Get Real Self Defense Podcast
A dose of personal protection discussion to help you become more confident and prepared to protect yourself and your loved ones. Train Today. Protect Tomorrow.
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Get Real Self Defense Podcast
Ep #17: Mastering Self-Defense with Nick Drossos
Ever wondered how to transform yourself from an easy target to a hard one? Get ready to meet self-defense YouTube sensation and expert, Nick Drossos, who has garnered over 400,000 subscribers with his invaluable insights into practical self-defense. His life's journey, from a martial arts enthusiast to a nightclub doorman, to self defense instructor has provided him with a real-world testing ground to refine the most effective self-defense techniques.
As we navigate through this conversation, we delve into the nitty-gritty of self-defense training. Drossos emphasizes the importance of pressure testing and adapting techniques to our personal needs and circumstances. We explore how to maximize our physical abilities and translate gym lessons into real-world scenarios. We also touch upon pivotal aspects like bridging the gap between traditional martial arts and self-defense, assessing instructors' credibility, and the significance of self-training.
This enlightening conversation extends beyond practical techniques, encompassing an in-depth discussion on situational awareness and the fine line between paranoia and alertness. Listen as Drossos shares his wisdom on how to disarm potential threats, the art of verbal de-escalation, and techniques for teaching children about situational awareness. So tune in for this riveting conversation with Nick Drossos, guaranteed to equip you with the necessary knowledge to bolster your self-defense skills and awareness.
The full interview on YouTube can be found Here.
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I tell people, be honest about diffusing and deescalating it. But as you're deescalating, what am I doing? I'm studying his movements, my environment. Do I have an improvised weapon? Am I with my son? Am I with my girlfriend? What's my environment? Where are my exits? I'm talking because I'm setting up as well my first strike. I'm getting an offensive, defensive position while I'm scanning the entire area.
Speaker 2:Holy cow, do I have an episode for you today? In this episode of the Get Real Self Defense Podcast, I sit down with the one and only Nick Drosos, who is a self defense YouTube star with over 400,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, as well as being one of the most distinguished and most prized self defense experts in the world. He is well known in the online self defense space and he basically combines a plethora of practical self defense concepts and techniques that have been pressure tested, meaning he actually had to apply it. He had to try to apply it and try to teach others how to apply it, to find out what works best and what doesn't. And so if you're interested in anything that Nick has to say and you want to learn more about him or get into his courses and material, I'll have links down in the description below for the video on YouTube, as well as for the podcast episode itself. Let's get into the material. This is Nick Drosos, from Nick Drososcom.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Get Real Self Defense podcast. I'm Adam Jolly, here to help you find tips and tricks to help you become a more confident, competent and capable protector for yourself and your family, and today I'm really excited to bring on to the podcast Nick Drosos, who has been in the game for ever and he has a wealth of knowledge and experience. He was someone that, when I was aspiring to get more into the social media aspect and online aspect, when it came to teaching itself defense, he was one of the people that came on my radar. And with that, further ado, nick, how you doing, brother? Adam, thank you so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 1:It's when you when you mentioned it like that, and it's funny because I was watching some of my older videos and I realized, shit, it's over 20 years that I've been in this game like teaching, training, pressure testing, 10 years of security. Like I haven't trained in three months because I injured my neck wrestling. I did a hair transplant a couple of weeks ago so I hadn't trained for like three months and it makes me feel like I'm getting old and thank God I'm still strong enough to teach seminars and do what I love. And thank you for having me on the show. No, absolutely, brother. So my question for you is.
Speaker 2:You know, to start it off. I'm going to start with to start it off. A lot of times when I've listened to stuff, because I did research on you in reference to this podcast, I wanted to make sure that I knew kind of where you were coming from, what kind of person you were, and one of the things that caught caught my eye was you know, you started off eight or nine years old, you know, in Montreal. Grown up you were poor and you got bullied a bit, you were skinny, all that kind of stuff, and you went and begged to start learning martial arts and learn kung fu, learn kickboxing. You know you'd gotten a taekwondo, you did boxing for a while and all together. The thing that caught the caught me was when you said in a number of different interviews, once you hit the nightclubs, that was when you learned what worked and what didn't work. Can you, can you, tell me a little bit about your experiences and your, your mentality before, during and after getting into the nightclubs?
Speaker 1:I had all this. I mean I like. I mean everything is relative because I, compared to what I know today, like I spent, you know, five years doing MMA training with wrestlers, like I'm always, until today I'm still learning and growing and I always go back and I realize I'm better and no more than what I did five years ago. So when I go back to time and I think about when I was, like you know, twenty to twenty three and I thought I knew so much, and I, here I am with this experience and I'm working at the club as a doorman and I'm in my first brawl and I completely like, freak out, lose control, there is a sense of panic, a sense of loss of control, a sense of what the hell just happened. Even with all the training, I did nothing prepared me for this and I quickly realized, ok, and looking back on it, like while I was in it, five years later, ten years later, almost twenty years later, looking back into it, you know, I realized it was always always some fundamental, like basic elements that were always there throughout everything that I've trained back then until today, and I quickly realized, well, what works, what doesn't work, what do I actually need to train more, what do I need to take out, what do I need to add? And that's how I put together. You know, over the ten years of working in clubs bar security, bodyguarding this is where I was putting elements of what I thought I needed the most to keep me alive in the street. It's one thing in the ring, it's another thing in the street, right. So that's how I put everything, all the pieces together in in live trial and error when testing it out.
Speaker 1:Then, when I got out of the clubs, I was still learning, I was still growing, I was still pressure test. I'm like then I got into more of the pressure testing and training and figuring out OK, forget about what this instructor says, what this title is. You're wearing a commando suit, what are all you know as trophies? I look at the content for what it is and I'm like OK, does it make sense? Is it logical? Let me take it in pressure tested not just once, in 15, 20 times, different scenarios, different attackers, different environments, and that's how I really put together my system. But those 10 years of working in clubs, it was a big reality check, right there in the moment where you can't afford to make mistakes, because a mistake meant you're getting stabbed, you're getting beaten, you're getting jumped, you're getting shot. So I quickly had to adapt to the reality of what I was learning and what I actually needed to use.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting because the the thing that that happened with me and one thing that we have is slightly in common, slightly overlaps is that I actually assisted a lot in nightclubs too for a bit. It wasn't, I wasn't directly a security guard, my good friends were and I actually, you know, over the years I'd been teaching self-defense and I actually taught some of these guys and one of the funny things was, you know, they that really got me on their radar was one of the supervisor guys had was doing like wristlock stuff. And I said, hey, man, you probably don't want to put two hands on one hand on a drunk guy like you know, like on one arm or something trying to do a goose neck or something like that, doesn't you know? You need a hand free in case he decides to clock you because he's not going to feel pain the same way. And he said, oh, whatever. Well then he got his face beat in while he's trying to do a goose neck on a guy, and you know. So all of a sudden I was, when I was there visiting my friends on the weekends, I would assist by just kind of being eyes and ears and you know, if I see someone that's harassing a female at the, at the bar or whatever else. And it was interesting because the as guys went through pain, they would change their tactics. The next time they they wouldn't go for it like. This guy didn't go for a two handed goose neck anymore, he went through. Like you know, I showed him how to adapt to where you can just tuck it under your arm and do one so you have your other hand free or you can control around the guy's arm or something as you walk out, and so it was interesting to see how these guys went through pain.
