Nice Ideas That Get People Killed

“Nice” Ideas That
Get People Killed

Why Combat Sports and Martial Arts
Fail On The Street…
And What You Need to Know
About Real Self Protection
By Chris Ranck-Buhr,
Master Instructor,
Target-Focus Training
Forward by Tim Larkin,

Creator, Target-Focus Training
Copyright © 2008 TFT Group

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Forward ....................................................................................... 3
Introduction ................................................................................ 4
I: Violence - What You Don‟t Know Could Kill You ...................... 6
What We‟d Like Violence to Be .................................................. 6
II: So What Are You Training For? ............................................ 11
Nice Ideas That Get People Killed ........................................... 13
III: When Violence Is the Answer............................................. 19
The „Kick the Baby‟ Problem ................................................... 20
Why Train? .............................................................................. 22
The TFT Difference .................................................................. 23
Epilogue ..................................................................................... 32
More Information ...................................................................... 34
www.targetfocustraining.com
Page 3
Forward...
Grandfathers need to watch what they say to grandsons!
This book reflects much of what my grandfather and the author‟s (Chris Ranck-
Buhr) grandfather individually taught us as a result of listening to those special
conversations many grandfathers have with their young grandsons. Those unique
times when it‟s just you and him and he looks down at you knowing full well the
dangers that life can bring upon the unprepared. Then he passionately shares
with you the truth as he sees it in order that you may learn from him about pre-
serving your life from what he learned by putting fist (or steel) to flesh.
I cherish those conversations as does Chris. Those men were from a different
time and whether the subject was surviving war or street thugs, they sugar-
coated nothing when it came to violence. Looking back they were the spark that
started us on our journey.
Fast forward 30 or so years, and Chris and I are sitting at a bar after a long day
of training people, just like you, to prepare for the real violence that lurks out
there. The conversation goes back to 20 years earlier when we both started down
paths that led us to become Master Close Combat Trainers with 1,000‟s of stu-
dents all over the world and having reached tens of thousands more via our
DVD‟s and manuals. It was good to retrace our steps and laugh at our hard
learned lessons.
As we called it a night I looked at Chris and realized we needed to share this

story with you in hopes it would reduce the time you need to make a decision on
how to train for real violence. What follows is Chris‟s account of the subjects we
discussed that night. It is written far more eloquently than it was discussed and I
wish to God I had had this “white paper” to guide me 20 years ago.
It is my hope you live a violence-free life but history tells us that is unlikely.
Therefore, we give you this manual on how to navigate the world of violence.
Tim Larkin
Master Close Combat Instructor
Founder, Target Focus Training.
All material in this document is copyright © 2008 The TFT Group

Page 4
I‟m going to bet that when you

thought about what scares you, what
really scares you, you didn‟t think
Introduction about a fight over a bar stool or a
parking space, or an argument with a
drunk, or whether or not you could
Think of what you fear. prevail in the ring.
I‟m not asking this to make you But the truth is that this is what
afraid, or to be a fear-monger. I want most self-defense training prepares
you to be honest with yourself. you for.
What, in the realm of criminal vio- That‟s not a bad thing--it‟s useful
lence, scares you? to know how to handle all these situa-
tions, and even to be victorious in
When you see it on the news or competition.
read about it, which story is the one
you can‟t shake? Kidnapping at gun- It‟s just that training with these
point... a random stabbing... rape goals in mind is not the same as
and murder? training to prevent your own murder--
the two skill sets don‟t have very
The stuff that would scar you, hor- much overlap.
rible in a permanent way, or isn‟t sur-
vivable without giving back in kind. Wrestling is not killing and vice
That‟s what gives me pause. That‟s versa; serial killers don‟t use elabo-
the stuff I worry about. rate submission holds to kill their vic-
tims. They use violence.
And that‟s why I train.
It can be difficult, if not impossible,
I ask you to think about what to tell the difference.
scares you so you can have a clear
picture of what you would be training If you‟re afraid of violence,
for: is it unbridled brutality, or chances are you don‟t know how to do
knives, or guns, or multiple people it; again, not necessarily a bad thing.
coming after you? Is it a particular No one wants real violence to be a
scenario you‟ve heard about, seen or part of their daily life, their everyday
experienced? experience.
Once you know what you‟re train- We avoid it by successfully navi-

ing for, it gets easier to choose where gating the social realm, talking our
to train, and how. It gives you a way out of bad situations when we
starting point as well as an end point- can, leaving when we can‟t--it very
-if you know what you don‟t want to rarely comes to blows. We all have a
have happen, it becomes obvious natural aversion to real violence.
what kind of training will prepare you
for that problem. The goal of this book is simple: to
Page 5
give you the information you need to See Next Page >>
make an informed choice on how to
train for violence.
Of course, we hope you‟ll train with

us, but more important is that you
understand why.
We‟re going to demystify violence:

show you what everyone wishes it
was, what it most certainly isn‟t, and
what it really is.
In the end I want you to be able to

honestly say what you really want to
train for and have a clear understand-
ing of what you need to do to accom-
plish that goal.
Page 6
ally killing rivals in order to secure re-

sources.
Chapter 1 Believe it or not, this is the world
we live in today.
Violence: What You Don‟t It is possible to spend your entire
Know Could Kill You! life without ever using violence or kill-
ing. It is possible to live decades
without ever seeing or touching a
Violence is the way of life. It‟s not dead body. These two facts would
a way of life (or at least not a life have been unheard of--ridiculous--to
that‟s very good, or long for that mat- our ancestors.
ter); it‟s a simple fact of life.
To put it bluntly, we have lost our
We live by killing. The meat we connection to violence.
eat, the leather in your shoes, it all
comes to us through violence. It‟s the That‟s not a bad thing when it
way predators acquire prey. It‟s the comes to everyday living--I really
way powerful nations secure re- don‟t want to have to hunt to eat and
sources for their populations. fight to live as a part of my normal
work week. It would be time-
It‟s also the way the common consuming and inconvenient.
criminal gets what he wants. The tool
of violence is useful to the righteous So life is better this way... until
and wicked alike; it‟s the same tool no you run into whatever it is that scares
matter who is wielding it or why. you, that person or situation that
could end up being permanently life-
Violence is. altering or deadly.
Our ancestors lived and died by Life is better without violence--

violence--go back far enough and vio- until someone tries to murder you.
lence becomes a feature of everyday Then it‟s unlikely you‟ll survive with-
life. Whether hunting game or driving out it.
off rivals, it was all about the sharp
stick in the eye, either giving it or What‟s a modern, civilized person
getting it. to do?
All those who came before us

