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 #18: From Setback to Resilience: A Journey in Self-Defense with Andrew Juarez
Imagine finding yourself on an unexpected journey, one that takes you from a life-altering injury to the discovery of a newfound purpose. That's precisely the story our guest, Andrew Juarez, shares with us. Host of the Mind Your Self-Defense podcast, and Rise Above Self Defense, Andrew takes us through his experience in the Navy, his major injury, and how he took that setback through self defense training and transformed it into an opportunity to inspire others with his resilience.
We dive into a comprehensive discussion about self-defense, where Andrew sheds light on the significance of understanding the 'why' behind every tactic. His perspective on this can be quite empowering, especially for women, as we dissect the societal pressures that often suppress aggressiveness when it's most needed. The conversation further unravels as we explore how being prepared to protect oneself can indeed lead to an awakening of one's true potential.
As the discussion progresses, Andrew shares some invaluable lessons he's learned about training and fitness on his journey. His insights on the importance of understanding our primal instincts and using them to deescalate potentially dangerous situations are particularly enlightening. We round out our chat talking about the importance of setting goals for personal protection training and how sharing this knowledge can protect not just you, but your loved ones as well. Ready to take the first step towards tomorrow's protection? Let's get started!
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Have you ever had a major setback in your life that just threw everything into turmoil and just took you off the rails on the path that you were on? I certainly have, and I'm assuming most of you, if not all of you, have had a setback or two in your life that have also thrown you off the path that you thought you were supposed to take and may or may not have really changed your life dramatically long term. The person that I'm interviewing today is Andrew Juarez, and Andrew Juarez is the podcast host for his podcast called Mind your Self-Defense. I sit down with Andrew and basically go over a little bit of his story where he was training, he was athletic, he was in the Navy and then he had a really bad injury.
Speaker 1:As you are listening to this episode, listen to what Andrew went through and what he decided to overcome, because I think many of us can learn from Andrew's experience where we have a really bad debilitating injury or something that really messes us up and throws us off our path in life and we're able to then overcome it, and the way he overcame it was through martial arts and self-defense training. That's how it ended up being where he got to the point where he has this podcast. So with that guys, give it a listen, listen to Andrew and his story on how he overcome those challenges and try to see what you can do to apply those learned experiences for yourself and see where they may have matched up for you on things that you've overcome. Andrew Arras from Mind your Self-Defense Podcast, here we go.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Get Real Self-Defense Podcast. Here you get your daily dose of personal protection discussion to help you be more confident and prepared to protect yourself and your loved ones. And now let's Get Real with Self-Defense.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to the Get Real Self-Defense Podcast. I'm Adam Jolly, helping 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 joined by Andrew from Rise Above Self-Defense. Andrew, how are you doing, brother?
Speaker 3:I'm good, I'm really good, adam, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. When we talked last week, we actually got to talk a little bit about self-defense and I really felt like what your story was and your background was was really interesting and compelling. So why don't you tell a little bit about your background and your experience?
Speaker 3:I am a black belt in Krav Maga. I've been in and out of martial arts pretty much my whole life. I've started in karate in my neighbor's garage when I was about eight years old and it was Lima Lama Karate. I was there for about four years. Then I discovered girls and I left martial arts after that until later on I got into boxing. I've just I've tried almost every martial art for at least a minimum, at least a year, and all this stuff. But yeah, currently I am a black belt in Krav Maga. I got my black belt in 2020.
Speaker 3:Took me a little over four years to get my black belt and I'm really, really glad I did it. So I wasn't looking for tournaments or competitions or any of that kind of stuff. I was looking for self-defense. If someone attacks me, what do I do? And I did some research and I found Krav Maga and they gave me a free class and I loved it. And you know, four years later I got my black belt. So it was awesome. So, yeah, I'm also a Navy veteran. I'm an NRA certified firearm instructor. So with all that gave me the I guess, the ability and the confidence to go ahead and start my own self-defense business.
