It's up to you...

This quote came up in a recent thread...

" no matter how or what you train in, its up to you to be a vicious bastard when the sh1t hits the fan".

A very poignant line,but is it really "up to you"? Is the state known as "vicious bastard" attainable by all? Can it be achieved through training?

I believe that,to a certain extent,it can be achieved through training....but only to a limited level.That altogether unnerving "beserker" state of mind is something that you either have,or have not.

what do you think?

Just read that other post too Ade. I appreciated that quote.

Not everyone has the required mindset already in-built. I agree, the complete 'nutter' is likely born with certain dispositions, and/or develops it via extreme events. I dont know if that can be artifically created in training, some of you other guys might know. I do feel though it's not something that should be a goal anyhow. I'm making a distinction between the above, and training someone to have intense anger, yet control it.

Can we approach that in training? I believe we have to try. It's a very important path. I'm actually more for trying to create the mindset, head & heart, in folks that dont' have it, than even physical techniques at present. In this way i've came to agree with what Gov said, about training being immaterial (?) in ways. All training can be useful, maybe more so if the neccessary mindset is using it at any given time?

It depends on how you define a vicious bastard.Is it someone who is prepared to bite noses off on a fight or someone who is quite happy to blow up women and kids on a train.The latter is far worse in the amount of violence he is willing to inflict but still might not have the stomach to bite someone's nose off.

I see your point Tony,but for the purpose of this thread i'd define vicious bastard as someone prepared/able to go that extra mile in terms of sheer unbridled aggression.

tonyk wrote: It depends on how you define a vicious bastard.Is it someone who is prepared to bite noses off on a fight or someone who is quite happy to blow up women and kids on a train.The latter is far worse in the amount of violence he is willing to inflict but still might not have the stomach to bite someone's nose off.

???? What ? lol

I think it more or less means to "switch on" some call it the fcuk it switch, to visit extreme violence on your attacker so basically no matter what style or instruction you may have, if you do not have this "vicious bastard" in you at the time of flight or fight your probably going to take a pasting, and these days that probably means people jumping on your head and a stab or two for good measure.

Ps I'm assuming we are talking about self defense and not Terrorism here ?

Everyone can improve on their levels of violence through training and exposure to it but there will always be those who are just straight out evil and simply do not give a toss.

we teach 'projected aggressin training'
If you are any form of self-protection/self-defence system the ability to trigger your aggressive mode is an essential aspect.

The only way the Prey can ever hope to defeat the Predator is to become a better Predator.

if its taught during training and applied on impact equipment, it becomes as much a part ofthe training as learning'techniques'

My cat recently got attacked my a staffy.... the staffy cornered her and the cat went straight into attack mode, rolled onto her back and gave the staffy both sets of claws in the face hard enough so that one of her claws came off in the staffy....


You want to see pure aggression in a defensive situation, have a look at animal fights

GOVINDA wrote:

tonyk wrote: It depends on how you define a vicious bastard.Is it someone who is prepared to bite noses off on a fight or someone who is quite happy to blow up women and kids on a train.The latter is far worse in the amount of violence he is willing to inflict but still might not have the stomach to bite someone's nose off.

???? What ? lol

I think it more or less means to "switch on" some call it the fcuk it switch, to visit extreme violence on your attacker so basically no matter what style or instruction you may have, if you do not have this "vicious bastard" in you at the time of flight or fight your probably going to take a pasting, and these days that probably means people jumping on your head and a stab or two for good measure.

Switching on isn't difficult,especially when you are hitting a bag or pads.Its a different matter taking that "extreme violence" and applying it against another human being.The fact that a lot of guys have worked the door but only a few have developed reputations proves this point.Steve Morris wrote an excellent article on this subject many years ago and he said these guys are the natural born killers,the 2%. He was spot-on as most of us haven't got this mentality and in some ways should be thankful we aren't in this group.

Ps I'm assuming we are talking about self defense and not Terrorism here ?