worked hard--and fought--to build a What We‟d Like Violence to Be
world where violence would become
more and more rare. A world where American culture is obsessed with
killing and dying were not a part of violence--at least, that‟s what we‟re
everyday life, where common experi- told.
ence did not involve personally slay-
ing animals in order to eat, or person- In reality we‟re obsessed with the
Page 7
idea of violence as dramatic conflict its stark reality are often controver-
resolution, but not with the destruc- sial, force people to flee the theaters
tion of human beings itself. and just plain don‟t make as much
money as the ones with dramatically
This idea is most easily seen in interpreted, or “fantasy” violence.
American football. We relish the hard
hits--we stand up and cheer when the Give us a fantasy that reinforces
quarterback gets sacked by a 300+ our disconnected notions of violence
pound linebacker moving at speed. and we will cheer; show us an unal-
That QB got schooled--he got what loyed reality and we will turn away.
was coming to him, our linebacker
showed him what was what! We want the hero to prevail be-
cause he‟s bigger, faster, stronger or
But if that linebacker tripped, fell more clever, with nice hair and good
and broke the quarterback‟s knee-- teeth. We want him to look cool with
bent his leg backwards until it flashy techniques and a cutting quip
snapped with an audible CRACK on his lips. That‟s something we
picked up by the sideline mics, no one would all pay to see, pay to be that
stands up to cheer. person, if only in our minds, for a little
while.
In fact, we recoil, bring our hands
to our faces, avert our eyes. We gasp Once we‟re sold the dream, we
and groan and feel it in our guts. seek to live it. We‟re not just content
with watching the Good Guy be cool--
It‟s not violence we love, it‟s we want to do what he‟s doing and
the drama of competition. get some of that cool for ourselves.
Our entertainment says a lot about We want to train to do what we
what we think of violence. Much of it see in the movies, and get that train-
reinforces our base misunderstand- ing in a way that reinforces what we
ings while simultaneously portraying it want violence to be.
the way we would like it to be--the
way we wish things were--instead of We find this in the dojo or the ring,
how they really are. both places where violence is trans-
formed into a contest that yields to
In the stories we love, told through the biggest, fastest, strongest, and
movies and television, a kind of most skilled. Here training time is ar-
„sporting‟ violence is used as dramatic mor; the longer you train, the more
conflict resolution. It‟s exciting when likely you are not to be killed.
the hero prevails because he‟s just
plain better than the bad guy--when Think of the vaunted black belt--
he “schools” the villain and shows him now there‟s someone who can take
what‟s what. That‟s violence we can care of themselves, right? You may
cheer for. be no good right now, as a mere
white belt, but then no one expects
Movies that portray violence in all you to be any good at this level.
Page 8
But the black belt; once you got view it through the lens of inter-male
that you‟d be unbeatable. Thugs be aggression, of social dominance, as a
damned and killers quail. contest or a game.
The longer you train, the more in- As social animals we find such in-
vulnerable you become... and once teractions compelling, and eagerly
you strap that black belt on, well, seek them out. When we wish vio-
you‟re practically bulletproof. lence was not awful, our desires are
reflected in our art and entertain-
In the training environment of the ment, and so that wish gets rein-
dojo or ring we‟re told to think of the forced and fulfilled. In essence, we
streets, and so we extrapolate and program ourselves to think of violence
project our expectations and training as competition.
out the doors and into those streets,
laying them over the common crimi- Think of it this way: while most
nal. people would be more than happy to
pay to see an exciting action movie,
We expect them to move like we far fewer would be willing to pay to
do, present the attack profiles we see an actual film of someone being
train. We expect killers to fight like murdered. And of those who would,
martial artists or combat sport com- almost none would be „happy‟ or
petitors. And so we train to meet „excited‟ about it. At least no one
them, blow-for-blow, a technique for sane.
every problem.
While we love to empathize with
If we stack up enough of them, the hero as he deals out social domi-
blocks and counter-attacks and clever nance, we feel no kinship with a mur-
maneuvers, joint locks, compliance derer. One is entertainment, the
and submission holds, we‟ll be able to other, sickening reality.
counter each thrust and parry of the
Bad Guy, come back over the top and When they‟re put side-by-side, the
send him reeling. differences are horribly obvious.
Just like in the movies. Except when they aren‟t.
Because if it works in here, it‟s Once we‟re programmed to view

gotta work Out There. Right? violence through the social lens, we
then tend to see the murder as an act
The problem is that this entire of social dominance--and now we are
process is a lie. What we want vio- truly and royally screwed.
lence to be and what it really is are
two very different things. Now when we look at the news--
the crippling assaults, stabbings,
When violence is presented to us in shootings--we see those as social
a palatable format with all the „nasty dominance problems, and so we go
bits‟ trimmed off, we enjoy it. We looking for social dominance answers.
Page 9
Answers we find in the dojo or the don‟t see sparring. Not when killing is
ring. happening. There‟s no social display,
no back and forth, no squaring off.
Think about the sparring match-- It‟s one person doing it to the other.
the two competitors pad-up and
square off, give each other hard And the person doing it is usually
stares, their postures both aggressive the one who survives. The person
and warning. Then they go after each getting it done to them, not so much.
other, shouting and striking, lashing
out with arms and legs alike, clashing, Violence is terribly one-sided. It‟s
rebounding, dancing back and charg- the quarterback‟s shattered knee.
ing again, perhaps to clinch and drop You know it when you see it because
to the ground, rolling for position... you can feel it in your gut.
This looks an awful lot like a similar If you are presented with a social
behavior we can see in other primates dominance problem--like the disputed
--the inter-male aggression contests ownership of a barstool--then an inter
of the great apes. -male aggression display is one possi-
These sorts of displays make us ble solution. (Not necessarily the best
feel good. They are familiar, comfort- solution, but a possibility nonetheless.
able, you could even say we are hard- It takes a lot less effort to use other
wired for it. social skills, like talking it out or sim-
ply walking away, than it does to en-
Such behavior is deeply satisfying gage in the shouting and bluff charges
for us, especially if you were the one of monkey politics.)
who came out on top, the one who
moved up a peg or two on the social We have a 1:1 correspondence
ladder. here--a social dominance problem,
solved through social display. Not op-
Giving someone the hard hit, or timal, but still appropriate. The right
schooling them, showing them what‟s tool for the job.
what just feels right. It‟s great
watching it--and it‟s even better being We still haven‟t run into violence
the one doing it. here... and when we do, everything
goes to hell.
Sparring would be great training
for violence if violence worked like Instead of arguing over a barstool,
that. let‟s imagine he wants to murder you.
But violence isn‟t a social interac- Is a social display really an appro-

tion--it isn‟t about social dominance priate response? Is shouting and bluff
or position. charging going to keep the knife out
of your neck?
It‟s about destruction and killing.
If he‟s not playing the game,
When you look at the news, you matching you in kind, then the answer
Page 10
is no. See Next Page >>
If he is unconcerned with status

and focused purely on killing you,
then you‟ve got a violence problem.
And that requires a violence solu-

tion.
Page 11
and spend time on a court with a

bunch of other people.
Chapter 2 In other words, you get better at
playing the game by playing the
So What Are You game.
Training For? No matter what your current or
past training, it‟s easy to figure out
what you‟re training for--just look at
No matter what you‟re training for, what it is you spend most of your
somewhere in the back of your mind training time doing. Whatever that
you like to think that it‟s going to ap- thing is, it‟s what you‟re preparing for.
ply one way or another to the problem
of violence. If the majority of that time is
physical conditioning (running, push
You‟ve either been told this by the ups, sit ups, jumping rope, etc.), then
people you train with, or it‟s implied-- you‟re training to get in shape.
after all, you‟re training to punch and
kick and criminal violence can involve If it‟s spent working over a heavy
punching and kicking. So you‟re all bag, you‟re conditioning yourself for
set, right? that task.
The fact of the matter is this: you If most of your time is going one-
are training to do whatever it is on-one with another person as a
you‟re training to do. staged competition--that is, strength
against strength, speed against
Now I know that sounds like Zen speed, skill against skill with rules or
master semantic antics, but it‟s the limits on what you‟re allowed to do--
truth. then you‟re training to compete within
those guidelines.
You don‟t get better at one thing
by training for something else. If the bulk of your training is di-
rectly related to your goal, e.g., if you
If, for instance, you want to get wish to be a victorious competitor
good at playing basketball, you should you‟re best served by spending as
play basketball, not swim laps. much time competing in the ring as
While swimming laps will improve possible, then you truly are all set.
your overall fitness and cardiovascular You‟re only going to run into trou-
endurance--things which can improve ble when your training doesn‟t match
your hoops game--they are only tan- your desired operational area.
gentially associated with the skill of
putting that ball through the hoop and If someone wants to be a competi-
scoring points. To get better at that tor but spends most of their time on
you need to get your hands on a ball physical conditioning, they‟re going to
Page 12
get taken out by a more skilled and training for violence prepares you for
experienced practitioner. the ring--it absolutely doesn‟t.
They may be an amazing physical My training has not prepared me to