Speaker 1:No, that's excellent. So yeah, with Rise Above Self-Defense, you started a few years back and with that, how did that all come about? Like, why did you want to start a self-defense instructor business?
Speaker 3:Well, what happened was, like I said, I had been in and out of martial arts for most of my life and I've normally been a pretty fit dude, not jacked or anything like that. But I was in shape and because I was very active, I used to play paintball, airsoft I mean I'm talking all that stuff when it was OG, using CO2, you know cartridges, not this compressed air stuff they have now and all this stuff. But I was always very active, a big outdoors guy, and especially if I had to do with shooting and tactics and stuff like that it was. I was all over that. So what happened was I got married, I had my kids, I had responsibilities, so my activities started becoming less and less. And I was working out at the gym and I know exactly the day it happened. I don't know the dates, but I know the day I felt it. I was doing military press and I felt a pain in my shoulder and I ended up to where I couldn't do the exercise anymore and that was my first exercise because I was going heavy. That day and I realized that I went to the doctor and I found that I tore my rotator cuff and that's because, like it done me, I didn't warm up that day because I was in a rush, so I know exactly when it hit me.
Speaker 3:So, for me being so, I was off of work for a little bit and during that time I was so upset that I couldn't work out. I felt useless because I couldn't do anything. Well, I started eating my feelings. And I've always been a big guy, I'm six foot, but I've been fit, but not, like I said, not jacked. So I'm used to being two, two, 10, two, 15, you know around there even two, two, 20, probably at the most. But I just I fell into depression because I couldn't work out, I couldn't go to work, I couldn't help my kids around the house, I couldn't do anything because I had my, my, my, my arm in a sling for a little while and I just felt useless. So I started eating my feelings and the lack of my inactivity made me gain weight and I got to almost 300 pounds. I think I was like two pounds away from 300 pounds and I hated it. I tried to bend down and and tie my shoes and I couldn't do it without losing my breath and I had never been in that situation ever before.
Speaker 3:And my wife and I, we had a talk and you know when we were dating and stuff, you know we were, we were at a I think we were at Sil Beach or Santa Monica or somewhere along those lines, and there was this really heavy set person there. And you know, I know it's not cool for me to say, but I ain't going to lie that was that person walked by and I told my wife I go, if I ever get that size, I want you to shoot me Right. And you know we had a laugh and everything. And then my wife got to me and she goes hey, you remember that conversation when we were at the beach about that guy, that if he ever gets that size, I go. Yeah, she goes. Well, I'm going to tell you what. I'm going to start loading the gun.
Speaker 3:So that's where it's kind of like lit some lit a fire under my butt to to do something about my situation. And that's when I was like, man, what should I do? You know, my, my arm was healing but it wasn't a hundred percent where I could start lifting heavy. So my wife goes well, you used to do martial arts. Why don't you look for martial arts again? And then I started remembering that the cardio workout I used to get out of. I hate cardio. Don't put me on a treadmill, I can't run. And when I tell my students that that I don't, I hate running, I don't have the cardio for that and they look at me like what are you saying? I go well, I don't train to run, I train to fight. I could fight for five minutes nonstop because I train that, I don't train to run. I mean, though, there's two different kinds of stamina, no-transcript.
Speaker 3:So I started looking into something I wanted. Like I said, I had done karate, I had done Taekwondo. I have done. I think the only one I didn't do was Kung Fu, but I've done Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I've done Muay Thai, I've done boxing, so I've done the big ones. And I was like none of this stuff is offering me what I wanna learn. I wanna learn if someone pulls a knife on me or someone pulls a gun on me, if someone's choking me against the wall, how do I fight that?
Speaker 3:And that's when I found Krav Maga, and I was lucky that I had a dojo that's not too far away from me, because most of them are a good drive, at least, I'll say, 30 to 40 minutes away, and I found one that was 20 minutes away from me and they offered a free class and I it was a free, I was a 30 minute private lesson class and I took it and I really enjoyed it because the sensei that was teaching the private lesson the first thing he did was get me in a clinch and he's like okay, what do you do if I grab you like this? I had no idea what to do and that sold me right there. And then they gave me introductory rate and I jumped on it and I dove in hard in that class and I started seeing the weight come off, I started feeling my self-esteem coming back and it just pumped me up in a positive way and it just I just dove in head first. And after a couple of years of training, when I started moving up towards the a little bit more than intermediate bouts, starting getting ready to get into the advanced bouts, that's when my sensei we had a big influx of white bouts and he's like can you do me a favor, can you teach the white bouts some of the basic stuff? Well, I focus on some of the intermediate and higher ranking bouts. The way they used to teach it was we had a curriculum for white bouts to. I believe it was purple bouts and then there was another curriculum from blue belt to black belt. So then later on they ended up changing the system where everybody was doing the same curriculum except for black belts. And so during that time he had me helping the white bouts and while he was helping the higher ranking bouts and you know, I had never taught self-defense before that, or Krav Maga I have taught firearm. I've been teaching firearms since 1990. So I've been that I have no problem.
Speaker 3:But when I was teaching I slowed myself down because I was so used to doing it quicker, because I been doing it over and over and over, I had to force myself to slow down so the new people would understand what I'm doing. And then it started getting more frequent where my sensei would ask me hey, teach this class, teach this class, because before I used to warm everybody up and then he would come on the mat and take over the class. But then it started getting to the point where as soon as we start the class, I go straight to the lower bouts and he goes straight to the higher bouts, and then days that he wasn't able to come in, I would fill in for the whole entire class and run the whole show. Then they started getting feedback that the white bouts on the lower bouts started going to my sensei and my shihan, which is the master, and tell them hey, you know what we like the way Andrew is teaching us. He's patient with us, he takes the time to make sure that we understand what we're doing and he gives us little tips here and there. So they really played me up to my instructors and when they told me that, you know, I ended up getting a student of the year because of that, I didn't even know I wasn't even. I didn't even know.
Speaker 3:I was in school and after and I liked watching the people progress from what I'm teaching them. So that made me fall in love with the teaching aspect of it, you know. And then that's when I talked to my wife and my daughters, because both my daughters are black belts in Taekwondo. My oldest ones are third degree black bottom, my youngest ones are second degree black belt and I told them you know what? I want to share this feeling and experience with people. I want people to be able to learn that they could protect themselves and get a good workout in. At the same time, instead of going to the gym and running on a treadmill for an hour, you could actually get a good workout and learn something that could potentially save your life. So that's what. That's what kind of evolved how I evolved into the creating the business.
Speaker 1:No, that's awesome and I mean, the biggest thing that was interesting for me was, like you said, you had a plethora of skills that you had developed from different styles of martial arts and combat and combat sports.
Speaker 1:And then you know you got that injury and then the feelings you had, you know depression, everything else, and then training again, getting to that point and then finding that you really enjoy the ability to give people transformation and, truth be told, that's a lot of what I enjoyed too. You know, when I, when I taught in self defense class and whatever, having people get that kind of light bulb moment, or you know having people say like wow, this thing really helped me at this one point, or a de-escalation, or self, you know, situational awareness, I was able to, you know, avoid that problem or whatever else. What do you think, out of all the different, I guess, things that you've learned and grasped, what do you think has helped your students the most? Is there a specific principle, movement, a technique, what, what, what is really seemed to be the most common? Hey, this really helped me.
Speaker 3:I think I guess my philosophy in the sense that I tell my students the why, when I tell them okay, we get into a fighting stance and we stand this way. I tell them we stand this way because of not just you know, if you have both your feet together and you say you're in natural stance, if you're standing in line at the grocery store and you both your feet are underneath your shoulders, that's good for that position, but it's terrible for fighting because you can lose your balance really, really easy. So when you get into a fighting stance, you know where you have your strong side behind you. It makes it a lot more difficult for someone to knock you off balance. So I tell the people why we do it and then I show them why we do it. So I have them, I'm in a natural stance and I have them push me backwards and I just walk backwards as they're pushing me. I go how long do you think I could keep this up before I fall down or I run into a wall or a car or something like that? And they all agree that I can't do it very long. You're always going to have more momentum going forward than you are going backwards. So if someone's pushing you backwards, they have the advantage, not you.
Speaker 3:But if you get into a fighting stance, and then I'll switch into a fighting stance and I'll tell them okay, now push me backwards, and they can't budge me, that's when they're like uh-huh, that's when you get that light bulb moment where they were like oh, okay, this is why we do what we do, and so I explain the why, and I've learned that through teaching firearm training where I just started using that same principle in the empty hand stuff and my students retain it and they remember it and it's awesome. I have students that I've taught for almost three years now and they still understand the concept of why we move. They catch themselves if they're not doing it correctly because they understand the why. So that's my biggest reason why I think my students get my kind of teaching because I tell them why we do it. I just don't say, do it and then expect them to be perfect at it.
Speaker 1:No, excellent. You're absolutely right, though, with making sure you teach the why. I mean, I think it's really silly when someone tells you, hey, you need to do this this way, but then don't tell me why. I know personally, as a kid, I was very rebellious, especially if my parents or some other adult figure would tell me to do something and then not tell me why. Well, why are we doing that? Well, because I told you to, because I'm the parent, and sometimes, as parents, I catch myself doing that, but explaining why is extremely important, because it then backs up what you are doing and what you are saying for the other person. So, with you, what do you think is the most, I guess, important tool that you've learned out of all your experience, whether that be Krav Maga or boxing? What is a principle or something that you found extremely useful for yourself that you use quite often or have or feel like you would default to quite often if you had to be in a situation where you had to act and defend yourself?
Speaker 3:Me personally, I think it would have to be the mindset of it doesn't matter what you do, but you have to do something. It doesn't matter if it's a headbutt, a palm strike, a punch, a hammer, fist, a knee to the groin, it doesn't matter. You just have to react and you have to keep going. Once you have to be 100% in or 100% out. You can't fight for your life half-ass. You can't. So I've learned, excuse me. I've learned that if I need to flip the switch, then I have to be more violent than the person that's trying to do violence against me.
Speaker 1:Sure, so you talked about flipping the switch and exactly, I've learned that as light switching, where you're off or you're on, you're doing something or you're not, and, like you said, all the way in or all the way out. Have you found that? Like I'll tell you personally? I think you mentioned this actually when we had a phone call last week, but sometimes it's actually troublesome teaching females to have that light switch of aggression. Yeah, what is your experience with that? Have you ever had come across that? What did you do to help solve it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, what we were talking about was I've had the difficulties with women allowing themselves to be able to defend themselves, like I was telling you on the phone call, where you know, I wear a helmet, a headgear with a mask and everything and the women have gloves and I'm like I'm going to punch me. Punch me as hard as you can. I have a mouthpiece and I'm safe. I will punch me as hard as you can. And the women always hold back because they don't want to hurt me and I understand that they're being nice and courteous and they don't want to hurt me, but they're actually hurting themselves, not allowing themselves to just let it go and unleash. They don't know their true potential because they're holding it back. Because we're taught in society to be nice. I get it, you should be nice. There's an awesome shirt out there, a t-shirt it says violent by nature, peaceful by choice. Now, I can't remember the brand. I have the shirt somewhere, but I can't remember what brand it is. But that's. I mean, humans have been attacking humans since humans have been on the planet. Okay, so you know, when they say, oh, get rid of guns and that's going to stop violence, that's not going to stop violence. People have been killing each other with stones and sticks forever, okay. So people need to realize that the only way you could beat violence is with more violence. We shouldn't go around, you know, attacking people. But if someone attacks you, you have the right to protect yourself. I mean, I respect law enforcement and military and all that stuff because I mean, I was military and I have a lot of friends and family members at law enforcement. They'll all say the same thing you got to protect yourself until they could get there. You know and unfortunately we live in a society right now that if someone's attacking you and there's 20 people around, there's gonna be 20 people recording you instead of helping you. And you know, and normally when they record it they only catch the middle to the end. They never catch the beginning of the situation, right? So even though you could be the victim, if you're beating up the other person, chances are on video you're gonna look like the aggressor, right?
Speaker 3:So, for what I've learned to help women to kind of unleash themselves is I had I give. I tell them it's okay, you have permission to wail on me, and I tell them the why. I've never realized how important the why was until I read extreme leadership from Chaco Willicks and in that book he talks about how important the why is. Because if you want people to get on board with the program, you have a greater chance of success for them accepting the idea and actually participating in it if you tell them the why we do what we do. So that's once I tell the women why it's okay to unleash, and then they start going to town.
Speaker 3:Then it's funny because afterwards they're like, wow, I've never unleashed like that before, and they're, they feel good and they're proud of it and I go own it Now. You know what you're capable of doing. You know, just keep it where it needs to be until you need it. And once they realize that it just makes a big old, you know for lack of better terms lights which go off in their head that well, I'm capable of fighting a 200 pound man, you know, and being able to do some kind of damage to them. You know, and and that's the thing is is they grasp it when I, when I tell them the why, and I show them the why, I just don't tell them. I show them why we do it, and and then they realize it. And if I would have known this. When, you know, 20 years ago and I started teaching firearms instructor, I would have been well, I would have been doing the why a long time ago, because I would have had a lot more students.
Speaker 1:Sure so and that's and that actually goes to the next point is and the next question with the why you know, as you talked about, when you know, so that's one thing you learned and you said, hey, I wish I had done that 20 years ago. Is there anything else that you know? 20 years ago, or whatever, we first started down the path of martial arts, self-defense and teaching in any one of those categories. Is there a section where you wished that you had? You know, there's something you'd learn now and realize now that you had applied before.
Speaker 3:Aside from why, yeah, you know, I would say, when I started my journey I was I don't know if it was, I wouldn't say cocky, but there was sometimes where they would try to be teaching me something, a technique, and in my head I'd be like doing like half-assing it, like not really like, oh you know, it might have been the age of the instructor, or you know, I'm used to. When I first started karate at eight years old, I was used to the sensei or the master teaching the class and then when I jumped to another style, especially in Taekwondo, I started getting higher ranking students teaching the class instead of the master or the highest ranking instructor there or paid instructor. A lot of I was getting taught by student instructors and and they weren't even official instructors, they were just the master would use them, or I warm up the class, teach them the basics, and the master would never even step on the mat. So I kind of would get have like an attitude towards the person, but it was all in my head, it wasn't. It was more of an attitude towards myself, like why am I paying to learn this from this student who started like a month before I did? You know, because they're related to the master or whatever the case may be. So I wasn't going hard, I wasn't going all out, I wasn't giving in my all.
Speaker 3:And when I went from dojo to dojo to dojo in different styles, I got to see how different styles teach and for the most part they were all doing the same kind of stuff where students were teaching more than the masters. And along that path and when I started teaching myself and Krav Maga, I always said if I'm gonna teach class, I'm gonna teach class. I'm not gonna have a student of mine teach my students because they're still my student. I might have a warm-up, the class or something like that, but as far as curriculum goes, I'm not gonna have someone who is not meaning my standards as far as an instructor, teach my students. So I learned.
Speaker 3:You know, sometimes you have to put your ego in check and listen to people. I've actually went to a workshop about two years ago and he was a Brazilian jujitsu instructor and I went with a sensei friend of mine and he was teaching us a technique and the student that was next to me was telling him oh well, can we do this technique instead? And the instructor goes hey look, I'm not saying that techniques not gonna work. But we're not doing that right now. We're not practicing that right now. We're practicing this technique. So you know, check your ego and learn something else. Now you just have an extra tool in your toolbox.
Speaker 3:So you know, when he said that to the other guy, you know it had me kind of flashback to where, even though that that student was teaching the class, I should have paid a little more attention to him. There's a reason why the master had him teaching the class. You know, and you know I I wasn't giving him the respect or the the time that I should have put in, and you know I kind of screwed myself in the long run in that sense. But that was my ego getting in my way. So that's why I learned to scrap the ego. And you know, always be a student, no matter how much experience you got, you're always gonna learn something and there's always someone that's gonna teach you something, and you know. So I scrapped the ego. And now someone wants to give me a piece of advice or a technique. Yeah, I'll take it, I'll learn it, whether I use it or not. That's a different story. But hey, the more information you give me, I'm a sponge sure.
Speaker 1:So when you've been training and as you've progressed through and made these different realizations, you know you talked earlier about how you got out of shape and you started getting back in shape, and you talked about how you can do five minutes of fighting, because that's the kind of fitness you're going for, versus just regular, like running fitness, like cardio. So what exactly is the difference between a fighting fitness and like a like a regular fitness to you, and what are you doing to get to that point, to where you're more fit for fighting?
Speaker 3:well to me. I'll tell you this is a true story. At the dojo that that I used to go to, we had a gentleman. He was I was already a sensei, so I was already black belt, and he was a marathon runner and he was he. I would say he was in his mid 40s maybe. So this was, this was two years ago, and he was. As we're getting ready, we're putting our, our, our shin pads and all that stuff, getting ready to start class, and he cuz this was his first class he comes in. Oh yeah, I'm a marathon runner, I'm gonna kill this class. You know, and and he was just talking a lot of smack about here how fit he was and he did the New York marathon, the LA marathon, all that stuff and we start class.
Speaker 3:We start our warm up. Our basic warm up would be about 10 minutes of dynamic warming up. So, excuse me, the sensei would call off you know, jab, jab, cross, hook, jab, hook up downs. You know where you drop to the the ground, where your belly or your butt is hitting the ground completely flat, and then you pop back up and and then he'll say you know, shoe shines, where you're just doing a whole bunch of uppercuts and He'll say, you know down, up push-ups, you know burpees, whatever. He'll call off all this stuff and that was just for us to start a sweat. And then he'll pull out the heavy bags and everybody would be like, all right, I want, you know, 10 jabs and I want cheddar crosses and I want 10 jab jab cross and you know. So all this kind of stuff and About, our normal warm-up was about 20 minutes. After the 20 minutes we put the bags back and he'll say, alright, I want you guys to army, army, crawl across the dojo, lay on the mat and cross the dojo, then on your way back, do crab walks and then do duck walks and then do all those bear claws, bear, we call it the bear climbers or the bear the bear walk, and then you know all these different exercises.
Speaker 3:And the marathon guy was just dying. I mean, he looked like he wanted to puke and he got up because since they say, hey, go get some water, take a break if you need to, he Went to go get water and he never came back to the map Ever. We never saw, I've never saw him again and I was there for a year after that and I never saw him again and it just showed me that the kind of stamina that you need for a fight it's not the same kind of stamina you need for Running a marathon or swimming or whatever exercise you want to do or activity you want to do. You need to do that activity to develop the stamina for that particular activity.
Speaker 3:So you know, if I want to Run a marathon, swimming Is not going to be the best way for me to practice to run that marathon. I'm not saying it won't help me, but it's just. If I want to get good at running, I need to run. I need to practice running. If I want to become a good dancer, I need to practice dancing. You know, if I swim or doing any other activities, it's gonna help me achieve my goal, but it's not gonna help me as fast as Actually practicing what I want to do.
Speaker 3:No so that that's. That's Like I said I I spar for Five minutes. It's not the longest sparring session I've had, but I've done it so many times that I built up the stamina to fight for five minutes. That's my average. When I took my black belt test, we had a spar for ten minutes non-stop and every minute your opponent would change. So you're getting a fresh opponent every minute for ten minutes.
