Dr Gregory T. Lawton

Introduction

Be the beast! Everyone has a beast inside of them. Whether you are tall or short, large, or petite, and no matter what your gender or occupation in life, there is a bit of a beast within all of us. Good people have been raised and conditioned to be nice, kind, generous, and non-violent. These are exactly the traits that violent predators look for in victims. Your good heart is what they take advantage of. A street predator approaches you and says, “Hey buddy, do you have some money I can have? I haven’t eaten for two days!” As you reach for your wallet, the knife comes out or you are punched in the face.

I train a select group of students in an approach to violence through which they find the beast within themselves, and they become the alpha predator — more cunning and dangerous than the punks on the street. I call this concept and training “Talon Protectives."

Sometimes violence is unavoidable and must be met with an equal or greater counterforce. These are the circumstances for which the combat martial artist trains. Preparing ourselves for violent situations or combat (whether empty hand or with a weapon) is a theoretical activity. There are many martial artists who have never had to employ fighting techniques outside of the safe environment of a martial art school or the highly regulated arena of sports martial arts. Therefore, their self-proclaimed knowledge of combat is theoretical and is likely 100 percent based upon the teaching and experience of their instructors. This is not a position to be in when you are attempting to use a weapon-disarming technique against a violent predator with a gun, knife, or club. The sanitized and controlled environment of a martial arts class or training seminar is not the same as having an assailant suddenly come at you with a knife. This article, “Embracing the Blade: Finding the Beast Within,” is Part Three of a three-part series on the techniques, tactics, and psychology of using bladed weapons.

Many martial art, tactical, and combative training programs teach techniques based upon the concept that if an attacker does this (like throwing a punch at my head), I do this... or if they put me in a headlock, I do this. This method programs students to think like a victim and defensively. Thinking that you are the victim of an attack and then role playing your response in terms of a complex sequence of attacks is ineffective and is entirely the wrong mindset to have. I prefer to teach students to think like an attacker and not to play defensive games. If you stay in a defensive mind set, you will lose. Don’t see yourself as a victim or you will become one. Rather, think like a predator. Better yet, be a predator that feeds on other predators.

None of the comments in this article are intended to denigrate any martial art style, system, or teacher. Frankly, I have studied many martial arts myself, and I respect the many kinds of knowledge and experience that they represent and the teachers that sacrifice time and effort to teach and hopefully protect their students. No matter what we teach, we are more alike than different.

Please note that there can be serious legal repercussions to defending yourself and inflicting injury to another person or by causing their death. Legal issues may present as criminal charges and/or civil lawsuits. It has often been stated that, “The first fight is for your life, and the second fight is for the rest of your life.” I highly recommend that the reader of this article reviews my previous three-part series entitled “The Medical Implications of Combat Tai Chi Chuan Techniques: Investigating Blunt Force Trauma”; it is on the subject of the medical consequences of combat Tai Chi Chuan. It contains very practical and direct physical attacks to the most vulnerable areas of the human body, and so does my two-part series entitled “The Eye of Destruction.”

In the real world of assault and victimization, your highly honed weapons skills are virtually useless until you have mastered the psychological traits needed in high stress situations where reaction time is measured in milliseconds.

In the Real World

In the real world of assault and victimization, your highly honed weapons skills are virtually useless until you have mastered the psychological traits needed in high stress situations where reaction time is measured in milliseconds. Consider that most attacks (those that we were not situationally observant of) occur within less than eight feet! Your attacker will not be yards away; they will be bad-breath close, and they will attack without warning.

You may have purchased and practiced with a bladed weapon, but can you deploy it and use it in one second or less? Most trained martial artists cannot. In studies performed on military personnel and law enforcement officers, although going through extensive training, they could not deploy either a knife or a handgun in less than 3 to 5 seconds — and that is if everything went perfectly. In studies involving law enforcement officers, the average time for a police officer to mentally justify using their weapons was .21 sec for a simple scenario, .87 sec for a complex one, and the average time it takes for someone to draw from a level one, friction retention holster is 1.71 sec. These types of studies are usually done in controlled circumstances and without complicating factors like having to track the movements of multiple assailants or fumble through layers of winter clothing.

What weapons do you have that allow you to react to a surprise attack from five feet away? Your body and your mind. Let’s not forget that your empty hand combat skills are your foremost line of defense. When you are holding a bladed weapon, it is only a tool (like a screwdriver); you are the real weapon. What if the situation that you find yourself in does not call for the use of a bladed weapon, but you have trained yourself to reach for your weapon first? In such a case, you will have wasted valuable response time and perhaps behaved inappropriately and with excessive force, thus making yourself the criminal. Can you transition smoothly and effectively from empty hand to a knife, or vice versa? Many of the students that I teach who have been victims of a violent attack were in compromising circumstances, and they state that the attack “came out of nowhere...” In hindsight, they belatedly realize that it did not.

