Self Defence: Overview - An overview of thinking for Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System©
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Copyright © 2010.Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T Self Defence.2010. All rights reserved
The next step of evolution: Flinch Response And Combat Tactics
Let’s make it simple
A self defence system that is combat effective, that can be understood, learned and replicated in accelerated time lines. The truth is that
something like the Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System© creates a disturbance for many people who see a martial art as the 'only true
way' or those that believe that only ex-doorman or ex-military can teach you the 'real stuff'.
Actually it is not simple enough, ideally there would be 'one move and one thought' learned in 5 minutes, taught to you as a child and it
always worked. Crazy? Maybe, maybe not! But in reality that’s what we are aiming for and this defines the Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T
System© as a system that continually strives to reduce everything that it does, less moves, less theories, less transitions.
Survival is about navigating the human response
This is a ‘core response bridging system’, which means we show you a response that sits at the core of the programme, that is the
jumping off point for all the techniques and thinking. The Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System© enables you to ‘survive the ambush’ and
the ‘known threat’; it is a combination of science, martial arts, self defence, experience, constant research and an ongoing attempt to
break it. The Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System© is a stripped down approach that works with a mantra of, “You could do it, but why
would you do it?!”; this question and statement serves as a focus for not adding anything to the system but in fact where ever possible
taking things out.
Core Knowledge, Ancient Values and Modern Reality
It's really a matter of fusion. Taking the things that are proven to have worked in the past, adding today’s current urban reality, combined
with our current psychological and physiological knowledge and above all a need to do what works for you.
•
Core Knowledge: I have spent the last 2 decades certifying as an NLP Master Practitioner, Behavioural Coach, Psychometric
Assessor, coaching, lecturing and creating transformational change programmes in major companies delivering in the US, UK and
EU. This knowledge of how to create an accelerated learning experience is in the certification programme and so is ‘how to
accelerate the learning’ of your yourself and your students; this is something very few people can truly offer. In the first instance the
programme shows you how to replace your inbuilt response with a ‘core survival response’ that works along side an understanding
of the natural ‘human flinch response’, this Foundation level leads to Advanced and Elite levels of the system that then migrate to
more complex skills that are built on a platform of reality and unquestioning excellence.
•
Ancient Values: This isn’t a system for thugs and hard men, it’s as much an approach to life as it is to self defence and that’s
important. I am not interested in being the toughest organisation full of muscle bound, ex-con’s, being the toughest, the hardest and
swapping war stories pretending they are modern warriors (putting on a pair of combat trousers doesn’t, in itself make you credible)
just to seek a bit of pseudo credibility; what I do want is real people, dedicated to personal growth and who are willing to contribute
to something that helps others and are seeking to represent an adult, mature and mentorable approach to others in society, this is
the way of the Defiant Warrior, the Gentle Warrior.
•
Modern Reality: I have been training in the martial arts for 3 decades with a focus on self defence for 2 decades, that is a lot of
knowledge and experience and it’s all brought to the programme; what you get on the Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System©
programme are the techniques and thinking that I have never seen broken and have stood their ground in adverse conditions.
Is this Martial Art? Is this Self Defence? Is this Personal Coaching?
The facts of the matter are that the Defiance Combat© has been designed by me, so it is the sum parts of my experience, knowledge and
thinking, read about the history of the style and my profile and this will make a lot more sense.
•
Yes! Martial Art
•
Yes! Self Defense
•
Yes! Personal Coaching
This programme is designed to enable you to 'live a brave life' free of fear, doubt and replace this with personal courage and a high
motivation gained from personal vision. It is my belief that true success in life can me mirrored in the understanding and success of
ones own behaviours and there is no better place to understand this than the training room and no better person placed to help you
than a well trained coach.
The belief of the Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System© is to become a true warrior, to understand the warrior that sits within all of us, not a
thug or bully, but the strong personal presence that is recognized through moral fibre and personal authenticity.