specimen who can run laps around match the physical conditioning and
the other guy, but unless the compe- skill of today‟s top MMA competitors;
tition is for sport endurance, he‟s go- nor has it given me the balance,
ing to lose to the guy who spent most poise, flexibility or skill of the martial
of his time in the ring with worthy op- artist.
ponents.
I have only trained to maim, crip-
He‟s going to lose to the guy who ple and kill.
trained for the win.
More than 90% of my training time
There is no magical transference of is spent on the mats with at least one
skill from one area to another just be- human being (preferably more at
cause you suddenly realize it‟s a life- once) accessing targets the way a
or-death situation. marksman practices putting bullets
right where he wants them, practicing
When someone comes after you to gouging eyes, crushing throats,
kill you, you‟re going to do whatever breaking knees, necks and spines,
it is you spent most of your time slamming bodies down into the mats
training to do. and then crippling them to keep them
If you trained for conditioning, down.
you‟re way out of your depth. If you I practice with knives, sticks and
trained to spar you‟ll go toe to toe and firearms the way I‟m most likely to
try to spar a murderer. If you trained see them on the street.
for competition you‟ll be stuck work-
ing within the rules while he‟s free to The end result makes me useless
do whatever he wants. in the ring and I‟ll never win any tro-
phies for beautiful form. But then,
If that training wasn‟t for violence, that‟s not what I‟m training for.
for true „anything goes‟ action, for
maiming, crippling and killing, you will I‟m training to do the things
constantly be one step behind--and above to someone who wants to
when it‟s life or death, second kill me.
place isn‟t just first loser... it‟s
dead. Take a good hard look at what you
spend most of your training time do-
If you want to be good at a thing, ing.
you have to train for that thing.
Does it match up with what worries
Training for competition or an ar- you? Are you training to handle the
cane art does not prepare you for person or situation you fear most? Or
criminal violence. No more than are you training for something com-
Page 13
pletely different? should never be done in lieu of actual

training for what it is you want to do.
I can honestly say that every mo-
ment of my training is spent working Calisthenics and related fitness
on the problem that bothers me-- work are often taught as time-fillers
taking a killer to nonfunctional, to keep you busy for the better part of
whether that means he‟s unconscious what‟s supposed to be a training hour.
or dead. I can do either because it‟s
all I spend my time practicing. Such activities get sold to you as
somehow providing protection from
Can you honestly say the same? violence--that if only you were bigger,
stronger and faster you would be less
likely to be harmed.
Nice Ideas
The truth is no amount of push-ups
That Get People Killed or jogging is going to keep a knife out
of your neck. The only thing that
There are a lot of „feel good‟ train- does is doing it to the other guy first.
ing methodologies out there, that is,
training designed to interface with Get fit to get fit, but don‟t confuse
your natural desires and predilections. fitness with the skill of violence.
It‟s much easier to convince some-

one to train, and spend money, if you
can hook into their base animal desire 2. Training will make you immune
for comfort and reinforcement of their to violence.
hopes. This is the real reason people train-
But no matter how hard we wish -no one wants to get punched, kicked,
violence were different, the facts re- stabbed or shot.
main. And when wishful training runs There are plenty of systems out
into hard reality, people die. there that claim to make you impervi-
Here are some nice ideas--things ous to such things.
that would be great if only reality The sad fact is that nothing can
would play along--and the problems make you bulletproof. All hyperbole
they give rise to: aside, there‟s no training that can
make you immune to violence. Every-
1. Bigger-stronger-faster will one is always susceptible.
make you immune to violence.
This is a bitter pill to swallow, but if
There‟s nothing wrong with im- you flip it around it‟s actually a very
proving your physical fitness--in fact, positive message--it means that that
I heartily recommend it. ultimate bad guy you‟ve built up in
But exercise and conditioning your head breaks just like everybody
else. No matter how big, mean, or
Page 14
well-trained, everyone‟s eye comes quired... injuring the other man.

out of the skull the same way.
And the results are identical--

blindness and mind-shattering injury. 3. The right technique will handle
the problem.
If I tell you that once trained you‟ll
never get punched, and so you train For each problem a technique,
and then you get punched in the head right?
and knocked down, what‟s that going
to do to your ability to operate under If he comes with the knife like so,
those conditions? you can counter with anti-knife tech-
nique 143-D. And as long as you‟ve
Your first thought will be, “Omigod- memorized and drilled the other 142
-it‟s not working!” You‟ll begin shut- techniques and their variations, you‟re
ting down mentally right when it‟s all set.
most critical that you act decisively.
While this is a neat idea in theory--
If, instead, I tell you the truth, that and in the training environment--in
in life-or-death violence you should the real world you‟re very rarely going
expect to get punched, kicked, to have the luxury of seeing it coming
stabbed, and yes, maybe even shot-- and have the time to rummage
but that if you find you can still think through all of your counters to find
and move, you can injure the man the exact right one, let alone execute
and end it in your favor, then if any of it.
those things occur your first response
will be to injure the man and put him You can‟t counter the fact that
down for more injury. you‟ve already been stabbed.
You will have correctly trained for And if you‟ve been trained to work
the only response that can save that way, you‟ll always be one step
your life in that situation. behind the guy who‟s busy trying to
murder you.
No one wants to get punched,
kicked, etc--if I had the choice I‟d pick That‟s an awful place to be.
„no thank you,‟ too. But in violence It also places your chances of sur-
you don‟t always get to pick. vival squarely in the toilet.
Correct training doesn‟t make you Violence is not about set patterns
immune to violence--none can--but and will very often veer off in an un-
rather it gives you the fighting chance foreseen direction, leaving your bril-
you need to survive such things. Ac- liant technique in the dust.
cepting the reality of the situation and
training accordingly means you won‟t What you need instead is training
shut down in the face of violence-- that recognizes the chaos inherent in
you‟ll get busy doing the work re- violence and teaches you how to miti-
Page 15
gate it, how to act using the principles As uncomfortable as reality is,
that are always present, no matter you‟re better off training for it.
the situation, and ignore the things
that may or may not be there. Instead of working on the profiles
you‟re comfortable with, you want to
In other words, training that‟s not train for the ones that you‟re most
about what he‟s trying to do to you, likely to see, the ones that victims of
but all about what you‟re doing to violence actually report.
him.
You want to prepare for the worst.
It‟s okay to hope for the best, just
don‟t count on it.
4. Training for profiles you‟d like
to see.
I‟d really like it if violence started 5. You can convince a killer to
with a killer walking up to me and se- quit.
dately taking hold of my lapel. Or
getting into a fighting stance. Or This is a truly nice idea, the idea
brandishing the knife from a distance. that with the right technique and the
application of a little bit of pain you
Or if everyone in a multi-man can change a murderer‟s mind.
situation waited their turn for me to
get to them. It‟s nice to think that, and it would
be a better world if it were true, but
These are the profiles I‟d rather the fact of the matter is that the only
see. They‟re comfortable, and give reliable way to dissuade a killer is
you time and space to be warned, get to shut him off--either cripple him to
ready, and figure out what to do next. the point where he can‟t move, knock
him unconscious, or kill him.
Unfortunately, people don‟t come
at you like this when they want to kill This is the classic mistake of con-
you. They come hard, fast, and tear fusing antisocial dominance behaviors
right into you. They knock you down, with asocial violence.
they put blade into you without your
even knowing there was a knife in- In the antisocial realm--the
volved, they come all at once instead screaming match, the cuffing and
of one at a time. grappling of inter-male aggression, in
short, the bar fight--you can use pain-
If you train for unrealistic profiles, ful joint locks and pain-compliance
you‟re setting yourself up to be over- holds to convince a man to quit.
whelmed with the ferocity and totality
of the real thing. If he understands (even uncon-
sciously) that the penalty for giving
You‟re setting yourself up to be up is purely social, and he is willing to
surprised. accept that penalty in the face of pain
Page 16
or as a recognition of dominance, when facing down the embalmed and