Because of the mentorship relationships that I build with my students, I frequently interact with them in multiple venues — from outdoor activities to restaurants, to indoor sports like axe throwing, to training at the local gym. When I meet with my students in these venues, I always assess whether they are oriented and alert to their environment, whether they have run a risk assessment on their location and identified the exits and entrances, and whether they are carrying a knife. Often, they have left their knife at home and therefore have not mentally prepared for its use.

Carrying a knife and using it is a mind-set that you learn or acquire by constantly carrying and training with the tool; you cannot use the weapon that you don’t have or that you cannot get to in a few seconds. Don’t be the student that when attacked must drive home to get their knife out of a drawer or the pocket of their other pair of jeans so that they can use it. Carry your knife everywhere that legally allows it.

Even if you have your knife on you and ready to deploy, you may have to use empty hand combat skills to fight to draw your weapon. Crime statistics tell us that at least fifty percent of the time, someone defending themselves had to fight to get to their weapon. You may have to jam your finger or thumb into an assailant’s eye socket down to the bone before you are able to grab and open your knife. This kind of occurrence is more common than most than most knife carriers realize. Has your training prepared you to fight to get to your knife by using maiming techniques? If your focus is 100 percent on drawing your weapon, your mind will be blinded to the empty hand techniques available to you that will slow or stop the attacker so that you can deploy your weapon.

The Use of Reasonable Force

Reasonable force is the amount of force or violence needed to protect yourself. Unnecessary force is when you exceed the amount of force needed to protect yourself. The use of reasonable force is in relationship to defending your life from violent attack, theft, or some other type of recognized criminal aggression. If you are involved in the use of reasonable force, you need to know that law enforcement and the legal system will investigate and determine whether you acted reasonably in response to the assault and the level of threat that you faced. An investigation may lead to criminal charges against you if you are thought to have responded unreasonably or with undue aggression or violence. Whether or not you face criminal charges, you will most likely face a civil lawsuit from your assailant (if they survive) or their surviving family members. This is why I recommend to my students that they have a self-defense insurance policy to cover legal expenses.

The definition of what constitutes reasonable force varies in relationship to the circumstances of the assault. To determine if the degree of force used by a defender is reasonable, a legal standard called the “reasonable person standard” is used to judge the circumstances of the attack and the counterforce used by the defender. Under this reasonable person standard, actions will be considered reasonable if a “reasonable person” would have acted in the same way under the same (or similar) circumstances.

The Problem - Fantasy Versus Reality

There are several problems with contemporary weapons training. Current weapons training is often conducted in “sterile” training environments where there is no real risk and your brain knows that. The human brain knows the difference between fantasy and reality. When a friendly training partner comes at me with a dummy training knife, that is an artificial situation with no real threat. The human brain knows the difference between a mock attack and a life-threatening situation. An assailant launching a sudden assault has a significant advantage over an unaware victim. Even the best trained combat or law enforcement operatives experience a lag time during which they are attempting to “read” the situation and the brain is deciding on what level of force is appropriate to utilize. A committed assailant has already processed their intent to inflict harm and does not have this mental processing handicap. In many cases, their attack is already being launched before the victim realizes what is happening and can react.

Other problems regarding weapons training may include:

1. Whether the combat weapons instructor has real world experience that they can transmit to inexperienced students. How many weapons instructors have been involved in real-life knife attacks or attempted to disarm a violent assailant with a knife? 2. Training is often unidimensional (meaning that the training frequently involves straight-line attacks and defense). 3. Training is not stress tested to see how well techniques and students stand up to the kind of sudden and violent attacks seen in the street. 4. Training is often provided in short, one weekend seminars, and this kind of training without consistent and long-term follow-up training has been shown to be ineffective for both military and law enforcement purposes. These short-term training classes are great for creating delusional beliefs regarding a participant’s abilities.

There is a factor in education called learning degradation. Learning degradation is the loss or erosion of learning outcomes. The instruction in combat martial arts involves the same learning processes — recruitment of neurons in the brain and short-term and long-term memory storage that occurs in learning and mastering any skill. It does not matter whether the skill is carpentry or stabbing someone with a knife; the brain’s learning, memory, and retention processes are the same. A neuron with memory storage for a specific skill has no opinion as to whether the information stored is instructions for sawing a board in half or stabbing someone with a knife. Learning degradation will always occur relative to the quality of the initial and ongoing learning process and the amount of repetition invested in mastering a new skill.

