The Structure of Pencak Silat Mande Muda The late Guru Besar Herman Suwanda taught us that the many styles of Pencak Silat in West Java all have a similar structure. Because of this, he and the Suwanda family were able to incorporate many of them in their hybrid family style, Pencak Silat Mande Muda. If you are studying Pencak Silat, it is important to know the curriculum structure so you can have a more complete understanding of how to organize what you learn. At Tactical Arts, we study Pencak Silat Mande Muda, so the information below will be based on Mande Muda. Like the other styles in West Java, Pencak Silat Mande Muda has three main parts. These parts are jurus, buah, and kembangan. See how these are each defined below: Jurus - “Root" In any martial art, there are techniques and combinations that are seen in several techniques and training drills. In Pencak Silat Mande Muda, many of these combinations and techniques are contained in short forms, called jurus. Jurus literally means “root.” This is appropriate because these forms serve as the root or foundation of your training in Pencak Silat. By practicing the forms and the material contained within, you will develop coordination, flow and proper body mechanics for applying Pencak Silat. In addition to being a tool for cultivating coordination, jurus act as the roots of many other techniques. Though a form may have one primary application, it is often designed to be a placeholder for many applications. Because of this, it can serve as a memory tool. If you can remember the primary application by relating it to the jurus, you can then peg many variations of that application to your memory of that jurus and its primary application. Some jurus have an entire series of applications, whereas some have only one or two. In training jurus, you will develop a foundation. It is important to note that you will not learn every situation possible by learning jurus and their related applications, but you will get the building blocks needed for learning many other options. Most jurus are performed alone, but some are in the form of partner drills. Some jurus are somewhat general, or have less specificity in movement to their related application than others. Whereas, other jurus may have very particular movements intended to help coordinate you for very specific applications. By learning and practicing multiple jurus, you will develop a diverse set of basics and coordination for Pencak Silat. Buah - "Fruit" The buah of Pencak Silat are the applications themselves. Buah means “fruit,” and is the technique that you have learned as a result of your practice with the jurus. Jurus are the forms and structured drills, but the buah are techniques when used combatively on a partner or opponent. From the root mechanics, techniques and drills cultivated in the jurus, you have developed the skill to block, strike, control or takedown your opponent. These are the buah. The buah is based on your practice of the jurus, but it may not exactly mimic the jurus. Sometimes this is true because the jurus was purposefully designed to be vague, so a new student could not learn to apply the technique without first developing trust with the instructor. In other circumstances, the jurus are just more conventional. Though they may not have the exact movement of the buah, they have a the gross mechanics and still serve as a suitable reference and exercise.The buah are skills that are initially developed with the jurus as the foundation. There are also the expressive aspects of Pencak Silat that come from the jurus known as kembangan. Kembangan - "Flower" Kembangan, meaning literally “development" or “flowering,” is both an artistic expression of Pencak Silat and another training tool. Kembagan was originally an expression of a Silat fighter's favorite techniques, organized in a fighting sequence. It served as a victory dance wherein he would show off how he defeated one or more opponents. It later became a training tool, like the jurus. In fact, the jurus are a more recent development in Silat as a teaching and curriculum organizational tool. The kembangan of West Java are some of the most organized and complex. They can be structured around several conventions much like poetry. Performed in coordination with music, the kembangan may contain several different tempos and drumming patterns all based on the action being performed and the intended expression of the form. This may range from a slow intro to a full speed fighting sequence. A good kembangan will make sense. If you have experience in Silat, then you will be able to follow along while watching someone perform and imagine the opponents as the fight progresses. A poorly designed kembangan may look nice, but lacks a logical sequence of actions. A good kembangan will display the grace of the artist and follow a logical progression. Conclusion Pencak Silat Mande Muda has both self-defense and artistic expression. It offers the opportunity for the student to explore both the practical side of martial arts, as well as the culture behind it. Many of us who are committed to training realistic self-defense, are uncomfortable with things like stylistic forms and artistic expression. I enjoy the cultural side of Pencak Silat, but because of my personal preference, I spend the majority of my training time on application. However, while visiting Indonesia in my early days of training Pencak Silat, I met a few grandmasters who were great at kembangan. Their skills at kembangan did not appear to detract at all from their ability to kill many, many people in defense of their families and country during their fights for Indonesian independence. In our classes, we spend the majority of our time on drills and practice that will directly improve the application of our techniques, but we touch on some of the cultural elements from time to time to provide a more full understanding of the arts. It's actualy quite nice to learn something that is both deadly and beautiful.

Training Tips to make you better, faster Whether you are attending a regular class or only receive instruction from time to time, practice at home is must to develop your Kali skills quickly. Even when my students come to class on a regular basis, they don’t really accelerate their learning until they incorporate regular practice at home. Because of this, I highly recommend you practice your skills at home between each class or lesson. It is actually this self-guided practice that will challenge you to understand the material. The process of trying to recall and practice the material will force you to analyze it. You will not have anyone to follow, so you must use your memory and critical thinking skills. The more you practice at home, the quicker you will learn in class. It is essential that you try to remember the movements you have learned and make an effort to perfect them outside of class. This will allow you to develop your mental image of what the movements should be. With a more clear image, you will be able to replicate the movement more accurately. Add repetition, and you will get ahead. Rather than spending more precious class time on repetition for coordination, you can return to class, ready to move forward, with the skills you developed at home. Below are some tips on structuring your Kali practice at home. Focus on the skills with the biggest impact Start by determining what are the most important skills that you should be practicing right now. The skills you need to develop first are those that will support many the techniques that you will learn in the future. Ask your instructor what you should practice at home, so you can coordinate it with your lessons. It will likely be a mix of critical fundamentals and whatever instruction is currently being presented in class. You may want to figure out the badass florete combination that you saw a senior student do after class, but you really should be practicing the skills that will give you the best return on investment, at your level. These skills with the best return will change as your experience level changes, but the fundamentals will always be important. Some of the most important skills you can develop at home include body mechanics, footwork and coordination in your strikes. Regardless of the technique you are learning, you will need to be able to hit and move at the same time. In your home training sessions, start by separating your footwork and your hand skills for focused practice on each. Practice the footwork first. Most of us feel that the striking is more fun, but the footwork is more critical to get right. The movement of your hands don’t matter if you are not in the right place (via footwork), so get the footwork down first. After you practice the footwork, practice your striking. Refine your strikes to develop accuracy, precision, speed and power. Finally, combine them back into the complete movement so that you are doing your footwork and your striking at the same time. Make sure you practice long enough to get all the body mechanics working together. Be organized in your training approach Break your movements into bite-sized chunks. If you are learning a combination it is often better to start with repeating small portions of it first. As you get more comfortable with each part, add a little more. This will allow you to identify and focus on areas that need more attention. If you are struggling with one part, separate it from the combination. Fix it with practice, then plug that part back into the combination. Include fundamentals in every session. Fights are typically won based on solid fundamentals. Make sure you have regular practice on the fundamentals, so that you will continue to improve them each session. After 25 years of doing Kali, I still start all my training sessions with basic footwork and strikes. Multiple sessions, even if short, are better than one long one. Frequency is the key. Try to practice a little each day rather than training for only one long session. Multiple sessions will allow your mind to process your learning along the way, and you will stay more focused if the sessions are shorter. Keep a journal of your practice sessions. By keeping a journal, you will allow for better continuity between your training sessions. Note what you have improved, what you are working on, and what you want to train during future sessions. Write down your goals and anything that is helping you reach them. Record questions you have for your instructor and advice you get from more experienced training partners. A journal will help you stay on task and allow you to start the next session with a basic plan of action already in place. Anatomy of a training session I recommend this simple outline for your home training session: 1. Journal Review - Review what you did in your previous training session. Determine what you need to cover in this upcoming session and keep your journal ready for today’s entry. 