Who are the best instructors right now in combatives, weaponology, retention, blade work, and counter-abduction?

[GreenieMeanie]

Ed Calderon?

Kelly McCann?

Lee Morison?

Fred Mastro?

Jarrad Arbuckle?

Terry Trehan?

Karl OscarDelta?

Craig Douglas?

Scott Babb?

Nigel February?

Luke Holloway?

 

[Buka]

In my opinion, Tom Sotis.

 

[drop bear]

Tim Kennedy can at least actually fight.

 

[GreenieMeanie]

Tim Kennedy can at least actually fight.

Yes he good, got the MMA background, with the warfighting and LEO cross-training.

 

[GreenieMeanie]

Tim Kennedy can at least actually fight.

I take it you don't like any of the names listed?

 

[drop bear]

I take it you don't like any of the names listed?

Not in the same league. Rbsd sets a really low bar though. Because it is set up so you never see your instructor go live on anyone.

Which inherently adds a lot of myth to the concepts. And changes the way people think about the subject. Which essentially breaks the process.

To fight well you really need to use scientific method ask the question then test it.

Rather than story based which is ask the question and get a tale of how it worked for someone else under other conditions.

 

[drop bear]

So for example if in knife defence you can only actually do it about 5% of the time. Your training should reflect that. Not disguise that.

So here for example is a drill designed to disguise your actual chance of defending a knife.

 

[frank raud]

Ed Calderon?

Kelly McCann?

Lee Morison?

Fred Mastro?

Jarrad Arbuckle?

Terry Trehan?

Karl OscarDelta?

Craig Douglas?

Scott Babb?

Nigel February?

Luke Holloway?

Where did you come up with this list? Seriously Terry? Great guy if you're in small town Texas.

 

[hoshin1600]

The best guys are probably the ones you've never heard of. This list is just the ones who are popular and/or on You tube. Which is fine but its a biased sampling.

 

[GreenieMeanie]

Not in the same league. Rbsd sets a really low bar though. Because it is set up so you never see your instructor go live on anyone.

Which inherently adds a lot of myth to the concepts. And changes the way people think about the subject. Which essentially breaks the process.

To fight well you really need to use scientific method ask the question then test it.

Rather than story based which is ask the question and get a tale of how it worked for someone else under other conditions.

It would be unethical to scientifically test, in full, edged-weapon work, blunt weapon, and pre-emption work.

That is why you have to find instructors who've done it for real, or learned from people that have done for real--which makes it hard to learn, and allows instructors to charge more, because they know how rare and inaccessible people with their knowledge are. You are paying because of supply and demand, and because of lessons that people almost died learning.

The vast majority of RBSD, rests on pre-emption and detecting pre-violence cues, which is what sets it apart from the rest. You have to use surprise, speed, and greater violence of action than your opponent.
If you did not anticipate the attack to at least some degeree, then you have already lost.

In Libre (Scott Babb), with their sparring, they train taking turns as the aggressor. The defender has to learn to recongnize when to react, and "beat them to the punch." They can't scientifically test the consequences of stabs, but they know enough from documented instances, and experiences in both the street and deployed overseas, how that will go.

You can scientifically test aspects of RBSD, separately, but not as a whole.

 

[GreenieMeanie]

Where did you come up with this list? Seriously Terry? Great guy if you're in small town Texas.

Accumulated over the course of the time, from training partners, instructors, and following where the research takes me.

What's wrong with Terry?

 

[GreenieMeanie]

The best guys are probably the ones you've never heard of. This list is just the ones who are popular and/or on You tube. Which is fine but its a biased sampling.

Popular? I never heard about these guys through youtube or social media. I stumbled upon them, trained with them, or guys that did, and managed to find postings.

Oscar KarlDelta has very little online footprint, and I think he only instructs UK LEO/Mil/security services--but his specialty is counter-abduction, not combatives.

 

[GreenieMeanie]

So for example if in knife defence you can only actually do it about 5% of the time. Your training should reflect that. Not disguise that.

So here for example is a drill designed to disguise your actual chance of defending a knife.

