Kore Combatives Podcast
Kore Combatives Podcast
Fight Ready: Are You Prepared?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
🎙️ Welcome to the Kore Combatives Podcast!
Your source for real talk on martial arts, self-protection, and warrior mindset.
🎙️ What Does It Mean to Be Fight Ready?
In this episode of the Kore Combatives Podcast, Professor Luigi Mondelli breaks down what it truly means to be fight-ready across three crucial arenas:
✅ As a Martial Artist: Whether you're training BJJ, MMA, or another art, fight readiness is about more than just technique. It’s about physical preparation, mental resilience, and real-time adaptability.
✅ As a Law Enforcement Officer: There's no schedule for danger. Fight readiness here means maintaining constant vigilance, making decisions under stress, and possessing the ability to protect both yourself and others with skill and clarity.
✅ As a Civilian, Violence can come when you least expect it. Being fight-ready is about being aware, preventing harm, and having the mindset to take action if necessary — to defend your life and the lives of your loved ones.
🧠 Mindset. 🎯 Skill. 🛡️ Preparedness.
Whether you live in the gym, wear a badge, or just want to be ready for whatever life throws your way, this episode is for you.
👇 Support the mission — it means the world to us!
✅ LIKE this episode
✅ SUBSCRIBE to the podcast
✅ SHARE with someone who trains or needs to start!
🎧 Listen on your favorite platform:
📍 All links here → https://linktr.ee/luigimondelli
📍 Train with the hosts:
🏛️ Professor Luigi Mondelli — Danbury, CT
🔗 https://americantopteamdanbury.com
🔗 https://korecombatives.com
🥋 Shihan Walt Lysak — Springfield, MA
🔗 https://westspringfieldmma.com/
📩 Got questions, feedback, or topic suggestions?
Reach out to us anytime:
📬 office@korecombatives.com
📬 lsmkoresynergy@gmail.com
🔥 Level up your gear:
Check out the best BJJ Gis on the planet → www.shoyoroll.com
📢 Tag & follow us!
🔥 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6p8gTCW6iK3cBLmxP10TcK
🔥Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kore-combatives-podcast/id1646831789
🔥YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@korepodcast
🔥Amazon Podcasts: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/fb36651c-f981-4678-806b-da55ad30064a/kore-combatives-podcast
Find us also at:
Are You Fight Ready?
Speaker 1Think about this If today was the day, the day that you had to put your hands on someone to protect yourself, empty handed, let's say but you had to put your hands on somebody to protect yourself or protect others, or to even just deescalate, restrain somebody, control, deescalate and find your way out to retreat, control, de-escalate and find your way out to retreat. Anyways, are you ready? So, are you fight ready? And that's what I want to bring to you guys today in this quick comeback episode. And we took a long break recording for the Core Combatants podcast, but we're finally back. This is a solo episode. It will be just me being boring and talking to you guys as a warmup, but I have talked already to Shihan Wolaisic and we both are freeing our times, so every other week we can record an episode for you guys. But anyway, let's do this and it's great to be back.
Speaker 1So this discussion started, or I got motivated again to record my episodes, because I had a quick speech. I gave a quick speech during our belt graduations, our last belt graduations at Core Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu American Top Team, connecticut, and I was thinking about what it means to be fight ready and the reason why I had the speech to be very quick here was because we changed the way that we test people. We are changing across all the styles that we teach, so we hardened the process. We made it harder now, which includes the mental aspect, the belt exams, how people would need to study for the belt testing. Also, we introduced a physical aspect that it has been really, really cool to see how people put the effort to get ready for the test. So I would say that anybody changing belts, whatever belts at American Top Team and Core Association, I know that at least in that weekend, during that weekend, I know they are peaking when it comes to being jiu-jitsu grappling fight ready. So I, I I talked to everybody about this and, uh, I received a nice text message from one of my dear friends and and grand student. So he's my grandson in jiu-jitsu because he's a black belt under one of my black belts that I care a lot and and he appreciated what I talked about. This is Mike Wolf I'm talking about and uh, and he's a law enforcement, very experienced law enforcement SWAT guy, black belt in jujitsu, black belt in other things, amazing defensive tactics instructor and I guess, like Mike appreciated and I'm like, oh, let's talk about this. And then I thought about splitting this in three realms or three areas let's talk about very quick. We have actually, by the way, we have at least like two or three episodes explaining how to prepare for a competition in a martial arts setting. So I would start with what it means to be fight ready in martial arts as a civilian, and I'm going to leave the law enforcement to the end and I have an invitation to bring to you guys at the very end. So hang here with me.
