The Gates of Zion (A Non-Profit Organization)

Combat Training Principles -- Secrets For Staying Alive When 'Rules' Don't Apply

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"We must be eager to kill, to inflict on the enemy -- the hated enemy -- wounds, death, and destruction. If we die killing, well and good, but if we fight hard enough, viciously enough, we will kill and live. Live to return home to our family and our girl as conquering heroes -- men of Mars"
-- General George Patton
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What Is the Ultimate Motivation in a Life-or-Death Fight?

Is it fear? Is it love? Is it an all-consuming and overarching desire to live? Those all sound like good answers, don't they. Perhaps it's a potent mix of All of the Above?

In order to find the real answer, the answer that will get you back home alive, we need to look at this question from the killer's perspective. If a man comes after you, to murder you, he's probably not doing it out of fear for his life. He's not worried about his loved ones, or making it back home alive. The killer wants one thing, and one thing only:

He wants to kill you.

The way he moves, the way he goes about using the tools at his disposal (knife, stick or gun) is going to be focused on the singular idea of injuring you, dropping you, and finishing you on the ground. The thing that drives the knife forward, or pulls the trigger is his intent--his desire to get the job done. His goal is to cause as much damage, in the shortest time, as he can. His motivation will be nothing more than his desire to do so.

In order to level the field, you have to work the same way.

The things that people like to identify as motivators--reducing fear, seeing loved ones again, preserving your own life--are side-effect results of success in violent action. If a man comes after you and you break him and drop him and beat him to nonfunctional on the ground, you handled the threat and are no longer in danger. You get to be the one to go home. And you just earned the rest of your life.

None of those side-effects, as important and desirable as we may think they are, will get you to put your thumb in a man's eye and gouge it out. The only motivation that will keep you focused enough to get it done is your desire to blind him.

THE ULTIMATE MOTIVATION IS TO INFLICT AS MUCH HARM AS POSSIBLE

Period.

Home, hearth, family and friends, long life--these things you earn as a side-effect of doing the above.

Let's take a look at a concrete example of what I'm talking about:

A mugger brandishes a knife, threatening a person who has, as their primary motivation to act, their fear of being stabbed, or killed, their desire to make it back home alive to their children, their will to survive. They first and foremost hesitate as they consider the implications of what's before them, and all the possible outcomes: "Oh my god, he's got a knife--I could get stabbed to death!"

This focus on unrealized outcomes makes them more likely to occur--we now have two people in this situation who are leaning toward the same outcome! (The mugger wants to stab, the victim is worried about getting stabbed.) This puts the focus on the
knife, and off the mugger; the person, desperate to live, goes for the knife arm and enters into a wrestling match with the mugger... Should they lose control of the knife, they risk getting stabbed to death. Just as they worried they would. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now let's look at it from the other side:

A mugger brandishes a knife, threatening a person trained with no more motivation than 'to always do their worst' to the other guy--and that's exactly what happens. The first thing that occurs to them is to step in and punch the mugger in the throat as hard as they can, crushing it.

As a byproduct, the mugger is no longer a threat; loved ones are no longer in danger; you make it back home alive that night; you just took back the rest of your life. But only because you had as your driving, core motivation the same one as a killer: you did it for no other reason than to hurt the man.

I realize this sounds extreme; I've spent my entire career listening to people complain that I should 'tone it down.' But you know what? It's the truth. The truth isn't always pretty, or comfortable, or 'nice.' But this one small truth can mean the difference between life or death for you. And if it means helping just one person succeed in violent conflict when by all rights they should have lost...well, then I'm going to keep telling it like it is:

Your motivation is to hurt the man. Anything more complicated than that just gets in the way and puts you a half-step behind. And in violence second place isn't just first loser--it's dead.

Until next time,

Tim Larkin
Creator of Target-Focus(TM) Training
http://www.targetfocustraining.com

Combat Training Principles -- Secrets For Staying Alive When 'Rules' Don't Apply

"Is It Necessary To Know How To Kill?"