2. Warmup - Increase your body temperature with low impact, gross motor movements. Use slow, big motions. If possible, use those related to the fundamentals you practice or a recent combination that you have been learning. 3. Fundamental Review - Put in some flight time perfecting your fundamentals. This does not have to take much time and can be a continuation of your warmup. Practice footwork, striking, and striking combined with footwork. I like doing repetitions in multiples of 500. Either count or set a timer, but pay attention and find things to improve. 4. Technical Practice - Spend some time working on the specific combinations or techniques that you intend to improve right now. This could be something that you recently learned in class, a weakness you want to improve, or just something you want to give more attention. Pick only 1- 3 items, so that you can give each focused attention. 5. Performance Challenge - Do something that will challenge you to perform your technique. Practice one or more combinations for multiple repetitions at full speed to develop speed and stamina. Hit tires to develop power. Or combine these drills in a short interval workout to develop the basics of fitness together with your Kali skills. This challenge will not only help you improve your ability to apply these skills, but it will also help you identify where things break down. Knowing this will help you plan what practice you need for next time. 6. Journal Entry - Write notes in your journal about this session. Include how you felt that day, what you did, and what things you can improve. Write enough so that you can start your next session without wasting any time remembering what you wanted to do or need to practice. Conclusion For learning Kali, having a training partner is very important, but there is a lot you can do alone at home. In fact, training alone is necessary if you want to progress quickly in Kali. Though you do not have anyone at home to give you immediate feedback, you should not let that be a barrier to getting something done. It is better to practice something than to skip it altogether. Don’t wait for the ideal conditions to practice, just do it. Focus on what is most important and improve your weaknesses. Stay organized and you will see improvement in a short period of time.

Do or Die: How to Build Confidence in Self Defense Self-confidence is a manifestation of trust in yourself. It is faith that your experience and understanding will guide and protect you when there is change, challenge, or difficulty.  It is a belief in your own capabilities and skills.  What could be more important in a life and death scenario? One of the critical factors that contribute to success is self-confidence.  With confidence, we can learn new skills, we can defeat an opponent, and we can reach our goals despite terrible adversity.  Confidence is the fuel that allows us to continue regardless of what struggles may lay ahead.  With it, we will not be inclined to quit.  Marcus Tullius Cicero said, With confidence, you have won even before you have started. Having confidence in your ability to fight will allow you to act swiftly when your life is threatened.  It will allow you to continue even when faced with possible failure.  If you lack confidence, you may never take action, and you may not even be able to decide what to do. We lack confidence when we lack knowledge and experience.  A lack of confidence comes from a lack of knowledge or a feeling of being unprepared.   It comes from fear of the unknown.  We lack confidence when we do not know what to expect.  When we have no experience, we have no basis for evaluating our ability to handle a stressful situation.  On the contrary, if we do have experience, a lack of confidence can be a result of a history of failures and low self-esteem.  The good news is that we can change all of those factors above and purposefully develop confidence. Building confidence is not just a matter of positive thinking, you can actually build it.  Self-confidence can be general or specific.  General self-confidence is more of a personality trait, and it is related to your behavior across many areas of your life.  Specific self-confidence is more of a state of mind that relates to your knowledge and abilities in a specific area.  For this article, I discuss building confidence specifically for self-defense and martial arts.  You can’t just talk yourself into having more confidence with affirmations and positive thinking.  That doesn't build trust or belief.  There is a formula for cultivating confidence. The formula for building your self-confidence is simple. First, you must expand your knowledge on the subject.  Then, take action to improve your skills.  Finally, you must build experience and recognize your successes.  This approach will build the trust in your abilities.  If you follow these steps, you will improve both your specific and general self-confidence. Expand your Knowledge The best antidote for a lack of confidence is planning and preparing for the unknown.  You can start by expanding your knowledge.  Knowledge alone can dispel anxiety and start to build confidence. Research violence, crime, and security.  Learn about personal crimes, including robbery, assault, battery, rape, kidnapping, homicide, and any other threats to your security.  You may not know exactly what specific threats you may face, but you can learn why and how typical violent crimes occur.  You can study and understand the nature of the threats you may face by studying examples in news reports, video footage, and personal accounts.  With that knowledge, you will begin to understand the threat and consider your options. The added awareness from your research will give you the resources to begin planning solutions for your security.  You will be ready to start a plan of action to acquire the skills you need.  With your research, you can learn what others have done to survive violent attacks.  You can research what training is available and then decide what training you will pursue. Take Action Self-confidence comes from taking action and taking risks, not from worrying about your problems.  After you have gained some knowledge through your research, you have to act on it.  Making a decision and taking action is the only way to develop the skills you need.  It is also the only way you will learn to survive an attack.  When an attack comes you need to be able to take action immediately.  If you make it a habit to take action, even with small things, you will be strengthening your ability to act when your are confronted with a life threatening problem.   Like lifting weights, taking small risks will strengthen your confidence to take bigger ones.  Take the next step, and start training. There are many things you need to learn and train.  Develop situational awareness, and learn to recognize a threat.  Learn to diffuse an attack using verbal skills and body language.  Develop physical self-defense skills with a wide range of applications.  Cultivate athleticism and pursue fitness so that you will have confidence in your body to perform under stress.   All of these skills will give you a strong base you can draw on when you are confronted with a threat. It does not matter where you start, just get started.  It’s more important to start, than to wait until you are already in shape, or have the perfect schedule.  You can work around any injuries or limitations. Build Experience and Recognize your Successes Taking action leads to experience, and experience leads to confidence.  Your self-confidence is heavily based on your history.  You need to create a history of successes in order to create a history that will bolster your self-confidence. Repeated successes, specific to your training goals, will lead to more confidence in your self defense skills.  If you learn to perform a technique while under the pressure of sparring or during a force-on-force drill, lift a heavier weight than you ever have before, or make the right choices in a training scenario, you will see your confidence grow in these areas. In training, you need to prove to yourself your ability to be successful.  Build a success record using SMART goals.  Use this record as a reference to help you see the growth in your skills.  Know your strengths and weaknesses.  Experience will help you identify what you can improve and what you have already improved. Study and train to add more to your strengths. Tackle each of the weaknesses, and remember mistakes are learning opportunities.  Break down what you are learning into small enough parts so that you can learn them.   Use criticism from your instructor and peers as tool for improvement, and don’t let it affect your self esteem. Experience gained through training can reduce anxiety.  Progressive training suited to your skill level can help you learn to cope with the pressure of challenge.  Scenario drills, force-on force-training, and sparring drills can inoculate you to stress.  With a progressive approach, you will be able to cope with more and more stress.  Ultimately, the experience gained through training also improves your comprehension and knowledge, which takes you back to the first step in building confidence discussed above. Conclusion Building self confidence in your ability to protect yourself will influence your general self-confidence in other areas of your life.  You will find that because you know yourself better through the process of learning and creating success, you will feel better prepared to handle other challenges.  The accumulated successes from your training will give you more faith in yourself.  The approach described above can apply to any skill development. Self-confidence leads to you being able to solve problems, take action after making mistakes, and making tough decisions when under pressure.  It’s worth pursuing consciously, and it can easily be a part of a well structured training program.