So here’s my thinking
Within the system I focus the training on your Core Competence (see diagram), it is here that I believe any self
defence system needs to concentrate, it is here that the certification programme pushes you to intellectually and
physically challenge your own habits and understanding of what:
•
Really works
•
What you’ll really do
This is where credibility is won or lost, and why on the 4 day Foundation Certification programme, you aren’t
there to become a cult member, but to test, challenge and fundamentally try to break everything I show you, this
is also part of the way I get it to hot wire into your brain so quickly, as once you accept something you
absorb it so much quicker and at a route level. The quickest way to believe in something? The answer is ,
“Don’t!”, then when you change your mind, bang it’s in.
Flinch Response
On the Foundation Certification course you are not only learning to understand the Flinch Response, and how to recognise the techniques
and thinking that go into your area of Core Competence, you are also learning to master a technique called the Arrow Position, a
techniques that defines the core moves associated with the system.
Explaining the basics of the Flinch Response
To start to understand the Flinch Response (see Flinch Map below), let’s start with when someone tries to hit/stab/grab/shoot you
(stimulus), you will react (stimulus reaction/response) as part of your in built survival mechanism. Many people are familiar with the
Fight/Flight reflex(Cannon,1915), it is one of the simplest responses and when you think about it, easy to grasp, there is a change in the
environment (stimulus) and then there is what we do in regards to it (response). In human beings, the reaction includes physical
movement away from and/or towards the stimulus, a contraction of the muscles of the arms and legs lifting the hands to protect the head,
lifting the leg when kicked at, turning the head away from a perceived attack, sharply pulling in the waist when lunged at, shouting out,
kicking, pushing and striking out, fleeing, freezing, folding into a foetal position......this is an almost endless list.
•
The Flinch Response is not a position it is a human response.
•
The Flinch Response is hot wired via the Autonomic Nervous System and manifests itself as a physical response to protect us.
•
Flinch Responses are such things as: lifting the hands to protect the head, or lifting the leg when kicked at, turning the head away
from a perceived attack, sharply pulling in the waist when lunged at, shouting out, striking out, fleeing, freezing, folding into a foetal
position......this is an almost endless list.
•
The Flinch Response is a non definable position, it is not a set response of 1, 2, 3 etc number of responses to a threat; it is a fluid
response to a threat that hasn’t happened.
•
There are however ‘likely’ responses, that need to be understood.
•
Dependant on the person and the situation a Flinch Response can occur from both an ambush and a known threat situation.
•
I am not teaching you a technique called the Flinch Response, I coach you to understand the Flinch Response and work with it.
•
The training shows you how to understand the Flinch Response and how to work with it.
•
The revolution is in the techniques that I show you to work with your natural response.
•
The revelation is in the thinking that I show you in how to think about and apply this self defence approach
It is in essence the ‘what the heck was that’ response that is designed to protect you, so the thinking is that it is inbuilt, hot wired into us as
a survival reflex that evolved somewhere back in the primordial ooze when our primitive brain was evolving. This is the part of the brain
that existed before we had consciousness as we know it today, this is millions of years ago when we were responding to:
•
Sudden movement
•
Noise
Sound familiar? It should do as we are still doing it. So think about whatever the first versions of us were, right back at the start, no
weapons in the modern sense of the word and no real intelligence (as we know it now) and we weren’t designed like our peers at the time,
no real fangs or in built armour plate. So back then we were a little bit like rabbits with the main options being run like the clappers, keep
very still and worst comes to worst defend (final option).
Before training an individual’s Flinch Response is a fluid ‘undefined’ reaction to a threat that hasn’t yet happened, there are however
‘likely’ responses, that need to be understood, thus after training the Flinch Response becomes:
1.
A fluid ‘focused’ response to a threat that hasn’t happened yet, the F.R.A.C.T coach will understand a
set of defined reactions that are the most efficient response to known threats.
2.
Even more importantly on the programme, you learn how to ‘Ride The Flinch’, which entails working
with the unknown obscure reaction that your brain may well throw out as a response to a perceived
threat.
3.
Once the primary threat has been survived to then stay within the F.R.A.C.T systems techniques or
bridge to other skills from outside the F.R.A.C.T system, that have themselves been proven to be
within the individuals core competence (see Circles Of Competence).