Studies show that the more complex a skill is, the more accurate reactions and actions need to be. The faster the skill sets or techniques were taught to a student, the more rapidly memory and ability will degrade. As previously mentioned, there is a disconnect between a student’s belief in their ability based upon short-term training and the reality that is revealed in studies that put those beliefs to the test in real-life and high stress scenarios. This basically means that many combat martial artists have a high opinion of their skills, but when those skills are stress tested, they fail to demonstrate adequate proficiency. In a real-life scenario, these unfounded personal beliefs can result in tragic consequences.

Cramming combat weapons techniques or using a broad-brush stroke approach to training at weekend seminars is another factor that both distorts a student’s opinion of their ability and leads to rapid degradation and erosion of memory. Students need an accurate sense of what to expect in terms of real-life encounters with assailants. This includes understanding the speed and range in which the unexpected attack can occur. In many real-life scenarios, you will not have the time or space from which to draw your weapon. High-level complex skills are not practical in high stress situations. Therefore, you must hone your empty hand skills first. Your empty hand and weapons training needs to be organized in such a way that you are prepared for how to handle sudden close-range attacks — before, during, and after an assault.

The challenges presented by a violent attack in the street have little in common with the conditions that are presented in traditional martial arts training or contemporary sports martial arts.

Tough Times Call for Tough Responses

The challenges presented by a violent attack in the street have little in common with the conditions that are presented in traditional martial arts training or contemporary sports martial arts. If you are going to prepare for the current wave of overwhelming violence seen in our cities, then you must begin training with a significantly different approach to real-life lethal force encounters than has been routinely taught by many instructors. You must train for lethal force encounters in the real-life environments where these encounters occur... In other words, you must train in the street.

You must train for lethal force encounters in the real-life environments where these encounters occur... In other words, you must train in the street.

As has been previously mentioned, much of martial arts training is ineffective because it lacks valid context. This is due to several factors, including safety concerns and the convenience of training in a clean and comfortable training center (with grappling mats, punching bags, and other fighting equipment). But none of this gear and equipment exists in the street. Compared to a well-lit and temperature-controlled training center, the street is a foreign environment... and yet the street is the test tube where real-life situations occur. Very few instructors take their students into the environment where they are most likely to experience an attack. When was the last time you heard about a rape or mugging that occurred inside a martial arts school?

Real-life scenario and contextual training are a critical aspect of training and preparation for an assault. The greater the contextual disconnect between the way we train and the real-life scenarios that we might face in the street, the less likely we are to be capable of effectively protecting ourselves. Think about how your comfortable, climate controlled, and safe martial arts training center training is unlike the real world (with its traffic, sidewalks, curbs, signs, noise, and the general activity of an urban environment) or how different your school is from a bar,

restaurant, night club, or heavy metal concert. For years, our military and law enforcement personnel have trained for the environments in which they will serve and fight. This is because they have always known that real-world training is vital to developing effective skills, but in the martial arts community, we have largely ignored this lesson.

Think about how your comfortable, climate controlled, and safe martial arts training center training is unlike the real world (with its traffic, sidewalks, curbs, signs, noise, and the general activity of an urban environment).

Another lesson that has not been well recognized in the martial arts community is that complex techniques (involving multiple steps or movements) simply do not work when stress tested in real-life scenarios. The only skills that are effective are those that you can reliably execute under high stress. There is a significant difference between the ability to perform martial arts techniques in a safe and relaxed environment and when your life is being threatened. Complex skills usually fail where simple skills succeed.

In 1971, while training at Thomas Connor’s TRACO International Kosho Ryu Kenpo school in Mesa and Scottsdale, Arizona, one of my Kenpo instructors was jumped as he was exiting the back of the school late at night. The Mesa Kenpo school was adjacent to a bar with a bad reputation for almost nightly fights. Apparently, several of the bar’s patrons thought it would be fun to assault this instructor as he was walking down the darkened alley to his truck. The result of the attempted assault was that several of the attackers got a ride to the hospital to be treated for broken bones and concussions.

When the instructor discussed with me what happened during the attack (he was uninjured), he told me confidentially that he had not used any of the Kenpo self-defense combinations that he had practiced or taught. Under the suddenness and stress of the attack, even though he was a highly capable Kenpo black belt, he did not remember any of the complicated multi-step Kenpo combinations. He attributed prevailing in the unexpected violent attack to his superb physical conditioning and the fact that he could hit really hard.