Speaker 1So number one, very simple, low level violence is just related to you and your martial arts life. It's just related to you and your martial arts life. So I'm going to put everything into my perspective and you can do the same exercise according to your age, your physical abilities, what you train and et cetera. So I'm going to talk about me, luigi. So I'm 53 years old.
Speaker 1I have been doing martial arts for probably well since I'm 13 years old. I've been always doing some combat sports. You can include in that Wing Chun, boxing, kickboxing, karate, a little bit up to, I think, green belt or so in one style, and then Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, of course. I've been doing for a long, long time, over three decades, and I've done Judo a lot. I got to Green Belt in Judo, which doesn't mean much, but you know I didn't pursue it, but I'm getting back into it and anyway. So I've been doing this for a long time and I have a lot of injuries and I run a really busy school, super busy, super packed, thank God. So what is my goal right now?
Speaker 1I'm going to tell you my goal is to be fight ready in both jiu-jitsu and striking, in case somebody cross my doors and wants to grapple or spar me. So, for instance, a black belt comes from another school. That guy wants to train with me. Or better, saying, I'm usually the gatekeeper at my school, so I like to be the first one to roll with any visitor that is higher rank, right? The reason why I like to be the gatekeeper is that I can feel the energy, I can feel the intent, right. What is this guy coming here? To try to prove a point? Is he like a cool dude? So I like to be the first guy. I match the person's energy and if I feel that the guy is a jerk, I want to be able to put a beating and to be very honest, right. So I measure is this guy an asshole. If he is boom again, I want to turn it up and be able to crush somebody.
Speaker 1So I know what I need to do to be fight ready. So I need to be physically prepared and I've been working as another topic while I've been working with one of my students, matt Deanna, for strength and conditioning. He wrote a very good program and I really recommend him. I need to stay technically sharp, I need to be mentally resilient, you know, to keep working hard and trying to stay active. I need to have a good training environment, and I do have with all my students and teammates and black belts, the people that trains with me, and I already set my goal.
Fight Ready as a Martial Artist
Speaker 1Right now, my goal is to stay fight ready in that realm right, mart, martial arts, in case somebody crossed the door and wants to fight me, okay, super easy. If you are a competitor, you get everything that I said and double up or triple or more, and you know exactly, uh, when you're competing, who you, who you're fighting against, right, when, where, who and why is because you like. So you need to do your homework every day by staying physically prepared, technically, uh, sharp, but mentally resilient. Um, training, have a good training schedule, have your discipline so far, so on. So that's what is to be fight ready. If you go to a competition and you're not ready, either in mma or kickboxing, striking or it could be jiu-jitsu or whatever wrestling judo you're not going to do well, so you know you have to be fight ready. So, but that's easy, right, because you're in that environment and training every day is part of the routine. We don't do anything, just theory, and then we go up a notch, or actually we go from sports and amateur and safe to okay what it means to be fight ready as a civilian right.