The question is can we as self defence coaches actually ride the back of this flinch response as a surfer riding
a big wave? Or is the wave so powerful in it’s own right that it impossible to harness such power and
unconscious behaviour? Can we in fact manufacture and train others to work with this core principal? I know we
can and I’ll show you how to do it!
Evolution and Revolution
To start to give you an insight as to how this works, look at first picture (Bat 1), it is a stock photo used by many people to explain the flinch
process, it seems to indicate a uniform response to a threat (the bat), a universal flinch if you will, study it for a moment; you can see how
the individual’s hands are up in front of their faces, and it gives the impression that this is THE flinch response. Unfortunately it is used by
some to market the idea of a universal response, one position that you can use for everything, even going so far as to say that this set
hand position, will act as a visual deflection that will negate a frontal attack, such as a jab……yeh right! Well good luck with that pal, I can’t
tell you how many times I have seen someone punch through someone’s raised hands as they tried to control a situation; if your training
for an ‘expected’ haymaker, you’ll need this number 0800 055 6892, its BUPA, make sure you have a good policy. Look at Bat.2,
everything’s going on here: ducking, hands over head, pulling away, eyes shutting, head turning, we also have forward motion, kicking out,
pushing away and the best one of all a reflexive catch (while still holding his beer, kudos!). Don’t tell me the flinch is a single response,
okay everyone wants to know what they could/should do and that's why we train you. But if you aren’t training to deal with 'the response
you don’t know you are going to do', you are missing a huge point.
Now look at Bat 3, what is the difference from Bat 1?. What is going on here? Primarily the Freeze-Fight-Flight-Fright reflex is in play, this
is the up dated Flight/Flight model (Gray: Psychology of Fear & Stress, 1988/Bracha et al: "Psychosomatics"; Does "Flight or Flight" Need
Updating, 2004), the elder lady in the white t-shirt with her hands in front of her face (Fight), the man with the blue shirt in front of her,
ducking (Flight), the man in the dark blue sweatshirt, top right looking on (Freeze, meaning acute/intense observation) and the man with
the bat in his face, who didn’t move and was catatonic (Fright, meaning a system shut down). The Flinch Response is also not just a
simple single output response its Siamese twin is the Freeze-Fight-Flight-Fright response, and what’s worth understanding is they live in
the same house and share a room, unsettling, but true. The ambush, the surprise attack can trigger reactions we can't always control, you
have to train for this confusion, so it becomes familiar.
Finally Bat 4, bottom left hand corner the man is ready, he knows his environment, he is alert to it and thus is outside of the autonomic
response that the rest of the crowd is experiencing, this is the guy you want to be.
This is where I want to offer you a way of thinking that goes well beyond the limited models that say the human mind can only handle
limited responses, which see the human being as a simplistic single response model. Forget Hick’s Law(1952), based on choosing a
button on command from a selection on a keypad, forget being told that each added technique doubles the decision making time; this has
been taken by many and turned into a 'science fact' that the more choices you have then the longer it takes to select from them. Some
schools of thought would have you believe that martial arts and reality based self defence are doomed to fail as they give you too much to
choose from, which is why they show you a single technique for all situations. If this does make sense to you, you'll like this link
www.scientology.org.uk, they to believe in a cult figure who made things up to suit a one dimensional fantasy.
The science tells us human beings take about 150 milliseconds to select an action, its called Simple Reaction Time; some people trying to
defend their position try to multiply the figure by the number of techniques to say again 'more choices, more time'. Again hokum! Think of
an MMA fighter, hundreds of options and 1000’s of variables selected at a reflexive level, imagine if it actually took seconds to select a
move, you'd just have two fighters hitting each other once every 2-10 seconds. Once again the science and your own common sense tells
us something different if you look past the first fact that proves an invalid point, human beings can select from up to 20 complex options in
340 milliseconds (Larish & Stelmach: Spatial orientation of a limb using egocentric reference points, 1982); the findings point out that the
choices have to be well trained; that suits me, I know I keep saying it but that's why professionals in any discipline drill, drill, drill.