You may not want to fight; you may hope that you will not have to, but you still must prepare. You cannot wish away the inevitable. When the moment to defend your life stares you in the face, step up and embrace it.

Sifu John Aldred teaching advanced student Abass Ali knife drill involving deflecting a punch and stabbing into the carotid artery.

A Real-Life Street Scenario

I was riding the bus late one evening — a cold night in an area of town that had a particularly bad reputation for muggings and violent assaults. Unfortunately, I was on the last bus of the evening, and it stopped several city blocks short of my normal stop so that it could turn and head back to the bus garage. As I exited the bus, two large, hooded individuals took notice of me and my bright new tennis shoes and headed towards me. One of them said, “Hey those are really nice shoes you are wearing.” A conversation ensued where my two “new shoe-loving friends” indicated that they would really appreciate it if I gave them my shoes. I politely declined and stood my ground. What my new friends did not realize as we faced off five feet from each other, was that in my right hand covered by a mitten was a fixed blade knife. All I had to do was to stab it through the cloth of the glove and into them. What the predators did not understand or plan for was facing another predator — armed and ready with a naked blade in his hand.

Why was I prepared? Why did I have a fixed blade knife in a mitten? Because I surveyed and evaluated the environment around the bus stop before I got off the bus. I assessed the two potential “problem” individuals and was ready for them.

Real-Life Training and Assault Preparedness

As was previously mentioned, combat empty hand and weapons training may be organized on three broad levels:

1. Pre-assault 2. Active assault 3. Post-assault

All three of these levels have been covered in Embracing the Blade, Part 1 and Part 2. Preparation before an assault incorporates your empty hand and combat weapons training, along with risk avoidance and situational awareness. The best way to successfully deal with an assault is not to be there to begin with. When an assault occurs, your training and conditioning will kick in. If you have trained appropriately (in accordance with known methods of learning and memory retention), you may prevail during a violent encounter. After an assault, you may have to deal with emergency medical issues, the legal repercussions related to self-defense laws and weapon restrictions, and the emotional and stress related consequences on the mind and body.

Most empty hand and combat weapon training is designed for practice in a school or training seminar... not for the street. Real-life training needs to be evidence-based, the result of proven experience, and pragmatic. Once again, much of what is taught (or that appears on various social media platforms or blogs) is not based upon experience or measurable performance; it is theoretical and transmitted from instructor to student in staged training sessions. If an instructor is not trained in contemporary education learning methodology (or the science of learning), much of what is taught and how it’s taught will be ineffective at best (and perhaps harmful).

Real-world training focuses on simple proven techniques that are practiced long-term and repetitively, and that are taught and practiced slowly. The brain will not track and repeat training skills that are complex, crammed into a short period of time, and that are practiced too quickly or too infrequently.

Below: Talon Protectives student Erin Johnston practicing slow deliberate knife drills with advanced student Mohamed

The training mantra is “Simple, Slow, Repetition.” If you cannot effectively execute a skill (for example, an attack to the anterior throat region), then you will not be able to perform the technique under stress and at full speed. This is an approach to skill acquisition that correctly mirrors the learning processes of the human brain. Another factor is that training needs to be structured around role playing scenarios that are contextually accurate. This not only includes real-life scenarios on the training mats but also location-based training in the streets. If you do not know this and do not train like this, your weapon skills are probably useless. Something else to consider: based upon assault and defense statistics, you probably will not be carrying (or have immediate access to) your weapon when you are attacked.

Slow, repetitive training (a method long ago adopted by and inculcated into Tai Chi Chuan) is the most effective way to gain physical skill that gets translated into long-term memory. This is certainly not going to happen during a two-day seminar with technique after technique jammed into the training schedule. Rather than gaining real skill, the student leaves the experience with the illusion of ability and capability.

Gaining the capability to flip the mental switch and to inflict catastrophic injury requires the acceptance of violence as a form of physical and mental communication — freed from judgment, hesitation, or regret. This ability has nothing to do with your 5, 10, 15, or 20 years in the dojo or the color of your belt.

Cause and Effect

Many self-defense systems are based upon training that teaches choreographed reactions to an attack. Rarely will you prevail if you wait to react to an attack or continue to fight defensively. You must become the cause: put your assailant into a defending or reacting posture. We know that in this world we have two physical laws based upon cause and effect. The term “cause” is used to describe an action which will produce a certain result. An assailant swinging a club at your head is looking to cause blunt force trauma to your head and brain that will result in unconsciousness or worse — so that they can rob or take advantage of you in other ways.