This drill focuses on the attack component, and not the detection component. In my experience, instructors prefer to drill the attack for muscle memory, then run through the full scenario.

 

[frank raud]

Accumulated over the course of the time, from training partners, instructors, and following where the research takes me.

What's wrong with Terry?

Nothing is wrong with Terry. I've known him for over 20 years. Your list reads as a random selection of instructors. Of the people you list, to my knowledge only two have anything to do with counter abduction(well I knew of Ed Calderon, you pointed out Karl Oscardelta does the same). I'm more curious why you think they are the best. Also find it curious that almost 30% of your list are Silat instructors (or Silat based)

 

[GreenieMeanie]

Nothing is wrong with Terry. I've known him for over 20 years. Your list reads as a random selection of instructors. Of the people you list, to my knowledge only two have anything to do with counter abduction(well I knew of Ed Calderon, you pointed out Karl Oscardelta does the same). I'm more curious why you think they are the best. Also find it curious that almost 30% of your list are Silat instructors (or Silat based)

I thought the question marks would make this clear--but I don't think they are the best. They are just the ones I've been able to find content on, for the applications that interest me.

Scott Babb, Nigel, and Ed Calderon's material kind of blur together--as they all study how criminals attempt to misdirect victims. Scott Babb in particular does escapology-based work, along with everything else, and he is the only instructor I know of that does so.

They are the instructors I know of, who do blade work from the combatives perspective, and especially focused on point-driven weapons. Their Silat/FMA base is coincidental.

 

[frank raud]

I thought the question marks would make this clear--but I don't think they are the best. They are just the ones I've been able to find content on, for the applications that interest me.

Scott Babb, Nigel, and Ed Calderon's material kind of blur together--as they all study how criminals attempt to misdirect victims. Scott Babb in particular does escapology-based work, along with everything else, and he is the only instructor I know of that does so.

They are the instructors I know of, who do blade work from the combatives perspective, and especially focused on point-driven weapons. Their Silat/FMA base is coincidental.

Craig Douglas and Shivworks have been teaching about criminals attempts to misdirect victims for about 20 years now. He teaches a program specifically for it, Managing Unknown Contacts.

 

[GreenieMeanie]

Craig Douglas and Shivworks have been teaching about criminals attempts to misdirect victims for about 20 years now. He teaches a program specifically for it, Managing Unknown Contacts.

Thanks for the info. I didn't know that.

Nigel and Scott both teach how criminals hide their weapons, and use misdirection mid-fight--except Nigel teaches from the SA perspective, and the way their brand of thugs use blades is different than in Europe and the rest of the West.

Ed Calderon's focus, is procuring and improvising weapons, paired with a legal narrative for having them, or just hiding them. He teaches more than that, but that's where he comes in from a fighting standpoint.

 

[frank raud]

Thanks for the info. I didn't know that.

Nigel and Scott both teach how criminals hide their weapons, and use misdirection mid-fight--except Nigel teaches from the SA perspective, and the way their brand of thugs use blades is different than in Europe and the rest of the West.

Ed Calderon's focus, is procuring and improvising weapons, paired with a legal narrative for having them, or just hiding them. He teaches more than that, but that's where he comes in from a fighting standpoint.

There is an article on Piper in the August/September 2022 issue of Black Belt magazine, written by a good friend of mine. It is Piper from the perspective of Lloyd De Jongh, the other founder of Piper.

 

[GreenieMeanie]

There is an article on Piper in the August/September 2022 issue of Black Belt magazine, written by a good friend of mine. It is Piper from the perspective of Lloyd De Jongh, the other founder of Piper.

From what I understand, there was a rift between him and Nigel, but I don't know why. All I know, is they are court mandated not to communicate in any way, and as a result they refuse to share students to avoid problems.

Nigel states he is focused on the combatives end of things, the mechanics and why they matter midfight/prefight, and Llyod is more focused on the tradition within Piper. I suppose that explains, why I learned more watching videos by Nigel, than I did watching the DVD that Lloyd made.

 

[lklawson]

Remo Williams