Speaker 1When talking about self-defense, self-protection. We talk a lot about this in our RMA podcast here, our core combatants podcast. So I have to take in consideration that well, an altercation, a situation that I have to put my hands on somebody, can happen anytime, anywhere. It could be a parking lot, a gas station, road rage, whatever. Just to backtrack here, we know let's establish this right off the bat that the best fight as a civilian is the fight that I managed to not have to fight right. So we always emphasize so much in de-escalation, averting going to bad spots, avoiding that confrontation. If I see that happening, if I'm aware, you know, and if possible I'll try to de-escalate, I'll try to retreat. Those options are out of the game. I have to be ready to go full, say combat mode, whatever that means it could be. Again, like I said in the beginning of the podcast, it could be just me trying to restrain somebody, control somebody, and it's not still a deadly situation, even though I believe that every fight, every altercation can potentially be deadly, and I will talk more about that in future episodes. I will mention somebody that I know and what happened to him. And he's a good guy. He was just defending himself but something tragic happened. But this is worth talking about in the future.
Being Fight Ready as a Civilian
Speaker 1But well, as a civilian I understand that, that anything can happen anytime, anywhere. I need to practice my self-defense skills, so learning simple, real smart techniques that work under stress. So we know that in martial arts we spend more time refining, finding too many answers sometimes, but we understand the Hickman Hyman's law. So the more answers you have to unquestion, your response time will grow exponentially. So also, we always use the Occam's razor approach. The shortest answer tends to be the most correct in many cases, just like oversimplifying.
Speaker 1I have to work on my mindset, so there's a mental preparedness work on my mindset. So there's a mental preparedness and I have to have a post-fight readiness, which is I need to know how, to who I need to call, um, whatever that be, first responders, um getting help after the situation. Um, you know, handling injuries, uh, dealing with trauma, you know if something happens to myself, my loved ones or even, like I, can try to be a good Samaritan and try to help somebody. So, fight readiness as a civilian, I would say that is 80% awareness, prevention, de-escalation, and we try and hope that the last 20% is when I have to put my hands on somebody. Now, also as a civilian, I have to say that, according to your age, your limitations, your physical abilities and et cetera, we all know that most people and I believe that should take an approach of adopting some tools, self-defense tools, and I'll leave it up to you to think what tools I'm talking about. It could be a blade or blades, or it could be an improvised weapon, or it could be a pepper spray I'm not saying that I vouch for anything like that, but it's just giving examples or a taser or a firearm.
Speaker 1Most important is to be fight ready is not to just carry those tools. So I have my system and I've been trying to be more disciplined training with all the tools that I carry with myself as much as possible. I know which two I need to prioritize, which is pretty much my blade, my edge weapons training, and I have to, and I already organized myself to get back into a scheduled training with the Tienza guys that I love very much. And second is I need to practice way more with firearms. Even though I go weekly, I feel like I really want to master this skill and so that's what it's to be fight ready, right.
Speaker 1So if, if I, let's say, I'm at a bar and I want you guys to feel like this don't don't bring your confirmation biases into this discussion right now like, oh, I'll never go to a bar, I avoid bars. I just give you an example. Just don't even think about what you would have done or what would you do. Forget about. I'm just going to give you a general big picture.
Speaker 1The big picture is you found yourself in a place whatever that be and you're there and you try to de-escalate. There's a situation, somebody's trying to start something. You want to get out of that place and you need to move some people in order to get to the exit door, you need to protect yourself. Maybe there's somebody connected to you, your family you're doing their own personal security details. So you, now you're embracing completely your protective persona.
Law Enforcement Combat Readiness
Speaker 1Hey, everybody, link up to me. We are leaving, but this guy's in front of me. I'll have to do something and I and I'm trying to do in a way that this doesn't escalate, doesn't escalate to where it can potentially be really bad and violent. But anyway, I need to put my hands. Do I know what I have to do? Do I have the strength? Strength Can I move? Well, so forth, so on. So that's what I think that it means to be a civilian fight ready Now as a law enforcement.