While choreographed training can teach students certain fundamental fighting skills (such as stance, weight placement, striking techniques and other basics), the effective combat fighter cannot and does not rely upon predetermined movements or combinations. The most effective form of fighting results for instantaneous, spontaneous, and creative movements and techniques unconsciously executed with speed, power, accuracy, and penetration. In real-life fighting, principles are more important that techniques. Some fighters confuse thinking about doing something with doing something. If you must think about a technique before you can execute it, you are not in the fight and much too slow.

Let’s amplify this concept in terms of blocking punches, kicks, or any attack that an assailant is directing towards you. Unless you are fighting an extremely inexperienced or impaired attacker, blocking does not work in most violent scenarios. And yet, many martial artists practice blocking and complex redirecting techniques for thousands of hours. This is largely wasted effort. Worse, it is programming a fighter to use ineffective techniques. Your objective when attacked suddenly and violently is to stop your assailant by executing an effective technique — as quickly and brutally as you can. You don’t train to block; you train to stop your assailant by making them physically and mentally unable to continue. One example is to practice forcefully hitting the most vital areas of the human body: areas that maim or kill will stop an attack. This might involve hitting through an assailant’s strike with such force and speed that it not only neutralizes the line of their attack against you, but it also penetrates to inflict serious damage to the assailant. Learning how to deliver such decisive and forceful attacks requires working out with heavy bags and various kinds of striking equipment. One of the greatest examples of supreme skill in this regard was the late Bruce Lee, the founder of Jeet Kun Do. The best combat fighters understand and have mastered this principle. Fight from your point of greatest power and ability. Don’t waste time or energy on defense. Step up and brutally incapacitate the assailant in a way that results in the shutdown of their brain, nervous, and cardiovascular systems.

Continuing with the principle of instantaneous offensive attack, many fighters step into a defensive stance and hesitate. Tactically, this is a weak position to take. Some of these fighters have been trained in traditional or modern sports martial arts; there, the fighters take a position and wait for the referee to start the fight. Obviously, there is no referee in the street. The learned behavior to step into a defensive stance and to initially hesitate is an error that can get you hurt or killed. If you have acquired this habit through civilized training in a martial arts school, train yourself out of it by learning to attack as soon as you perceive a threat. The person that strikes first has the advantage and the person that continues to attack maintains the advantage.

Most martial art, tactical, and combative instructors became teachers through the age-old process of transmission of knowledge and skill through practice and experience. In other words, they studied the martial arts and stuck with their training long enough to become an instructor. Being a good martial arts student does not necessarily mean that a martial artist will be a good teacher.

There is a science to learning called “learning science,” and while some martial art, tactical, and combative instructors come to this knowledge naturally or through trial and error, many do not. In academic circles, teaching is a profession that encompasses learning methodologies. Learning methodologies are a collection of concepts, strategies, techniques, and methods that attempt to improve learning and skill acquisition outcomes in students. Largely, the martial art community has not adopted contemporary learning methodologies or the science of learning.

As has already been noted in this article, short-term seminars (where information and practice skills are crammed into a few hours) do not result in significant gains in ability for the execution of martial arts techniques - especially those that involve complex movements. What has been shown to work in terms of increasing knowledge and skill is training that incorporates:

1. Slow deliberate movements 2. Repetition of movements and techniques 3. Simplicity 4. Shorter training sessions that decrease learning fatigue 5. Long-term training 6. Modification of techniques and skills throughout the training cycle

Let’s use Tai Chi Chuan as an example of what is right and wrong regarding traditional and common training methods. When it comes to slow repetitive movement of postures and techniques, Tai Chi Chuan instructors got it right. There are several areas, however, where contemporary learning methodologies could improve the learning outcomes for Tai Chi Chuan students. For example, many Tai Chi Chuan instructors and students practice a Tai Chi form repetitively and with the goal of perfecting the flow of the postures in the same way each time the form is practiced. This common methodology is not effective in stimulating continual learning or improving upon martial skills. The brain likes change and stimulation, and it learns from both the mistakes we make in training and new information that is presented to it via our senses. Therefore, traditional training in the martial arts and Tai Chi Chuan had many mental, physical, and spiritual dimensions. These dimensions included:

1. Dao Yin/Breath Work 2. Martial Chi Kung/Iron Shirt 3. Tai Chi Chuan 4. Environment Training and Conditioning 5. Push Hands 6. Strength/Power Training 7. Weapons 8. Sparring/Fighting 9. Academic Study of the Arts 10. Prayer/Meditation

I have not listed these ten dimensions in any special order in terms of practice sequence. I have called them dimensions because each one of them is an ocean of knowledge with an endless array of techniques and skill sets. The mastery of any one of these dimensions takes years, decades, and a lifetime of constant practice and striving. None of the ten dimensions are a destination; they are instead an endless journey. Learning is a lifetime process, not an event.