Life, Death and Personal Philosophy in Self DefenseAligning your training with your values You can train your physical skills, martial arts, self defense, firearms, fitness, emergency preparedness, etc. until you are a machine, but you must have your mind in the right place or it may all be for naught.  You need to cultivate your cognitive skills under pressure and you need the right mindset.  Without that proper mindset, you will not be able to apply your skills when you need them.  Perhaps even more important: You not only need to address your physical skills, cognitive skills and winning mindset, but also your religious or philosophical values.  You must identify and align your personal beliefs with your training to be able to defend yourself.  If the actions required to apply your skills does not align with your beliefs, then you are setting yourself up to freeze when you are under pressure.  Also, if you do not have the right values in place, then you may not train hard enough to reach your full potential.  A complete approach to self defense will include defining your personal beliefs and your personal philosophy of life. Belief and Personal Philosophy Without belief or a philosophy of life, you will have no significant direction.  You will drift through life.  You may have a career path, or a plan to develop your hobbies and pursue your interests, but you may be missing a real sense of purpose.  Identify your values and determine if the way you live your life is consistent with those values. Whether you take your values from your religion, your culture, your parents, or your personal philosophy, you need to identify them to live by them.  Once they are identified, you can structure your priorities, your approach, and your methods of training self defense accordingly. Grand Tuhon Leo Gaje, grandmaster of the Filipino martial art Pekiti Tirsia Kali, taught me what he calls the philosophy of the Filipino warrior.  It is a great philosophy that can be translated into action and can fit anyone regardless of culture or religion.   We can examine this as an example to understand how values can translate into actions related to self defense and martial arts training. Below is the summary of beliefs, followed by a short explanation of each in terms of self defense. We believe in success, not failure. We believe in good health, not sickness. We believe in life, not death. Believing in Success Believing in success will help you build your skills in training, overcome an opponent, and solve any problems in your life.  It defines how you approach a problem and gives you a mindset that will look for the positive in everything you do.  Recognizing these positive elements will give you the fuel to continue.  You do not see failure as defeat, only a part of the process to reach success.  Believing in success is a matter of proper focus.   Focus on finding a solution, rather than only thinking about the problem.  Being focused on a solution will keep you from being limited or boxed in by the specifics of a problem.  This focus will give you direction when facing an obstacle or challenge. When you approach a challenge in life, rather than thinking "what happens if I fail", focus on thinking "what will happen if I succeed.”   Let your opponent be concerned about failure.  His worry about failure will only lead him to it.  Our beliefs feed our reality.  It is important to anticipate problems and prepare for them, but worry is useless.  Belief will lead to action.  Your belief in success will lead you to make decisions on the things you can influence and prepare for those you cannot.  If you believe in success you will be drawn to it.  If you really value success, then you will take the steps required to reach it. Believing in Health Believing in health results in making conscious choices to be healthy.  If you believe in health, then you will not make choices that will lead to sickness.  You will not eat unhealthy foods, or eat excessive amounts of food.  You will focus on good nutrition.  You will not abuse your body with harmful drugs or excessive alcohol.  You will get the right amount of rest and play to manage your stress.  You will exercise and maintain your body so that you are ready for any challenge.  If you expect to protect yourself and your family, then you must be healthy.  When you value health, you will make choices that lead to fitness of both your body and your mind.   Believing in health will strengthen your physical and mental capabilities.  On a physical level, we address our health so that we are prepared to act.  We need our bodies to be healthy and strong to win a fight. However, a by-product of a healthy body is a healthy mind.  Your mind will operate more effectively when you are healthy.  Your ability to think and make decisions under pressure will improve.  Your awareness and your mindset will be stronger when your body is fit.   Believing in Life The purpose of self defense and martial arts training is to preserve life, not to kill.  If you believe in life, you are training to use your skills to protect your family, your community, and your country.  You are not developing those skills to prey on others.  If you believe in life, you avoid conflict when possible to preserve life.  Rather than fight to protect your pride, you diffuse a confrontation or evade it altogether.   If your opponent believes in death, then you must be prepared to stop him.  Your belief in life is what will preserve you.  You will not accept your own death as an option.  If your opponent tries to hurt you, you must be mentally prepared to use violence against him.  If you believe in life, your goal is not to kill him, it is to preserve your own life. It’s already too late if you are trying to decide your life views when a threat of life and death appears. If you are to use lethal force, you must already believe that you can hurt another and be prepared to take the life of another in order to preserve your own.  If you have not thought through your values to see if your training is consistent with your beliefs, then you may have wasted your time and money on that new gun, expensive knife and lethal force training. If you really examine your values, you may decide that you are unwilling to use lethal force.  Knowing that will help you make the right self defense training and security decisions for you.  We do not all have the same values.  You must decide on your own.  If you do, then you will have more peace of mind and be better prepared in times of crisis.