then such techniques amount to ask- emboldened over a barstool, pain
ing, albeit physically, for him to sub- compliance and submission holds are
mit. If he accepts the bargain-- inappropriate when facing a killer.
capitulating to put an end to the pain
and humiliation--then we have a Jerks can be handled in a thousand
happy ending. different ways; killers only one.
The problem was social, he went

antisocial, you used pain to ask him to
stop, and so he quits. (You have suc- 6. Good thing „The Rules‟ apply
cessfully „kicked his ass.‟) everywhere!
Even if everyone doesn‟t go home This is the belief that the rules you
happy, at least they‟re all alive. Your train under--everything from the ex-
training has seen you through yet plicit rules of the ring to the implicit
again. rules of the training environment, and
even the rules of polite society at
Where this all breaks down is when large--are present everywhere else at
the problem isn‟t social in nature-- all times.
when we‟re not doing the dance of in-
ter-male aggression, but instead the Everyone likes to believe that their
work of murder. training is directly applicable to vio-
lence, even if the instructor never
Madmen don‟t quit. makes such claims.
And if they do, you can‟t be sure After all, the reason many of us
it‟s genuine or if just they‟re using so- seek out training in the first place is
cial convention to manipulate you into because we saw or heard of some-
a vulnerable position, to get you to thing that made us realize it might be
stop and drop your guard. useful to know how to hurt someone,
to have a little bit of knowledge of
Asking a murderer to quit, even what to do in violent conflict.
physically, is unreliable simply be-
cause he‟s not playing by the rules. You wouldn‟t pay good money and
take the effort to carve time out of
He may be completely uninterested your schedule if you didn‟t think that
in social dominance, at least in a way need was being met.
that sane people understand it.
Regardless of the kind of training,
In our version, we‟re satisfied whether classic „self-defense,‟ sport
when the opponent is cowed and fighting, or traditional martial art, you
slinks off, tail tucked. The killer, on want to believe that it is a clear re-
the other hand, may be looking for a flection of reality, that you‟re spend-
pile of corpses. ing your time modeling the true me-
Just as killing is inappropriate chanics of violence.
Page 17
In other words, that the way you‟re spent your time actually practicing
doing it is how it really goes down. what it is you wish to get done in vio-
lence, namely taking out the man who
You need to be careful here to wants to kill you.
keep from getting caught short.
It‟s not enough to think about it, or
The only rules in violence are the talk it to death. If you don‟t actually
laws of physics, and how they affect practice how to hurt people, put them
physiology. down so they can‟t get back up, and
There are no rules of engagement, then take them to nonfunctional
and nothing, no matter how ugly, aw- (crippled, unconscious or dead),
ful and/or distasteful, is off-limits. you‟re not going to do those things
when it matters most.
That‟s all there is to it. It‟s just
sundered anatomy, one person hurt- Being told to „go for the eyes‟ is
ing another and then taking full ad- not the same as doing it every prac-
vantage of the injured man. tice session.
Any rule, convention or assumption Thinking about how to apply a cer-

beyond the simple facts of violence tain technique „for real‟ is not the
will slow you down and put you a half- same as making it a physical habit for
step behind. yourself.
If you would like to be able to

gouge eyes, crush throats and break
necks when your life depends on it,
7. Regardless of my training,
you need to model those things every
when it comes down to life-or-
chance you get.
death, I will be motivated enough
to become a killing machine. As you practice, so you shall per-
This is the idea that the crucible of form. Even under threat of death.
lethal threat will burn off all the crap Think back to what motivated you
and impurities and forge you, instan- to train--that terrible news item, or
taneously, into highly-motivated prior experience or just the idea of
whirling dervish of destruction. someone scary coming after you with
The problem is, you do what you a total disregard for social convention,
train, period--there is no magical the sanctity of life, or any rules what-
transference of skill under threat of soever.
death. Think back to that clear picture I
If anything, your performance will asked you to focus on at the begin-
be degraded, worse than it is in train- ning, the thing that sent you to the
ing. dojo, the gym or enticed you to seek
out and read this work. If that one
And so you have to hope that you thing is to out-compete an athlete, or
Page 18
to dominate the social arena I can‟t See Next Page >>

help there.
There are literally tens of thou-

sands of other places you can find
training to help you handle those
problems. If that‟s what you‟re look-
ing for, I encourage you to seek them
out.
Just as you wouldn‟t bring a hand-

gun to a wrestling match or a bar
fight, what I can do for you would not
meet your needs.
But if that one thing that scares

you is violence, raw, brutal and unre-
lenting, the kind of situation that
doesn‟t yield to words or cleverness or
athleticism--if it‟s facing a killer that
you‟re worried about, that‟s all we do.
We don‟t train anything else.
Page 19
Sane, socialized people recog-

nize them and respectfully stay on
Chapter 3 the suggested side; cruel people
see the lines and willfully step
across when it suits them; the in-
When Violence Is the sane are blind to the lines.
Only Answer
The principles of violence--the me-
chanics that make it work for the
Though it‟s rare, when the need criminal, for you, for anyone--are
does arise, nothing else will do. easy to learn, easy to do, and are al-
ways present in every successful use
When what should have been an of violence, no matter who is using it.
average Sunday afternoon shopping
trip explodes into chaos as a killer First and foremost is injury; when
makes himself known in your midst or two people go after each other, noth-
a classmate snaps during what should ing changes until someone gets hurt.
have been a humdrum lecture or The person who gets broken tends
someone simply chooses you as prey to go down and become helpless to
on your everyday walk from office to stop the person who hurt them from
car, what should ordinarily be un- doing it again and again. This is why
thinkable now becomes necessary. your goal in violence is to be the per-
Violence is useless until it isn‟t- son doing the injuring, every time.
-then it‟s the only tool for the job. You are much more likely to cause
The good news is that outside of serious injury if you go after anatomi-
moral or psychological considerations, cal features of the human body that
violence is easy to do. have an important job to do, like the
eyes, throat, or knees. Parts of the
The mechanics of injury are simple body that would debilitate the man
and straightforward. Literally anyone should they end up gouged, crushed
can do it. or torn.
You don‟t have to be big, strong, or We refer to these important ana-

mean; you just have to be willing. tomical features as targets, hence the
name Target-Focus Training.
This is the truth that the criminal
sociopath knows all too well, that the It‟s also important to note that
lines we scribe to delineate what is these are the parts of the body that
good and bad behavior, the lines be- turn up time and again in sports in-
tween what is socially acceptable and jury literature; they are the things
what is not are drawn in sand. that tend to get wrecked when people
run into people and people run into
They are truly guidelines. the ground. Both things you‟re going
to want to do to him.
Page 20
The human body is in many ways options for applying them.