As we examine and study how we learn, retain, and improve upon martial skills, we discover that initial learning of any new technique or movement needs to be performed slowly and deliberately, with daily repetition and with changes and modification over time. We need to vary our training schedules from day to day. Few people have the time between work, school, and/or family obligations to perform activities in all ten dimensions daily.

Once again, using Tai Chi Chuan as an example, I teach my students several different forms of Tai Chi Chuan. I invite students to study more than one style of Tai Chi Chuan from the five major family styles. I recommend that they study all three of the internal martial arts, including Hsing Yi and Pakua Chang. I teach students to practice slowly to improve style and accuracy, with strength and Fa Jing to develop power, and finally at full speed to test the other elements (style and power along with accuracy). I encourage students to incorporate striking skills, kicking, punching, elbows, shoulder strokes, etc., on various kinds of punching bags or shields. Many traditional martial artists were farmers or were engaged in some form of hard physical labor, but many contemporary students have desk jobs, so weight training is an important element of martial art training. There is a direct relationship between the ability to run (and specifically to sprint) that corresponds to overall body and hand speed. Therefore, our training should include moderate amounts of running and sprinting.

After a student has acquired proficiency in the Tai Chi form, they need to practice the form for style, power, and speed along with changing the form through executing the numerous applications of each posture. For example, through one performance of the form, they may extend each posture into an application and change the applications of the posture every time they practice the form. Each posture should also be practiced separately from the form, along with as many applications of the posture that the student has learned. The individual applications should be practiced slowly for accuracy and power (Fa Jing) and then for speed. Then the applications should be applied to push hands practice and sparring. The variations derived from combining the ten dimensions in a training schedule are limitless and will employ a serious student in the study of the martial arts for a lifetime.

Advanced Talon Protectives student Mohamed Jabateh practicing a Kenpo knife form. The individual applications should be practiced slowly for accuracy and power (Fa Jing) and then for speed.

For this example and explanation, I have used Tai Chi Chuan because of its early adoption (several hundred years ago) of slow movements for the initial training process of students and because of that method’s proven success in contemporary evidence-based learning sciences. This same example may be applied to modern tactical and combative training.

In this article, I have talked about the failure of many traditional martial arts to prepare students for real-life violent and predatory situations. However, if these traditional martial arts taught their students the original and true skills and training methods of the past (such as Chin Na), this would not be the case. Everything needed for the traditional martial arts to be effective for combat and street worthiness has been available to instructors, but many instructors simply have not taught these skills to their students. Perhaps they never learned them. As one of my instructors taught me: “Greg, you cannot teach what you do not know, you cannot give a gift you do not possess."

Talon Protectives

Those of you that have been following my articles in Lift Hands magazine have seen my transition from the term “self-defense” to “self-protection.” I really think that the term self-defense is misleading and is an erroneous concept as it is misapplied to combat martial arts. I teach my students the principles of avoidance, threat assessment, evasion, and retreat, but also (when it is justified) preemptive, offensive, and catastrophic attacks. In an aggressive encounter, if someone states that they are going to kill you, believe them and take them out before they get the chance.

I run small classes for people of sound mental and emotional capacity who want to learn how to protect themselves from violent, bigger, stronger, and faster opponents. I call these small, specialized classes Talon Protectives. I teach students basic empty hand combat techniques that maim and kill. I also teach bladed weapons (such as the knife) as well as firearms. My students are often individuals who have experienced violent assault, domestic abuse, or rape. These are individuals who are not your “normal” traditional martial art or mixed martial art students and who do not have until 2030 to become proficient in the martial arts.

I teach my students five levels of threat assessment, and I suggest that human to human conflicts may be categorized into five categories. These categories do not necessarily have to flow from one to the other in numerical sequence; in fact, they rarely do. For example, a conflict may begin and end in the assertiveness stage, or a situation may suddenly begin with violence or predatory violence. Likewise, an initially assertive person who is not getting their way may become aggressive or violent.

