Real-Life Self-Defense Curriculum
360-Degree Personal Safety
Below is a summary of the physical, mental, tactical and legal skills taught in the Real-Life Self-Defense curriculum. We believe that any self-defense (let alone personal safety) program worth its salt must go well beyond the physical. The skills are not covered in a linear progression, and the lists should not be viewed chronologically. Any given class will necessarily include many interwoven topics. Frequent reviews, gradual stress inoculation and drill escalation provide the most intuitive learning environment that goes with the grain of your hard-wiring, until it all becomes like riding a bike.
Physical:
- Principles of structure/base, range, power generation and movement
- Principles of falling, breaking falls and shock absorption
- Fundamentals of footwork, angles, positioning and built-in defense
- Fighting ranges: kicking, striking, in-fighting, grappling
- Principles of takedowns and throws
- Crash-course review of martial arts: Aikijutsu, Juijutsu, Taijutsu (Ninjutsu), Kuntao, Silat, Jeet-kune-do, Wing-chun Kung-fu
- Crash-course applications of military hybrids: Krav Maga, Kapap, LINE, Army CQB
- Joint manipulation and joint locking for personal defense
- Releases and restraints for less dangerous situations
- Defenses against common attacks
- Dealing with the sucker puncher
- Dealing with the criminal predator
- Ground survival: holding out on the ground, dealing with the grappler
- Superior offense: take away the attacker’s ability to fight
- Great equalizers: when you need to negate size and strength
- Superior offense: combined high and low, in-fighting and mental game
- Scenario-based training and force-on-force drills
- Adrenal stress conditioning: train for abnormal physiological state
- Boot camp drills to improve timing, positioning and ATP response
- Isolation drills to burn adaptive patterns into nervous system
- Surviving attacks with edged and blunt weapons
- Surviving against firearms
- Surviving multiple attacker
- Disarming weapons (blunt, edged, firearms and improvised)
- Using improvised weapons
- Protecting third parties
- Repeated reviews
Mental:
- A working personal safety paradigm: 90% prevention
- A balanced view of violence and self-defense, rights and responsibilities
- The role of intuition
- Awareness / Presence of Mind
- “Right Mind” and its applications
- Ethical self-defense
- Effective boundary development: not just in your head
- Force vs. violence
- Assertiveness vs. aggression
- Is there a “criminal mind”? What makes a criminal?
- Adrenal stress conditioning: having fear work for you
- Effective verbal defense and de-escalation
- Target hardening: become a hard target in any interaction
Tactical:
- Understanding awareness: yellow, orange, red threat zones
- Understanding context: yellow, orange and red responses
- Realistic threat assessment for your lifestyle
- Street smarts: dangerous places, dangerous people
- Foreseeing / foretelling violence
- How to fail a criminal’s interview
- The right habits for self-defense
- Home security
- Car security
- Workplace security
- Security while traveling
- Safe habits
Legal:
- Legal use of force for civilians
- Legal requirements for successful self-defense – scenarios
- Self-defense vs. fight vs. assault vs. combat
- How to avoid criminal charges
- How to avoid civil charges
- Arresting officer’s perspective
- Third party protection
- Home/office protection
"Having grown up in a tough neighborhood, I've witnessed my share of street fights, and when I was a much younger man, I was involved in a number of them. Decades ago, I have even lost friends to violence. From all that I’ve seen in real life, it’s always been clear to me that what is taught in martial arts schools and most of what passes as self-defense would not cut the mustard on the street. I've always wanted to learn the real thing, but without entering an adolescent or macho atmosphere, and discovering Personal Safety did it for me."
Ralph DeLeo – Somerville, MA
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