very resilient--to overcome this you
need to strike these targets with your It doesn‟t matter what kind of
entire mass. problem in violence you face--multiple
people, grappling, knives, sticks, guns
Instead of just scratching at his --the answer is always the same: In-
eyes, you need to cram all five of your jure the man... Now!
fingers through is eye sockets as hard
as you can, with all of your body
weight behind it, as if to make your The „Kick the Baby‟
fingers come out the other side of his Problem
head. They won‟t, of course, but his
eyes are going to get ruined in the The truth about violence is uncom-
process. fortable.
This is very different from reach- It‟s much easier to convince some-
ing, slapping, or pushing. You‟re go- one to train if you pad that truth,
ing to put your whole self into every- minimize it, and focus on aspects that
thing you do--think of it as hitting him are comfortable, comforting and
with a baseball bat that weighs as speak to our innate desires for vio-
much as you every single time. lence to be nicer and easier than it
really is.
Once you‟ve injured him it‟s time
to pour it on and take advantage of In other words, training tailored to
the injury. appeal to our desire for social interac-
tion and dominance.
If you stomp his knee and break it,
dropping him, now‟s the time to kick A spirited sparring match with a
him in the head as hard as you can as comrade in arms is much more ap-
he tries to get up. And then stomp on pealing than practicing stomping a
his throat. downed man to death. The first one
sounds like fun--the second one
You need to maintain a constant makes people feel uneasy. As it
state of attack, injury after injury, un- should.
til he‟s nonfunctional. You‟re not done
until he is. I like to call this the „kick the baby‟
problem--training for violence means
This is the nuts and bolts of vio- asking the learner to do something
lence, easily seen in every successful both morally reprehensible and natu-
instance of the tool. The rest is just rally sickening.
detail work.
If we can successfully hide the
It doesn‟t get any more compli- baby, and kick a soccer ball instead,
cated than „rock to the back of the everyone will sign up and have a
head‟--further training beyond the great time kicking the ball around.
base principles just gives you more
Page 21
The truth is, to be successful at It works the same way with fire-
violence you have to hurt people, and arms--if you talk about having a gun
then take full advantage of the fact for self-defense, it nicely skirts the
they‟re hurt--doing things that relig- fact that what you‟ll do with that gun
ion, society, and your mom have is shoot somebody to death.
spent your entire life telling you not to
do. Things that naturally sicken any You‟ll put as many bullets into him
sane human being. Inhumane and as you can to perforate organs, tear
inhuman things. open blood vessels, and shatter
bones. Indeed, to injure the man, se-
To deny this fact is to lie about the riously, take him down to the ground,
basic nature of how and why violence brutally, and then break more and
works, to ignore what makes the more things inside of him until he can
criminal sociopath so deadly success- no longer function.
ful.
But it doesn‟t make you feel good
It‟s the lie we‟re willing to pay for to think about it this way.
because it makes us feel better about
what it is we know deep down we‟re When caught between trying to put
doing. a palatable spin on violence to make it
more appealing and telling the truth
Violence is ugly and awful; you‟ll about it, I‟ll always go for the truth.
never hear me say otherwise.
The lie has a way of biting you in
I could sugar-coat it, pad it up, the ass--you‟ll do fine with the lie until
make it more palatable by using what you really need is violence.
terms like „self-defense‟ and telling
you you‟re the plucky defender who If you‟re facing down drunks or
will vanquish the foe in the most hon- fighting over parking spaces you‟ll
orable way possible, with pain compli- probably do just fine.
ance, joint locks, and submission End up in the middle of the next
holds. Virginia Tech-style shooting, watching
Or a nifty hand-waving technique. the killer reload and you‟re out of
Subduing the bad guy with nothing your depth.
permanent or horrible to contemplate. The one thing that could see you
But that would be a lie. through--the tool of violence--you
never really trained for.
The facts of what works in violence
--what the „winners‟ do to survive-- You may have thought about it,
show that your best bet is to injure you may have talked it to death, but if
the man, seriously, take him down to you never actually practiced doing it
the ground, brutally, and then break you‟re going to get caught short.
more and more things inside of him The truth is hard, but can save
until he can no longer function. your life.
Page 22
The lie is far more seductive and You don‟t buy a handgun to solve
comforting. social problems, or to do things that
are nice or comfortable to people.
Most people don‟t want to hear the
truth, to have their darkest fears con- You buy a handgun because you
firmed. They would much rather pay recognize that it might be a useful
for the lie and be comforted. thing to have the ability to shoot
someone to death should the need
I‟m not saying you should find a arise.
way to enjoy being horrified. I‟m ask-
ing you to be an adult and take re- No sane person is hoping for such
sponsibility for yourself and your a situation, or looking forward with
loved ones by accepting the reality of relish for the opportunity to kill some-
the situation and training accordingly one, however justified in the eyes of
instead of wishing it weren‟t so. law it may be, with a gun.
Believe me when I tell you I wish it It‟s an awful thing to contemplate,