These are the five categories that I break human to human conflict into:

1. Assertiveness – Healthy assertiveness is the personal expression of confident and affirming behavior. We may disagree with someone, but that disagreement does not necessarily to lead to aggressive behavior. 2. Aggression – Aggression is a demonstration of the beginning stages of physical and psychologic threat, bullying, and intimidation. Aggression is a domineering pursuit of one’s opinion, aims, interests and/or needs. 3. Forceful Aggression – Forceful aggression is a psychological manifestation of hostile behavior or attitudes toward another person or persons. It represents a readiness to attack, or it may become an actual physical attack that does not have the intent to cause serious harm, injury, or death. 4. Violence – Violence is the intent to inflict direct physical and psychological harm to another person through behavior that results in injury or death. 5. Predatory Violence – Predatory violence is a form of violence that is inflicted on a person by someone who is psychologically developed by circumstance, conditioning, and/or mental illness. Predators include individuals with aberrant behavior patterns, career criminals, sociopaths, and psychopaths.

I teach that actions against a violent or predatory assailant require a total commitment to inflict catastrophic injury by shutting down the neurological and cardiovascular systems of the attacker. This concept is not new or the property of any contemporary martial art, tactical or combative instructor. These types of techniques have been utilized in combat and warfare for centuries. In the Chinese martial arts, they are organized into what is called chin na, which means to grab or to seize. Some chin na techniques are taught as joint locks, but this is a more contemporary translation of chin na applications and one that does not meet my requirements for teaching effective self-protection skills. I was taught (and I teach) the more direct method of breaking, dislocating, or separating joints. Additionally, chin na techniques can be organized into those that attack nerves, blood vessels, organs, and chi. The attacks on meridian points are often associated with anatomically underlying nerves, blood vessels, or organs. I do not teach or utilize chi or meridian techniques that do not inflict immediate catastrophic

We have already addressed the fact that the more complex a series of self-defense movements are, the less likely they are to be effective. I teach women and people who are not training themselves to fight in the ring or Octagon bladed weapons and chin na because students can learn these effective skills in a very short time. Talon Protective techniques and drills are simple and direct and do not take 10,000 hours to learn.

What doesn’t work is teaching a 100-pound woman to punch a 200-pound man in the face…

What doesn’t work is teaching a 100-pound woman to punch a 200-pound man (who is five times stronger than her) in the face; she will probably break her hand and her slightly irritated attacker will break her. If your hands are not conditioned to punch (and even if they are), you will probably break them on some one’s face. Professional boxers and MMA fighters frequently break their hands even though they are wrapped and wearing gloves. Mike Tyson (Iron Mike) has broken his hands several times in the ring and in street fights. Try defending yourself if you managed to break your hand in the first few seconds of an assault with techniques that you learned in a cardio-kickboxing class.

Talon Protectives doesn’t utilize techniques designed for 24-year-old gym rats with godlike bodies, strength, and reflexes. It doesn’t take strength to gouge someone in the eye, just intent and skill; yet this is a highly effective technique. It is not difficult to learn how to stab a knife into the eye socket or the carotid artery. Almost no strength is needed, and the skill set can be learned in a very short time through simple drills taught slowly and repetitively. Many people, men and women alike, need real-life training in self-protection skills. These students may be small of stature, deconditioned, elderly, disabled, or dealing with personal health issues, but they still need and seek self-protection training.

A student’s physical condition will define their range of motion, speed, balance, and endurance. In Talon Protectives, the student does not conform to the training; rather, the training conforms to the student. The quick flick of a knife across the face and eyes has been shown to be faster than an assailant attempting to draw a gun or other weapon, and it will be painful, maiming, and blinding. This is a technique that requires almost no strength or endurance, and the set up for the technique is more important than lightning speed. The length, weight, or type of knife used is not important either, and many students use a small two-inch blade neck knife for this application. Even a razor blade would get the job done.

As has been stated previously, many systems of martial arts, tactical and combative training are too complex and complicated; the learning curve is much too long, and the erosion of skill and ability over time is significant. The primary focus of Talon Protective is principles, not techniques. Talon Protective techniques and drills are based upon simple striking skills taken from other martial arts systems. For example, in Kosho Ryu Kenpo, there is a technique called finger flick. Finger flick is a fast flick of the fingers across the mask of the face and the eyes. When performed with as an empty hand technique, it is often used to set up another strike like a backfist or a palm to the head or jaw; when executed with a small concealable knife, it can cause pain or blindness; when delivered across the forehead, it can cause heavy bleeding downward into the eyes.

“Finger Flick” with a knife delivered across the forehead, it can cause heavy bleeding downward into the eyes.