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"Violence is not always the answer, but when it is the answer, it's the ONLY answer" - Author Unknown
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NOTE: I realize the subject of this issue is highly controversial but urge you to read through this entire
issue before forming an opinion. I will revisit this subject more in the future.
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Lets start with a couple of questions:

1.) In this day and age, what could possibly be the reason to teach someone how to kill another human with his or her bare hands?

2.) Do I actually advocate instructing clients in this very specific, lethal material?

The answer to the first question is that there are MANY reasons why it is essential one get this lethal knowledge. The answer to the second question is: not only do I advocate teaching it, I ABSOLUTELY teach it to all my clients.

So, what are my reasons for taking this very controversial position?

First off, I've carefully laid out the principles behind the training I advocate for life-or-death situations. You have read in previous newsletters about the disastrous effects of training with rules against THE OTHER GUYS who don't observe those same rules.

It is very clear that using violence is appropriate in very few situations. To use violence for any reason other than hurting an other guy who would otherwise harm you is extremely risky.

You see, with proper knowledge of the nervous system of the human body one can effectively attack any assailant, regardless of size, strength or athletic ability.

So it is inconceivable that one could train a client for self-protection yet ignore the subject of killing. If faced with a life-or-death struggle you need clear, concise information on how to systematically shut down the other guy's central nervous system (CNS).

This is especially true for male-on-female violence, which females MUST treat as a lethal situation. Also any fighter facing a potentially lethal attack by a larger, stronger or faster other guy must be able to immediately shut down that other guy's CNS.

Still, very few instructors directly teach this knowledge. Why? It has been my experience few actually have the skill and expertise to do so. To hide this deficiency they state legal issues and spiritual reasons for not teaching such principles.

Yet many of the techniques they show will directly result in potentially lethal outcomes -- SOMETHING THAT IS NEVER POINTED OUT TO THE CLIENT!

In fact, most clients go through training with no clear knowledge of which strikes and techniques ARE lethal and what the impact is on the human body from these blows and manipulations.

I find it far more dangerous not to know how to kill when you consider the flip side of that knowledge is the fact that any time you put your hands on another human being to inflict violence you have no idea whatsoever how that person will respond to the blow.

A person built like Arnold Schwarzenegger may have a bad heart and your punch to the solar plexus to 'teach him a lesson' may, in fact, kill him. That is why I stress the difference between EGO THREAT situations and LIFE-OR-DEATH THREAT situations.

You probably heard about the 'Hockey Dad' trial in Massachusetts. A man ended up going to jail for manslaughter over an argument with his son's hockey coach. By all accounts the smaller coach was a real jerk and made the kids do some useless and dangerous training on the ice.

This 'Hockey Dad' voiced his concern and the verbal exchange led to a fight. 'Hockey Dad' ended up killing the smaller coach by repeated blows to the head.

It was not intentional, both were wrong. But the one common factor here was this: neither had any idea of the effects of those strikes upon the other! Both families lost their dads that day -- one was killed, the other is in jail.

It is my goal with a client to give you ALL the lethal knowledge necessary so you can make the decision on whether or not it is worth the potential legal hassles to fight over an EGO THREAT or to instantly be able to destroy the other guy's CNS in a LIFE-OR-DEATH THREAT.

I can't tell you how many testimonials I get from clients who have easily avoided the 'Hockey Dad' scenarios by having the clear knowledge of the appropriate use of violence. I value those testimonials as highly as the ones received from those who used the very same knowledge to save their lives in a life-or-death scenario.

Truly knowing how to kill another human places total responsibility on the trained individual, makes you a far better citizen and, in my experience, far less likely to use violence as an answer to any situation that is not life threatening.

Until next time,

Tim Larkin
Creator of Target-Focus(TM) Training
http://www.targetfocustraining.com

Combat Training Principles: Secrets For Staying Alive When 'Rules' Don't Apply

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It's Either You, or Him
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Someone's going to get it right first. Someone's going to get stabbed in the neck, and someone's going to be doing the stabbing. So... In a life-or-death situation, which do you pick?

While 'none of the above' is the hands-down best choice, that's not always an option. So of the two, 'do' or 'get done,' which one is you?