Going on some of the course material on offer I think anyone could be forgiven for thinking the main threat to their life is terrorism.Roadside bombs,assassination attempts,kidnapping,car bombs and just about everything else you could face in Afghanistan is ideal training for a 21st century British civilian,especially one who never travels abroad.Sometimes I think RBSD has drifted firmly into the realms of FBSD,or Fantasy Based Self Defence.Bob Spour was a clever man and saw a gap in the market,that of helping people act out their fantasies.

tonyk wrote:

GOVINDA wrote:

tonyk wrote: It depends on how you define a vicious bastard.Is it someone who is prepared to bite noses off on a fight or someone who is quite happy to blow up women and kids on a train.The latter is far worse in the amount of violence he is willing to inflict but still might not have the stomach to bite someone's nose off.

???? What ? lol

I think it more or less means to "switch on" some call it the fcuk it switch, to visit extreme violence on your attacker so basically no matter what style or instruction you may have, if you do not have this "vicious bastard" in you at the time of flight or fight your probably going to take a pasting, and these days that probably means people jumping on your head and a stab or two for good measure.

Switching on isn't difficult,especially when you are hitting a bag or pads.Its a different matter taking that "extreme violence" and applying it against another human being.The fact that a lot of guys have worked the door but only a few have developed reputations proves this point.Steve Morris wrote an excellent article on this subject many years ago and he said these guys are the natural born killers,the 2%. He was spot-on as most of us haven't got this mentality and in some ways should be thankful we aren't in this group.

Ps I'm assuming we are talking about self defense and not Terrorism here ?

Going on some of the course material on offer I think anyone could be forgiven for thinking the main threat to their life is terrorism.Roadside bombs,assassination attempts,kidnapping,car bombs and just about everything else you could face in Afghanistan is ideal training for a 21st century British civilian,especially one who never travels abroad.Sometimes I think RBSD has drifted firmly into the realms of FBSD,or Fantasy Based Self Defence.Bob Spour was a clever man and saw a gap in the market,that of helping people act out their fantasies.

I'm sorry mate, I have no idea what you are talking about ?

GOVINDA wrote:

tonyk wrote:

GOVINDA wrote:

tonyk wrote: It depends on how you define a vicious bastard.Is it someone who is prepared to bite noses off on a fight or someone who is quite happy to blow up women and kids on a train.The latter is far worse in the amount of violence he is willing to inflict but still might not have the stomach to bite someone's nose off.

???? What ? lol

I think it more or less means to "switch on" some call it the fcuk it switch, to visit extreme violence on your attacker so basically no matter what style or instruction you may have, if you do not have this "vicious bastard" in you at the time of flight or fight your probably going to take a pasting, and these days that probably means people jumping on your head and a stab or two for good measure.

Switching on isn't difficult,especially when you are hitting a bag or pads.Its a different matter taking that "extreme violence" and applying it against another human being.The fact that a lot of guys have worked the door but only a few have developed reputations proves this point.Steve Morris wrote an excellent article on this subject many years ago and he said these guys are the natural born killers,the 2%. He was spot-on as most of us haven't got this mentality and in some ways should be thankful we aren't in this group.

Ps I'm assuming we are talking about self defense and not Terrorism here ?

Going on some of the course material on offer I think anyone could be forgiven for thinking the main threat to their life is terrorism.Roadside bombs,assassination attempts,kidnapping,car bombs and just about everything else you could face in Afghanistan is ideal training for a 21st century British civilian,especially one who never travels abroad.Sometimes I think RBSD has drifted firmly into the realms of FBSD,or Fantasy Based Self Defence.Bob Spour was a clever man and saw a gap in the market,that of helping people act out their fantasies.

I'm sorry mate, I have no idea what you are talking about ?

Put it down to the net,its a lousy form of communication.

I take the point. If you believe the hype that sorrounds some "RBSD" material you could be forgiven for thinking that we are all living a knife edge existence surrounded by hollywood level sociopathic/psychotic predators and terrorists planting bombs under every peugeot 307 they can find.

The truth is somewhat different. You need some balance.

Look at the reality of the society we all live in as part of the "developed" world. Yes we have criminals, yes we have violence and yes we have mentally and emotionally disturbed individuals who are capable of terrible actions. BUT... it is a fact that today we are as safe as individuals as we have ever been. YES... in the same way as we wear seatbelts when driving and we follow basic risk mitigation in everyday life it is common sense to have some knowledge and a skillset to handle physical, mental and emotional aggression but we MUST have balance. We are far more at risk when driving a car than we will ever be walking the streets of our home towns but that doesn't stop us from driving. It just means we take some measures to protect ourselves, reduce the risk and carry on with our lives.