were otherwise myself. but if you‟re adult about it and ready
to accept personal responsibility for
The fact is that if the problem of your own safety and well-being (as
violence could be solved with some- well as that of those who depend on
thing other than more violence, don‟t you), then the awfulness of violence
you think humanity would have al- calls for the awfulness of being pre-
ready figured out what that elusive pared to give back in kind.
thing was?
In other words, given the insanity
If the lie were true, war wouldn‟t of violence it makes sense to be able
be so god-awful and law enforcement to kill a killer. (In fact, such a thing
officers wouldn‟t need to carry guns. makes no sense anywhere else.)
Murder would be rare.
So you don‟t expect shooting
Unfortunately we don‟t live in that someone to death to be nice, comfort-
world. The choice in this one is to ac- able, or comforting.
cept the facts and train accordingly or
simply hope for the best. Why then, would you expect train-
ing to do the work of a bullet with
I don‟t know about you, but when your bare hands to be any different?
it comes to matter of life or death,
I‟d rather be skilled than lucky. Violence is ugly, regardless of the
medium of delivery--bullets, knives,
baseball bats, fists & boots... the work
Why Train? and the results are the same.
In the end, you train for violence Because we teach violence--how to
for the same reason you‟d buy a cripple and kill without the sugar-
handgun. coating and padding to make you feel
Page 23
better about it--it‟s not comfortable, ing choices in the self-defense world,
nice or sporting. It‟s not about feeling some better than others.
good playing social dominance games.
With all the advertising noise they
It‟s about claiming your birthright generate it can be hard to figure out
as a predator and preparing to hunt which is which--who has your inter-
and kill madmen. ests at heart and who doesn‟t; who
can truly give you the skills to prevail
Our training is not for children, or and who could be endangering your
those unwilling to take responsibility life.
for their own well-being, or the unre-
solved. It‟s for adults who are dedi- To help you make an informed de-
cated to living, surviving and winning cision, you need to know the things
in the face of the unthinkable. that TFT does differently, what sets
us apart from our competition and
No matter where you might place why.
yourself in that spectrum, everyone
can benefit from knowing what to do For starters, TFT is a team effort
when faced with violence. with nothing to prove. Your success
is our sole motivation, and to that end
Most of the time such knowledge we do our best to give you principles
will be absolutely worthless to you-- you can use, based on the observable
and I sincerely hope that the need for facts of violence.
it never arises across the span of your
entire life--but in the rare instances We listen to you and use your
when you do need it, much like a feedback to improve our methods.
handgun in the right place, at the This relationship benefits both of us
right time, nothing else will see you equally--if we get better at training
through. you, you get more of what you need
to survive--and win.
Let me elaborate:
The Target-Focus Training
Difference
Training people to survive--and win
--in violent conflict is deadly serious 1. A Team, Not a Guru
business. A single person can have some
We understand that if we‟re wrong, good ideas, but without editorial over-
people die. sight, or, more bluntly, „no‟ men, that
one person‟s vision will tend to the
This base assumption is the foun- myopic.
dation for everything we do.
They‟ll see what they like to see,
Not everyone feels this way, how- what‟s easy for them, personally, to
ever--there is a wide variety of train- do. Without other points of view to
Page 24
provide critical challenge, that one maybe, just maybe, some of it will
guy is stuck with himself. rub off on you. If you‟re lucky.
Where things really go to hell is While not every guru is a charla-

when the cult of personality forms tan, the above path is deeply grooved
around him and he starts to believe and well-trod in the self-defense
his own press. „industry.‟
Now he‟s not just stuck with him- We‟ve watched good, caring people
self, but on himself. His point of view inadvertently fall into it and get stuck
is set in stone, and anyone learning there.
from him is really just learning what
works for the guru. Even those starting out with the
best intentions can end up enthroned
He may be able to pull it off be- atop a pyramid of well-meaning hero-
cause of his unique set of physical at- worshippers.
tributes and skills, but the question is,
can you? And that typically spells the end of
any kind of meaningful innovation or
If you can‟t, and he can‟t show you evolution of thought, process and
how without changing your physical training.
attributes to match his (if only you
were taller, faster, stronger), then When this happens, the people on
what‟s the point? the bottom are the ones who lose out.
He may be able to survive violent This is why TFT-creator Tim Larkin

conflict, but if he can‟t show you a made a conscious decision not to be a
clear path to that goal then you end guru.
up being nothing more than a faceless He founded the company, he leads
number in his ego-stroking throng. the work and in that leadership role
And that‟s not the reason you got he is the recognizable face and elo-
involved in the first place. quent speaker for that work.
He may be brilliant and charismatic As an instructor he knew that his

and impressively skilled but if he can‟t singular point of view and personal
swallow his ego and work to make skill-set would not be enough to cover
you better than he is (or, at least, everyone because no one person, no
better than he was at your level) then matter how skilled, can. The serious-
he‟s taking your money, wasting your ness of the work made that unaccept-
time and, worst of all, endangering able.
your life. He reached out to like-minded ex-
And all you get in return is the op- perts and gathered a team of consci-
portunity to bask in his brilliance and entious, highly-skilled instructors,
charm with the implied promise that some of whom were also physicians,
scientists, writers, and thinkers.
Page 25
These were people who knew how structors with more than 10 years of
to kill with their bare hands, and could experience each.
communicate that skill to others. A
pack of no-men to provide critical in- We had accomplished and experi-
sight and peer review. enced enough to fill a whole other
book--a book of total awesomeness, if
A hundred years of experience in- you ask either one of us. Of course,
stead of just a single point of view. I‟m being sarcastic. Maybe.
As a group, we are able to combine After almost 20 years, we both

all of our skills and experience to thought we were done. I know I sure
make sure that you can survive--and was.
win--in violent conflict, and make it
back home alive. I was in the process of hanging up
my spurs and looking for that „second
Regardless of your personal chal- act‟ in my American life. Tim was, as
lenges, we can find a way to make well.
sure you get the skill.
But this work has a way of pulling
And you can rest assured that you back in.
you‟re not getting one person‟s take
on what works best for them alone, It‟s a subject that almost every-
but rather what will work best for you body wants to know at least a little bit
--when it really, truly matters. about.
Many people were disappointed

that Tim was calling it done; he began
getting requests from individuals and
2. Nothing to Prove
groups to come out and do „just one
We already completed full careers more‟ training.
of doing this professionally before Tim
founded TFT. But „just one more‟ lead to the
next one, and before he knew it, he
We literally achieved everything we was pretty much full-time again. He
thought we wanted to do with this pulled the rest of us in, one by one,
stuff. and TFT was born.
Tim trained elite military groups all So what does any of this, as
over the globe, federal agencies and „impressive‟ as it may be, have any-
law enforcement units, corporate se- thing to do with you?
curity teams, as well as thousands of
civilians. First off, it means we don‟t have
anything to prove.
While I got a small taste of that, I
really dove into the work of producing We already got that out of our sys-
qualified instructors, ending up with tem. We‟re over all the chest-
44 to date, seven of them Master In- thumping, the posturing, the playing
Page 26
the tough guy with the chip on his bring you the principles and methods
shoulder. you need to save your own life.
In fact, the whole reason we felt We have nothing to prove, and the
done in the first place is because we‟d only reason we‟re still here is because
proved everything there was to prove. of you.
We trained people, they ran into

deadly violence and made it back
alive, whole--and victorious. Time 3. We Actually Care
and time again.
We view training you for violent
„Nothing to prove‟ means we conflict as seriously as teaching some-
can focus on you. one how to swim.
You can be sure we‟re not out On the surface the two might not
there to show off, or collect admirers, appear to be related--violence is far
or find out if what we‟re doing really more dire than goofing around in a
works. swimming pool, after all.
We don‟t have to be here--we want The common thread is this: if the

to be here. instructor fails to impart the skill, the
client could die.
We want to be here for one reason,
and one reason only: we want to In swimming, the end result is a
give you the skills you need to client who thinks they know how to
prevail in the face of violence. swim while they really can‟t--a false
confidence that can end in drowning.
Period.
In violence, the result is a client
The other thing you get is our ex- who thinks they know how to hurt
perience. people, but really doesn‟t--a false
TFT is not a fly-by-night start-up confidence that can lead to their own
that‟s experimenting on you. murder.
We‟re not freshly-minted black This basic assumption informs and

belts with a couple of years of teach- drives everything we do in TFT.
ing experience (which turns out to be In fact, it‟s the reason we do it at
the same year just repeated a couple all.
of times).
We‟re not in it for the money, or
Tim and I have been doing this for the ego-stroke, or to be international
more than 20 years each--every one superstar bad-asses--we‟re in it for
of those a unique experience--it‟s you, to make sure you have the skills
never been the same twice. That rich to make it back home alive.
vein of experience is what we mine to
Page 27
When we train a group of 30 we That‟s not how it worked out.