Yes, it's a stupid question--when given such a stark, limited choice we'll all choose to be the one doing it, right?

And yet, unless you're actually training to be the one doing it, you won't pick the obvious answer, even though you know in your gut it's the right one.

When viewed through a social lens, taking into account self-defense laws, societal mores, and even spiritual concerns, 'hitting first' is wrong. It's aggressive, offensive, and only the 'bad guys' do it--it's a defining feature of the violent criminal.

When taken at face value, the facts of violence show that second place is first loser. The first one to get it right--the first one to cause a serious injury and take advantage of that fact--is almost always the winner. The first one to take an eye, break a leg or bounce a head off the concrete usually gets the chance to do it again.

Training to wait and see, to block and counter is training to die. It's training to let the other guy dictate what happens--it puts him in charge and sets you up for disaster. It puts you permanently a half-step behind.

Such training causes people to try to block having just been stabbed--they get stabbed, they try to block it as he pulls the knife out and sticks it in them again, they try to block that over and over and so on to the inevitable end.

Violence, as a survival tool, has but one purpose--shutting off a human brain. To that end you have to focus your efforts on injuring the other man. Instead of worrying about what he's going to do to you, you want to make him worry about what you're doing to him.

Hit first, break things, and keep going until you're finished with him.

(Now, context is everything--violence, the way I'm talking about it, is only appropriate where you could expect him to do the same to you if you didn't act, and where inaction could cost you your life. It's stupid to do this to someone over a barstool... but it becomes chillingly 'normal' during a workplace shooting.)

It's simple cause and effect. You can either:

1) ACT to cause injuries in him, or

2) REACT to what he's doing, setting yourself up for failure.

It's funny how when this is presented as it was in the beginning of this letter (stab or be stabbed?), everyone agrees that the choice is obvious; whereas when it's time to train everyone gets into their defensive 'fighting' stance and wants to wait and see what the other guy's going to do.

There is no scale to the facts of violence--either you're the one doing it, or the one getting done. Period. Guns, knives, sticks, fists & boots... it doesn't matter. You're either on him or he's on you.

Injury is the fact that makes the difference. If you don't know how to reliably cause crippling injury, and what to do with it, I don't blame you for wanting to ball up and hang back. Without injury violence is a chaotic crapshoot.

But once you know how to ACT on him to make him REACT--once you know how to injure him & drop him so he can't get back up, once you know how to cripple a criminal who was dead-set on doing it to you, so that he has NO CHOICE in what happens next, well, then you'll understand what I'm talking about and you'll always want to be the one doing it first.

Knowledge breeds confidence--the confidence to be the one doing it instead of the one getting done. Knowing how to injure a man--and knowing what to do with that injury--is the shortest route to victory in life-or-death violence.

Until next time,

Tim Larkin
Creator of Target-Focus(TM) Training
http://www.targetfocustraining.com

PS. To see all the TFT video and live training offerings, head on over now to:
http://www.targetfocustraining.com/products_training.html

Creating Anarchy in the UK Media's Self Defense Debate

The uproar in London continues over whether or not the tool of violence should be available to citizens.

Seems I'm fast becoming the poster child for "Extreme Self Defence" in the UK (yes, that's how they spell 'defense' over there; with a 'c').

The debate has attracted the BBC, the Sunday Times, 2 separate documentary filmmakers (for both the BBC and Channel 4) as well as numerous newswires and magazines.

My Sept 26-27 London seminar is fast approaching capacity and I'm considering extending my stay to handle the media requests and offer another seminar (the Sunday Times will be in attendance and has the print media exclusive for this one).

I'm being called everything from a "refreshing breath of sober advice" to the "Billy Mays of Violence" by the UK media.

I think they were trying to insult me on that last one but I was a big fan of Billy Mays and if you ever watched the show Pitchmen you know why. He was a good guy who only backed products he truly believed in. And he was someone who never took himself too seriously.

The debate in England seems to rest on the misguided fact that, if citizens are well-versed in the tool of violence for self protection, it will somehow transform them into hardened criminals.