Speaker 2:And so what I've noticed is that, with you going through the process you are taking, it looks like a lot of what you learned in the nightclubs and are trying to cut to the chase so people don't have to go through that pain First to learn what to do or what not to do. So what in what? As far as, like, what you teach people, because, for those that don't know, I mean you have hundreds of thousands of subscribers on YouTube because people resonate with what you're teaching. It's, it's simple, it's direct. So what? What for you when you, when you're teaching somebody that comes up and says, hey, I'm a doctor, I'm a lawyer, I got a family. I just want to learn the baseline self defense. I'm 35 years old. You know what are the kind of the two, three things that you really focus on and that you think our listeners my listeners, your listeners need to focus on when it comes to their starting of their self defense journey.
Speaker 1:So this is like my most common clientele and people who reach out to me. It's because, let's be honest, the lawyer, the doctor, the mom she doesn't have, you know, two hours a day to spend in training. She doesn't want to walk into an MMA gym and and sit and roll and get her head kicked in and learn to jitsu and boxing and kick and that's not necessary, right? So we have to be realistic, depending on the person. Yeah, if you're 25 years old, there's so much I can do with you, but I got to go with your lifestyle, I got to go with your priorities. I got to go with your physical abilities as well, right? So if there's three things that I always start with, and the first thing and it's very neglected is how do I make you a day to day, a hard target? How do I make you someone that when a attacker looks at you, they're like that's not the guy, that's not the girl or the woman I want to go after, right? So, obviously, so many instructors, they're like you know, they want to go straight into the physical and it might be boring, I tell them, but what I'm going to teach you is the moment you walk out of this gym you're going to be able to apply it, which is what Situational awareness. Now, situational awareness, there's two types of situational awareness To me. You have the awareness of 15, 20 feet, where you're scanning your environment, and then I have what I call your body awareness, when you're in close quarter. Three to five feet, when you're faced with your attack, when you're reading his body language, right.
Speaker 1:So I was doing a seminar in LA and we're doing knife defense and we're breaking down a knife attack and I'm like, before the night comes out, first he's got to see you, right, he's got to choose you, he's got to spot you. Two, he's got to close his distance. Three, he's got to engage, either verbal or you might ambush you. Four, he's got to get into a stance, a position where he pulls out the weapon, patting himself. And then, five, you have the attack. So, before we get to five, what are all the steps you could do?
Speaker 1:The fight starts or the attack starts when you make visual or intuitive contact. You see something or you feel something. So that's the first part. The second part is teaching them how to diffuse, how to de-escalate, how to use verbal and the verbal. I tell people be honest about diffusing and de-escalating it. But as you're de-escalating, what am I doing? I'm studying his movements, my environment. Do I have an improvised weapon? Am I with my son? Am I with my girlfriend? What's my environment? Where are my exits? I'm talking because I'm setting up as well my first strike. I'm getting an offensive, defensive position while I'm scanning the entire area. Then three you have your body language and managing your space and distance.
Speaker 1:All this is prior to a strike, as done. So, whether you're a 60 year old man, a 13 year old girl, this is stuff that the moment I teach you, and not only say it. I've developed drills and exercises to develop, because everybody says, oh, be aware, what does that mean? You need to train your awareness, you need to develop that through drills that when I'm talking to somebody, I'm not looking at his hands. I know where to look at. I'm looking at all the point of contacts without looking at them, because I'm already prepared to either go preemptive or go defensive using improvised weapon. I already know where my exits are. So all that is prior to even we're looking at an attack. So if you focus on that, you become a very, very hard target for somebody to come close to you, for somebody to get to the distance, pull out a weapon, decide to attack you. So there's so much prior to that for strike yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean. The funny thing is because that's exactly the stuff when I was a kid, my dad taught me and, for those that are listening, you've heard this story once or twice now, but I'll share with you. When I was, when I was little, my dad taught me a little bit about situational awareness and body language, because I was seven years old I'm actually the oldest of 11 children, believe it or not, and I'm seven, eight years old. We're playing at the park and my dad was off duty as a police officer and he was off duty. It was his day off. We're all hanging out having a good time.
Speaker 2:There's probably, at this point, five of us, four of us in the family, and at one point he pulls me aside and sits me down on the bench and says, son, like, look around, I just want you to look around a second. What do you see? And just that was it. And I just looked and I said, ok, I see kids, and you know, because that's my focus, the park and he goes OK, what else do you see? And he just kept going down the line the parents, the, you know, the cars, whatever else, and then he'd get to. Is there anyone else that you notice that isn't a parent, that isn't a kid. And I look over and I see this guy that he's kind of obscured behind the trees, about 30, 40 feet back, and I said well, I see that guy and he goes, is he doing anything that a parent's doing? And I said no. And he said is he doing anything? Is he a kid? And I said no, and he said what do you feel about this guy? And so what was cool was you know, going through the process, he was teaching me situational awareness and noticing and using and trusting my intuition. He could have you know, and he told me later and the guy got arrested very, very quickly afterwards. He had called his buddy because the guy was a registered sex offender and was watching, you know, kids at the playground.
Speaker 2:But he decided, as it was happening, to take it as a teaching moment and just sit me down and live right there and say you know, here's a scenario that's live, it's in a controlled enough environment. You know what do you see. And that really started where, like you talk about learning, you know if you notice something, notice the body language, notice the intent, trust in your intuition, getting yourself in position where you were, how I would and, like you brought up, you know your son, how I would act if I was by myself versus how I would act with my family is completely different, and that's why it was great when, when you were asked the question oh, what would you do if someone attacked you with a knife? Well, tell me what's going on. Do I have my family? Do I not have my family?
Speaker 2:And for me, that's the biggest hangup, because how you act, how I would act personally, I've just, you know, run behind a car or some sort of obstacle. Get away If I had to act, versus standing my ground and having to fight back to protect those that are with me that aren't gonna be able to do the same thing, cause if I run away, my family's just there with the guy with the knife. That totally takes away the whole purpose of practicing to be a protector, right? So with that, how much like? How do you go through? Like, what is your thought process and what have you trained from pressure testing, what you would do if someone in your situational awareness is giving the wrong vibes, giving the wrong feelings, as you are by yourself versus your family, what's going through your mind, what are you considering and what are the kind of the options you look for offhand?