It takes time, effort and discipline to become competent as a coach, it means hard graft and constant review. But mainly it involves
keeping your head screwed on straight and not buying into something because it sounds cool, has been going for a long time, has a skull
in the logo, is headed up by someone with bigger arms than you, or use science from the 1950's to validate itself, do your homework.
When your panic button gets hit, you will almost guaranteed to lose your fine motor skills and anything else that your unconscious mind
hasn’t selected as Core Competence, this is the stuff your mind is going to give you in the ambush, and if you are not ready to work with it,
you in for a heck of a disappointment! And you’ll need that number I gave your earlier.
Detect, Deter, Defuse, Disengage, Defend, Don’t Die©
The Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System© approach to utilising the Flinch Response in training and
combat is to use a ‘continual threat assessment process’ that follows the following format Detect, Deter,
Defuse, Disengage, Defend, Don’t Die©; this is a central focus of the programme and an approach that
makes huge difference to a successful outcome; when you are put under stress, a proven approach to
surviving the situation is to ‘actually have an approach’ that you utilise in training, use in the conflict and
then reference after the fact.
The key principle of Detect, Deter, Defuse, Disengage, Defend, Don’t Die© is to be in a continual stage
of assessment, which seems easier when the opponent is in front of you and you are alert to a threat
(as per the image on right) ; but requires education and training to continually assess pre, during and
post engagement.
Situational Alertness
& in Deter mode
Attacked & Using
the Arrow Position.
RIDING THE FLINCH
Situational Alertness,
No Transition
& Cover + Elbow
Uppercut
Situational Alertness,
No Transition
& Move to
Forearm Smash
Situational Alertness,
No Transition
& Move to Head
Wrap + Body Control
Situational Alertness,
No Transition &
Move to
Knee Strike
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
home - contact - downloads - guarantee - photo’s - sponsors - step 1: foundation - step 2: advanced - step 3: elite - book - vision - brand - the way
next evolution - faq - texas - history - core principles - terminology - guy bloom - law - copyright - articles - termsofsupply - termsofuse - privacypolicy
Copyright © 2010.Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T Self Defence.2010. All rights reserved
The next step of evolution: Flinch Response And Combat Tactics
Let’s make it simple
A self defence system that is combat effective, that can be understood, learned and replicated in accelerated time lines. The truth is that
something like the Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System© creates a disturbance for many people who see a martial art as the 'only true
way' or those that believe that only ex-doorman or ex-military can teach you the 'real stuff'.
Actually it is not simple enough, ideally there would be 'one move and one thought' learned in 5 minutes, taught to you as a child and it
always worked. Crazy? Maybe, maybe not! But in reality that’s what we are aiming for and this defines the Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T
System© as a system that continually strives to reduce everything that it does, less moves, less theories, less transitions.
Survival is about navigating the human response
This is a ‘core response bridging system’, which means we show you a response that sits at the core of the programme, that is the
jumping off point for all the techniques and thinking. The Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System© enables you to ‘survive the ambush’ and
the ‘known threat’; it is a combination of science, martial arts, self defence, experience, constant research and an ongoing attempt to
break it. The Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System© is a stripped down approach that works with a mantra of, “You could do it, but why
would you do it?!”; this question and statement serves as a focus for not adding anything to the system but in fact where ever possible
taking things out.
Core Knowledge, Ancient Values and Modern Reality
It's really a matter of fusion. Taking the things that are proven to have worked in the past, adding today’s current urban reality, combined
with our current psychological and physiological knowledge and above all a need to do what works for you.
•
Core Knowledge: I have spent the last 2 decades certifying as an NLP Master Practitioner, Behavioural Coach, Psychometric
Assessor, coaching, lecturing and creating transformational change programmes in major companies delivering in the US, UK and
EU. This knowledge of how to create an accelerated learning experience is in the certification programme and so is ‘how to
accelerate the learning’ of your yourself and your students; this is something very few people can truly offer. In the first instance the
programme shows you how to replace your inbuilt response with a ‘core survival response’ that works along side an understanding
of the natural ‘human flinch response’, this Foundation level leads to Advanced and Elite levels of the system that then migrate to
more complex skills that are built on a platform of reality and unquestioning excellence.