Speaker 1I think that you don't get to choose, you have to train. I do believe that I really appreciate, I really feel a gratitude towards every first responder. We need them to keep us safe and, like I said, I have a great respect. But I do believe that if you choose that profession, don't rely only on your academy or department or police chief or supervisor, sheriff, whoever, to provide the training. All right, we know that I'm going to talk about the, at least, which is good or bad. I'll explain that in a second. But we know that when you go through the academy you're going to get a lot of combative training, firearms training, you're going to get all the training you need for six months, et cetera, and then you get out.
Speaker 1Some departments have been using third-party trainers to teach the defensive tactics and that's where the at least comes in, because at least people have been, or officers and cadets, and even like seasoned officers, are at least having a chance to train a little bit, or at least they're moving. You see where I'm going with this. It's a great component. At least get guys to step on some training area, put some wrestling shoes, get their uniforms and try to grapple somebody resisting, do force on force and some basics. So at least they learn a little bit. At least they, they get the fundamentals, or at least they go through a little pressure and they at least sorry, sorry for the repetition, but for you guys to get the idea, at least they get to learn the very basic fundamental moves to address the high percentage say statistically speaking, high percentage things that can happen. So for instance, oh, maybe people on the street I'm just tossing here a random number most of the time when they have a blade, they do this, two types of motion, either this or that. So at least people get to train on those basic stuff and that's all great because that at least helps, but that at least is not enough, because I feel like you have to train, not just for the 90% chance thing.
Speaker 1I think you personally not talking about your department and anything like that I don't expect bureaucrats, politicians, mayors, police chiefs to allocate that amount of budget to help their people. That doesn't happen. We know that. It's just a few departments that really like work like that, like really concerned about their people, and and this is based on the feedback that I get, I'm not saying in general, but, um, we know how that works, but anyway, um, I believe that you have to work for the 10%. So let's think about this.
Speaker 1Number one as a law enforcement, once you step out of your house wearing your uniform, I feel that it's on. You have a day that is just basic traffic stops, a ticket here and there, helping somebody in distress, not a violent day. But the problem is there are no scheduled fights. You don't know when they're going to happen. Danger can happen on a traffic stop, on a domestic call, on a welfare check or if you're doing security detail for somebody, I feel like you have to keep yourself tactically aware. So technical awareness and mindset, it's a huge thing. You have to train for the unknown.
Speaker 1I already said that, I'm repeating, just put in order here. So a lot of weapons retention, defensive tactics under stress, force on force and error-based training, decision making. We need to foster a training environment where we can, even artificially, but we can, produce some stress. So you have to make those decisions under stress. If we have the technical skills, the physical skills, if you have been training on a regular basis, you make an investment. You make an investment to stay alive. So, whatever that jiu-jitsu school charges you a hundred something bucks or hopefully they do what I do, which is to offer a flat fee, very cheap, very cheap, less than half, so you can train everything and this is an investment, so you can go home always alive. But if you train that much, guarantee that you're gonna be always super professional. You're gonna always use the most compatible force to control and restrain somebody and you can go from zero to 100, being 100 lethal. Zero is just rewriting a ticket, using your words. Let the guy have a bad day screaming and yelling at you, but it's not violent. You go home because you know that your emotional is super strong, especially based on your confidence, knowing and being aware that you have done your homework training. So, yeah, all of this training, all this ongoing training that I believe that law enforcement should engage in, to be fight ready way more than I need to be fight ready right as a civilian or a jiu-jitsu coach or a kickboxing coach or whatever, I feel that all this training will help you always take the most logical decisions, have the most logical decisions versus emotional decisions. The more you train, the more you train, the more you train, the more you train, the more you train, the more you train, the more you train. The more you train, the more you train build your confidence, build your skills, your physical abilities, and that leads you to be more logical and less emotional. I hope that helps. So that is a quick explanation about what I feel that it means to be fight ready, but I have one quick invitation for who is local, so bear here with me.
