Instinctive answer was five days. Want to try to be a little more specific here.
Day One: The Theoretical Day
-Intros, goals, safety briefing, teaching philosophy, what I don't know
-Fear versus danger; fear management versus danger management
- Violence Motivations, Maslow model and Triune Brain from ConCom
- Violence Dynamics including Social, Asocial, Asocial Masquerading as Social, Deviant Social and cyclical violence
- Avoidance and evasion
- Context: Ethics and Law; breaking the freeze; aftermath
- SD Law
- Gender Differences in Violence
- Logic of Violence Method
- Individual Victim Profiles
- Violence for communication versus violence for effect
- Three natural strategies
- Mindsets
Day 2: Physical Day
- Not fighting. Close range assassinations.
- 'A' Targets. Easy, Reliable, Incapacitating
- 'B' Targets. Require strength and or practice. Incapacitating.
- 'C' Targets. Require skill and/or luck. Incapacitating.
- Power generation
- Other options: Movement and unbalancing
- Principles: balance; exploiting momentum; exploiting gravity; structure
- Immediate Action
- Fight to the Goal
- Counter-assault
Day 2 Evening: Field Exercise 1: Reading Terrain
- Cruise local area for ambush zones; E&E protocols and principles; Tags; Target-rich environments.
Day 3: Physical Day
- Safety Briefing
- Counter-assault Practice
- Takeouts
- One Step. Special emphasis on what it is and what we are NOT doing, e.g. practicing fighting.
- Targets and Targeting Drills
- Close range strikes
- Close range Kicks
- Take downs
- Leverage points
- Blindfolded work
- Counter assault practice
Day 4: Physical Day
- Safety Briefing
- Counter Assault Practice
- Moving a body
- Wall work
- Environmental fighting
- Weapons and Improvised weapons
- Ground movement
- Striking from the Ground
- Application and limitations of pain; tactical use of pain
- Weapon access under assault
- Mass brawl
- Counter assault practice
- Messy drill
- Individual fears and concerns brief and brainstorm.
Day 4 Evening: Field Exercise 2: Reading People
- Urban anthropology and victim/threat assessment practice
Day 5: Scenario Day
- 2 targeted scenarios for each participant. Each scenario debriefed to a peer jury regarding both tactics and legal justification.
- Articulation wars
- Tactical considerations to include the presence of children and babies
I think that would cover things. It's a lot of information, but not overwhelming if it is taught correctly. Everything interconnects and almost everything can be connected to common experiences, so it becomes a way to think and a way to move instead of stuff to remember. Might also add a daily debriefing that would include learning how to conduct an after-action debrief.
I might add the flinch drill early on, with the verbal instruction that the recipient should go with their instinct to freeze, fight or flee after a specified amount of time. The 'taking it' time builds the emotional pressure, highlighting their instinct to freeze, fight or flee and sets up a deep connection between the emotional and rational brains, 'setting in' the information to come.
ReplyDeleteI suspect I've never been in good enough physical condition to keep up with the physical activity level involved here, but I'd love to be able to listen in. Any chance this might turn into the outline for the next book?
ReplyDeleteMac- F;inch drill is counter-assault on my list if we are talking about the same thing. One of the hard parts is that for every situation the answer after the first move becomes 'it depends.'
ReplyDeleteKathryn- You shouldn't have to be in shape to do this. Bad guys aren't going to target people in shape as often so any training that requires extreme physicality isn't aimed at the people who need it.
If you put that together I'd personally send at least 3, probably more girls/young women through it and recommend it to the parents of every teenage girl I know.
ReplyDeleteGiven what is known about learning, timing, and building memories do you imagine this as a one-week intensive or could it be built as a 6-week course (say, all day Saturdays for 6 weeks)?
ReplyDeleteI'd be willing to take a week off work to do it, myself.
I would like to take this class with my wife and daughters. Where and when?
ReplyDeleteKai-
ReplyDeleteMy gut check is that one day a week or spreading out over evenings a lot of time would be lost to recaps, whereas an intensive would use the scenarios to cement everything together.
Tony-
The thing with a week-long course is that people have to travel, take time off work... Hmmmm. Logistically, if we can put this down on one of my free few weeks this year or tack it on to a weekend seminar already scheduled...make it clear it's a beta test... Charge a nominal fee to cover venue, travel, lodging (or just venue if I do it here)... would need either a crop of local students or generate enough interest for people to travel to the venue...
Do-able?
These 5 days seem applicable to anyone really, not just women, right? The discussion on the gender differences in adrenal responses, and the logic of violence sections, would create the various directions the training might focus on, for all group types that might want to participate.
ReplyDeleteWow! The field trips for reading terrain and reading people sound like a great idea! You may want to separate the age groups because they have different situations and perspectives. The young college student is probably not going to be with children. She could be more involved in the dating scene. The married woman with children may have to deal with a home invasion.
ReplyDeleteI hope you also mention what bullets can or cannot travel through. Law enforcement takes it for granted that civilians know that.
I'm an East Coast-er, near Boston, and I'd love to have the opportunity to do something like this. My Kenpo classes are great, but I know they're nothing close to real-life scenarios or responses.
ReplyDeleteWell, my wife and I are interested, but with some work life complications. Unless it will happen in the Omaha/Lincoln, Nebraska area, our time for travel would be the week of July 4th. Even the we have babysitting available in the areas of: Salt Lake City, Utah; Twin Falls, Idaho; Pheonix, Arizona; or Grand Rapids, Michigan.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that those situations don't work so well for others.
And here is another option for a format. Two three day sessions. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday on two consecutive weeks. Use a hotel as a base of operations.
I would be VERY interested in this class, as would a couple of my friends. My only issue is not enough vacation time to do straight days and not weekends. Deirdre
ReplyDeleteHow do you get women interested in self defense in the first place? Most aren't.
ReplyDeletehi Rory, (unlurking here from the UK: Great blog - keep it a coming!). What would be different if it were men from zero to there? (No hidden agenda, or axe to grind with this question - just wondered what you would change. TimP
ReplyDeleteI want to take this class!
ReplyDeleteAnon1 posting again. Women are very interested in taking self-defense training. I attended a special class offered by the campus police while I was a college student because they wanted to get the campus rape rate down. It worked.
ReplyDeleteWe had a fully padded on-campus Dojo. That is where the class was offered and only to women. The only men present were trainers or those pretending to be the threats. I highly recommend that approach. Daddy should not be watching unless he is a security professional.
A men's class would be completely different. Men like to monkey dance. They have been doing that since they were kids. Their psychological outlook is completely different. Go take a martial arts class or sign up for the armed forces.
Men do not usually walk around with shoulder strap purses. Try doing the same movements with that purse hampering your shoulders and arm movements.
Speaking of props, try the same maneuvers with a cell phone in hand.
Women have been taught since early childhood to nurture. They must learn to switch from nurture to harm. Some cannot do it. They left class because they did not want to hurt anyone. It is deeply ingrained.
@Anon! -
ReplyDeleteThough I understand your wish for women only self defense classes, which is absolutely valid, I think your black and white descriptions of male and female behavior and needs is a little dated.
Though not everyone needs to train together, as someone said earlier, perhaps even college students have slightly different issues to deal with than mothers with young children, or the elderly, I know plenty of gentle, non monkey dancing, men who might appreciate some pointers in how protect themselves, as I know plenty very tough women who are unafraid of mixing it up, that need to understand articulation and the law better.
I personally think this model would work for whatever demographic chose to form a group and take the course, women only, mixed, old, tourists, whatever.
I'd love to take this course.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Is "moving a body" like where to hide a body? :)
This could be part of a template for other demographics, but there are some elements of violence dynamics that women absolutely need that rarely enter into a guys world. More importantly, it would take a lot of time to recondition most guys concept of a fight. Close range assassination would seem to simple and every step away from that makes it less clean. There are some guys who could let go and play simple, but most can't, IME. There are tons of drills where you can prove to them that they think in game mode when they shouldn't, they see ot, but they almost never change their behavior.
ReplyDeleteThis is specific. Starting from zero with a very particular victim profile. I'd even modify some things for trained women.
And no, Dan, moving a body is not evidence removal.
I'd like this for my wife.
ReplyDeleteFor myself, I'd like a DT seminar.
1. Even leaving aside the different issue of monkey dancing, socialization means that a single-sex grouping has a different dynamic from a mixed-sex group.
ReplyDelete2. Age segregation is too fine grained a filter--and misleading to boot. Single women might well be attacked in a situation when there are small children around (nieces and nephews, a friend's children--and surely some single women are teachers or day care workers?) and you'd be surprised how many married women with children go out dancing.
Anon1 again. I guess the Home Invasion issue is a whole different seminar and not gender specific.
ReplyDeleteWe are having a lot of violent carjackings in this neck of the woods this year. Once upon a time you could just say "Sure. Take the car." Now they shoot a three-year old girl at close range in the back seat because she was an unwanted package that came with the vehicle. This is not gender specific. It is a crime of opportunity in the victim's own driveway or parking lot. They target the rich, they target the modest low income people. They don't care.
They also like to play bumper car on our highways as well as the drive by shootings. I don't know if other areas of the U.S. are having an upswing in this kind of activity.