If you do not have a physical foundation, you’re dead.   Imagine a military comprised of only extremely unfit men: Men who could not do a pushup or climb a flight of stairs without running out of breath.  What if not one of them could run 50 yards or lift anything heavy?  What if they only ate food from McDonald’s.  It would be absurd.  These are men who need to be strong both physically and mentally.  They need to be able to endure hardship and overcome an enemy that is trained, deadly and determined.  A military force like that would not survive it's first encounter.  The same is true for us. If we are studying self defense for anything other than a fun pastime, then we need to be physically prepared to use it.  We need to be fit.  It’s that simple.  We need to consume the right foods to build and fuel a fit body.  We need to exercise in order to be stronger, have more endurance and recover from injury.  In truth, we are not just fighting the bad guy, but we are fighting diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and a long list of other conditions that are the result of a lifestyle that is not focused on health and fitness.  To be effective with self defense and to be able to apply martial arts skills, we need to include real fitness in our training. Capability to perform Your ability to perform self defense is dependent on your fitness.  Techniques give you an advantage, but techniques are still based primarily on your physical skills.  In other words, technique alone is not enough.  We need to be able to generate power and speed to defeat an attacker.  We need to be able to endure the demands of training and applying our techniques at full speed.  We need the stamina to fight not only one, but multiple attackers.  At the very least, we need to be able to run fast, but we may need to be able to fight and run fast all in the same incident. Strength in particular will improve your chances of being successful. A good lock will give us leverage, but at a certain point, it may not be enough.  We benefit by having more strength to secure that lock and control the opponent once we get it.  Having both leverage and strength combined is much better.   We need to be able to fight a larger opponent.  We cannot make him any smaller, but we can make ourselves stronger.  Strength is a prerequisite for explosive power.  We need power for hitting hard and taking down an opponent quickly.  Strength only comes with training. Minimize injury   Exercise will reduce your chances of injury.  It does this by strengthening your muscles, joints, and connective tissue.  Strength training will increase your bone density, making them more resistant to injury.    A good fitness program will vary your physical development to reduce imbalances and injuries caused from repetitive training such as striking.  You need fitness to endure both your training and performing your technique during an attack.  Striking targets, doing force-on-force drills, sparring and fighting off an attacker on bath salts all require fitness.  Fitness training will also make you more agile and flexible and therefore able to perform technique with less probability of injury. In addition to reducing your chances of injury, fitness will improve your recovery from an injury.  Proper nutrition and rest allows your body to repair injuries more quickly.  Fit people are also less likely to suffer from additional health complications resulting from an injury.  They are not as likely to get sick when their overall health is challenged by injury.  The better your fitness, the faster your recovery. Confidence to Meet Challenge Confidence is a critical ingredient in success.  Without it, you will probably fail even when conditions are in your favor.  Regular fitness training will improve your confidence. The feedback loop of doing exercise, measuring the results, and seeing your progress will build confidence.  Your confidence is then also bolstered by your ability to perform techniques faster and with more power.  This confidence will allow you to attempt things that are hard or uncertain, to fight a strong enemy, and to face your fears. You need mental toughness to survive.  Quality fitness training will get you used to pushing yourself, to working hard, and to developing personal discipline. If you train hard, you will become mentally stronger.  That’s just what you need to endure an attack and prevail, especially if you are injured or disadvantaged.  If you get hit, cut or shot, so what.  Your attitude will keep you in the fight.  You will learn to persevere.  If you continually push yourself, your willpower will improve and you will get used to accepting a challenge.  You will accept it, even when you know it will hurt.  You will become willing to work now for a greater result later.  You will train yourself to continue and not to quit.  Meeting these challenges on a regular basis will help you prepare for a more serious life challenge. Every time you go to workout, you are not just making your body stronger, but you are making your mind stronger.  If you do it right, you will train the qualities mentioned above every day you workout.  It sounds cliche, but it is true.  Conclusion I believe you need general physical preparedness as a foundation for your self defense and martial arts skills training.  Fitness cultivated only through martial arts classes is not enough.  There are self defense and martial arts exercises that can also give you fitness benefits, but they are not enough for a well rounded fitness program. You need a more well rounded program that gives you more variety and develops other physical skills such as absolute strength.  The program should be focused on fitness as the primary goal, and it should address nutrition, rest and recovery.  In addition to the physical skills you develop, you will also develop the mental skills you need to survive and prevail in a violent encounter. 

Methods to develop powerful strikes in your Kali training If you need to hit someone, then make sure when you hit them, it counts. To do this, you need to be able to hit them hard. If you are lawfully justified in doing so, hit them with enough power that it will stop them from attacking you again. If you have trained to hit hard, then you have the option of hitting with less force when appropriate. However, if you have never developed the ability to hit hard, then you simply will not have that option. Learn to hit hard. If you have a sharp blade and an accurate strike, you may not always need to hit hard, but you do need to be fast. In Kali, we are training for the use of both impact weapons and blades. If you cannot deliver a fast strike and quickly recover, then you are in trouble. The longer you leave yourself exposed, the more opportunity an opponent has to defeat you. However, other skills aside, if you are faster, then you have a much better chance of prevailing over an opponent. This is true in competition, and it is true in self defense. Learn to strike fast. Below are some methods for learning to strike fast and hit hard. Whether you want to be faster for competition, self defense, or both, the methods below will help you improve. Coordination, Consistency, and Speed To reach the full potential of any technique, you first need to be coordinated. When you are coordinated, your technique will be efficient. Your mechanics will become efficient through repetition. With repetition, you will become more familiar with the movement. You need to be familiar with the movement, so that you can optimize it for speed and power. When you are familiar with the movement, when you really have it down, the speed will begin to come naturally. So if you are trying to develop speed with your strikes, go slow first and get coordinated before you add speed. Once you are consistent with the movement and have cultivated sufficient muscle memory, you must push yourself to get faster.  