don‟t see it as a single, anonymous
mass; we see 30 individuals who each Standing there, looking into their
need to get it done right, and right eyes, giving them „just a taste‟--
now. enough to get into trouble but not
enough to get back out again--felt
We know we‟ll only have so much terribly wrong.
time with you--we have to assume
we‟ll never see you again, that you‟ll So wrong that the sessions turned
have to rely on what we do at that into a one hour emergency crash
moment for the rest of your life. We course in TFT.
make that time count for you. The goal shifted off of a free sam-
When I‟m instructing I have to look ple and found it‟s way back to our
you in the eye and know I‟m not ly- core, founding principle: make sure
ing. I have to be sure that no matter the client can get it done well enough
how much time I get to train you, you to survive and win.
walk out that door knowing how to in- Can one hour make a difference?
jure a man, drop him, and make him Well, it‟ll be dirty, and ugly, but if
stay there. Otherwise I literally can‟t they do everything we told and
sleep at night. showed them how to do in that hour,
At the TFT San Diego Center, we then, yes, it can.
thought it would be a good idea to let We wouldn‟t sleep well if it didn‟t.
people come in for a free, hour-long
orientation session.
The initial concept was to get to

4. Principles You Can Use
meet each other, client and instructor,
and to allow people to see what it was As instructors, what we can do in
we were up to, learn a little bit about violent conflict--our own personal
us, and experience a little bit of TFT skills and abilities--means absolutely
physically. All to ensure that anyone nothing to you.
signing up for on-going training knew
exactly what they were getting into-- The fact that we know how to dis-
and that it was exactly what they locate someone‟s shoulder and break
wanted. their neck--after throwing them
through the air--doesn‟t make you
It was just supposed to be a taste, any safer.
not a full-blown training. It was the
free sample to help you decide We‟re not your bodyguards, we
whether or not to buy the whole cake. won‟t be there when it‟s time for you
People were not expected to be able to act. You‟ll be on your own, and it
to do anything at the end other than will come down to what you, person-
make an informed decision on ally, can do.
whether or not to sign up.
Page 28
Showing you a fancy technique the streets, back into the rest of their
that relies on physical conditioning, lives. And they needed to be able to
coordination and years of practice is preserve those lives with what they
showing off. It may be impressive, could reliably do, right now.
and it may make the person showing
it feel good, but it‟s not getting you The instructor immediately
any closer to surviving what could be scrapped the frustrating exercise and
the last day of your life. replaced it with a simpler, more direct
and achievable way to tear out a
Looks great, feels good and it‟s of shoulder and dump the guy on his
absolutely no use to you. head.
At a three-day seminar in Dallas, While there were some who were

one of our instructors showed an awe- disappointed that they weren‟t doing
some throw involving a shoulder dis- the „fancy‟ technique, everyone could
location. get the job done well enough to abso-
lutely wreck the other guy.
It was quick, dirty and got the job
done in a single motion--tearing the The instructor had ensured that
shoulder out of the socket and dump- when they walked out that door, eve-
ing the guy on his head in one, easy ryone there could cripple a man and
step. Or so he thought. put him down such that he couldn‟t
get back up.
Everyone present was duly im-
pressed and eager to get on the mats They could bet their life on what
and try it... and when they did, not a they could do.
single person could get it done.
Understanding why a shoulder
Now, that doesn‟t mean some of comes out of the socket and how to
them weren‟t close, but no one was make that happen are far more im-
doing it well enough for a life-or- portant than the thousands of differ-
death situation. ent movements you could use to tear
it out.
In other words, some of them
might have been able to pull it off-- Instead of useless techniques, we
but not good enough to bet their life give you principles you can use. In-
on. stead of an empty set of motions to
mimic, we break out the principles
In most training environments, the that make those motions useful--the
instructor would just tell you to keep principle reasons why that motion
working on it. This isn‟t necessarily a causes an effect, how it achieves the
bad idea--as long as you have plenty goal of violence and gets you the in-
of training opportunities ahead of you. jury you need.
These people had less than a day We get to the root, underlying
left. Six hours, and they‟d be back on rules that govern all violence and
Page 29
make sure you can get it done. you can ignore reality and pretend it
works, or you can swallow your ego
and change what you‟re doing. This
isn‟t an easy thing to do.
5. Facts, Not Opinions
There were lots of times when we
There are an awful lot of different wished it wasn‟t so. When a training
opinions out there regarding what to method or a really, really cool tech-
do when faced with the realities of nique turns out to be useless when
violence. compared against the physical reali-
Unfortunately, a lot of those opin- ties of violence, it‟s a sad day.
ions aren‟t grounded in reality--they There are a lot of fun things we
fly in the face of common sense, basic liked to do and train that ended up
physics and physiology, and hard-won being just plain wrong, like practicing
personal experience. elaborate knife defenses.
Everyone is entitled to their own Working with the knife that way
opinion, and that opinion may reflect makes you feel really good--as you
their own experience and what works would expect „not getting stabbed‟ to
for them. do--but it doesn‟t jibe with video evi-
It‟s when they attempt to extrapo- dence of stabbings. Or police reports
late that opinion outward, beyond from victims.
themselves, and impose it over incon- Most people report never seeing
venient physical realities that they run the knife, or even knowing they were
into trouble. being stabbed--they thought they
And if that‟s the guy you‟re learn- were being punched--it wasn‟t until
ing from, it can mean trouble for you. they saw the blood that they realized
something else was going on.
Reality is awfully inconvenient.
This makes it highly unlikely that
It has a way of steamrolling right you‟d even know you needed to do a
over flights of fancy--something that knife defense technique, let alone
seemed like an incredible idea at the execute it.
time, logical and enthusiastic-nod-
inducing ends up flattened with all the That inconvenient reality brings up
best parts squirting out like a rup- another issue: if you finally realize
tured tube of toothpaste. (after being stabbed repeatedly) that
a knife is involved, is going for a knife
It may have been a great idea, but defense technique going to make a
the actual execution just doesn‟t hold difference at this point? Or is it just
up. going to get you stabbed more?
When this happens in training for Realities like this challenged our
violence, you‟re left with a choice: assumptions and forced us to make
Page 30
the choice: opinion, or the facts? what they don‟t. What they want and
need, and what they don‟t want to be
We chose the facts. bothered with.
The fact of the matter is you have At every training seminar we hand
to do what makes the stabber suc- out questionnaires to find out how the
cessful--cause injury. That‟s the only participants felt about the experience;
thing that‟s going to see you through. we take their responses to heart and
As cool as the knife defenses were change our training methods accord-
to practice, and as comforting the ingly.
idea of not getting stabbed is, none of The most notable example of this
that holds up outside of practice. was when a client noted that a small,
This is the process we used to win- informal session highlighting a num-
now out the approaches that actually ber of different ways to access the
work from those that are just nice eyes--different angles, body positions
ideas, but wrong. and with several different tools--made
a huge amount of sense. It was what
We checked everything against allowed them to finally „get it‟ in a
videos of actual violence, police way that the preceding „technique-
and coroners‟ reports, sports based‟ part of the seminar had not.
trauma medicine, and most im-
portantly, the experiences of peo- This forced us to confront the issue
ple who have prevailed in life-or- of whether to train people the way we
death situations. had learned it, or to train them the
way we understood the material now.
If it didn‟t match up, we chucked
it, no matter how much we didn‟t This one comment from a client
want to. changed our entire training approach-
-we literally tore it apart and reas-
In the end, we‟re left with a sys- sembled it from the ground up.
tem that is internally and externally
consistent, based on facts that you Instead of training techniques with
can check for yourself. a specific set of movements (and then
hoping the clients could pull them
Don‟t take our word for it--opinions apart to find the base elements), we
have a way of going in and out of fa- trained targets exclusively, showing
vor, but the facts remain the same. them how to crush a throat standing,
from the side, from behind, with the
If you‟re going to bet your life on man on all fours, and laying down,
anything, it should be the facts. then with the client on the floor, etc.
6. We Listen, and Adapt The results amazed everyone, in-

