Self Defense Training

Ever heard of this guy?
http://www.targetfocustraining.com/index.html

Thanks,

flyboy

Hi Flyboy,

I never heard of this training program but it looks ok and focused purely on self defense which is good.
There's a part in the video where a guy purposefuly goes to the floor on second 37, looks as if he's doing some weapon retention drill, not sure why but I'd avoid going to the floor by all means in a real fight.
The one thing I noticed that there’s no non cooperative attacker drills (at least not in that intro video). If you don’t have non cooperative training (fighting) then it’s not very realistic.
Even if the instructor is a SEAL, his SEAL powers wont rub on to you just because you hang around him. :-) You need to fight yourself and fight against someone that wants to either knock you down or submit you.
If it sounds like competition, that’s because it is. It’s life, there’s winners and losers. If you go back home you win, if you end up dead you lose.
Another thing I noticed, is the confidence boost some of the people appeared to have.
When I went boxing for the first time, I got no confidence boost, got my ass kicked instead. After getting my ass kicked for some time I started doing some of my own ass kicking. Same when I started with Vale Todo and floor fighting, I was forced to tap out more times than I can remember, it was a humbling experience, not a false sense of security.
The close combat fighting class I took a few months ago? Again, I left feeling I needed more training, not less.
Beware of false senses of security. I don’t know much but I know that feeling all bad ass after a couple days of cooperative partner training means nothing, and may even do more harm than good boosting a person’s confidence beyond his/her real capabilities.
Then there’s marketing, and I think I mentioned this on the Krav Maga thread as well.
If you advertise your system or class in a way everyone feels they can do it, you’ll get more customers, more people that will pay for what you offer.
The class I took on close quarter H2H combat pretty much said bring a mouth piece and be ready to fight. There was no mistake and no feel good marketing strategy, and it was made abundantly clear that we we’re going to fight for real. We used mouth pieces and padded gloves, but those where the minimum safety measures. Other than that fingers to the eyes and groin kicks were all allowed. There was no excuse. No “Oh, but on the street I’d do this and that…”
No one was surprised when all those supposedly super deadly dirty tricks made almost no difference.
Of course in that class, you didn’t find soccer mom’s or couch commandos, you found fighters, people that had no problem delivering and receiving punches, kicks and pain in order to improve their H2H and knife skills.
Again, humbling experience, not false sense of security.
But that’s were the economic problem starts. An instructor needs to make a living. If you reduce your market sector to people that are fighters, guys and women that don’t worry much about getting a bloody nose, cut, bruised or a nose broken, that class isn’t going to be very big, because most people wont go for it.
Everyone has to start somewhere, and there should be self defense classes for men, women, senior citizens, beginners and advanced people.
Just don’t have false expectations and beware of anyone, any system or course that promises to turn you into someone with serious self defense capabilities just with a few days of training.
If the system doesn’t even include non cooperative training, be even more suspicious and think twice before spending your time and money there.

FerFAL