Derniers articles de Bradley J. Steiner

[** Serge **]

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

“. . .You Don’t Always Want To Kill Somebody! ”

IN a recent conversation with a student of self-defense whose orientation is heavily saturated with the “non-injurious” or “non lethal” philosophy of personal protection, we had the following objection to the American Combato philosophy and curriculum raised:

“I don’t agree with how vicious and how damaging your techniques are. Your reaction to an attack is always severe, and after all Brad, you don’t always want to kill somebody!”


The response we gave is well worth repeating here, as it is instructive for anyone who is realistically concerned about the subject of real world personal protection:

“Actually, we certainly don’t want to ‘kill’ anybody. However, when and if we believe that our life or the life of someone dependent upon us for protection is endangered we care only about stopping the assailant. Whether that assailant is effectively stopped without being permanently injured, or whether he is maimed or killed is irrelevant as far as we are concerned. He (the attacker) is the one responsible for whatever injuries he suffers as a result of our acting in lawful self-defense.

“We possess no gift for mind reading, and we are not a mystic. We cannot accurately determine the intentions or the abilities of an attacker, and we are compelled to assume the worst whenever an illegal, violent attack upon us or anyone else is initiated. According to the way that we think and the way that we conduct ourself, the only justification for ever using force against another human being is unavoidable self-defense. Period. We believe this to be a reasonable, civilized standard, and we will not risk injury or death at the hands of anyone who obviously believes otherwise, and who undertakes to initiate a violent attack.”

We disagree 100% with the “non injurious” school of thought(?) now popular in some so-called martial arts circles. The idea of learning and acquiring proficiency in restraint and control measures makes perfect sense for law enforcers, security professionals, and other peace keepers (and we do teach such techniques to them). But for anyone simply wishing to be safe and secure in a dangerous world, and seeking reliable methods of self-defense against violent attack should such an unfortunate thing ever come to him, taking the risk that police officers, etc. must take — due to the responsibility inherent in their profession — is absurd. Anyone can and should assume that a sudden physical attack is potentially lethal, and his only concern should be protection against the immediate danger.

The self-defense student must, if he is to be realistically and practically prepared for the real world of criminal violence, permeate his technical, tactical, and mental training with four key assumptions:

1. Anyone who attacks him is his physical superior

2. Anyone who attacks him intends to inflict grievous harm upon him — up to and including lethal injury

3. Anyone who attacks him is armed — whether or not a weapon is immediately apparent in the assailant’s hand

4. Anyone who attacks him has help and is not alone.

Training with those four “absolutes” in mind will certainly not guarantee victory should the need to defend himself arise (there ARE NO “guarantees”), but it will insure that the defender is prepared for the worst. Obviously, if any given situation is not very severe (something that is impossible to determine ahead of time, or at the outset of the onslaught) then the defender need not continue to go after his attacker. Two indicators that one may desist in one’s self-defensive use of force are: 1. The attacker turns to flee.  2. The attacker is rendered unable to offer any further danger to the defender, and it is safe for the defender himself to flee the scene of the attack.

We advise always allowing an attacker to flee if he tries to do so. Pursuing him is a job for the police. No private citizen has any responsibility to apprehend a violent felon. The citizen’s only responsibility extends to his not being a party to mutual combat (i.e. agreeing to a fight, and being as responsible as the other guy for the situation), not being the attacker, and not continuing to use force once the situation is no longer dangerous to him (or to whoever he is protecting).

Self-defense is no sporting event. Nor is it a situation in which any defender, regardless of his knowledge, skill, experience, or apparent size and strength advantage can be certain of victory. Intelligent and civilized human beings avoid violence whenever possible, and we regard AVOIDANCE as “self-defense technique #1”. However, when avoidance is not possible it is a matter of you or the attacker. You must assume this! Otherwise you are dependent upon a combination of an attacker’s benevolence and/or ineptitude, and your own ability to predict the attacker’s capabilities and intentions. Not smart at all. In fact, not possible.


