real Self Defense

sgtmac_46

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Last night at my school a gentleman came in and was talking to me about his program of the real deal S.D., now I am a person that tells people we teach practicular S.D. and stuff. At anyrate he went on to say that 98.5% of schools out there are like me teaching unrealistic S.D. to the general program and he could put in his Real Life S.D. and increase my sales by two fold. The problem is most of what he teaches is basic wrist breaks and joint manipulation as well as hit and get out type of defense, when I explain this is stuff we already do he got mad and said it is people like me that cannot see beyond my own two eyes that really hurts the MA of today.

Well thought I would share.

'Break the WRIST! And walk away.....'
 

Drac

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Hey Terry...How old was this guy???
 
OP
terryl965

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LOL...Young and dumb and looking for never mind...

Yea I was thinking the same thing.
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Phoenix44

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wrist breaks and joint manipulation

These require a fair amount of skill and fine motor coordination. I personally don't see these as basic, essential self-defense techniques to be used by the average person in an emergency.
 

chinto

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Last night at my school a gentleman came in and was talking to me about his program of the real deal S.D., now I am a person that tells people we teach practicular S.D. and stuff. At anyrate he went on to say that 98.5% of schools out there are like me teaching unrealistic S.D. to the general program and he could put in his Real Life S.D. and increase my sales by two fold. The problem is most of what he teaches is basic wrist breaks and joint manipulation as well as hit and get out type of defense, when I explain this is stuff we already do he got mad and said it is people like me that cannot see beyond my own two eyes that really hurts the MA of today.

Well thought I would share.

LOL same kind that thinks that the UFC is the way that real fights happen and well that they come in singles and with a ref and lights and a mat..

some people have no clue.
 

searcher

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Though I have not seen this type of "sales" approach a bunch here in the boonies, I do see it with equipment sales for our gym. Many a people think that because you are not living in a major city, you must be a bumpkin with little common sense.

And Deaf is right, it is going to get worse as the $$$ becomes harder to get.
 

Aiki Lee

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These require a fair amount of skill and fine motor coordination. I personally don't see these as basic, essential self-defense techniques to be used by the average person in an emergency.

I think he ment it as a joke, it sounds like a quote from the rex kwan do guy in napolean dynamite, but I could be mistaken.
 

Daniel Sullivan

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....he went on to say that 98.5% of schools out there are like me teaching unrealistic S.D. to the general program and he could put in his Real Life S.D. and increase my sales by two fold.

..... most of what he teaches is basic wrist breaks and joint manipulation as well as hit and get out type of defense,

The biggest problem that I see with people like this, both in the in-person pitch as well as the advertisements in magazines, is that they focus on the body of techniques.

To be fair, that it the only way to market your system. As an entrepreneur, you cannot supply 240 pound noncompliant goons for your customers' students to spar with and since you are selling a system to someone else to teach, you cannot provide any real in depth training.

So it always comes down to the body of techniques. You bank on most of the TKD schools being sport focused or fitness focused, and canvas all of the TKD schools in the area. Chances are, most of them will not have these techniques in their curriculum, so they are your best bet: the staff may already know these techniques and be happy to have a 'new' certifiation to put on the wall essentially for material that they already know.

So you sell your system to the local TKD schools. Then what?

They all have wrist locks, sweeps and takedowns now. But is their ability to protect themselves really realistic?

Probably not. Not only is there the lack of noncompliance, but there are all those things that go into self defense that fall outside the body of martial technique.

1) How do you walk in such a way as to not look like a victim?
2) How do you gauge when the situation is going to turn violent no matter how much money you give the mugger?
3) What should you look out for and do when you head to your car in a parking garage?
4) How can you tell if the bystanders who look like tough guys are henchmen of this person who is aggressively demanding money from you under the guise of panhandling?
5) How can you tell if an aggressive panhandler is really just chatting you up to rob you?

There are a million other things that could be added to that list, and none of them have anything to do with the techniques to break an opponent. These things are not part of the standard fare of most martial arts schools, traditional or not.

And these are things that are more challenging to teach than wristlocks and sweeps. These things are changes in mindset and observational habits. And if you yourself have no firsthand experience with muggers or rough parts of town, how do you impart these lessons that you yourself have never had to personally learn?

These are the things that you will not find from these fast buck salesmen. All the fast buck salesman has done is take some basic sweeps and locks that can be effective in an SD scenario and packaged them into a curriculum or para-curriclum product.

Kudos for being proactive.
Boos for being unoriginal and less than thorough.

Kudos to Terry for keeping his cool and putting up with this clown.

Daniel
 

Aiki Lee

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Yes, a realistic self-defense program should thouroughly explain how to identify threats, and how to get out of them before the danger starts. The physical self-defense should revolve around easy to remember principles that could allow a person to escape such as hitting high and low, or other simple tactics that a person not interested in martial training should be able to remember.

Wrist locks and joint manipulations are effective, if they train consistantly to be able to use them, but IMO they probably shouldn't be taught in SD seminars. Instead I believe one should focus on how to knock somebody down, not lock them up.
 

ninaJe.024

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A few years ago I joined a self-defense class because I am of the opinion that it is especially for women important that they know how they could possibly defend themselves. I bound to say that I felt safer after finishing the class. Another thing what I consider as important is to recall the different techniques in order to do not forget them at all.
 

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