structors and clients alike--what once
Most importantly, we listen to our took three days to instill we could now
clients: what they find useful, and do in one day. And then, with a little
Page 31
more effort, half a day. See Next Page >>
Returning clients, those who had

trained with us before the methodol-
ogy shift, were astounded at how
good the new people were in such a
short time.
To this day we pay close attention

to what our clients have to say about
their experience and progress--we
never know when someone will point
out the next big improvement in our
methods.
Our goal is to give you the best

training possible--you‟re the reason
we‟re here and your success is all
we‟re really interested in.
TFT is the perfect intersection of

the actual facts of violence presented
by people who know the subject cold
and really just want you to get it
right.
That‟s what motivates us--knowing

that after you walk out that door
you‟re a little bit smarter, a little bit
harder, and a lotta bit better at using
the tool of violence.
Your success is your survival, and

having you make it back home alive is
why we‟re here.
Page 32
this world who would do such a thing.
People living in the same world I

Epilogue do, that we all do, breathing the same
Since I asked you to think about it, air, drinking the same water, looking
let me tell you about the two things at the same Moon.
that changed my mind about training The world got wider in that mo-
for violence. ment, deeper, darker.
The first one was a newspaper arti- No matter how moral, kind, and
cle; the other one was more immedi- accommodating I was, I still shared
ate, personal, and changed my life the world with those people.
forever.
In that moment I realized how it
Like anyone who pays attention to might make sense to know how to kill
the news, I had grown jaded, able to someone with my bare hands.
scan down whole columns of murder,
mayhem, and general inhumanity The second incident was losing a
without so much as a raised eyebrow. loved one to violence.
But one day, in one of those two- My best friend of 10 years was
inch stories buried in the back of the shot to death by a car thief in his own
paper I saw something that gave me front yard.
pause.
He had done nothing to invite this
COLLEGE STUDENT USED UP IN upon himself; he lived a life that was
VOODOO RITUAL it read. nearly guaranteed to avoid such a
fate.
It was one of those “What the
hell?!” moments where you‟re not It was completely random and the
sure you‟re reading a bad pulp novel results shattered more than one life--
or the plot to a one-star torture porn his fiancée was there to watch him
movie. die.
A local college student went miss- There are still good friends I have-
ing while drinking with friends across n‟t spoken to since because of the
the border in Mexico. A few weeks way it altered the flow of our lives.
later he turned up flayed and exsan- Not a day goes by that I don‟t miss
guinated on a voodoo altar some- him.
where deep in Central America.
This is why I train.
What hit me in that moment wasn‟t
so much what had happened to him Not to be a badass, or act like I‟m
(as horrible and devastating as it harder than everybody else, or to in-
surely was for him and his family), timidate or stroke my ego.
but the fact that there were people in I train because we sane, social folk
Page 33
think we live in a world ruled by good See Next Page >>

intentions.
But we live in a fantasy bubble.
The truth is, we share this world

with monsters.
This is why I train--and why I will

train anyone who‟s willing to learn.
Page 34
For More Information...
To learn more about how Target-Focus Training gives you the tools to defeat
anyone threatening you in an unavoidable violent confrontation, please see our
website at:
http://www.targetfocustraining.com
Or email us at:
tft@targetfocustraining.com
While at the website be sure to sign up to receive Mr. Larkin‟s FREE cutting-
edge newsletter, “Secrets For Staying Alive When 'Rules' Don't Apply.”
It takes you much further into the principles behind what you‟ve just read in
this document.
At the website you will also find DVDs and videos along with other products
and services at:
http://www.targetfocustraining.com/products_training.html
Each year a limited number of live training events are scheduled. At these you
learn first-hand the complete TFT system in less than 20 hours. And everything is
guaranteed. To see availability and to reserve your spots at one of these unique
sessions, go to:
http://www.targetfocustraining.com/selfdefenseclasses.html
You may also contact us at the follow address:
The TFT Group

325 W Washington St, #207
Sequim, WA 98382
Phone: 206-686-3469

Nice Ideas That Get People Killed

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Nice Ideas That Get People Killed

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“Nice” Ideas That

Get People Killed

Forward by Tim Larkin,

Copyright © 2008 TFT Group

I: Violence - What You Don‟t Know Could Kill You ...................... 6

What We‟d Like Violence to Be .................................................. 6

II: So What Are You Training For? ............................................ 11

Nice Ideas That Get People Killed ........................................... 13

III: When Violence Is the Answer............................................. 19

The „Kick the Baby‟ Problem ................................................... 20

Why Train? .............................................................................. 22

The TFT Difference .................................................................. 23

More Information ...................................................................... 34

Grandfathers need to watch what they say to grandsons!

As we called it a night I looked at Chris and realized we needed to share this

All material in this document is copyright © 2008 The TFT Group

I‟m going to bet that when you

Once you know what you‟re train- We avoid it by successfully navi-

Of course, we hope you‟ll train with

We‟re going to demystify violence:

In the end I want you to be able to

ally killing rivals in order to secure re-

Our ancestors lived and died by Life is better without violence--

All those who came before us

Just like in the movies. Except when they aren‟t.

Because if it works in here, it‟s Once we‟re programmed to view

But violence isn‟t a social interac- Is a social display really an appro-

is no. See Next Page >>

If he is unconcerned with status

And that requires a violence solu-

and spend time on a court with a

They may be an amazing physical My training has not prepared me to

pletely different? should never be done in lieu of actual

It‟s much easier to convince some-

well-trained, everyone‟s eye comes quired... injuring the other man.

And the results are identical--

or as a recognition of dominance, when facing down the embalmed and

The problem was social, he went

Any rule, convention or assumption Thinking about how to apply a cer-

If you would like to be able to

to dominate the social arena I can‟t See Next Page >>

There are literally tens of thou-

Just as you wouldn‟t bring a hand-

But if that one thing that scares

Sane, socialized people recog-

You don‟t have to be big, strong, or We refer to these important ana-

The human body is in many ways options for applying them.

Believe me when I tell you I wish it It‟s an awful thing to contemplate,

Where things really go to hell is While not every guru is a charla-

He may be able to survive violent This is why TFT-creator Tim Larkin

He may be brilliant and charismatic As an instructor he knew that his

As a group, we are able to combine After almost 20 years, we both

Many people were disappointed

We trained people, they ran into

We don‟t have to be here--we want The common thread is this: if the

We‟re not freshly-minted black This basic assumption informs and

When we train a group of 30 we That‟s not how it worked out.

The initial concept was to get to

At a three-day seminar in Dallas, While there were some who were

6. We Listen, and Adapt The results amazed everyone, in-

more effort, half a day. See Next Page >>

Returning clients, those who had

To this day we pay close attention