Kore Combatives Podcast #10 | Enhanced Defensive Tactics: Knife & Edged Weapon Defense Training

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Today I would like to bring two topics. First, it's a mental exercise. that I want to propose so we can generate a mindset that can be transferred into the Integrative Combatives and Defensive Tactics training world. And second, I want to show you guys exactly why I decided to host the Enhanced Defensive Tactics training. This will be a two-day training here at American Top Team Connecticut in Danbury. This is all connected and I do believe that if I share with you guys my own personal process, this might help you as a student and as a coach. If this is your first time here on the podcast, my name is Luigi. This is the Quark About Us podcast. All right, let's start with this scenario here. Let's imagine that someone in your family has a history of heart disease and all of a sudden you start feeling some heart palpitations, some chest pain, some tingling on your left arm. It's not an emergency, but you go to a primary physician. Your primary physician will run some tests and most likely, I do believe that your primary physician will refer you to a cardiologist. And If the case was that you were having some issues related to bone, muscle, ligament, and tendon, your primary physician probably would send you to an orthopedic or to a dermatologist if you had some skin rash that he or she could not really diagnose precisely. So what we just saw here very quick is that we need specialists, right? And One thing is we, as coaches, just to make a comparison, just think about this. If you are a coach, you will understand what I'm talking about. What do these four professionals have in common? All of them went to medical school. All of them understand about health, diseases, human body, physiology, so forth and so on. Some decide to become doctors. a primary physician, a family doctor, others decide to be specialists, others decide to be researchers, whatever. The point is, they all have a baseline understanding of human health. Let's put it this way. My question is, why don't we apply the same mindset into integrative combatives, at least as coaches? And if you're a student, I think you should be searching. If you want to be a complete... If you want to understand completely the Integrative Combatants world, I do believe that it's not enough to just know things in general. You should become specialized if you can. But it all depends on the mission and all depends like what is your job, so forth and so on. And let me talk to you guys about my own process. So just again, just to recap, we just made a quick... conclusion that a good mindset is to look for specialists and look for answers from these specialists okay cool as a coach i do believe that you should be a specialist in everything you teach even if you're teaching if you are teaching a blend okay so let me again let me talk about my process I have been doing combat sports for over 35 years. I'm a fifth degree black belt going to my sixth degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu this year. I am a second degree black belt in Hawaiian Kempo, which is a striking kickboxing system. And also I am a fourth degree black belt in RMA, which is a very complex but practical structure self-defense system that encompasses a lot of specialties. As a matter of fact, my coach is one of the people that inspired me to Also look for many different answers from many different specialties and become a specialist as well because he is a specialist in many, many different areas. Not only that, I trained a lot in boxing and through my first coach and through a professional boxing coach, I also trained in Greco-Roman. Through my first coach, I hold the rank in judo. And what I was looking for when I was training all of this, trying to become a specialist in these areas, I was looking for, as a martial artist initially, I was looking for ways to close the gaps in areas that I wasn't really so knowledgeable. So I'm learning striking. I need the link now. that is necessary to go to ground grappling, and that's standing grappling. And notice here that I choose the specialties to fill each area. And in standing grappling, I did judo, greco-roman, but mostly judo, greco-roman here in the United States. I learned a lot of wrestling through students, through friends, and coaches, okay. And then ground, I trained, of course, a lot in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. That's most of what I do today. And, but also I have attended some bow workshops. I have learned some catch wrestling. So I try to be a specialist in grappling, a specialist in striking, a specialist in standing grappling, for instance, or, you know, have more answers so I can, I could link up these three realms. Okay. By the way, I'm talking about in martial arts terms.

UNKNOWN 5:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Fast forward, I moved to United States 20 years ago, and I always knew that I was missing two things. When I learned Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I learned during the old school days, and I always thought that there were three versions of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. So just to be very quick, first version would be the Brazilian jiu-jitsu towards competitions wearing uniform. That's what people do, get through the ranks and et cetera. and also the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu version that was mostly applied, sorry, most applied towards valetudo, so that would be the submission grappling, the no-gi, and again, I know this is very different than today, but this is exactly the way that this was explained to me, that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has three variations, amateur for competition, wearing the uniform, The no-gi version or the submission grappling, the application was majorly to help in MMA fights or before MMA. So I go before the MMA time, so this is the volley to the times. And then the third version, the self-defense based on Brazilian jiu-jitsu. To get through my ranking from the beginning to blue, purple belts, like, you know, if you're in the jiu-jitsu world, you understand what I'm talking about. I also had to know the curriculum that involved the self-defense part of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. And a lot of things are pretty cool. I think it works a lot in some specific scenarios, especially like anti-bullying. It's great to teach kids. It's great to teach... like teenagers, but then as we are talking about adults, much bigger person versus smaller person, I always thought that more was needed. Okay, and also I felt that there was a deficient, or maybe that version of jiu-jitsu was outdated when it came to counter-edge weapons, or edge weapons defense. And so I learned everything that they taught. If somebody goes stab you straight, you know, this way, you block the arm, you track the hand, you grapple because jiu-jitsu is grappling. So you grapple, you wrestle the arm, you position your head, your body, you try to redirect the weapon. And so forth and so on. If it's an attack like over the top, like ice pick type of thing, um attack or a swing uh swinging attack from a diagonal in a diagonal feed right you would do this block here grab here but in the back of my head i always thought that there's something missing here but i didn't know yet like what was the answer but I didn't get too crazy about it. I love Jiu-Jitsu, the application towards competition, to help the MMA guys. As a matter of fact, I became an MMA coach when I moved to the United States. I've been an MMA coach for over 20 years. I have hundreds of fights as a coach. And then, anyway, so... When it came to the martial arts side of training, I felt that I was closing the gaps. Boxing, kickboxing, and actually some other shurikens. But boxing, kickboxing, and then got a rank in judo, trained some wrestling, and then ground fighting, jiu-jitsu, and variations. with whatever, with legal moves, illegal moves, and et cetera. Okay, but that is, it's pretty cool, but it's still within the martial arts realm, if you guys understand. Now, again, I moved to the United States, and I started getting more into combatives, integrated combatives. I got invited to teach at a military base on, say, monthly, once a month I would go there and run some combatives. And Anyway, I felt that I needed one more piece when it comes to combatives, and that was firearms training. And I was fortunate to, many years ago, I have a friend and he started facilitating my training, taking me to the range, helped me buy my first firearms, and doing a lot of training right off the bat. I was still, I would say, a beginner. But he told me, like, hey, Luigi, if you really want to get better at this, I can help you up to here. But there are these two guys that, one that he was always training with, the other one that had just retired from the SEALs. And he said, like, we got to jump into this type of training. You got to invest because it would change the way that you shoot. I'm like, okay, cool. So he introduced me to Kyle DeFore and Bill Rapier. And I think first it was Bill Rapier. Bill Rapier is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He's also Muay Thai, very good Muay Thai fighter, amazing wrestler. And he had been a Navy SEAL for over 20 years. He had just retired and he was starting his company called MTAC Shooting. So I went to Pennsylvania for a two-day training with Bill. And part of the training with Bill was integrated combatants. And, you know, I felt like pretty good, you know, throwing strikes and elbows and fight stance and all of that. I'm like, man, this part here, I am a specialist. I'm cool. But then he threw this curveball when he said, blades are the anti-grappling tool. I'm like, whoa. That's pretty strong. That hurts my feelings because I'm a grappler. But matter of fact, he was right, right? And back in my head, I knew that he was right. So my question now is, what does this guy know that I don't know? And Kyle DeFore, same thing, SEAL veteran, amazing, amazing, amazing firearms instructor. I really recommend both of them, M-TAC shooting and DeFore. performance shooting. And Kyle said the same thing. I'm like, whoa, okay. And both of them in their integrative combatives block, they had a quick glance or they would teach a basic public, something, some techniques that were public from Sayakali. And that was the first time I heard about Sayakali, especially Sayakali You know, because back in Brazil, I didn't have access to, you know, the information here, right? So I moved to United States 22 years ago. And also during their mindset talk, they would name their mentors. And they always mentioned Tom Kyer, Harley Elmore. Those are two Hans, or I would call them grandmasters in Sayak. Some other... people that they had as mentors. I might forget one and two, so I'm not going to mention all of them. But they also would mention the systems, Sayak and Atienza Kali and Sayak Kali. And I'm like, okay, I need to know more about Sayak Kali and Atienza Kali. So everything worked, and this is my own process. I was fortunate to have been exposed to, first, that phrase, that sentence. Blades are the anti-grappling tool. Second, they showed me why. They showed me why. Third, I was like, okay, if we're practicing this, I can see now the application. But they didn't show much about the counter-edge part. It was more the use as... you are integrating your striking into your striking, into your whole integrated combatives. Striking to standing grappling to weapons retention, shooting from retention, or flowing from one tool to another tool in a very, in a way that really made sense for me. Okay, so now I have that in the back of my head. I think I'm going towards the right path. And fortunately, I had friends that knew the Tienza group in Danbury, Connecticut. And luckily, these amazing coaches, Guru Pete and Guru Clint, they brought their practice to our school. So now I could be also a student and spend some time with them. I need to train more. I need to really train more. And so that was an amazing opportunity to fill the gap, to understand better. and to maybe one day become a specialist. I'm not there yet, and I'm far from there, so I'm trying to train and to work in this area, but also I had an amazing opportunity to collaborate with SDG, the SIAC Tactical Group, the side of SIAC that is dedicated to integrated combatants, and training, I'm gonna go over here, but training many military branches and special forces branches and et cetera. And I managed to, actually I was fortunate to be invited to collaborate with them in a contract. And in this contract, I spent the whole week for months, I would be there once a week for one week at a time or two weeks at a time per month. and sharing the same facility and room with STG experts, with SIAC experts, Tuhon Rich, SIAC, and another friend, Chainsaw. With them, because I was there eight hours a day, I had the opportunity to watch them teaching, training other people. I could participate in the training, integrating with what I know, and also sometimes just as being the body for people to, to work on. And so I was there to teach my areas of expertise, you know, striking, standing grappling, but mostly ground grappling with weapons, with all the weapons. And again, very fortunate to have spent a few years working in this contract monthly, one week or two weeks at a time with the SCG guys. From everything I watched, from everything I trained, from everything I learned, I came to the conclusion, as a specialist in many different areas, and I know it's kind of weird, I never talk about me, about myself like that, because I think it's very, very weird to say that I am a specialist. I have a little problem with that, but it's true. I spend a lot of time to try to get to a level that I would understand well the areas that I was training in. So now I, with my eyes, my trained eyes, I realized that, yes, everything that I taught, that I was taught, that I trained, that I learned, in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, to defeat a counter-edged, an edged weapon, was not the best thing. And now this is a, pretty much a, a, a, jewel a gold that i found that is the answer and i'm finally super excited again as a student to be exposed to a system that has so much history and i'm talking about centuries of history and specialization in short blades long blades um flexible weapons strategy tactics mindset formulas very extensive system and then again i got exposed to that and i'm like wow it's so good to feel again as a student to have things to learn but going back to these two guys they always mentioned tom kyer and um and then i had the opportunity because tom invited me to collaborate in this contract i had the opportunity to spend a lot of time picking up his brain just listening to his stories and his experience. And while I'm, you know, having all this exposure and while I'm training, while I'm integrating and bringing a lot of things to my program, to an integrated combatants program that I teach at my place, I also start seeing what other people were teaching in defensive tactics to address edged weapons. And again, this is not me talking negatively of anybody, but immediately I thought that I don't want my students, my law enforcement students, I have law enforcement students from all levels, let's say levels or areas, let's say municipal, state, federal, but I didn't want my law enforcement students to have that answer as their main answer if they had to deal with the edge weapon so i don't want my law enforcement students to use those counter-edge weapons techniques i want my students to see what i saw that's what i this is the biggest message i don't want my law enforcement students to keep burning uh repetitions of a methodology that I don't feel confident about. But I want them to see what I saw and recognize or not, but they have to go through their mental process and go through this training and see a different answer to see if they will have a light bulb the way that I had my own light bulb. This is the most important part of, I don't want people to copy me. I don't want people to just follow what I'm doing. I want people to, I want to expose them to this. And I want them to all of a sudden like, okay, now I understand you, Luigi. Or maybe they're going to say like, hey, pretty cool, but I'm going to keep this other thing because it seems easier. Again, I understand that. how some people have been teaching counter-edge weapons and weapons retention, and the integration between all of these different areas, like striking, standing grappling, ground grappling, and now blades and weapons retention, and all of this. Anyway, I want my guys to see what I saw. So I decided to host the Enhanced Defensive Tactics training here at my school and bring Tom Kyer. So first thing, we have Dave Torres. Dave Torres is a very good friend, first of all. Amazing student. And he's an active Connecticut law enforcement officer. He is a user force and defensive tactics subject matter expert. Also black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and kickboxing. And he has real life experience as a police officer, as a law enforcement. He has seen it all, like all of you guys, law enforcement, if you are listening to this. And he's bringing the high percentage scenarios, like things that happens more often than not. And we're gonna work on those areas, but we're gonna be showing what we do believe to be the best course of action. Things that will set you up for success using the best actions, okay? Dave Torres is the subject matter expert that will bring the experience that he gather over two decades working as a law enforcement. Tom Kier, I mentioned him many times. So Tom Kier, he's the leader of the PSYOC Tactical Group. He is a in the system, which means, I believe, Grand Master. And he has over two decades training guys from DEVGRU, from other units, from many law enforcement units, federal and different levels as well. But here's the deal. Remember when I told you guys about Kyle DeFore and Bill Rapier, two amazing friends, and how highly capable these guys still are? Probably they are getting even better than they were when they were in the teams, in the SEAL teams. And those guys received direct instruction from Tom Kier and the SCG group. And those guys, many guys in their units throughout history, they have used what they learned. And that was the protocol. That was the methodology that was brought into the teams. And those guys were the people that opened my eyes when they said, blades are the anti-grappling tool. And they showed me, Look at this answer here. Look at this application here. And again, I had the opportunity to train, to learn from Tom. And this is me gifting, I guess, my students and my community, trying to tell the guys like, look, guys, this really, really worked for me. And I do believe that this is going to be amazing if you learn this. And this is the SME that you need, all right? So let's talk about this very quick so I don't take too much of your time. It has been already 25 minutes. The event is going to be September 6th and 7th. This is an intro. This is more than an intro, but the plan is to keep bringing this type of training to Connecticut to Danbury at American Top Team so we can build a even more expanded knowledge base for all of you guys. And we're going to do empty hand agile weapons and firearms integration. We're going to do high probability real world scenarios. Now, the coolest part, we're going to test all of this. I'm not going to give you an answer and say like, hey, just go home. No, we're going to do force on force drills, decision making under stress drills, and lots of after action reports and reviews. We're gonna record people. We're not gonna share with anybody, but we're gonna give the footage to our students and say like, here, what you could have done. This is what you did really, really well. Or maybe what we have to do now is let's go again. And here's the right answer. Let's try to apply that again. Things like that. Guys, again, this is me sharing my process and showing my willingness to share with you guys something that, as an expert in many different areas, I felt that this is the other area that I also want to become really good at under Tom Kaya. I learned a lot from Wal Isaac, my mentor, amazing friend. And he's one guy that has been always telling me like, learn more, bring more, incorporate more, great mindset. I have other mentors. And again, I do believe that if you come to this training or if in the future you look for this type of mindset, build your system first. Try to look for the best answers. And as coaches, I tell you this. It's our obligation. And I'm going to quote George Chaber. George Chaber is a really good friend of mine. This guy is super ultra capable. But George said one thing I have said about... I told you guys before in another episode, but he said, we have to guard our students from our likes and prejudice. And when he said that, I never forgot these words. So I love Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I think it's great, right? But I cannot tell my students, just because I like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, that BJJ will provide all the answers that you need. I need to protect my students from my own likes. But even like, I'm not like that. So same thing if, you know, I do love training with firearms. It's just kind of like, it's not just a hobby. I just like to dissect the techniques, learn from different coaches, so forth and so on. But I'm never going to tell my students like, firearms are always the answer, right? So you guys see where I'm coming from with this. So hopefully, You guys got the message. It's very important as coaches to guard our students and to provide them. It's our responsibility. It's a liability. It's a huge mission to teach our students looking for what is best for them and the most realistic. If you're a coach, don't lie to your student. If you're a coach... Be humble to say, hey, we used to do like this, but I just got exposed to this. So I want you guys to also incorporate this new thing. If you're a student, check the credentials of your coach. See where your coach is getting their information from, right? That's okay. My students can ask me why we are doing this. And I will have a logical answer answer to them and let me just to finish tell you guys this i i don't like the counter edge weapons techniques that i learned in psyarch or atienza it's not just a matter of like of of having a preference oh i like this better what i'm telling you as an outsider is that they have the best answers. And I'm telling you, again, as a specialist in other areas. And the quote that I was looking for, and I hope you guys keep this one. I learned this from Holly Elmore and from Tom Kyer. And they said, success is not always evidence of best action. So don't forget this. Success is not always evidence of best action. What do I mean is somebody taught you to do this way and move and wrestle this way and you might be successful when you go through the force on force because it's very conditional to the type of role players you have and how they want the role players to act and you might win. And then you get out of some course like super happy. But remember this quote and I hope you have dreams with this quote. I hope you have also nightmares with this quote. Success is not always evidence of best action. I hope you guys understand this again. Success is not always evidence of best action. Learn the appropriated things that you need for each situation. All right, guys, so thank you very much. If this is your first time here, don't forget to like, share, send your comments and subscribe. And I'm trying to record more episodes. If you are free and you are serious about your integrative combatives training and defensive tactics training, come check it out. All right? The information you can find at enhanceddefensivetactics.com. Enhanceddefensivetactics.com. All together.