In my early days of training, we used a metronome to measure and develop speed. With a metronome, you can set a time interval of beats and try to complete your strike or combination between the beats. Now, you can use a par timer for the same thing. Download a shot timer app has a par timer function to your phone. Set the time to beep using an interval long enough that allows you to complete your strike or combination with good form. Gradually shorten the interval little by little and continue. Don’t shorten the interval until you can consistently complete your strike or combination. Do not shorten the time until you can execute the technique ten times in a row without going over the allotted time. With this drill, you are squeezing the time and reaching to complete your movement in less and less time. It is this act of reaching that will make you better, so you must be honest with yourself in regards to actually completing the movement in time. The value here is that you are objectively testing your speed and making immediate adjustments as you repeat the drill. This immediate feedback during practice is key.  It will make you faster. Maintain the integrity of the movement. Make sure the range of motion for each repetition is the same. Otherwise, you are really not getting faster, you are just doing less. If you truncate a strike, you may lose the power needed to make it effective. That's the wrong path. In truth, you may find a compromise between power and speed that you can accept, but you will be better off training the full movement and pushing yourself to increase the speed only. If not, you may sacrifice the effectiveness of your technique. Body Mechanics, Follow Through and Hitting Hard Proper body mechanics will allow you to generate more force. When you are using proper body mechanics, the muscle groups used in delivering your strikes are synchronized and work together in a chain. Instead of just using the muscles of your arm and shoulder alone to strike, you can use your arm, shoulder, back, hips and legs together in a kinetic chain. Imagine how a baseball pitcher will use his entire body to throw the ball. Each movement of his body is synchronized to culminate in a powerful throw. If you develop the proper mechanics, you will hit much harder. Learn to strike properly from your instructor and test your strikes by hitting a target. Make changes in your mechanics each time you strike and compare the result. It’s simple: You must hit something hard in order to get better at hitting hard. To hit hard, you must practice following through. You will never hit a home run if you only try to bunt the ball. To follow through, you must continue your strike through the target. Don’t stop at the surface of the target. Continue to accelerate your strike until after your weapon has passed through it. With the exception of Usain Bolt, winning sprinters continue to sprint at their maximal speed until they are past the finish line. If they only aim to reach the finish line, they will begin to decelerate before reaching it and, in doing so, lose power. The same is true of your strike. Strike though a full range of motion to cultivate the power to hit hard. Let your strike continue until your arm wraps around your body or reaches a (safe) natural stopping point. Ideally it will also be in a chambered or loaded position to strike again. By doing this, you will find you engage more of your kinetic chain and you will identify how to coordinate it. If you later abbreviate the strike for the purpose of application, you will still be able to tap into those mechanics. However, if you try to shorten the strike in the beginning, you may never learn to tap into those mechanics fully. Adding footwork with your strikes will allow you to develop even more force. Imagine getting a running start to hit someone. That’s what footwork can do for you. With the right timing, you can build momentum with your footwork and transfer that momentum through your kinetic chain, your weapon and into your target. Experiment with the timing to make this happen. A good starting point is to time the impact of your strike with your step. You will find that timing your strike with the landing of your lead foot and rear foot have different qualities, but both are useful. Occasionally use heavy sticks for your striking practice. Rattan sticks are our primary training tools, but heavier hardwood sticks like bahi and kamagong sticks or batons made of plastics, metal pipes, etc. can be very useful for training. The added resistance of heavy sticks will help you develop more strength and use better mechanics to move them. When you switch back to your regular sticks, they will feel like nothing. You will be able to move them faster and hit harder. Heavier sticks are best used for fluid and circular strikes at slow to medium speeds. Avoid strikes that put excessive pressure on the joints and connective tissue or you will become injured. Tire training is a great tool for learning to hit hard. Striking a tire will help you develop more power, stamina, and grip strength. Simply repeat your strikes using the proper mechanics and adjust for the best results. When starting tire training, remember to work up gradually. Give your joints time to acclimate, and protect your hands if your skin is tearing too much. Over periods of weeks and months, work up from sets of 50 to 100, 200, and up to 500 repetitions per set. After several months of regular tire training, you can also incorporate using heavy sticks or pipes to hit the tires. Strength and Power Development In addition to training the specific mechanics of your striking, you need to develop your strength and power through general strength training. If you rely only on exercises that mimic the movements of Kali, you will not have a well rounded strength base, and you will likely end up having imbalances that cause problems down the road. I discovered this in my own training many years ago in an effort to be more efficient with my training time. I cut out anything that was not directly related to the arts. Initially this seemed to work fine. I had more time to devote to coordination, hitting tires, knee walking and other drills, but I ended up having more shoulder pains and back issues. After adding general strength training back into my routine, I felt much more balanced, and I experienced a clear improvement in my speed and my hitting power. Many of those pains and issues went away, even when I continued the same drills as before. You must develop raw strength if you want to reach your full potential. Strength is fundamental for any athletic endeavor. Raw strength is part of the equation when it comes to generating both speed and force. To develop strength, you should use barbell exercises like back squats, deadlifts and shoulder presses as well as bodyweight exercises like pull-ups, abdominal exercises, and back exercises. You really need a good plan, so do some research and get some coaching. Follow a program that is based on athletic performance, not bodybuilding. To hit really hard, you need to be able to generate power. Power is equal to force times distance, divided by time. When you are stronger, you can generate more force. More force in this equation results in more power. If you can move faster, then you can also generate more power. Train your body to generate more power by adding explosive exercises in your training. This includes sprinting, jumping, throwing, kettle bell swings, olympic lifts, and any other explosive athletic exercises using the hips. Conclusion When you have a strong foundation in basic physical skills, then you will better at applying your technique. By developing your coordination, body mechanics and strength, you will maximize your Kali skills for both competition and self defense. Besides, strong people are just harder to kill. Use the methods here, and you will be too.

What would a well rounded system of Self Defense include? Many of us enjoy the activity of training itself.  We look forward to our next training session and can’t help but talk about training with our friends who share the same passion.  There is great pleasure in learning and making ourselves better, but we don’t do it for the fun alone.  We do it so we can protect ourselves.  We do it to protect our families.  We do it so we will be ready when there is a threat.  Because this is our primary purpose for training, we want to be sure that what we are training will actually work. Beyond evaluating the effectiveness of individual techniques, I really want to know what other disciplines, training methods, skills, and education I need to add to my current knowledge.  I also want to know how to put it together to be effective.  In short, I want to know what is my overall system for self defense, so I can build it.  This is a continuous effort for me because I want to constantly improve my own skills and I want to improve our programs at Tactical Arts.  By no means is this post intended to offer a complete list, but more of a broad exploration of the topic. Understand the Offense Without understanding the threat, we cannot possibly build an effective defense.  It is crucial that we become educated about the many threats we may face.  By examining the nature of these threats, we can more effectively prepare to deal with these threats.  For example: If I do not know what a punch is, how can I learn to parry it?  I would not know where to begin.  This is only an analogy.  The knowledge we need to seek is much more encompassing and beyond a mere technique. We need to study real attacks, how they commonly happen, who commits them, and what factors involved we can influence.  We must understand the dynamics of attacks with weaponry including both conventional weapons like clubs, blades, firearms, etc.  As well as those that are hidden or hard to anticipate, such as drug facilitated attacks prominent in sexual assaults or the use of poisonous substances.  We need to study and understand situations that include multiple attackers, active shooters, bombings and other dangerous situations a private citizen may encounter.  By becoming familiar with these threats, we can learn to recognize them when they begin to happen or perhaps anticipate them before they do.  If we know more about these attacks, we may find insights that will give us more options to stop them. We need insight into criminal culture, criminal psychology, and other related topics that can help us understand violence.  We need to understand criminal motivation and mindset, impulsive violence, target selection and the values of criminals such as how they perceive disrespect.  If we know what the attacker is trying to do, what they want, or how they see our behavior, we will be better able to avoid violence with them or undermine their plans to choose us as a victim.  It would also be valuable to study topics such as mental illness, the effects of psychotropic drugs, both legal and illegal and excited delirium.  We will be able to act faster if we can identify that someone’s behavior is not rational and possibly just seconds away from a violent episode.  We do not necessary need to “why" someone commits an act of violence in order to protect ourselves, but we need to know anything that can help us prevail when under attack.  This background knowledge will help us prepare for and anticipate possible attacks. Well Rounded Strategies, Tactics and Technical Skills A complete self defense system should include strategies, tactics and techniques that are well rounded, effective, and practical to train and apply.  A collection of tools is not enough, we need a cohesive approach that starts with broad principles, simple tactics and techniques that all complement each other.  Develop the “soft" skills.  We need to find a way to get along, even when the other guy is an asshole.  We need avoidance and deescalation skills, including both verbal and nonverbal techniques.  We need to develop situational awareness, learn to recognize pre-attack cues and identify strategies and principles that will guide the decision making process when under stress.      Develop the “hard” skills.  We need sound tactics and techniques that offer real advantage with minimal exposure.  We cannot rely on techniques that are difficult to apply or require we expose ourselves to unnecessary risk in order to perform them.  We need techniques that address a wide variety of situations ranging from an incident requiring only simple low level force to a situation that may require lethal force.  We need to know how to use a variety of common weapons and empty hands skills.  These should be based on what is appropriate for self defense and informed by a study of what situations really occur.   Have a plan that involves others.  We need to coordinate or self defense strategies with family, neighbors, coworkers, and friends who may become involved in a self defense scenario.  I cannot simply run away from a threat if I am with an elderly family member or a small child who cannot do the same.  We also need to understand how to handle a situation once the police are involved. If there is some communication and planning prior to a dangerous incident, there will be a better chance of survival and less likelihood of accidental injury.  A failure to plan with others could lead to a family member being shot when accidentally perceived as an intruder.  Or perhaps the police should mistake you for the bad guy if you do not know how to behave after a legitimate self defense incident. Training relevance, Stress Inoculation and Practical Feedback In addition to the plans and skills we need to have a process to bring our training into context.  We need to add intensity and stress, and we need an testing approach that will give us some performance results we can evaluate. If we practice our skills in the environment where we may need them, then we will move closer to the real application.  By doing this, we will remove some of the seams in our training experience that may otherwise cause us to stumble when using the skills in a real scenario.  This includes training in our homes, in parking lots, and in areas that, at least, replicate the places we frequent.  We need to know how well we can move on concrete, on grass, in the cold, when it’s hot, etc. Training in these unique environments and conditions will help us evaluate when a tactic or strategy may fail.  It may help us find a better solution to each situation as well as better suited gear, shoes, and clothing. In order to improve our self defense skills, and cope with the stress of a real assault, we need a method to develop and test each of the elements involved.  We cannot just evaluate our competency at a level of intensity that offers no challenge.  We must find the breaking points in order to fix them.  These breaking points including physical, technical, cognitive and emotional weaknesses that could lead to failure.  Adding pressure though testing and practical drills will help inoculate us against stress.  This inoculation will help us perform better when the heat is on.  Instead of submitting, overcommitting or freezing, we will be more likely to keep a cool head and apply the techniques we have trained.  A test of athletic performance can be used to evaluate the efficacy of a technique and the capabilities of the individual to use it.  The best test is one that mimics the speed and power needed for the application of our techniques. A simple test may be striking a target at full speed for a set amount of time.  It would be even better if the time was equal to that of a typical violent encounter that included one or more attackers.  The test may include performing a technique at full speed after sprinting 200 meters and doing some explosive strength exercises to get the heart rate and breathing rate up.  This physical challenge adds stress and forces us to work harder to apply the technique.  It also simulates some of the conditions you may experience when under attack.  If someone is trying to shoot you, then your heart and respiratory rate will probably go up.  Training to handle that condition is useful.  In addition to testing raw athletic performance, we need to test our ability to perform the technique when there is a resisting opponent.  I’m great when you don’t fight back or try to escape my lock.  But once that happens, it get significantly harder to perform the technique.  After learning the mechanics of a technique we need drills that will help us learn to really apply it.  This can include sparring drills that have a specific training or testing objective in mind.  It could also include force-on-force drills that narrow the test to a very specific situation.  This should be a process, not a leap of faith from slow repetition directly to full contact sparring.  Drills using the methods mentioned above could be used at varying levels of intensity to test progress and promote skill development under pressure. Role playing, scenario drills can test situational awareness, decision making skills, and control.  Scenario drills that focus on building and evaluating judgement skills can test both the clarity one maintains under stress.  It helps you develop emotional control.  Even simple scenario drills when do right can become emotionally intense.  If we are unable to think under stress or rein control over our emotions, we lose our ability to be effective. Good role playing drills can become relevant experience. They should be structured to reflect common situations that occur in criminal assaults, robberies, etc.  With this experience we are better prepared for real life because we have not only practiced the physical techniques, but we have practiced appropriate awareness skills, critical thinking skills, verbal responses, positioning, and other actions in a context that is closer to reality.  Conclusion This is by no means a complete list.   Other topics to include in a complete program may be outside of the typical self defense program, but are certainly related and worthy of study.  Some of those include health, nutrition, and fitness, CPR and first aid training, a study of legal issues related to self defense, basic rescue, escape and survival techniques, etc. Finally, we must align our self defense plan with our values, our religion, and our life philosophy.  We must define a personal view on violence and life or death issues.    If those are not aligned, then everything may fall apart at the last minute. Ultimately, the effectiveness of such a complete program would depend on how well it was organized, taught and trained.  This is a system that is never quite complete.  It is building process that never stops.  

Get the most out of your training with these effective methods. All of us want to be skilled at our arts. We want to move fast and be effective with our technique. Smooth, coordinated movement is a must for that to happen. Regardless of your style or art, there are effective methods for developing coordination that you can incorporate in your practice sessions. Whether you are swinging a stick, slashing with a karambit or practicing a takedown, you can break down the movement and make refinements that will not only make you look better, but also perform better. To do this, you need to know the right movement, practice effectively, and analyze your progress and you make improvements. Know the Right Movement In order to develop the most coordinated movement, you need to know what the right movement is. Study the best example: your teacher, or a top performing student of the art. At first you will just watch. Take in the overall movement. Examine the body mechanics. Look at the footwork. Watch the movement of the shoulders and hips. Get a feel for how they work together. Watch several times and pay attention to smaller details. If possible, practice the movement, then go back and watch a demonstration of the movement again. Each time you will absorb more detail. Develop a mental image of the perfect execution of the technique. As you better understand the movement, you will develop a mental image of the movement and how it should be done properly. This internal image will play in your head like a video anytime you want to practice. You will constantly compare your performance to that of the image in your mind. This image is critical to your practice, because it becomes your standard. It will be your benchmark as you try to match it every time you repeat the movement.66 To get better, that image must be crystal clear. Not only should you develop the visual image of the movement, but also the feel. With this more complete vision, you can develop proprioception, a sense of your position and balance within your movement. You will learn to recognize when you are doing it right by feel rather than just by seeing it. For striking and weapons work, you may even benefit from knowing the sound of the technique. This may include the sound as your stick as it whips through the air or impacts a target. Practice Effectively Start slow to perfect each detail. You must be able to pay attention to the details. With slow, deliberate movements, you can instruct your body just how it should move. If you always rush through your practice, you may not be able to see what you are doing right or wrong. After the movement become more smooth, speed up to test the movement and diagnose any problems, then slow down again and fix them. Make adjustments with each repetition. Make an effort to improve every time you repeat the movement. Identify what would be the most significant improvement you could make and focus on that first. Repeat and correct the movement until you can perform the correction consistently. After that, move on to the next aspect that needs refinement. Focus on one thing at a time. It’s more efficient and it will be easier to make changes. You are not done once you get the movement right. You are just getting started. If it took you 99 repetitions before you got the coordination right, then you now need to add more repetitions in order to burn it into muscle memory. You need to add more repetitions of the correct movement. Otherwise, if you quit at 100, then you have done it wrong 99 times and right only once. That is not a good ratio for success. Analyze your Progress Get feedback. In order to improve, you need to get feedback. Another set of eyes may help you identify something you have not noticed before. Get feedback from your instructor, senior students, or a training partner. Try to get feedback from someone who has more experience than you. Ask what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. Get specifics. You need actionable information and coaching. Study yourself on video. Record yourself with video and study it to gauge your improvement and to look for other aspects you can improve. With most smartphones, you can quickly capture a video of yourself and watch it immediately. You can then make corrections during the same training session, instead of waiting until next time. Watching the video during your training session will help you allow you to make adjustments while the nuances of the movement are fresh in your mind. With some phones, you may even be able to watch yourself in slow motion. Watching in slow motion will allow you to analyze every detail. Track your efforts and thoughts. Take notes in a journal. Note what you have improved and what you need to fix. Capture any feedback you get from others. Write down any technical details that you want to develop as you practice. Don’t leave out any details. The more you identify, the better that mental image you have of the technique will be. The process of tracking what you do and expressing your thoughts into words will help you examine the material better. It will force you to clarify your vision of the movement. Coordination is a prerequisite to learning to apply your technique. You do not need to be perfect, but accelerating a sloppy movement in sparring or in application drills will not make it better. Get coordinated before you add intensity to your training. By applying the methods above you will master your technique in a very short time.

(in a short period of time) Don’t mess around.  Your life depends on it. Time is precious because we have so little of it.  Obligations of work, family and personal life all leave little time for training, but training is important.  Without it, your chances of prevailing in a violent attack are greatly diminished.  In addition to pushing your training up the priority list, you have to train efficiently.  It’s all about managing the time you have to train in order to get the most out of it.   After teaching for more than 20 years, I have seen that there are a few simple things students do to learn faster.  If you follow the advice below, you will avoid wasting your valuable time while also improving your ability to learn. Train Consistently and Frequently In order to make progress in your training, you need to be training on a regular basis.  If you often miss your classes or training sessions, you may be introducing discontinuities in your knowledge, gaps in your response set and impediments to your development.  When learning, you need to build on skills in a progressive manner.  Over time, your skills regress.  This is especially true for new skills. If you have not yet had a lot of repetition, the retention and refinement of those skills will diminish.   If there are large gaps of time between lessons and training sessions, you will need to spend more time reviewing to get back to where you left off and less time making forward progress.  You need the last time you practiced to be recent.  Under stress, what is the most useful is often what you trained recently.  If you frequently practice the fundamental skills, then those skills will be more accessible when needed.  By training more frequently, you will reduce the amount of time that has passed since the last time you trained.  Tom Givens of Rangemaster expresses this in recommending that you dry fire your gun once a week.  If you are in a situation where you need to use your gun for self defense, then the last time you practiced it will be no more than a week ago.  This is much better than several months ago or last year, when you took a course. It is better to do several short sessions on a frequent basis, than to do one marathon session every now and then.  Your mind needs time to process the things you learn and the skills you practice.  Your mind literally rebuilds connections that help you retain the benefits of your learning and practice.  This takes time and rest.  You will remember more. By giving your mind more bite size chunks, you are less likely to lose something.  By breaking up your training into multiple sessions, you will also have more opportunities to make refinements along the way.  You can focus more on each element that you practice because your mind will likely remain more observant and engaged during a shorter session than it would during the later hours of a longer session. Keep a Training Journal You can accelerate your learning curve by keeping a training journal.  Writing helps you review and think more deeply about your training.  It makes you recall and process what you have learned.  Athletes who journal are often more successful than those who do not.  This is because they can analyze their progress, record and review the feedback they receive from their coach, and reflect on improvements.  They can see what is working and what is not.  They can look for patterns that may help them improve their training and reduce injury.  Journaling can keep them motivated as they record their accomplishments.  Keeping a training journal has several benefits for athletes, and it will definitely make you more successful in any study you pursue. In some cases, the process may be more valuable than the result.  Of course, you can make a list of techniques you learned and of concepts or principles, but of great value is the analysis you perform when translating your experience into writing.   You must make sense of the material in order to write it down in a coherent manner.  This will not only help you remember the material better, but also understand it better.   Journaling helps you save time when you are actually training.  The process will help you identify what is significant and allot the right amount of training for each element.  It allows you to study your in more detail because you have written records to reflect on.  Journaling allows you to identify weaknesses and areas that need improvement.  It will also help you understand your strengths.  With this understanding, you can better plan your practice to be more effective and more focused on just what you need.  You can start your practice sessions with a plan.  After multiple entries, you can track your progress over time and refine your approach to training. Practice at Home In addition to practicing in class, you also need to practice at home if you want to develop quickly.  In order to improve a physical skill, you need to repeat the movements involved in order to develop the proper coordination and muscle memory.  After you have been taught by an instructor, and received feedback, go home and practice more.  The more you do at home, the faster your learning will go when you are in class.  Rather than needing a lot of repetition in class, you will be ready to take the next step.  Focus on basics and whatever you feel comfortable doing without feedback from your instructor. Practice with attention to get the most out of your time.  Repeat the movement you are practicing while trying to improve it each time.  Do numerous repetitions in a row so you have the opportunity to make refinements.  If you don’t pay attention, you are wasting an opportunity to make real improvements.  Repetition alone is not the answer, and sloppy mechanics will not improve unless you are actively trying to improve them with observation and adjustments. Conclusion By consistently and frequently training, keeping a journal of your training, and practicing at home between classes, you will advance your skills faster.  When you improve the way you approach learning, you will get more out of your classes and training sessions in a shorter period of time.  We all have life events and dips in motivation that eventually interrupt our training schedules.  Learn to accept that and just return to your training when you are ready.  If you read through your journal, you are likely to get excited and be ready to train again.

Why following a conventional self defense response can get you killed Conventional responses to threats In a violent encounter, there are several basic tactics that will give you an advantage.  One is changing the angle of your position relative to your attacker.  This includes getting to the side or back of your attacker or getting more dominant grappling position where he has fewer options.   Another is using stuns to disrupt the attacker’s ability to observe, think and act.  Yet another, is creating distance between you and your attacker.  These are all sound tactics, but if default to them all the time, you may be setting yourself up for failure.  This is especially true of using distance. Distance is your friend.  When creating distance between you and an attacker, you buy some time.  It will take the attacker longer to reach you.  In that time, though very brief, you can quickly assess the immediate situation, decide what to do and take action.   If your attacker has a gun, you will, at least, be harder to hit.  If you have been practicing your firearms skills properly, then you should be a good shot at distances beyond close range.  If you have any doubt about that, put a priority on training right now.  You want be a better shot than your attacker.   A practical study on fighting ranges Unfortunately, there are situations wherein creating distance will get you killed.  In the late 90’s, I was part of a study conducted by Lt. Erwin Ballarta, who was then the Defensive Tactics Coordinator for the Texas Department of Public Safety Training Academy.  The study was designed to test what distance a trooper should maintain when making contact with a suspect.  Ultimately, what the study uncovered, are what defensive actions are best as they relate to distance.   The initial study included over 40 defensive tactics and firearms instructors, many of whom had years of experience.  The study consisted of one scenario repeated many times.  In the scenario, the trooper would begin an interview with the suspect as if he just made a stop or contact.  Both the trooper and the suspect were standing. The trooper knew that, at some point, the suspect would draw a gun from concealment and attempt to shoot him.  The trooper was instructed to respond when this happened.  The scenarios were conducted with the suspect and trooper at a variety of distances including 2 feet, 4 feet, 6 feet, 8 feet, 10 feet and 12 feet away.  The scenarios were repeated over and over again giving the participants a chance to watch everyone else and attempt to improve their performance each time. In the study, I was the bad guy.  This role gave me a front row seat to how everyone responded.   I pulled my training gun on the troopers nearly 200 times and every single time, they died.  Why? They knew it was coming, but they clearly lost over and over again.  The problem was that they were trying to out-draw me.  Though I would love to say it was because of my awesome draw stroke, it was simply because action is faster than reaction.  I start first, and they were trying to catch up.   Though the distances ranged from close to far, they never thought to do anything other than to draw their firearms.  It was a gun coming out at them, so they had to draw their own gun.  After everyone’s morale was crushed, and it was clear that this strategy was not going to work, Lt. Ballarta suggested they consider trying to grab or trap the hands of the bad guy before trying to draw their own gun.  The difference was huge.  At close range, the majority of participants were able to stop or redirect my draw and get their own gun out to get shots on me. The results of the study clearly indicated that when already close, coming even closer was safer.  A response with empty hands first at close range was much better than drawing.  As the study continued, the same drills were conducted on over 100 recruits, many times, over a course of weeks.  At 4 feet or closer, more participants were able to prevail by coming closer than by creating distance.  At 2 feet, they were almost always successful at interrupting the draw and getting a clear advantage.  At 4 feet or more, the results favored creating distance because there was not enough time to close in.   There are several advantages to coming in closer to an attacker when the distance between you and him allows it.   You will have the opportunity to trap or redirect his weapon arm. You will have the opportunity to change the angle between you and your attacker by getting to his side or off of his line of attack.  Your response is not limited by the speed of your draw stroke. You can immediately use your hands.   It is unlikely that your gun will be in your hand when the attack starts, but there is no preliminary action required to apply your empty hands.  Many shootings are at close range, so you need tactics and techniques to deal with scenarios similar to the study.  If you are within 2- 4 feet or 1- 2 steps of your attacker, and your gun is holstered, you should probably use your hands first.  If you are further out, past 4 feet, you may want to sidestep out of his immediate line of attack and shoot.  At a longer distance, you may want to run to cover, then shoot.  Or just run to create more distance and shoot. Disconnect in training disciplines One of the issues illustrated in the study is a major disconnect in training disciplines.  This disconnectis not only prevalent in the law enforcement community but also that of private citizens.  When firearms training and empty hands self-defense or defensive tactics training is done separately, there is an absence of fluid transitions between the two.  There is a gap, and this gap can be a terrible weakness.  Reactions end up being compartmentalized and this slows response time.   If your training program is not organized systematically, you will have trouble drawing on your skills under stress.  You may only be able to recall one path (like draw and shoot only) instead of seeing all the tools you need.  You will not be able to solve all your problems with a gun, and you will not be able to solve all your problems with your other self-defense skills.   Not only must you train more than one discipline such as firearms,  impact weapons, edged weapons, empty hands, etc., but you must train them in a way that they are thoughtfully put together.  They must be seamlessly integrated and drilled properly.  A collection of techniques just won’t cut it, or you may fall into other pitfalls like the one discussed above.