An effective technique is to cut or slash whatever part of the assailant’s anatomy is reaching or striking to make contact with your head or face. For example, most often an assailant will unleash their attack with their hands or fists, and this makes them vulnerable to cuts or slashes across the fingers, fists, wrists, and forearms. If you can cut or slash your assailant in these areas there is normally a reflective reaction, much like when you burn your hand on a hot stove, to withdraw the damaged hand and arm. We train to follow the wounded limb as it is withdrawn and to attack points further up the arm, like the armpit or axillary region, or the neck or face. 34

Above: Most often an assailant will unleash their attack with their hands or fists, and this makes them vulnerable to cuts or slashes across the fingers, fists, wrists, and forearms.

Below: We train to follow the wounded limb as it is withdrawn and to attack points further up the arm, like the armpit or axillary region, or the neck or face.

We also modify empty hand techniques from several martial arts including from internal styles like Tai Chi Chuan and Pakua Chang as well as Kosho Ryu Kenpo. An example of this is a Kenpo technique called The Anvil. In the empty hands version of this technique the hands are clasped together and driven into the face, throat, or solar plexus. In the modified knife version of this technique the hands are crossed at the wrist and the knife slashes horizontally across the throat.

Talon Protectives Principles of Conflict

The following concepts form some of the basic principles of Talon Protectives:

Avoid trouble and conflict. Practice situational awareness. If possible, disengage, retreat, and/or run. Everyone has the capacity to defend themselves. Everyone has the legal and moral right to defend themselves. When it is time to act, act preemptively. Conceal your weapons and your intent until it is time to attack. Preemptive attacks must be anatomically specific, surgical, and catastrophic. Possess a total commitment to inflict catastrophic injury. When facing a threat or an aggressive individual, assume that you will have to defend yourself and prepare to do so. Attack continuously and until the attacker is incapacitated. Assume the worst, and train for the worst. You are the weapon; the knife is a tool. Don’t fear weapons — master them.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. These words are usually attributed to the renowned Albert Einstein. This statement describes much of the training being presented to students in the martial art, tactical and combative community. As I see it, when training in a lethal combat system like Talon Protectives, the solution is not to repeat the same type of training that has been proven to be ineffective or to practice from a defensive victim mentality, but to change how we train and fight in conformity to current methods of education that pertain to how we humans learn new skills. I hope that this short article, my previous articles in this series, and similar articles I have written for Lift Hands magazine will serve as a catalyst for changing how students are trained to face potentially lethal encounters with violent predators. After all, we are not training students to play tennis or soccer; we are training them to face the worst day of their life and survive. You may not want to fight; you may hope that you will not have to fight, but you still must prepare to fight. Find the beast within you and be the beast!

We are not training students to play tennis or soccer; we are training them to face the worst day of their life and survive. Find the beast within you and be the beast!

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Acknowledgement

I offer my sincere appreciation and thank you to Sifu John Aldred and students Erin Johnston, Abass Ali and Mohamed Jabateh for their capable assistance with this article and for serving as models for the photographs. Sifu John Aldred is a highly trained and skilled martial artist who has trained with me and beside me for over two decades in Tai Chi Chuan, Pakua Chang, and Kosho Ryu Kenpo. Abass Ali is a talented and dedicated martial artist who has trained with me for the past ten years. Erin Johnston is a new student who is pursuing training in Talon Protectives.

Photography Attribution:

Credit for the exquisite and “edgy” photographs used in this article goes to professional photographer Lisa Hampton and her associate Emmerson Bissell. Once again, we turned the photoshoot into a “party” challenging the professional skills of photographer Lisa Hampton. Who would have thought that keeping a straight face or looking menacing would be both difficult and fun.

About the author:

Gregory T. Lawton, D.C., D.N., D.Ac. is a chiropractor, naprapath, and acupuncturist. He is the founder of the Blue Heron Academy of Healing Arts and Sciences where he teaches biomedicine, medical manual therapy, and Asian medicine. Dr. Lawton is nationally board certified in radiology, physiotherapy, manual medicine, and acupuncture.

The Blue Heron Academy was founded over forty years ago by Dr. Lawton as a training center for women in transition who were victims of rape, incest, and domestic abuse.

Since the early 1960s Dr. Gregory T. Lawton has studied and trained in Asian religion, philosophy, and martial arts such as aikido, jujitsu, kenpo/kempo, and tai chi chuan. Dr. Lawton served in the U.S. Army between 1965 and 1968 achieving the rank of Sergeant E-5.

Dr. Lawton’s most noted Asian martial art instructor was Professor Huo Chi-Kwang who was a student of Yang Shao Hou.