Speaker 1:So I mean, I'm often like I'm with my son during the day, but at night I'll go out, I'll do things, and even though I'm trained to do this, I never drop my awareness. I'm always alert of everything and everybody that's around me, without being paranoid. And I think I'm gonna mention something, cause a lot of people tell me Nick well, what's the difference between paranoia and fear? Like, aren't you paranoid? I go no, paranoia is you walk into a bus and you think that everybody's a potential attacker right, that's being paranoid. You walk into a bus and you see that odd or off behavior of somebody. Maybe it's 30 degrees, he's wearing a cold, drinking a bottle of vodka, talking to himself. My awareness is gonna kick up there. That's awareness, right. So you also don't wanna live in a constant alert or fight or flight, because that's gonna shoot your nervous system, right? So I wanted to mention that cause I think that's very important because we're here to teach people to be awareness. But the idea is to know when to turn it on from low to medium to high, right, cause you don't want it on a constant. You don't want it always on a high, because to me, I compare it to having your alarm on on your house all the time. So if somebody breaks in, you hear it, but if it's always on, you won't. That's part of your intuition as well.
Speaker 1:So if I'm walking down the street and I feel that I'm being followed or watched, the fight starts the moment I get that feeling. When he's 15, 20 feet away, that means I already start maneuvering my way in different angles on my cross the street. If he crosses the street, then I know he's following me, right? So if I'm walking straight and he's here and I do this a sharp turn and he turns, then I know, okay, I got to fight in my hands. I'm not gonna wait till he's two feet behind me, right? So right away I start gauging and managing my space and distance From there. I got to make a decision right Now. Am I gonna run? Am I gonna turn around at some point? Maybe use the car around them and ask are you following me? Do you need something? Can I help you? Or I might open some kind of verbal, yet keeping my space and distance, am I gonna?
Speaker 1:I know me as a person. I won't just ignore him. Maybe I'll use reference points, like a car where I can see a mirror, anything to always keep my eye on him somehow reflections, shadows, and then at some point, if I feel threatened and the person gets this close, guess what? I'm already ahead. I'm five steps ahead of him. And then, once I'm there, I'm looking at his hands. Does he have a weapon? Is he angling off? Is he looking around? Is he touching his face? Is he pacing, is he making a signal to a friend?
Speaker 1:And from there I got to make a decision right, and I always tell people I'm not there, I can't tell you what to do or not to do. It's not always, you know all. If the guy's got a knife, you know, always trap, never trap, always fight, always. I don't know your circumstances. And the best way I break this down, people tell me, like I told you oh, if you had a knife, somebody attacked you with a knife, nick, what would you do?
Speaker 1:I'm like where am I? You're in a bank machine, okay. Am I alone? Or with my kid? And they're always confused. Like you're with your kid, okay. How many are they? They're one. Like you've got to take the entire context before you make a decision, and part of our job as instructors is to teach you how to assess the complete scenario and then make the best decision that will heighten your chances of survival. There's no guarantees, but what are the highest chance of survival with what I have myself in this in this present moment? What can I do to heighten my chance of survival? That's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 2:It's sure, absolutely I agree, and I'll bring up a little bit of what we talked about in our first contact the other day and that so because it kind of ties in, I think fairly well, and that is, you said what are the things that'll increase your chances of survival? And one of the things that I know you do and I'm a big supporter and proponent of, is the idea of universal tools and principles that you can apply to multiple scenarios. So, for instance, I know you put your hands up quite a bit and you have your hands like kind of shoulder height-ish in front, you're trying to maintain space, and but this is universal, you can go high, you can go low, you can strike, you can bundle up. I mean all those things apply from that universal position. So that's one facet.
Speaker 2:With the different pressure-tested techniques that you've done and for those that are listening that don't understand the term pressure-tested, like literally, nick has taken the time to go through the different movements, the different techniques, the different principles of motion and actually have people, like you said, attack him, bother him, trip him up. He's done it in different environments just to see what works best and what actually doesn't. And so what are some universal things, nick, that you've found work really well. I'm gonna go out and a limb and assume palm heel strikes work.
Speaker 1:Is that correct? Palm strike is I mean it's? I always say we gotta keep it as simple as possible, amen, right, the more technique, the more fine and motor skill, like I had somebody come in from Germany and trained with me and she was like she trained with me for five days and then after a while it was always the same concepts and principles coming back. It's not supposed to be. It's. I always say it's not about learning more, it's learn less and train more. So you have your five basic strikes. When you know how to use those five basic strikes, it's not about learning more and more and more, it's learning how to do them under high pressure, high stress, with your eyes closed, in handicap positions, understanding how to use them without thought process, because you don't have the time to think, oh, what strike, what kick, what punch, what block? So yeah, you know what I mean. You have your palm strikes, you have your hammer fist, you have your elbows, you have your knees, you have your head.
Speaker 1:I always say those are your big weapons. Right, those are your biggest weapons. Aim big and hit big. You know what's the biggest target you're gonna do the most damage is go for the head, hit the head, whether I palm here, here, here, here, here, here, here. The idea is you should be able to do it with your eyes closed, because when you're under high stress, under that pressure, you're being attacked. And I do this with my students, right, blindfold them and they're attacked with their eyes closed and they gotta find the target and they're like why are you blindfolding me? Cause it's gonna happen that fast. You're not gonna see the strike. You're gonna feel the strike cause you're in close quarter range. So I just want you to be able to launch those attacks without the thought process.
Speaker 2:No, 100%, and that's the thing is, you never rise to the occasion, you always default to the level of your training and so, kind of tying in with situational awareness. You brought up something interesting which is like, hey, you know, you're training yourself to notice specific things that you normally wouldn't notice, that your mind would tune out. How many times have we driven to our house and gone? How did I get here? Cause your mind's thinking about other things. You're so used to that that you're tuning out other things. You talked about the alarm people that sleep by trains. And they go by, we'll sleep right through it, but someone who never has that's new to them and so that perks up. But the same people that had a train go by if a car accident happens just outside their house, they're gonna perk up to that. So our brains taking so much information that they it tries to divvy up what's the most important information, and so getting that training and conditioning to have situational awareness, and then, because we take in so much information, especially with today's day and age, with advertising, with social media, all those things combined, it's interesting because by having those universal principles and motion that you train, those few things that you train really well. As Bruce Lee I'll paraphrase that said. You know, I don't fear the man that has done 1,000 kicks once. It's, I fear the man that's done one kick 1,000 times. It's the idea that because you take in so much information, it's gonna be hard to pick up on everything. You're not trying to be paranoid, and then you get accosted. You're not gonna see it, you get smacked with it or attacked, and then you have to be able to, while you're not thinking, apply something to stop that attacker. And so I think that ties in quite beautifully. So I brought this up yesterday and the idea is like you know, for those that are listening, you might be wondering at some point. You know why.