This ridiculous idea that we who train in serious measures for personal defense “always want to kill” anyone who attacks us should be laughed at. It is blatantly untrue. In point of fact we have only one specific objective, and that is to simply stop the attacker and defend ourselves. We are not concerned about how badly the attacker fares; we just do not want to be injured or killed. And that is reasonable and lawful.

[** Serge **]

Thursday, October 25th, 2012

The Enemy’s Weaknesses

(All Violent Offenders Are Dangerous, But They Have Weaknesses That You Should Understand And Exploit)

INTELLIGENT people avoid violence. Life offers enough unavoidable difficulties without becoming involved in physical combat with members of your own species. However, if you are the victim of an attack you have no choice but to submit to injury or death — or fight back and defend yourself.

Decent human beings who are properly civilized find the thought of injuring or killing others to be abnormal, abhorrent, and unnatural. Assuming a decent human being has been properly raised and educated however, he will, despite such an antipathy toward savaging another person, be quite willing and able to do it, should the need arise. Healthy self-respect and an understanding of right and wrong, and a proper morality that acknowledges the absolute righteousness of self-defense (and, incidentally, the immorality of permitting evil to succeed) will provide the decent person with the psychological foundation upon which to build a solid ability with armed and unarmed combat skills.

There is something that should be understood about violent offenders that will provide a psychological and morale edge for you if the unfortunate situation ever does arise in which you will need to put your combat training into use. It pertains to their weaknesses. And with the rarest of rare exceptions, virtually all criminal offenders who undertake to physically violate others share these weaknesses:

— Violent offenders (whether bullies, “tough guys”, robbers, muggers, rapists, home invaders, thrill killers, or  what-have-you) expect to be successful in their attack upon you. If they did not expect this, then only the most psychotic and bizarre among them would initiate an attack against you in the first place.

— Violent offenders do not want to be injured or killed, themselves. They don’t mind injuring or killing you, but they do not (again, with the possible rare exception of the out-of-their-mind-completely psychotic nutjobs, or the politically motivated terrorist fanatics) want to risk being hurt, crippled, or killed.

— Violent offenders want to escape capture and prosecution for their actions. They are in fact desperate to avoid the consequences of their actions.



Violent offenders have everything to lose if they are unsuccessful; and they do not believe that they will be unsuccessful. Their victims have nothing to lose by fighting back, even if they are unsuccessful; and proper training in quality self-defense techniques drastically shifts the odds of being successful to the intended victim’s side. Here’s why:

— The element of surprise is one of the most important principles for success in any combat situation — from a war between nations, to a hand-to-hand battle between individuals. Since the violent offender expects to be successful you possess an automatic surprise advantage when you fight back. Even if you are not skilled in any particular martial methods the mere fact of encountering sudden resistance surprises the violent offender, since he calculated an “easy mark” when he targetted you. If you are skilled in the kinds of techniques that, for example, we teach in American Combato, your capitalizing on the element of surprise will enable you to effectively implement destructive, damaging actions that speedily neutralize and render harmless your would-be victimizer. The odds are heavily in your favor!

— Quality self-defense techniques — authentic close combat skills — enable anyone to almost instantly injure, maim, or kill any enemy who does not expect that the possessor of those skills can in fact execute devastating techniques. Even if your attacker is not knocked unconscious straight away, the fear of realizing immediately that he is under attack and subject to injury or death, himself, will almost always cause him to freeze or to attempt to flee. In any case, he will not be able to adjust fast enough and shift his focus from attacking you, to dealing with your attack against him. (Remember, as we first wrote decades ago, and have been teaching even before putting it in writing: When you are attacked, attack your attacker!) Once again, the odds are heavily in your favor!

— Integrel to the plan of virtually any violent assailant is that, after achieving his objective of violating you in whatever manner and to whatever extent he intends, he will get away. Because he wants to get away, and not be apprehended by the authorities for his actions, he finds himself desperate immediately when he encounters fierce resistance! He knows — if only in the back of his mind — that time works against not for himself. If he is tied up in battle, or — worse! — if he is injured to the extent that he cannot escape (putting aside for the moment his desire simply not to be hurt or killed) he knows that he is in big trouble. You have all the time you require. Go get him! Smash him to pieces! Beat him senseless! Keep on attacking him without mercy or forebearance until you are absolutely certain that you are safe and that he is harmless. You have that perfect right, and you have nothing to fear from the authorities; in fact their arrival on the scene will be a help and a relief for you!

We teach that AVOIDANCE is self-defense technique #1.
But technique #2 (i.e. preemptive attack) or #3 (i.e. ferocious counterattack) may be necessary when avoidance is not feasible. So develop your skills, condition and build your body, and train your mindset. If you do, and if you understand just how your enemy’s weaknesses will inevitably help your effective defense actions, you should rest fairly easily assured that if, God forbid, dangerous violence ever intrudes into your life from some atrocious felon’s onslaught, you will be equal to the task of handling it.

[** Serge **]

Sunday, October 14th, 2012

The Violent Offender’s Advantages

(and how to overcome them)


WHETHER the particular variant of scum who starts trouble with you is a bully, a mugger, a gangster, a holdup man, a car jacker, a rapist, a home invader, a kidnapper, a terrorist, or just some random sewer-rat troublemaker, it behooves us all who are concerned to prepare to eradicate this virulent bacteria when he threatens to infect us, to recognize that the violent bastard moves on us with certain undeniable advantages. These are:

1. He does not mind in the least seriously injuring — even killing — you. He requires no “reason” beyond the impulse or desire he may feel at the moment, however irrational or downright insane that impulse or desire may be. (Violent offenders are closer to wild animals than they are to truly human beings; and one of the reasons why civilized societies have continuing problems with violent predators is because they refuse to accept this fact.)

2. He, in his own mind, is the only one who knows his true intentions and objectives, and the degree to which he desires to harm you. (It is virtually impossible for anyone to tell with certainty either the capabilities or the intentions of any attacker. Miscalculate and you easily could end up dead.)

3. You are, even when you are well aware of his approach, to some degree startled by his attack. It is, after all, surprising, to be set upon without that which is understandable to you as a valid reason. (And if you are a decent human being you don’t give anyone, ever, a reason to physically attack you).

4. Even when, ideally, you are able to preempt his attack, he (the attacker) gets to initially decide that there will be violence, and thus he is inevitably the one who is fully “psyched” and ready-to-go, as it were. (One huge difference between any sort of  “contest” or sporting match and real combat. The victim of an attack is an unwilling participant in the encounter.)

5. Usually if not always the attacker is an experienced savage — a violent predator who has done this before — successfully — to others, and has garnered a confidence in himself  that has convinced him that he will succeed in doing whatever he wishes to do to you. (Confidence is an asset, and confidence inevitably grows out of successful past experience).

The foregoing five points are, we remain convinced, the tactical advantages that just about any physical assailant has when moving on an intended victim. Parenthetically we remind our students and visitors that they must always assume the following physical advantages — either when preparing in training, or when reacting to an emergency:

• The attacker is physically superior in every way to yourself

• The attacker possesses at least one weapon, even if he is not holding one in his hand at the outset of the attack

• The attacker is deadly serious — meaning, of course, that he is fully prepared to maim or to kill you

• The attacker is not alone — even if you are not immediately cognizant of a second or third assailant at the moment; you act on the assumption that he is not alone

You train incessantly with the above in mind. Your techniques must reflect an assumption of those factors, and you relent only if and when you terminate hostilities and realize that you and anyone dependent upon you for protection is now safe.

We can ready ourselves for the real world only by acknowledging what it offers us, and by recognizing that which it obliges us to contend with. This means becoming mentally conditioned insofar as self-defense is concerned. Only by this setting of the mind will it be certain that the techniques which you train hard on will be there reflexively and will be rendered without a moment ‘s hesitation or a tremor of delay.

While hard training in serious, proven techniques like those which comprise the American Combato curriculum is extremely important in training to overcome an attacker, mental conditioning — i.e. readying your mind — for that awful moment when you have no choice but to "bash or be bashed" — is at least as important. You can overcome the inevitable advantages that street scum and other assorted violent filth has if you will follow the guidelines we present i this article.


So . . . overcome each of the advantages that any predatory garbage could have, who might harm you and yours, by cultivating a proper mindset that destroys each of the bastard’s five advantages :

1. Overcome his ruthless indifference toward injuring or killing you by becoming more ruthless, vicious, merciless, and ferocious than he might be, and determining to go after him like an insane, wild beast, yourself – who is intent upon ripping him limb from limb, the very second you are aware that you are in danger.

2. Overcome his unpredictability by assuming the worst. It is your attacker’s choice to injure or to kill you. You are an unwilling participant in this encounter. Your enemy has unilaterally decided to savage you, so REACT TO HIM LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS UPON WHAT YOU DO . . . it probably does. Then you’ll be ready for the unpredictable — i.e. for anything.

3. Overcome being startled into any excessive delay or hesitation by cultivating anticipation. This does not mean that you are always anticipating an attack; it means that you are ever mindful that, no matter where you are and no matter what you are doing, an attack is possible; and you are not going to be frozen in astonishment if it comes. YOU WILL BE READY!

4. Overcome your attacker’s preliminary advantage in being psyched up and “pumped” by convincing yourself — deep down — in your heart of hearts, that it REALLY CAN HAPPEN TO YOU, so that if and when it does happen to you, you SHIFT INSTANTLY into a war footing, and explode with the most savage and ruthlessly brutal actions you are capable of — relentlessly attacking your assailant until he is helpless.

5. Overcome the confidence and morale advantage that any violent lout might possess by being solidly confident in your own right! Train only on good, war-proven skills; cultivate your strength and fitness and attack mindedness, and know that you are not only ready, but that YOUR WOULD-BE ATTACKER CANNOT KNOW HOW READY YOU ARE; and when you explode like a murderous maniac and go after him, he will never be able to adjust to your reaction in time, and his confidence will be destroyed no less than his physical body!

Fighting spirit is important. And it has been said that “When you sincerely believe that you are right, you have the strength of ten!” The victim of any physical attack is always “in the right”, and a violent offender is always wrong. KNOW this. FEEL this. CULTIVATE this certainty. Never, ever allow yourself to relinquish it. React with righteous rage and fury.

If you will train hard and train on good, proven combat techniques, and in addition cultivate the philosophy and doctrine we espouse you will not necessarily eliminate the initial advantages that your assailant may possess; but you WILL be able to overcome them!

[** Serge **]

Monday, February 4th, 2013

The Face Of Violent Crime In 21st Century Urban America



WE have been teaching self-defense since the 1960’s. We were a child in the 1950’s when we began studying the arts of individual combat, and over the more than 55 years of our involvement in the study and researching and teaching of fighting arts and personal protection we have observed some very significant — and very alarming — changes in the “face” of violent crime in urban America. (We cannot say from personal observation, but we would guess from much of that which is reported to us by correspondents that the phenomenon is similar in other urban centers throughout the world — like Paris, London, Sydney, Rome, and so on).

The need not merely for “self-defense training”, but for deadly serious, absolutely ruthless, no-nonsense self-defense training and for thorough mental conditioning to cope with physical violence and danger, has never been felt so greatly as it is being felt today — in this 21st century.

Here are the six most conspicuous changes (for the worse) that we have personally seen occur over the preceding half century, in urban America:

1. All violent crime — from school bullying to mugging, to gang-related attacks, and so on — has taken on a senseless cruelty and sadistic flavor that, in the 1950’s and throughout much of the 1960’s, was extremely rare, and for the most part nonexistent.

Just recently the news in New York City reported a seventeen year old throwing a much younger and smaller boy off the roof of a five story tenement building. Miraculously, the poor child who was attacked lived. But as this is being written he is precariously close to death, and may not make it. The monster who committed the crime claims it was all a “mistake” and “unintentional”. This creature — at seventeen years of age — has already accumulated an impressive criminal record for violence and related antisocial conduct.

Recall the absolutely unforgivable and insanely evil attack by those subhuman predators on Brian Stow. Because Mr. Stow was a fan of a different ball team than his assailants, these subhuman beasts beat Mr. Stow into a state of permanent brain damage and disabling physical injury. Mr. Stow almost died.

The foregoing are two examples of the many thousands that could be cited, demonstrating an almost demonic nature to urban violence.

2. Firearms are commonly employed today, and of of course the punk’s old standby, i.e. the knife, is also used by violent types. (It is fascinating to note that when firearms were more freely and generally available to, and often carried and used by decent citizens, punks and street savages rarely dared to carry firearms! Predatory filth does not like it when victims can shoot back!).

Children in grade schools today often use weapons against their contemporaries. The school yard fist fight that we remember occurring with unfortunate regularity in the 1950’s and 60’s, has now been replaced by armed confrontations between botched and deranged youngsters, and the innocent kids that they steal from and physically abuse.

Rarely if ever do we hear of “strong arm” robberies today. Today, armed robberies — and assault for other reasons — is routine news in virtually every major city.

3. Multiple attackers is the norm today. In days gone by even bullies and other garbagy types regarded it as wrong to gang up on someone. Today, the predatory scum considers attacking in pairs and in pack — like feral dogs — to be just good common sense tactics. It’s done all the time.

4. Many attacks today are impersonal, apparently motiveless.

It is understandable — though certainly reprehensible and evil — when impulse-driven scum physically attacks and injures someone because a heated argument got out of hand. Or because one moron passed some inappropriate remark about another’s girlfriend, etc. No justification whatever, by any rational standard, for employing violence in such instances; yet one can perceive (an albeit absurdly irrational) “reason” for its occurrence.

The new urban phenomenon is attacking someone for no apparent reason . . . not even the flimsiest! It is “cool” amongst certain gutter animal types to just attack someone — anyone — simply because it’s “fun” to beat and stomp the person. People are attacked now by complete strangers who have no intention or desire to rob them and who have nothing personal against them; but these assailants just “feel like” attacking. Never before has it been so easy to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and to suffer violence at the hands of persons who do not know you, but who delight in beating or killing you.

5. Attackers of all types today are often highly experienced and completely unafraid of consequences.

The criminal justice system rarely does anything about truly atrocious violent crimes. The police make arrests, and the courts set the garbage free. All you need do to verify this yourself is check the news reports and note the often lengthy and extensive prior arrests and encounters with law enforcement that so many who have finally been charged with mayhem or murder have! Yet, the criminal justice system did nothing to remove these predatory monsters from civilized society when they first began to offend. Murderers rarely if ever are put to death any more. Many of them do not spend more than a few years in prison. A person acting in self-defense needs to be more concerned — and usually is — about legal consequences, than is the animal against whom he acted in self-defense.

Since violent offenders get to reoffend, thanks to a lenient legal system, they get good at it. And since they are so frequently exposed to the lukewarm “penal system” they lose any fear of incarceration that might have deterred them.

6. Home invasions, “wilding”, “flash mobbing”, driveby shootings, and carjacking are relatively recent additions to the repertoire of the predatory scum. Why? Because they have gone unchecked and they have been allowed to survive, and they have concluded that they can get away with anything

So what can we do about this?

The first and foremost thing that you should do is learn how to defend yourself ! Nothing can protect you better than being able to physically stop an attacker, and being prepared technically, tactically, and mentally to do so without a moment’s hesitation.

 In order to prepare yourself mentally, open your eyes to the realities of urban violence, and mentally condition yourself to deal with it, should you ever need to do so.



Support law enforcement efforts in your community. Remember that it is not the police who turn violent offenders back on society, and it is not the police who determine what the laws regarding punishment for violent offenders will be. Police are law enforcers. They can and do go after law breakers, but when the courts neglect to render adequate punishments, there is nothing further that police can do.

Self-reliance is no longer the revered personal attribute that it once was. But self-defense depends upon self-reliance, and the more you expect “something to be done” about violent crime by others, the less anything will be done. You need to learn to rely upon your awareness, precautions, and — ultimately — your READINESS AND WILLINGNESS TO FIGHT BACK AND NOT BE VICTIMIZED — to protect yourself against violence in our society.

It is true that we “should not have to” defend ourselves against human predators in the cities where we live. But we do have to. So we’d better.

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