The media and public officials conveniently dismiss the fact that self defense laws in the UK haven't begun to keep up with the heinous asocial criminal acts of violence occurring with alarming regularity there.

In fact, in many of my interviews, these folks seem committed to actually ignoring this fact! Uh, what is it they say about the ostrich with its head in the sand...

Anyway, why this irrational response?

I'd ask you to refer to my last blog Self Defense Training for The Man Of Ideas.

There I discuss the reality which many people choose to ignore. It's simply the fact that we live in a physical world...something predators fully understand and readily exploit!

As a reader of my newsletter, I don't need to remind you of my strict definition of where and when violence is ever the right tool for the job.

But it seems the UK media and government officials are dead set against opening this debate. Fortunately, I've got thick skin.

If you missed the articles on all this check out my Facebook page here.

And if you haven't been to a TFT live Seminar and are waiting for the right one, wait no longer. After attending this TFT London training I'm guessing you'll agree... it was one for the books!

(Just don't be disappointed if the mayor of Slough isn't there as your training partner).

Taking violence with the utmost seriousness but myself, not so much, in honor of the late Billy Mays, until next time,

Tim Larkin
Creator & Founder,
Target-Focus Training

PS. Speaking of that ostrich... those of you in the land down under shouldn't snicker.

Combat Training Principles: Secrets For Staying Alive When 'Rules' Don't Apply

The Missing Link Between What You're Doing & What Happens to Him

Traditional martial arts training brings to mind the image of row upon row of uniformed students furiously striking the air, shouting in unison. Much of the class time is devoted to the perfection of punching and kicking drills, with an overwhelming emphasis on form and 'looking good.' I remember in my early martial arts training being told by a master that I could not hope to understand, let alone use, a specific strike until I had performed the motion a thousand times. Much of my youth was spent on hour after hour practicing the various punches, kicks and techniques to perfection. In this kind of training, quantity was used as a path toward quality. Everything had to look just so -- and you were judged by your ability to mimic this look. The black belts would stalk the rows, making minute adjustments to the height of your arm, the tilt of the wrist. It was truly an emphasis of form over function. These were adjustments in choreography, with little or no discussion of how such things might affect the end result. There was something missing between me, my 'performance' and actually doing something useful to the other guy: A CLEAR DEFINITION OF THE RESULT

When I asked about the purpose of a specific move, I was usually answered in one of several ways:
- A generic or imprecise result: "It rattles his brains."
- An answer that flew in the face of basic physics and physiology: "It shatters his femur."
- Or, my favorite, the 'Thousand-Years-of-Tradition' answer, where I was chastised for daring to question the Master.

Something was definitely missing -- but a 'clear definition of the result' is really just a symptom of what's not there. That missing element was a TARGET. And not a 'target' like 'head' or 'torso,' but a specific piece of anatomy with a specific job
to do. What I wanted to know was WHERE to hit the guy, WHAT I'm breaking when I do it, and HOW that's going to affect his normal functioning. Something straightforward like:  EYEBALL -- LACERATE THE CORNEA -- BLIND HIM

There's a clear-cut target with what you're going for and what it'll do to him when you get it. It's an answer medical professionals can all agree would be a Bad Thing to do to someone (under normal circumstances) and would indeed cause problems for the person getting it done to them.  Why, in the big scheme of things, is this really all that important? Because
knowing the specific target gives you an aim-point, a single square inch to focus all your efforts on; it gives you an achievable goal (ruining that single thing so it doesn't work any more); and it gives you a way to gauge your success (if he starts to
behave like an injured man, you know you got it).

This is the opposite of 'empty technique,' of kicking the air a thousand times an hoping for the best.  Will you look good doing it? Hell no. But 'looking good' has nothing to do with getting it done right. All that matters is hitting that target -- that single
anatomical feature -- hard enough to break it. That's it. That's the 'secret' of the criminal sociopath.

How you look has no effect on the result -- if you can target that single square inch, and put everything you have through it -- eye, throat, groin, knee so that he's blind, can't breath, in agony and crippled... it's immaterial whether you did so with dance-like grace and agility or with the ugly 'thumpitude' of a back-alley beat-down.

That said, our definition of what 'looks good' differs from the 'millimeter-adjustments-of-the-fist' crowd. In the end, efficacy and efficiency are what 'looks good' in violence:
- spot-on, surgical targeting
- complete follow-through
- moving dynamically with the injured man -- staying right on top of him so he can't get away

Since everyone moves differently (we each have a unique gait, for example) this is going to look slightly different from person to person. Proper biomechanics have general rules for what works (throw your weight through him and make sure you're braced to make it stick) -- but the specific way you get this done will be unique to you.

I will never try to make you move like me -- I'll show you how to move like YOU.  And break people in the process.

Until next time,
Tim Larkin
Creator of Target-Focus(TM) Training
http://www.targetfocustraining.com
And as time permits, I'll answer selected questions. Submit your questions at: comments@targetfocustraining.com
If someone forwarded this newsletter for you to read, be sure and sign up for your own personal copy at:
http://www.targetfocustraining.com
There you'll find the tools that can help you survive a violent criminal attack.
(c) Copyright 2003-2008, The TFT Group
Target Focus Training
210 E Flamingo Rd #125
Las Vegas, NV 89109
United States
(206) 686-3469

Combat Training Principles -- Secrets For Staying Alive When 'Rules' Don't Apply

"The Difference Between A Weapons Fighter And Fighting With Weapons"

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"Men have become the tool of their tools"
- Henry David Thoreau
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Fighting with weapons is a subject that has generated volumes of writing in the combat arts world. What is
interesting to note is that for the most part weapons training is treated as requiring a completely different set of training principles as opposed to 'empty hand' fighting.

In fact, there are whole martial arts devoted to just training with a weapon. All this leads to tremendous
confusion from the client's point of view.

Basically, you end up with 2 totally different sets of principles in response to violent attacks:

1) One response for a hand-to-hand assault, and
2) A completely different response to a weapons attack

Now, on the surface you may think this is a very logical way to view two, seemingly different, attacks.

But let's go back to my earlier point in Newsletter #2. Remember what we talked about?

Your brain is your primary weapon; your body is your secondary weapon.

If that works for you, as the fighter, then it is equally true for the other guy... he just may not know
it!

Given this, what is your weapon-wielding other guy most likely focusing on?

You got it... HIS OWN PHYSICAL WEAPON!

That's right. He's likely banking on the fact that the intimidation factor of his weapon alone is enabling him to do whatever he wants because you are going to fear his weapon.

And if you are trained to believe there are different rules when fighting against weapons versus hand-to-
hand... then he is probably correct.

That other guy is a good example of a 'Weapons Fighter'.

The definition of a 'weapons fighter' is a person who is solely empowered by his weapon in a confrontation.
His whole plan of attack revolves around the use of the weapon. If the weapon is lost to him during the
conflict then he needs to change his fighting principles to handle his prey.

In fact, without the use of the weapon, he may quit the assault altogether and retreat.

This is not the way I train my clients.

Your fighting principles MUST be the same with or without a weapon.

Fighting is fighting regardless of whether you have a weapon, are facing a weapon, are on the ground, or are
assaulted by more than the other guy.

When you truly understand that your brain is your primary weapon, your body your secondary weapon, and
EVERYTHING else (read knife, club, or weapon of choice) is ancillary, you then become a person that knows how to FIGHT WITH A WEAPON... rather than being a 'weapons fighter'.

The former gives you unlimited options; the latter limits you to the weapon in hand.

My clients achieve the former because they are taught consistent principles that don't change whether they
fight with a weapon or against a weapon.

They understand how to properly use all weapons yet remain focused on the fact whatever they hold in their
hands is just one of many weapons they command.

By understanding how to fight with weapons they also understand how to defeat the 'weapons fighter'. This
significantly improves their odds when attacked without the use of an ancillary weapon.

So what will you train to be --- a 'Weapons Fighter' or a person who knows how to FIGHT WITH WEAPONS?

Until next time,

Tim Larkin
Creator of Target-Focus(TM) Training
http://www.targetfocustraining.com