Speaker 2:Then, with martial arts and self-defense, you know, the martial artists everywhere say that they are a self-defense school. I mean, that's like the thing that seems to be advertised all the time is that if you're in martial arts school, it doesn't matter what style, it's a self-defense school. And I think you would agree that not all martial arts are self-defense and certainly not all self-defense is martial arts. So with that and I'll tell you what I think is kind of I think it's BS is that there's a lot of techniques out there, and this goes to your point, a lot of techniques that are five, six, seven moves, and that's nice when a guy is sitting still letting you do the move after throwing one straight punch or one kick. But the reason why that I think and you agree or disagree, you let me know I think that one of the main reasons why traditional martial arts has fallen behind versus like MMA or other things out there, is due to the fact that it is actually in itself traditional and so like for self-defense.
Speaker 2:Specifically talking about the context, the bubble, the packaging of self-defense, it's hard for a traditional martial art to be relevant because it's traditional. If it's traditional, it's the same moveset, the same things, principles, teachings that were taught a thousand years ago. If we were still. But I'll tell you what, if the US Army had still done what was traditional, they'd be carrying muskets and wearing the you know the colonial hats and the petticoats and stuff and they'd be just walking in a straight line. You have to adapt to your environment, you have to adapt to the situation, and so I think one of the main problems with a lot of traditional martial arts is the fact that it's traditional.
Speaker 2:It's not changing. It's the same thing with, like the iPhone today. If Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the phone and got the patent, had, if we had said, oh, that's all we need, we're not going to refine it and make it better for our environment, we wouldn't have the computers we have today that sit in the palm of our hand. So where do you think the disconnect is beyond that? If any, and then how do you remedy that? Let's say that someone who's listening is a martial artist that's training or just started training. I don't want you guys that are listening to be discouraged. So, nick, can you give maybe some insight of what you think might be a good way to remedy that? Continue to train, or do you need to quit and go do something else? What would you do so?
Speaker 1:I have one of my instructors. He loves karate. He's a karate karate nerd, I call him. He loves it, but he did security and he does his karate. But he does his karate because he likes the uniform, he likes the feeling, he likes the training, but he's very aware that in the street it's very limited in the sense that, like I mean, I'm going to be starting Sambo in a couple of weeks, like I'm telling this to your viewers, I'm going to be 15, a couple of years, and I'm still learning, I'm still studying every martial art that I could out there and what I do, and I think every martial art has elements that are still plaque.
Speaker 1:I remember doing kung fu and we're doing the tiger claw. The only difference is I'm not doing this, I'm doing this. So there's elements of all the martial arts, like jiu jitsu, and I made a video on jiu jitsu and people thought I was shitting on. No, I love jiu jitsu, there's good elements. But what can you pull out of jiu jitsu and use for self-defense in the street and I've seen it at clubs. You know you could be the black belt best jiu jitsu. You take the guy on the floor, his friend comes and kicks you on the head lights out, just like this, because you're conditioned and trained to fight that way. So a lot of people tell me oh, anybody could, I got you. No, you're going to train the way you fight because that's what you're wiring and programming Right. So I tell people that if you love the traditional martial arts, hey, it's great. But know that it's just, it's an art. Take whatever you could out of there and apply it in your self-defense. However, there's also a catch 22 with it.
Speaker 1:I spent five years training with Davis Dos Santos. I've only done privates MMA with him, probably one of the best fighters, not probably the best fighters I've trained with. The guy is a beast and at one point, because I was doing so much MMA, I was catching myself going for a take down even when I was doing scenario training, because I was training that constantly and I started developing MMA habits when I was training in scenarios for self-defense. So it was becoming counterproductive and I said, shit, I can't do this. I got to take what I could from MMA but still keep my own style. I was working with another striking coach. He was, you know, working on punches. I'm like you know what? Can we? Can you adapt it for my posture, for my palms and stepping in and using my style right. So, whatever you do like, ask yourself what am I training for? If you're training for the arts, only great. But if your focus is self-defense, take your training but also, you know, make it for self-defense as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So there's actually quite a bit to unpack there. I want to kind of go down the jiu-jitsu vein. I want to go down the adapting the training vein. So one of the things, though, that I think is interesting is you said, hey, you know, focus on, like, adapting it to your environment, and you had to talk to your instructor and work with them. So, really quick, before we go down those veins of conversation, can you share with the listeners?
Speaker 2:How do you assess a good instructor for something like this, if you want to adapt it to self-defense and they're teaching in martial art, like maybe you know, like how do you assess and go? This is an instructor that I can work with that will meet my needs, versus not. Obviously, they can communicate a little bit, but you know there are some like when you worked with Rob Ingram and did we're on his podcast a while back with Macdogealife, you know, one of the things that you know he does is cover bullshido, right, he covers people that think that they know something and that they're teaching self-defense and not. So how do you avoid the pitfalls? How does a listener do that?
Speaker 1:So the first thing I do is I strip out the title, the bells and whistles, the commando suit, everything that visually makes you go, wow, this guy's. Look at all the trophies and I look at what he's actually teaching. Right, I look at the content for what it is. Then, when it comes to self-defense, are they teaching about situational awareness? Are they teaching about how to diffuse, how to de-escalate? Are they talking about mindset? If all that is not in there, you're going in putting in a key and hitting a board. If it's for self-defense, I walk out right away. So that's my second thing. My third thing in it and this is something that people love about me like I'm teaching more and more seminars, I'm. I don't have an ego, I don't think I know it all. So if you can't tell your instructor and I'll share with you a really good story I had somebody, tim, come from Los Angeles. He did my level two instructor course, my level one and level two, level two. We went to an abandoned warehouse and we did two days of training knife attacks with helmets and he's pressure, testing his knife defense and figuring out that it doesn't work right and he's close to getting his black belt and crab macaw and he was freaking out. I said Tim, yeah, because right now we're doing drills in full speed. That's why it doesn't work. So when he went back to as an instructor and he said, I went to Montreal, I trained with this guy, we did this and this, and he was saying trap the weapon in close score, he's like well then, if you don't agree with me, then you should just leave the school and go train with him. So if you can't have, if you can't and I don't mean challenge him with arrogance I'm okay if I'm teaching a seminar and say, yeah, nick, I don't think that would work. I'm like shit, why I would do it this way? Come, let's try. I don't have all the answers. Maybe you have a different way of doing it. That works as well. We're all here for the same thing.
Speaker 1:So, the most important, you need an instructor that doesn't have an ego and it's not like it's my way, the only way, the right way, right At the end. We're here to give you the best information we can with, like teach you with everything that we have. But as well, I want my students to learn what works, not because I tell them, because if you do the drill that I just told you to do, you'll figure out pretty quickly without me needing to tell you. Oh, like, when I did my seminar in LA, I had a law enforcement like shit, I get it. Why are you supposed to chat Like?
