One of the posters on that blog who has had probably the most profound affect on me personally goes by the nom de guerre Belisarius. His actual name is Sebastian and he is a former D-1 football player turned SEAL turned Oxford educated Chute Boxe trained hedge fund manager. Bel, posted the following thoughts on why we train and what we are training for. All credit goes to him.
"Since you cannot control who you will run into, maybe it is prudent to create a template for a worst case opponent and assume that is who you will have to face in a fight for your life? Let's call him "Todd."
Physical fitness? Discipline? Motivation? Todd is a former Division I-level athlete. He benches over 350 and runs an all-out quarter-mile in just over 50 seconds. Todd spends his mornings pounding out miles of hard roadwork, pumps iron like a maniac in lieu of eating lunch, and spends his evenings dry-firing his EDC handgun, studying ways to hurt people, and beating the hell out of his Spar-Pro and heavy bag. He maintains an extensive library of books and videos on combat and survival-related topics.
He goes to bed tired but satisfied every night, satisfied because he has no other hobbies and because he looks at training as money in the bank---he will cash in his full paycheck on the fateful day that he faces you in a fight.
Todd spends his weekends doing strenuous physical activities and competing in IPSC Limited or IDPA matches. He spends his vacations going to places like Crucible, the Rogers Academy, and BSR. Todd has no other hobbies and he is not really concerned with being a "weird, paranoid freak" in the eyes of many normal people. Todd does not really hang out with "normal" people, anyway---he prefers to hang out with people like himself.
Warning of an attack? Deception? Good luck trying any Jedi mind tricks on Todd: he studies NLP and evolutionary psychology. Todd does not dress like some kind of thug, either: he knows that a clean-cut appearance increases his time/distance window of opportunity to ambush his prey. Pay very close attention to Todd's choice of boots, belt, and watch---they may be the only warnings that you get.
Todd knows that anonymity is the most important weapon in his formidable arsenal. He does not threaten, he does not warn, he does not talk shit or insult---those things take time and telegraph intentions. Todd just makes a binary decision and then acts.
Training? Background? Todd trains in the most effective fighting and survival techniques that he can. He is open-minded and non-judgmental, caring only that techniques fit within an overarching framework of logic and ruthless pragmatism. He lives his whole life this way---it is his structure, his discipline, his religion. Todd may have a black belt from Rickson Gracie, may have been a Golden Gloves boxer or a freestyle wrestler or a linebacker, may have trained in the famous Muay Thai gyms of Holland, maybe a student of WWII Combatives or battlefield jiu-jitsu methods. Maybe---and now the plot gets chilling (as Marcus Wynne describes in his books)---Todd has been the recipient of millions of dollars in government-sponsored training...money that was specifically spent to turn him into some kind of professional shadow-warrior badass, like John Macejunas or Kelly McCann.
Maybe Todd is all of the above: operator, martial artist, fighter, contact-sport athlete.
It does not really matter where he got his start, because he has synthesized his approach into a combination of very destructive, attack-oriented techniques that he can perform with maximal effort without much fear of hurting himself in the process. He can strike and he can grapple, and most importantly he always tries to hit first.
Weapons? Equipment? This is the best part: trying to beat Todd in an unarmed fight is largely an academic exercise, because you will never, ever catch Todd unarmed. He carries a Glock or 1911, Fox OC spray, and a fixed-blade with him CCW every single day of his life. Todd is not interested in hitting you with his hands or feet---given even the slightest provocation, his opening gambit will be to present his handgun from the holster and to demand that you remain very still and quiet. If you then try to disarm Todd, strike Todd, or reach for your own weapon to attack Todd, Todd will not hesitate to shoot until slide lock.
Todd also trains in ways to use his knife to great effect---maybe pikal, maybe more of a Kni-Com technique, maybe both. Names like James Keating and the Dog Brothers are very familiar to Todd.
Todd will run you over with his SUV if you give him reason to. If you are more of a distant problem, he keeps an M4 or a DSA FAL in a Pelican case in the trunk, next to his trauma med kit and bugout ruck.
Forget trying to get to Todd at home: his place is like a fortress, complete with crazy locks (Todd studies B&E, too), a large dog, and the ubiquitous Scattergun Technologies 12-gauge with Sure-Fire light.
Remember that Todd likes to move first---his first move is to draw a weapon on you. Todd is not stupid. This isn't Bloodsport or a Sho Kosugi film. Todd wants to win...period.
Todd sounds like a nightmare, doesn't he? Well, let's all take heart---while we cannot control whether or not we will ever have to face a Todd, we CAN control our own training and preparation. We can become "Todds" (!). Many of you probably consciously found similarities between your own lifestyles and habits and the ones that were described above. I think the idea is to imagine the most ferocious and skilled opponent that you could face in a nightmare, then try to become that person (within whatever constraints that you face). If you are not willing to become a Todd, then you need to ask yourself who it is that you believe you are training to face.
We can become the "worst-case scenario" for someone else to have to deal with. I believe that these forums are about this...the mindset, the techniques, the equipment. There has been a lot of heated debate lately on various subtopics beneath the mantle of self-defense, but we are all students (no one has all the answers) and we are share far more similarities than we do differences. I don't believe that anyone here is interested in promulgating some kind of massive mind-meld---dissenting opinions are what fuels progress and interesting debate.
My personal image of Todd is that he looks like the creature that would emerge if an Affliction-sponsored H2 carrying a mixed Chute Boxe/Black House group of pro MMA fighters back from a surf trip collided with an armored Mercedes Geländewagen carrying a bunch of elite, extreme tacti-glam resume PMCs and their JP VTACs, Grail ARs, and Multi-Cam assault rigs back from a 3-Gun tactical match/visit to various strip joints. The fighters were probably distracted by gangsta-metal and an intense, "who is the best porn actress of all time?" debate, while the G-operators were having fun listening to vintage Zeppelin while driving on NODs (as they practiced at Hall's offroad school, no doubt). The resulting head-on collision somehow opened a rift in space and time and Todd was produced by all the flying T Rex DNA, weapons, and Red Bull. Suffice to say that he is about as hard to miss in a crowd as an escaped polar bear running amok at Chuck E. Cheese.
Todd is an amalgam of many different things.
He is the perfect storm.
He is streetwise, bookwise, formaly trained and has real life experience, skilled in the finer points of combatives yet has the brute strength to simply pick you up and throw you into traffic, able to shoot close range with or without sights, able to snipe you from 600 yards, able to drive so as not to arouse the local beat cop when he is carrying a severed head and a brick or heroin tar in his back seat yet also able to do pit manuvers and out-drive the state police to escape when need be, can set up booby traps at his house to make himself secure and pick locks to get you, knows how to kill K-9's if need be....
He may have done prison time as well as have a masters degree and credit toward his doctorate.
He may be all that, and you may be sitting next to him at starbucks.
He is the very fit 40 something guy in the relaxed fit dockers, mitch rosen belt, rockport shoes, the yellow polo shirt that is slightly bloused out yet tucked in (Versa-max and a Colt series 80 w/ night sights stoked with something 230 grain and bonded) who is sipping coffee and eating a struddle, reading the New York Times financial section.
Around him on the table are Food & Wine magazine, a novel by Barry Eisler or Kyle Mills and a book on Weight Training for Explosive Power which mentions people he knows in the author's dedication.
He is all. He is nothing.
He doesn't have feelings. He is also not insulted or ashamed of who he is or what he does. He is what and who he is. He accepts that."
I love the concept of Todd and Bel's description. Gets me fired up to train.
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