•
Ancient Values: This isn’t a system for thugs and hard men, it’s as much an approach to life as it is to self defence and that’s
important. I am not interested in being the toughest organisation full of muscle bound, ex-con’s, being the toughest, the hardest and
swapping war stories pretending they are modern warriors (putting on a pair of combat trousers doesn’t, in itself make you credible)
just to seek a bit of pseudo credibility; what I do want is real people, dedicated to personal growth and who are willing to contribute
to something that helps others and are seeking to represent an adult, mature and mentorable approach to others in society, this is
the way of the Defiant Warrior, the Gentle Warrior.
•
Modern Reality: I have been training in the martial arts for 3 decades with a focus on self defence for 2 decades, that is a lot of
knowledge and experience and it’s all brought to the programme; what you get on the Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System©
programme are the techniques and thinking that I have never seen broken and have stood their ground in adverse conditions.
Is this Martial Art? Is this Self Defence? Is this Personal Coaching?
The facts of the matter are that the Defiance Combat© has been designed by me, so it is the sum parts of my experience, knowledge and
thinking, read about the history of the style and my profile and this will make a lot more sense.
•
Yes! Martial Art
•
Yes! Self Defense
•
Yes! Personal Coaching
This programme is designed to enable you to 'live a brave life' free of fear, doubt and replace this with personal courage and a high
motivation gained from personal vision. It is my belief that true success in life can me mirrored in the understanding and success of
ones own behaviours and there is no better place to understand this than the training room and no better person placed to help you
than a well trained coach.
The belief of the Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System© is to become a true warrior, to understand the warrior that sits within all of us, not a
thug or bully, but the strong personal presence that is recognized through moral fibre and personal authenticity.
So here’s my thinking
Within the system I focus the training on your Core Competence (see diagram), it is here that I believe any self
defence system needs to concentrate, it is here that the certification programme pushes you to intellectually and
physically challenge your own habits and understanding of what:
•
Really works
•
What you’ll really do
This is where credibility is won or lost, and why on the 4 day Foundation Certification programme, you aren’t
there to become a cult member, but to test, challenge and fundamentally try to break everything I show you, this
is also part of the way I get it to hot wire into your brain so quickly, as once you accept something you
absorb it so much quicker and at a route level. The quickest way to believe in something? The answer is ,
“Don’t!”, then when you change your mind, bang it’s in.
Flinch Response
On the Foundation Certification course you are not only learning to understand the Flinch Response, and how to recognise the techniques
and thinking that go into your area of Core Competence, you are also learning to master a technique called the Arrow Position, a
techniques that defines the core moves associated with the system.
Explaining the basics of the Flinch Response
To start to understand the Flinch Response (see Flinch Map below), let’s start with when someone tries to hit/stab/grab/shoot you
(stimulus), you will react (stimulus reaction/response) as part of your in built survival mechanism. Many people are familiar with the
Fight/Flight reflex(Cannon,1915), it is one of the simplest responses and when you think about it, easy to grasp, there is a change in the
environment (stimulus) and then there is what we do in regards to it (response). In human beings, the reaction includes physical
movement away from and/or towards the stimulus, a contraction of the muscles of the arms and legs lifting the hands to protect the head,
lifting the leg when kicked at, turning the head away from a perceived attack, sharply pulling in the waist when lunged at, shouting out,
kicking, pushing and striking out, fleeing, freezing, folding into a foetal position......this is an almost endless list.
•
The Flinch Response is not a position it is a human response.
•
The Flinch Response is hot wired via the Autonomic Nervous System and manifests itself as a physical response to protect us.
•
Flinch Responses are such things as: lifting the hands to protect the head, or lifting the leg when kicked at, turning the head away
from a perceived attack, sharply pulling in the waist when lunged at, shouting out, striking out, fleeing, freezing, folding into a foetal
position......this is an almost endless list.