Speaker 1Well, in um, september 6th and 7th, I will be running, together with tom kyer and dave taras, a two-day intensive training focus on law enforcement. So we we don't want to call it the quote unquote, at least defensive tactics we decided to call it enhanced defensive tactics. So we want to do and help our guys with the best information we can put out there for the most for the situations that can become more complex. So I'm going to read here so we're doing a hands-off defensive tactics a high percentage scenarios, real world, proven tactics. So real world, very important, proven tactics very important. We're going to do an exclusive today, intensive training. We're going to do empty-handed edge weapons and firearms integration, high probability, real-world scenarios, decision-making under stress, force-on-force drills and after-action reviews with the skills of refinement. What I mean is we're gonna be, we're gonna isolate each, each situation, each technique, each you know combos, right integrations. We're gonna drill them and then we're gonna try to try. Now we're gonna run scenarios that will be decision making, that will be force on force. Most important this is the most important part of the edt is that once we finish, we're going to have a comprehensive aar with the help of, you know, tv screens. We're going to record things, we're going to show you here's what you did, here's, you know, literally like a full coaching process with a best analysis so we can tweak and fix whatever we see that it needs to be fixed in your game, right in your game, like in your skills.
Speaker 1So who's tom's? Tom kyer or thomas kyer? I usually call him tom. I'm not so used to call him Thomas, but he's a Tuhon or Grand Master in SIACs. He's the leader of the SIAC Tactical Group with over two decades providing instruction and mission-based training to the DOD, the Naval Special Warfare, the US Army Special Forces and many law enforcement agencies. So, tom, I had an opportunity to I'm very grateful to work for him and I learned so much. I keep learning from him. He's definitely an encyclopedia of everything combat is and even philosophy, mindset, especially LOT. And what I love about is that because he's extremely practical, efficient and violent in a good way. A lot of experience teaching high-level special forces guys or high-level agencies, federal agencies, and what happens is he embraces all this feedback, he gets all this feedback and he breaks that down. So he's always in search, in my opinion, of finding the answers that everybody's looking for. During training, I'll be helping and assisting, especially when it comes to grappling, striking and some integration.
Speaker 1For who doesn't know me, I'm a fifth degree Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, going sixth degree this year. I'm a second degree in Hawaiian Kempo under Greg Davis. I am an RMA black belt, fourth degree RMA black belt under my coach, my teacher Shihan Wolisek co-host. Go meet him watching the last episodes or listening to the last episodes. I have some experience teaching. I have good experience teaching law enforcement and as an SME integrated combatants for some agencies. And I have over 20 years as an MMA coach. I have coached people in all the big leagues. The small leagues took a little break from MMA but I'm getting back into helping some new upcomers and we have Dave Torres who is bringing a lot of the scenarios and helping us format. Dave is also known as the Mountain and he's an active Connecticut law enforcement officer. He's a user force defensive tactics SME. He's a first degree Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under me, second degree black belt also under Greg Davis in Hawaiian Campo I said Hawaiian Campo right away and he's also RMA black belt under Wal Lysak and, of course, he's an integrated combatants instructor. He assists a lot in so many local law enforcement training. He really knows a lot about defensive tactics.
Closing Thoughts and Contact Info
Speaker 1So if you want to take a look, this is open for civilians. If I don't know you, I might contact you If I see that you registered, just to make sure that I get to know you before you come in. But you can go to enhanceddefensivetacticscom Enhanceddefensivetacticscom. You can get more information at that page Enhanceddefensivetacticscom. Anyway, guys, oh, right here in this camera. So I'm really happy to be back. I hope you guys got as happy as I got to be back here. If you have any questions, please send to me. My email is office at corecombatives, core with a K K-O-R-E, combativescom, and I'm going to put a link here to our Spotify and other channels YouTube, because you might be listening to this on Spotify. You want to watch us, for whatever reason, I'll put all the links there. See you guys next time. We're going to develop more off of this and we have great topics ahead. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you guys supporting and give me the motivation to be back here talking by myself to this microphone. Have a great day.