Speaker 1:The drill is gonna put you in a position that you're gonna figure out pretty quickly for yourself what you need to do. So you need these components when you pick an instructor. If you don't have that, then it's like you know you should have, you, should. He should be okay with you questioning him, with you pressure testing, with him, with you saying look, let's try it out, show me how it works with medium, with slow medium to full speed. If I can't do it myself, then how am I teaching it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that actually goes. I'll do a quick snippet story where I was in a seminar and it was for a traditional martial art and the guy was asking another guy who was a friend of ours, much older than me, he was a former like smoke jumper, I mean, he was a top level Kali Yoskrim, you know Filipino martial art guy, very humble, and he, but he was asked to come out and attack this, you know guru, this teacher, and he said, you know, he hands him a stick and says, you know, hey, attack me with the stick. And so he stands there ready to go, and so my friend goes to swing and the guy goes for a block and misses and gets clocked over the head because, as the guy said afterwards, you know, half jokingly, half serious way to go for this gentleman to attack me, wrong, right.
Speaker 1:I mean wrong?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like there's, as if there's such thing as a wrong attack, and so it's one of those things where, like you said, if somebody's you know gonna be, even if it's in a semi-joking manner like rigid, where they're not ready to adapt, because the whole purpose of, like you said, as instructors, we're here to help those that are on their journey to protect themselves, and if you can't adapt yourself to what they need, you know, let's say they have a disability, your footwork. You know, let's say it's a disability with the legs, your footwork drills and your footwork stuff isn't going to work.
Speaker 1:I'm going to stop you. I did my seminar in Waterloo and I had one of our participants in a wheelchair. So I was teaching him and you're going to get the stupid comment, well, that won't work, he can't do anything. And I tell people if this is your mindset, right, there's nothing you could do. If you get attacked with a knife, roll on the floor and say there's nothing you could do.
Speaker 1:But my mindset, and anything I do in life, is there's always something you could do and a little bit of something is better than nothing. You trapping that knife, right, even if you got cut once or twice, and you trap that knife. Maybe it was a third or fourth, you were going to die. So a little bit of something is better than nothing, and you might, as if you're in it, you might as well give it a fight. So he's in a wheelchair and I was teaching him, like, if he's in there, at least grab the knife. And I was teaching him how to use his wheelchair, how to pin it, how to move with him, how to strike.
Speaker 1:Look, is it going to be easy? No, but there's always something that you could do than say I'm a vulnerable target because I'm old, because I'm out of shape, because I don't know how to fight Right. There's so much that you could do, and I see it through people who've watched my videos, who sent me a testimonial and said because I watched your video, it saved my life. I never thought of using a chair as a weapon and just because I watched your video I picked up the chair and I used it. Or the guy in Brazil who got attacked, and because he watched my video, he goes. All I remember is trapped in life and I started screaming. And that was enough for other people to jump in because they were going to be able to pull the guy off. So sometimes just this much could make a difference.
Speaker 2:No, 100%, and that's the whole point is that you know if you have to adapt it to what they need and there's going to be certain things that click for certain people that aren't going to click for others, and so that's why you try to keep it, as you know, universal as possible, things that work for the most amount of people, as your default, and then you adjust as you need and as you see fit and hopefully, as a student, for those that are listening, if you're working with someone who's an instructor or an expert, you communicate that to them, that of what you need. So go into the part about jujitsu and adapting things. You know you'd mentioned that some people think that some of the stuff you covered on jujitsu was a little bit of a mockery or crapping on it, and that's not what your intention was. I'm going to guess, because I haven't seen all of them. I'm going to guess that it had more to do with how does jujitsu work under pressure, with no pressure, or with guns or other things in your environment?
Speaker 2:Multiple attackers Can you? Can you expand on that a little bit?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because. So I remember I was working one of the clubs right, and I had this like jujitsu master, whatever, and when I used to work at when I would you know when new security would come in the club, I'd be like, hey, you know what's up with your name, what do you do? I want to know. I do boxing, kickboxing, jujitsu. I already know their physical levels of what they're going to go to as move, so I need to know that. So he's a jujitsu guy and I go and I tell him I said I hope you know, like you're not going to be able to do this stuff here in the club, like you know, like you're not going to go on the ground. He's like yeah, yeah, I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Jiu-jitsu starts giving me the whole school like okay, whatever, you know, fight breaks out. You know you're in a club, lights are flashing, people screen, fight breaks out, big circle. I see him go for a takedown. He goes for a takedown. People are kicking, throwing bottles. All I'm thinking is get the get up. I'm trying to pull him to get me get up. So I'm fighting off people. I'm trying to get him off the ground. Finally, whatever.
Speaker 1:After the fight I was like I said, man, I told you, you know like this doesn't. I'm not saying it's bad. There's elements of jujitsu, when it comes to knife defense, that I use how to trap, how do we direct, how to use energy, how to come in that's fine, but it's it's the end result that changes when it comes to self defense, right, so it's limited. You're a one dimensional fighter and I had Fernando Bari Bari, I think his name is five time world champion come here and we did some training videos together years back and he's like, he's like Nick with his you know, brazilian accent. He goes you are not an excellent boxer, you are a good boxer. You are not an excellent grappler, you are a good grappler. You are not an excellent wrestler, you are good and he goes, but he goes up to me.
Speaker 1:I'm only excellent in one thing, and what makes me, I think, complete and in terms of self defense, it's not mastering one thing, it's it's you're better up being, you know, 60 to 80% in a lot of categories than just one. If you're a boxer, you're, and you can only box. It's great, but you're not going to box your way out of a knife fight and if you hit the ground, your boxing is done so in self defense. You need to have a lot of those elements together. That's what makes you more complete. Then you add the self defense in there and then you're upping all of all of then you're creating a system like a self defense system.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what you said there, a self defense system, and it's a self defense system for yourself. I mean there's because it has to work for you. It has to work for your environment, your body type. What's going to work for training for a soldier versus a police officer, versus a paramedic versus just a regular citizen on the street is going to be completely different, because what you go into in your environment is completely different. And so I mean all those things together from the time because you said 20 years, from the time that you started the journey with teaching.
Speaker 2:Is there anything that you taught before that? Now, as you've gone through life and work with hundreds of thousands of different students and clients, is there anything that you go, wow, this actually is not as effective as this, you know, is there anything that you said like, hey, like, or maybe something that was refined more, like you went deeper into that concept? Was there anything like after years and years of training, where you just after in pressure testing, where you just came, you know, came to a conclusion of something or an epiphany with, like a something that was more useful than you thought or less useful than you thought In the 20 years experience of teaching, I I refined more my close quarter skills Because I realized that most fights happen in close quarter range.
Speaker 1:I I eliminated certain fix ideas. You know, like we say, fighter, can't see, can't fight. When you're in close quarter range and I'm going for your eyes and you got a knife, you're still fighting, you're still stabbing. So I tell people it's not because I'm going to his eyes that I'm going to end the fight Right when I'm looking at the knife, I'm, I'm, I'm. I've learned more about the importance of like positioning, of angles, of trapping the knife, of being able to move around the attacker, of sticking, of using the different ranges. And probably the biggest significant thing that I that I really worked on is that awareness part all the pre, everything, prior to that first strike understanding body language, positioning, looking at the points of contact, how to set up your first strike, how to manage your space and distance, how basically to assess a complete attack from beginning to end, and not just that part.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you brought up it a couple of times. And so, for those that are listening it, you know, you notice that Nick has said you know the first strike and and believe it or not, if you know that somebody is going to a cost you, based off the things that you do, Based off the things that you train when it comes to situational awareness, then you'll also recognize that that person, eminently, is going to attack you and so, because of that, you're able to preemptively strike somebody to interrupt what they're doing, because you don't have to wait for quote, unquote their permission of hitting you first before you act. So I mean, can you, can you talk a little bit about the you know that first strike, that preemptive strike? You know, like, what goes through us. You assess and go yep, this is a time where I can hit somebody first, versus waiting to get attacked.
Speaker 1:So I, you know, I always tell people first. You have two options. People like oh, you're hitting first, that's not self defense, I go, look at the end, it's your life. I can't tell you what to do and not to do. I'm giving you the tools. You want to wait till he throws his first strike. You can wait or you can go preemptive. Those are really your two choices.
Speaker 1:From there, what I really break down is understanding how to read your attackers body language and know when they're sending up their strike. Some simple principles is if I take a step back, I'm talking and I take a step back and you take a step in, what are you doing? You're getting into range. You're trying to get into range to hit me Right. If I'm talking to you and you angle off, why are you angling off? I could tell if you're right or you were lefty just by what foot you're putting forward and I know what hand you're going to plan to attack me with.
Speaker 1:So when you understand that and a lot of this was pressure tested, working in the clubs I'm standing like this right and I'm talking to the guy at the club. I'm here and I'm talking to him. As I'm talking to him, what I learned is looking at the point of contact without looking at his feet, his hands. I'm studying is every movement, because I'm ready to crash, and this is a principle I developed. I call it crashing, where I'm attacking. My system is not a defensive system. My system is an offensive attack, meaning I'm either diffusing or I'm attacking. I'm not going in defense mode, right. The idea is to sit there and try to defend. No, I'm going to verbally diffuse that's my defense or I'm going to aggressively attack.
Speaker 2:No, that's great. So, so let's, let's actually dive into that. You know, with with diffusing a situation through verbal and this is actually something we're going to backtrack a little bit as far as the situation Earlier in your club career, you said that you had someone point a gun at your head and you'd practice all these different techniques. That was one thing that you mentioned in one of your interviews. What they what was never dove into that I can recall. So I'd like to get your insight. Is you then started talking to him? You said you just told yourself, nick, I need to talk to him, I need to talk him down. Were you ever taught, you know, like diffusing the situation through through verbal, you know, communication, or was that something that you just naturally just said this is what I need to do? And then you went further down that rabbit trail Like how did, how did you learn how to deescalate, and what are you teaching for deescalation for your clients?
Speaker 1:So you know, when you work in the club and I say this to people right, if I, if I fought every person that came into my face, I'd be fighting every night.
Speaker 1:I quickly learned that I could control the situation through the tone of my voice and the words I'm going to use and I tell this to people you got to pick and choose your battles. That's being a smart fighter, you, you know you got to pick. You can't fight every single battle or else I would have. You know, if I look at sometimes walking down the street and I see people do stupid shit, I'm like I can't believe you just did that. I'd be fighting every day Somebody who threw something on the garbage. You got to pick and choose your battles and see, is what I'm about to fight for worth it? And you need to know what that level is to you. So when you start working in the clubs, you start learning pretty, pretty quickly that the tone of my voice and the words could escalate it or deescalate it and certain scenarios, no matter how quote unquote. I knew all this. You know fighting systems. When you're dealing with a street gang who's going to tell you he might come back and shoot you. You know, you know that old saying keep your friends close but your enemies even closer. You know you got to pick and choose your battle sometimes. So I quickly learned how to put my ego aside and start using and I tell people, when I teach people how to get into the fight, when I teach people how to diffuse and deescalate a situation, there's tactics to it. But I tell them, do it truthfully and honestly, don't fake. We diffuse it, actually diffuse it, because you don't know what's about to happen. That's the difference. You're fighting in the ring. I could predict more or less best worst case scenario. In the street. You can't predict best worst case scenario. Worst case scenario is you get killed and that's what led me to so much knife defense is when I saw a kid get stabbed and he died in front of me. When that kid died in front of me is when I was like like I don't get it.
Speaker 1:I really got to learn, like I took knife defense to another level in my training and today it shows in terms of my seminars. When I'm teaching and have law enforcement, security, military, they're like shit man, what you're teaching is like very high level. But I brought it down to a civilian understanding, to civilian training, because, working in clubs, I was working in those environments and I knew, like what actually could, really what could happen, and that's what dove me into that. So, again, if I go back in a backtrack to the verbal defense and the de-escalation by trial and error being in it, you realize you know what could escalate it and what could de-escalate it. But at the same time I teach them that this moment is a moment for you to be reading body language also, managing your space and distance and putting yourself in an optimized position to go offensive and if you get caught, defensive, it's not, I'm not just diffusing, I'm diffusing. I'm aware I'm setting up, it's all put together while you're doing it.
Speaker 2:No, 100%. And actually when I work my job in law enforcement, like you said, even though law enforcement does it and has to do it all the time and they get a lot of reps civilians need to do it too, which is, like you said, as you're trying to de-escalate a situation, you're trying to help a person that's up here and get down to here so you don't have to get, you know, use force on them, get violent or have violence done to you. As you're talking to them, you're also assessing the moment you may have to use force. I mean, you're not just saying de-escalate, de-escalate and not thinking about, like you said, body positioning, what they're doing. Where are their hands going? Are their hands going into pockets? Are they reaching behind themselves? Are they turning away from you? You know like what is your, what you know? Do they have friends? Do you have, you know, some sort of obstacle next to you? Because I'll tell you what one of the things, personally and you can, it sounds like we might be on the same page.
Speaker 2:I find a knife far more terrifying than a gun. I just do. I just find a knife far more terrifying. It's a multi-directional weapon. You'd be amazed, for those that are listening how fast you can close the distance on somebody with a knife. It's so hard to see unless you are looking for it Like a gun. You know prints really well. Everyone has a pocket knife, everyone has a box cutter. I mean everybody, and you don't hear it.
Speaker 1:You don't hear it, so you don't even know you're getting stabbed and you don't feel it because you're under adrenaline, which makes it like I've seen people shoot in a club and shoot outside. You should see people but the knife. People got stabbed. We're like who had them? We're trying to figure out who had the knife, because it happens too fast.
Speaker 1:So it's a different dynamic and when I was training the law enforcement, the Boston police, I made them to do some drills and I challenged them. The first day I took away their weapon was all hand to hand when I put. When I put their weapon on, they were going to their gun, but they're five, six, eight feet away. The knife got to the gun every single time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's that you know that that they talk about and it's not an actual, real rule. But you've heard it, I'm sure the 21 foot rule when it comes to knife and firearm defense and whatnot for law enforcement, where you need more than 21 feet. But really, what it is is it's more about, you know, having space. Having distance equals time, and time means you can make decisions and if you don't have that time, you don't have that decision. And you, if you, you may not have that time if you don't have that space. And that's why what you brought up earlier about situational awareness, when it comes to your 20 foot radius or so versus, like your five foot radius, you know, three foot radius. When I stand in line, that's when my butt puckers the most. Personally, I hate, I hate standing in line or being in crowds with people, because it's like you can't, there's so little time to control because you don't have that distance. And when you're in a nightclub, that's all you get is no, is everybody's, you know, chest to chest or shoulder to shoulder, depending on where you're standing in, someplace like a club. So with with all of this, you know, and actually I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut over to this real quick, because we brought it up for half a second when we talked and we wanted to wait till the podcast about family.
Speaker 2:Okay, you brought up your son a couple of times and obviously I mean, I've watched some of your videos you and your son have a very good relationship. You love your son desperately and dearly. I have two little boys myself and I have a third boy that's going to be born in October. I'm I'm so I'm really excited about about that kind of stuff. You know, as far as family, family is very important to me, and those that are listening, many of them have families or will have families in the future.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that I find terrifying and is kind of a little bit not out of my element I'm doing the best I can, but, like my kid, my eldest is six years old, Okay, and he's not 13, 14 years old and one of the things that I worry about as a parent is the concept of letting go, letting them make mistakes. So what, what have you done and what have you been doing to prepare your, your children, your child, for being resilient, because you can't be there all the time? So what are you doing to prepare them. What have you done? Is there any story or anything that you can share that might help with listeners or myself as far as being able to prepare your kids for those worst case scenarios without overwhelming them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean my son's 15 years old now. He works at McDonald's, he goes to school, he's on a trip. Today and, without scaring people, there's been a lot of knife attacks here in Montreal Six months ago a kid was stabbed to death. He went to another school, got into a fight and they stabbed him. And then I had parents send me both 13-aged kids and sadly, yeah, 13, 15, 16-year-old kids holding knives because they're not aware of the damage and danger that it does and they think, well, just stab them. But if you stab them even one time, it's the wrong place, you can kill them. So it's interesting because my son has seen my videos and I always say in all my videos the person who wants your money has got a knife. Give him the money, but there's also a strategy in how you're going to give the money. So I've said this to my son. He took the knife because we train. He's like dad, he goes grab the knife, tell me, give me your money.
Speaker 1:I go no, no, no, no. This is what you're going to do. He wants your money. You give him the money, but this is how you give the money. This is what you do. I'll buy you a thousand phones, I'll give you anything you want in the world, but you only, as a last resort, a sort he tells they're grabbing you, they want to take you to the car, or he grabs you and he's about to attack you. You better fight with everything you have, the moment he's grabbed you or he's striking, anything goes, and your job is to fight and not stop until you're clear, out of danger. You never stop fighting as if you're in it. You go all the way. That's what I taught him in terms of the mindset, but what I taught him a lot as well.
Speaker 1:And we went out. I taught him, like you did, situational awareness, and this was a couple of months ago. He goes up to meet dad. I was walking with his girlfriend and he goes. Three or four guys walking behind me and I turned around, I looked at them and they were just. You know, they gave me a bad feeling. So, as I was walking, I stopped my girlfriend. I said, hey, look at that. And I kind of took her to the side and they all walked by me and the girl was a little bit confused. Then I turned around and then I told her this is awareness. This is what my father does, Right? So I've already taught him that. The same thing with two, two teenagers, kids that I train.
Speaker 1:I put those videos on YouTube where I'm teaching them basically knife defense. Now they're 15 years old. Tell me, nick, aren't they too young? All I'm teaching them is how to be aware, how to evade, escape, how to use an improvised weapon. Sometimes it's not always teaching them what to do, but it's teaching them what not to do. Don't go engage with the weapon if you don't have to. Your first thing is my job in terms of self-defense is not to teach you how to win a fight, it's how to teach you how to survive. The fundamental difference would be oh, trap the knife, grab the guide. Oh, it looks good. And like, wow, look at this guy, it looks amazing. No, my job is to get you home at the end of the day safely. And I say this I always say I would never teach something. I would never teach something that I wouldn't teach my son. That's my bar. So everything I teach I fundamentally believe to my core, because I teach this stuff to my son.
Speaker 1:So again that awareness part, verbal. I've taught him to bring up his hands. Mind you, if you grab him, he's going to headbutt you Like even as a joke, he's like a man. He almost like. Last time he went like this and he threw like a palm strike and he got me in the eye and I couldn't see. So he's learning.
Speaker 1:But I want to say this to the parents because when he was younger he didn't want to train. Mind you, he did jujitsu, he did boxing, he did Thai boxing. Then he went more into basketball. But what I would do I was bring him to the gym and I would give him the iPad and I would train in front of him, just to always be around that environment. Now, at 15, I don't want to get big, I want to train, hit the bag, I want to spar. He wants to fight me and I love it because to me, the most important thing you could teach someone you love is to protect what's more valuable than your life.
Speaker 1:So, everybody, I believe that kids in school, every kid, should learn how to protect and defend themselves. So you want to get rid of bullying, teach them how to defend themselves. Same thing for every parent. It is my duty to be able to protect my family, my loved ones, my son. It's not the police. The chance of him being there slim to none. It's not your security guard in the building, it's not a bystander. I go, it's your life. You have to fight for it and protect it.
Speaker 2:No absolutely, and I think that that's beautiful, that he was able to apply situational awareness, apply basically a de-escalation tactic. I mean, he had the option your son had the option to turn around and say what do you got Like? What's your problem? Why are you looking at me? Why are you falling me? Whatever he could have done a number of different things, tried to run away and make it really obvious, but instead he just casually, just because he had his, like you said, his girlfriend with him, and tried to just redirect and do something different to get himself out of that path, which is very clever. So I mean that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So, all things together, you've been doing seminars, you've been doing, obviously, youtube for a long time and throughout all of this, has there been anything that you've really like learned as far as, like students go? I mean like, for instance, for me, the people that talk to me are typically people that have nearly got attacked or already got attacked, and you might mention that before too, is that it's people that have already had that problem that are seeking the answers that after the problem already reared its ugly head. So, with all that, do you have any suggestions as far as what people can do with themselves at home if they aren't near a good gym or they aren't near a good instructor, because I know you do life coaching as well. So like how much in that mentality, that mental preparedness or visualization, like, can you talk a little bit about how people can still prepare themselves even if they don't quote, unquote, have like nice access to something?
Speaker 2:Obviously, you sell online courses. If you want to bring that up, bring that up as well. So, like you know, where do they go from as far as doing things if they don't have a lot of resources? So you know.
Speaker 1:I have my. I have online courses, like everything that I teach in my seminars, everything that I put together, or I have different bundles and courses. I'm not saying this because to promote my courses or anything, I'm already very busy. I'm doing privates, I'm traveling, I'm doing seminars. I did the courses because a lot of people who can train with me still want to learn something. Right, and people might say, yeah, but you're just watching a video. Let me tell you you're still registering something in there and what I've done with my courses.
Speaker 1:All my courses have drills training that you could find a training partner, a friend, your brother, a cousin, a family member that you can train with. There's also so much that you could do right, just alone, like you could work on your awareness, like you said. Drills that you could work on your awareness walking down the street. Okay, today I'm going to try to find every reference point to use my awareness. Today I'm going to like spot one person as he walks by the street and assess him. There's stuff you can do on the bob dummy to work your strikes. There's work on your strength, your agility, your explosive power. There's still so much that you could do just on your own, so don't like, neglect it. Don't think, oh, you always need a training partner. And again, just training this. You know, working out right, we'll build your confidence. Having the physical ability as well, we're creating that.
Speaker 1:The whole package is also deterrent to someone who might attack you. Right, if you're walking down the street like this, afraid, and somebody's walking this way with his head up, who do you think they're going to attack first? So even if you don't have all the resources right when you know you don't have a gym, there's still so much you could do online. I teach, like private sessions online, so I've worked with a lot of people online. I've really worked with someone in Russia now for about six months and I should have logged this journey. He didn't know anything about self-defense. Now, if you see him use improvised weapon, tactical weapons, it's unbelievable everything he's learned and he's shared with me stories that he's been into that it's like, oh, had I not done this training, I don't know where I would have been Right, because it's not only you don't need to physically defend yourself. To say I defended myself. You avoiding a fight, you picking up and de-escalating a fight, you maneuvering away from a possible attack, is self-defense on its own.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, brother, absolutely. So I guess last thing is, before we wrap this up, do you have any passing thoughts or anything that you want the listeners to hear, or anything else you want to share or cover?
Speaker 1:I think what I would tell people and it's interesting. I'm going to talk a little bit about something that might go off topic, but I think it's relevant. 20 years ago, when I was teaching self-defense, nobody wanted to learn self-defense. Even 10 years ago, I couldn't fill up a seminar. That's why I became a strength training coach. I have a personal training studio and my schedule was full with strength training, even though my passion was self-defense and I would get the odd self-defense student that wanted to learn.
Speaker 1:And it's crazy now when I think about how the industry has changed and evolved, where I've never got so many calls, so many people interested in hosting a seminar, teaching a seminar, taking privates flying in from different countries to train with me, because I think the world is becoming. I think there's always a form of danger. But I think now it's more obvious. I think after COVID. I think after COVID is when for me, the business actually grew and more people are like shit, I need to learn self-defense, because it's getting bad in my area, in my country, in my city and people are starting to be more aware and taking more responsibility of saying all right, you see all these attacks online people getting stabbed, jumped, attacked and people send them to me every day and that's why I did my fight analysis and now people are more conscious and aware of saying, okay, I need to learn something.
Speaker 1:I got to be responsible of learning to defend myself. I need to know how to protect myself, my house, in the street. So I think there's something good that came out of all this, because you don't want to wait till it happens before you say, oh, I need to take self-defense classes. And unfortunately, like you said and I said there's two times it's when people are almost attacked or attacked where they're like, oh, I got to learn this stuff.
Speaker 2:No for sure. I mean that is so true. I mean people. I definitely noticed that too that there's just a rising trend of people talking about self-defense, sharing self-defense videos as far as like and I say self-defense videos to encapsulate people being attacked and having to try to defend themselves in either succeeding or failing or kind of limping their way through.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that people need that I try to help people understand is that when you get attacked, it doesn't matter how much you train, you're going to get hit. I mean, you're going to get hit, you're going to get cut at some point, you're going to get bludgeoned with something. I mean something's going to happen. There's always things that go wrong. In the last podcast episode that I actually released literally it was a shorter episode, but it talked about Murphy's Law. I mean the whole concept of Murphy's Law and how to use or understand that. Things that can go wrong will go wrong and you have to just understand that and do what you can to prepare for that optimal situation, while expecting that, as Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. So I mean it's 100% true, nick. Where can people find you or learn from you. What are some of the best links and resources that we can have on here and share so that they know where to find you?
Speaker 1:The best place they could find me is my website, nickdroessoscom, and everything's there my courses online, my private coaching so they could find all the information. They could also follow me on Instagram, nickdroessos coaching. I have a lot of short clips, a lot of videos, and if ever they have any questions, they're always. I'm always there for my students, people who watch me, follow me. I love and am passionate about what I do. I put my heart into this and my goal is to try to make people safe in their daily life, and anything I could do to help people build their confidence and teach them how to defend themselves and empower them. I'm always there for them. So if anybody needs anything, they could always just email me or write me on Instagram Perfect.
Speaker 2:Well, nick, I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me today and go over all these things. I feel like we could talk for literally hours about this stuff and go back and forth. So, with that, for those that are listening, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Get Real Self-Defense podcast, and be sure to reach out and speak with Nick or check out his website. His resources are fantastic. I believe there's actually some courses that are on a. There's like 60% off, I think. Last time I checked on some of those, so there's some specials going on.
Speaker 2:Check it out, guys, and with that, we'll catch you in the next episode.
Speaker 1:Thanks, thank you guys have a good one.
Speaker 2:Thank you, adam so much for having me on. Thank you very much, brother. Holy cow, guys, what a great interview. Nick is a great guy, super humble, and he knows his stuff. I mean he really does and he practices what he preaches. So as soon as he got off at the gym, as soon as he got off of this, I mean I saw that he went live on his Instagram and was working out. I mean, he was putting on weight, best resistance bands, and he was hitting the bag and then, you know, once the bell went off, he switched over and started hitting a bob, doing different combinations. I mean, the guy really does practice what he preaches.
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed this material, if you enjoyed listening to Nick and all the material that and things that he offered, all the value bombs that he dropped on us, be sure to follow him on his Instagram, nick Drosos Coaching, as well as his YouTube channel, which is Nick Drosos Just, all the links will be down in the description for his YouTube channel and for his other social medias, as well as his website, nickdrososcom, which is his central location for everything, and he has several specials going on, some of them upwards of 60% off for his courses. So go check him out, go show him some love. If you liked this episode, be sure to also hit that like button and subscribe on YouTube and give a comment. Email me if you have questions at adamatsmartsafetydefensecom and follow us wherever we have podcasts, which is gonna be Spotify, apple, you name it. We're pretty much there, so let's go on and continue to train, continue to get in that mindset. I'll catch you guys in the next episode. Thanks for watching, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:Jimmy and the girl dressed in orange, yellow ragame fall on hobbyокjicom. No-transcript.