•
The Flinch Response is a non definable position, it is not a set response of 1, 2, 3 etc number of responses to a threat; it is a fluid
response to a threat that hasn’t happened.
•
There are however ‘likely’ responses, that need to be understood.
•
Dependant on the person and the situation a Flinch Response can occur from both an ambush and a known threat situation.
•
I am not teaching you a technique called the Flinch Response, I coach you to understand the Flinch Response and work with it.
•
The training shows you how to understand the Flinch Response and how to work with it.
•
The revolution is in the techniques that I show you to work with your natural response.
•
The revelation is in the thinking that I show you in how to think about and apply this self defence approach
It is in essence the ‘what the heck was that’ response that is designed to protect you, so the thinking is that it is inbuilt, hot wired into us as
a survival reflex that evolved somewhere back in the primordial ooze when our primitive brain was evolving. This is the part of the brain
that existed before we had consciousness as we know it today, this is millions of years ago when we were responding to:
•
Sudden movement
•
Noise
Sound familiar? It should do as we are still doing it. So think about whatever the first versions of us were, right back at the start, no
weapons in the modern sense of the word and no real intelligence (as we know it now) and we weren’t designed like our peers at the time,
no real fangs or in built armour plate. So back then we were a little bit like rabbits with the main options being run like the clappers, keep
very still and worst comes to worst defend (final option).
Before training an individual’s Flinch Response is a fluid ‘undefined’ reaction to a threat that hasn’t yet happened, there are however
‘likely’ responses, that need to be understood, thus after training the Flinch Response becomes:
1.
A fluid ‘focused’ response to a threat that hasn’t happened yet, the F.R.A.C.T coach will understand a
set of defined reactions that are the most efficient response to known threats.
2.
Even more importantly on the programme, you learn how to ‘Ride The Flinch’, which entails working
with the unknown obscure reaction that your brain may well throw out as a response to a perceived
threat.
3.
Once the primary threat has been survived to then stay within the F.R.A.C.T systems techniques or
bridge to other skills from outside the F.R.A.C.T system, that have themselves been proven to be
within the individuals core competence (see Circles Of Competence).
The question is can we as self defence coaches actually ride the back of this flinch response as a surfer riding
a big wave? Or is the wave so powerful in it’s own right that it impossible to harness such power and
unconscious behaviour? Can we in fact manufacture and train others to work with this core principal? I know we
can and I’ll show you how to do it!
Evolution and Revolution
To start to give you an insight as to how this works, look at first picture (Bat 1), it is a stock photo used by many people to explain the flinch
process, it seems to indicate a uniform response to a threat (the bat), a universal flinch if you will, study it for a moment; you can see how
the individual’s hands are up in front of their faces, and it gives the impression that this is THE flinch response. Unfortunately it is used by
some to market the idea of a universal response, one position that you can use for everything, even going so far as to say that this set
hand position, will act as a visual deflection that will negate a frontal attack, such as a jab……yeh right! Well good luck with that pal, I can’t
tell you how many times I have seen someone punch through someone’s raised hands as they tried to control a situation; if your training
for an ‘expected’ haymaker, you’ll need this number 0800 055 6892, its BUPA, make sure you have a good policy. Look at Bat.2,
everything’s going on here: ducking, hands over head, pulling away, eyes shutting, head turning, we also have forward motion, kicking out,
pushing away and the best one of all a reflexive catch (while still holding his beer, kudos!). Don’t tell me the flinch is a single response,
okay everyone wants to know what they could/should do and that's why we train you. But if you aren’t training to deal with 'the response
you don’t know you are going to do', you are missing a huge point.
