Almost Every Conflict Is Won -- Or Lost -- With
This One Weapon
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"Its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the
size of the fight in the dog."
- Mark Twain
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To truly prepare yourself for life or death
confrontations you must take inventory of those
weapons readily available to you.
When my trainers ask new clients to list the
"weapons" at their disposal, they give a variety of
answers. Most tend to focus on either the actual
weapons they carry on their person or objects they use
on a day-to-day basis that might be utilized as
improvised weapons (briefcase, umbrella, pen, etc.).
This response is not confined to the
"unsophisticated" trainee, either. Extremely
competent, well-trained military commandos and special
law enforcement personnel I train give the exact same
answers!
The difference is these operators usually categorize
the weapons available to them as primary (rifle or
submachine gun) and secondary (side arm, knives, etc).
In both cases, however, the highly trained operator
and the uninitiated almost ALWAYS fail to list their
most powerful weapon.
That weapon is ... Their MIND!
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Unfortunately today, very little effort is made to
properly train your mind for violent confrontation. In
fact most martial arts and combat sports go out of
their way to actually negate this "primary weapon
system" by focusing on defensive-based training. Their
programs revolve around REACTING to your attacker's
actions rather than focusing your actions on DEFEATING
the threat.
This defensive thinking causes you to hesitate as
your mind tries to figure out what is happening rather
than focusing on "targets" of opportunity.
By constantly drilling on blocks and on counters to
attacks, and through being told never to initiate
action, your mind habitually attempts to protect you
by reacting to what is happening -- rather than
helping you to defeat your attacker.
Correct training of your mind is the CRITICAL
component that unleashes your ability to take
advantage of all the other weapons available to you.
Give your mind the wrong command ... and you
hesitate; hesitation causes fear; and fear causes you
to freeze, leading to an often-disastrous result in a
true life or death struggle with a violent thug.
Many people give lip service to offensive or
aggressive thought training.
But in my 20-plus years of training clients, I've
seen a mere handful of instructors who can competently
instruct offensive/aggressive thought training coupled
with effective hand-to-hand and hand-to-weapon
training.
I hope the industry changes in the future -- but I'm
not holding my breath.
Occasionally, I do get clients who come to me with
naturally aggressive or offensive thought processes.
For example, I recently trained a female CEO who had
fought off an attack in Paris.
She was traveling in a car with her husband through
the busy streets of that city when they were assaulted
by criminals on a motorcycle. The guy on the back of
the motorcycle jumped off at a stop, broke into the
back seat of their car and attempted to steal her
laptop.
She immediately attacked the first target she saw --
which just happened to be his helmet chinstrap. She
grabbed it and repeatedly slammed his head into the
door. He dropped the laptop as her husband sped off.
She sought out my services not because she had failed
but because she was annoyed she couldn't think of a
BETTER target to attack!
With that mindset, 50% of my work was done. She
excelled in training and is now more prepared to use
her already-perfect mindset to summons better targets
and weapons.
As in the Mark Twain quote above, by focusing first
on correctly training your most important "weapons
system" -- your MIND -- you significantly increase
your ability to take out anyone threatening you or
your loved ones.
Until next time,
Tim Larkin
Creator of Target-Focus(TM) Training
http://www.targetfocustraining.com
PS. In just one weekend you can learn to defeat any
attacker using the Target-Focus Training system. See how at:
http://www.targetfocustraining.com/livetraining
(c) Copyright 2003-2006, The TFT Group