Some would have you believe that the only way to protect yourself is to become secret squirrel with hideaway blades in your Calvins. Nonsense, the best way to protect yourself is eat healthy, exercise regularly, have pasttimes you love and spend time with those people you love. I once wrote that an interest in self protection trainming should be an expression of love, not fear or hatred and I think that is what tonyk is hinting at.

As a side note, I personally don't like the term, "switching on" when talking about aggression. I stole a thought from Mick Coup when he said that he doesn't "switch on" the vicious bastard. He "switches off" the nice guy. That seems more appropriate to me. Switching on is a just play acting. Taking something away is exposing what exists at the core. That should be the goal.

I think that's the critical difference Chris, we all have that 'inner mofo' in us but it is closer to the surface in some than others. It's about accessing something we don't use tend to use or have any call to use.

How do you access it though? That's the trick. It's a side of ourselves most of us are not familiar or comfortable with and one we wouldn't want to expose to friends/loved ones.

Chris wrote

Some would have you believe that the only way to protect yourself is to become secret squirrel with hideaway blades in your Calvins. Nonsense, the best way to protect yourself is eat healthy, exercise regularly, have pasttimes you love and spend time with those people you love. I once wrote that an interest in self protection trainming should be an expression of love, not fear or hatred and I think that is what tonyk is hinting at.

That's right,Chris.The majority of people will never get into fights unless they work in the security industry or police so its questionable if anyone should risk the complications that come with turning a civilised man into a brute.Inappropriate training can often have such an adverse effect on people that they blunder their way into situations they would have previously avoided.The best advice I have ever recieved came from Dennis Jones when he asked me if I really needed to train and suggested I spent more time practicing tai chi as I had become too "yang".Sound advice that has worked as I haven't been in an argument with anyone in the last year,let alone getting anywhere near to a physical confrontation.I don't practice tai chi because it is some superior fighting art,its not,but rather due to it keeping me sane and protecting me from my own ego.The Chinese have a different approach to martial arts than we have in the west.The first concern is the health of the individual,the second is the character of the individual,possibly what we would call good mental well being,and third is self defence,but this last requirement is considered the least important aspect.It used to be important in Old China when people fought each other but after the Boxer Rebellion things changed as martial artists had to find a new way of making a living due to firearms rendering edged weapons and hand to hand fighting redundant.


By all means train if you feel the need and enjoy it but don't mess up the rest of your life in the process.

Some good differences of opinion here and no keyboard warriors, which is refreshing, I guess we are all different and live different lives and live in different areas, have seen different things, good and bad etc etc, for me though the aim for switching on is to be able to control the level of violence to be dished out, common sense plays a big part in this, I train for this and I train to be pre-emptive, I train for the worst case scenario, but if its at all possible It will always be a last resort as violence and fighting are in a very scary place.

I find "switching off the nice guy" or "switching on" , however you like to define it, a very difficult thing. I think in pretty much all of my "encounters", my instinct has been to leg it!

I know I can hit hard, knee hard, choke well, etc ....but if danger approaches, I usually just try to piss off!

Only a couple of times that I can remember when there was no choice, and believe it or not a good jab sufficed, then I could leg it

Is it a question of being "soft" ? I just can't believe that I could gradually expose myself to stronger situations, and react stronger.....

By the way, when I say "ALL of my encounters", I'm talking about the few times when people in pubs have started the "what the fook are you lookin at" interview...

mrmuaythai wrote:I find "switching off the nice guy" or "switching on" , however you like to define it, a very difficult thing. I think in pretty much all of my "encounters", my instinct has been to leg it!

I know I can hit hard, knee hard, choke well, etc ....but if danger approaches, I usually just try to piss off!

Only a couple of times that I can remember when there was no choice, and believe it or not a good jab sufficed, then I could leg it

Is it a question of being "soft" ? I just can't believe that I could gradually expose myself to stronger situations, and react stronger.....

This is the way its meant to be mate, I'd say you have arrived, perfect !