Now look at Bat 3, what is the difference from Bat 1?. What is going on here? Primarily the Freeze-Fight-Flight-Fright reflex is in play, this
is the up dated Flight/Flight model (Gray: Psychology of Fear & Stress, 1988/Bracha et al: "Psychosomatics"; Does "Flight or Flight" Need
Updating, 2004), the elder lady in the white t-shirt with her hands in front of her face (Fight), the man with the blue shirt in front of her,
ducking (Flight), the man in the dark blue sweatshirt, top right looking on (Freeze, meaning acute/intense observation) and the man with
the bat in his face, who didn’t move and was catatonic (Fright, meaning a system shut down). The Flinch Response is also not just a
simple single output response its Siamese twin is the Freeze-Fight-Flight-Fright response, and what’s worth understanding is they live in
the same house and share a room, unsettling, but true. The ambush, the surprise attack can trigger reactions we can't always control, you
have to train for this confusion, so it becomes familiar.
Finally Bat 4, bottom left hand corner the man is ready, he knows his environment, he is alert to it and thus is outside of the autonomic
response that the rest of the crowd is experiencing, this is the guy you want to be.
This is where I want to offer you a way of thinking that goes well beyond the limited models that say the human mind can only handle
limited responses, which see the human being as a simplistic single response model. Forget Hick’s Law(1952), based on choosing a
button on command from a selection on a keypad, forget being told that each added technique doubles the decision making time; this has
been taken by many and turned into a 'science fact' that the more choices you have then the longer it takes to select from them. Some
schools of thought would have you believe that martial arts and reality based self defence are doomed to fail as they give you too much to
choose from, which is why they show you a single technique for all situations. If this does make sense to you, you'll like this link
www.scientology.org.uk, they to believe in a cult figure who made things up to suit a one dimensional fantasy.
The science tells us human beings take about 150 milliseconds to select an action, its called Simple Reaction Time; some people trying to
defend their position try to multiply the figure by the number of techniques to say again 'more choices, more time'. Again hokum! Think of
an MMA fighter, hundreds of options and 1000’s of variables selected at a reflexive level, imagine if it actually took seconds to select a
move, you'd just have two fighters hitting each other once every 2-10 seconds. Once again the science and your own common sense tells
us something different if you look past the first fact that proves an invalid point, human beings can select from up to 20 complex options in
340 milliseconds (Larish & Stelmach: Spatial orientation of a limb using egocentric reference points, 1982); the findings point out that the
choices have to be well trained; that suits me, I know I keep saying it but that's why professionals in any discipline drill, drill, drill.
It takes time, effort and discipline to become competent as a coach, it means hard graft and constant review. But mainly it involves
keeping your head screwed on straight and not buying into something because it sounds cool, has been going for a long time, has a skull
in the logo, is headed up by someone with bigger arms than you, or use science from the 1950's to validate itself, do your homework.
When your panic button gets hit, you will almost guaranteed to lose your fine motor skills and anything else that your unconscious mind
hasn’t selected as Core Competence, this is the stuff your mind is going to give you in the ambush, and if you are not ready to work with it,
you in for a heck of a disappointment! And you’ll need that number I gave your earlier.
Detect, Deter, Defuse, Disengage, Defend, Don’t Die©
The Defiance Combat F.R.A.C.T System© approach to utilising the Flinch Response in training and
combat is to use a ‘continual threat assessment process’ that follows the following format Detect, Deter,
Defuse, Disengage, Defend, Don’t Die©; this is a central focus of the programme and an approach that
makes huge difference to a successful outcome; when you are put under stress, a proven approach to
surviving the situation is to ‘actually have an approach’ that you utilise in training, use in the conflict and
then reference after the fact.
The key principle of Detect, Deter, Defuse, Disengage, Defend, Don’t Die© is to be in a continual stage
of assessment, which seems easier when the opponent is in front of you and you are alert to a threat
(as per the image on right) ; but requires education and training to continually assess pre, during and
post engagement.
Situational Alertness
& in Deter mode
Attacked & Using
the Arrow Position.
RIDING THE FLINCH
Situational Alertness,
No Transition
& Cover + Elbow
Uppercut
Situational Alertness,
No Transition
& Move to
Forearm Smash
Situational Alertness,
No Transition
& Move to Head
Wrap + Body Control
Situational Alertness,
No Transition &
Move to
Knee Strike
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge