Every Conflict Is Won Or Lost With This One Weapon: Tips from Tim Larkin
“It's not the size of the dog in the fight, its the
size of the fight in the dog.”~ Mark Twain
To truly prepare yourself for life or death confrontations you must take inventory of those weapons readily available to you.
When my trainers ask new clients to list the “weapons” at their disposal, they give a variety of answers. Most tend to focus on either the actual weapons they carry on their person or objects they use on a day-to-day basis that might be utilized as improvised weapons (briefcase, umbrella, pen, etc.).
This response is not confined to the “unsophisticated” trainee, either. Extremely competent, well-trained military commandos and special law enforcement personnel I train give the exact same
answers!
The difference is these operators usually categorize the weapons available to them as primary (rifle or submachine gun) and secondary (side arm, knives, etc).
In both cases, however, the highly trained operator and the uninitiated almost ALWAYS fail to list their most powerful weapon.
That weapon is … Their MIND!
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Unfortunately today, very little effort is made to properly train your mind for violent confrontation. In fact most martial arts and combat sports go out of their way to actually negate this “primary weapon system” by focusing on defensive-based training. Their programs revolve around REACTING to your attacker’s actions rather than focusing your actions on DEFEATING the threat.
This defensive thinking causes you to hesitate as your mind tries to figure out what is happening rather than focusing on “targets” of opportunity.
By constantly drilling on blocks and on counters to attacks, and through being told never to initiate action, your mind habitually attempts to protect you by reacting to what is happening — rather than helping you to defeat your attacker.
Correct training of your mind is the CRITICAL component that unleashes your ability to take advantage of all the other weapons available to you.
Give your mind the wrong command … and you hesitate; hesitation causes fear; and fear causes you to freeze, leading to an often-disastrous result in a true life or death struggle with a violent thug.
Many people give lip service to offensive or aggressive thought training.
But in my 20-plus years of training clients, I’ve seen a mere handful of instructors who can competently instruct offensive/aggressive thought training coupled with effective hand-to-hand and and-to-weapon training.
I hope the industry changes in the future — but I’m not holding my breath.
Occasionally, I do get clients who come to me with naturally aggressive or offensive thought processes. For example, I recently trained a female CEO who had fought off an attack in Paris.
She was traveling in a car with her husband through the busy streets of that city when they were assaulted by criminals on a motorcycle. The guy on the back of the motorcycle jumped off at a stop, broke into the back seat of their car and attempted to steal her laptop.
She immediately attacked the first target she saw — which just happened to be his helmet chinstrap. She grabbed it and repeatedly slammed his head into the door. He dropped the laptop as her husband sped off.
She sought out my services not because she had failed but because she was annoyed she couldn’t think of a BETTER target to attack!
With that mindset, 50% of my work was done. She excelled in training and is now more prepared to use her already-perfect mindset to summons better targets and weapons.
As in the Mark Twain quote above, by focusing first on correctly training your most important “weapons system” — your MIND — you significantly increase your ability to take out anyone threatening you or your loved ones.