Speaker 3:I mean you're dying, your technique starts going down the window, but it just it's more of a mental thing showing me I can spar for ten minutes of. I have no other choice. It's not gonna be perfect, it's not gonna be sexy, it's not gonna be none of that stuff, but I could still do it. And that's how I got my Ability to fight for five minutes is because I practiced that. You know, I started off with one minute rounds, and then we went to two minute rounds, and then it went to Three minute rounds, and then it went to two different people for one minute at the same time multiple attackers and then it went to three people, for you know. So there's just different ways to create it too. You have to put yourself in a situation where you're pressure, testing yourself and pushing yourself to where you have no other choice but to do something Like I said. It's not gonna be sexy, it's gonna be sloppy, it's gonna be ugly, but Doesn't work. You have no other choice. So that's. That's how I develop my stamina over the years.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So what about a? So, aside from fitness, de-escalation, situational awareness. Where do you kind of put that in your training and how do you like decide you know what, like what to teach your students or what applies to you. Do you think that situational awareness is most important than de-escalation? Then the physical skills. As far as what you should do, in order, like, how do you, how do you perceive that stuff and and what do you do with it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, situational awareness Excuse me to me is number one. The best fight is the fight that you're not in. The goal every day is to. You know, go to whatever Activity or place you need to go Safely and come back safely. That's the goal every day. So if you know situational awareness and Understand how it works, it's it actually makes your life a lot simpler Because you're paying more attention to what's going on and you actually see Stuff that you normally wouldn't see.
Speaker 3:When I teach my, I teach my student situation awareness all the time and Most of time they've never even heard of it until I bring it up. And then when I give them examples of it and I still quiz my students, even if they've been with me for a long time, you know we could be in the middle of class and say, hey, what color shirt is the person behind me wearing? You know, and Most of the time they're on it because they've been doing it for so long that they're used to it. You know I'm not saying you have to go and memorize every license played in the world and stuff like that, but you know, know what's going on Around you in your immediate area at that present time. You know, be present in the space that you're at. Deescalation, that's another one that's a little more tricky to to teach. You could teach people concepts of Deescalation, but you can't say, okay, you just say this, just say that, because every person that you're dealing with is going to be totally different.
Speaker 3:There's a really great book out there that I'm currently reading. It's called just listen and it's how to get through to anybody. That's what the title is called just listen. I can't remember he's a doctor. I can't remember the the name of the author, but he's a psychiatrist that Is used. He's the one that trains like the FBI negotiators. And what do you call them? Yeah, like the criminal, the, the guys are going to the negotiators for the kind of break down, like terrorist threats and stuff like that you know, and he teaches the FBI guys how to do that and he tells you how to get through to people.
Speaker 3:In his book he talks about the three brains, you know, the primal, the reptile and she. I don't even remember the humanist brain or something. Like I said, I'm still reading that book right now. But, um, you know, when people are in an elevated and emotional state, they're not using the rational brain, they're using their primal brain and You're not going to get through to that person Until you have them calm down enough to when they start using their rational brain and that's by asking questions and, you know, deescalating the situation.
Speaker 3:But you know you have to know what kind of questions to ask and that's what I'm trying to get out of this book right now, but it seems like that's it's has what I want to learn and that's why you know, right as of right now, deescalation is. You know you could give people basic Things, like you know, let me buy you a drink, or I'm sorry, or you know, I apologize and try to deescalate it. But depending on the person that that you're trying to convince, your approach is going to be a little different because every, every person's going to be different. But yeah, situational awareness and deescalation should be one and two before any kind of hands-on stuff.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely it's so with With situational awareness, deescalation, and then the actual physical skills, what? What are some like? I Guess obviously we this is this is for those that are listening, it's gonna be maybe not the easiest to translate, but what are like three, like physical skills that somebody should have, you know, or five physical skills that somebody should have when it comes to the physical aspect Of self-defense, because they go through the situational awareness. Okay, so if they are practicing situational awareness, they're practicing deescalation, or maybe they're really good at verbal, or maybe they're just working on it because they're not so good at verbal. They, okay, check, check, they have those, they, they know that that's next. But then, okay, those two fail. You, what do you teach your students? What are some things that you offer them that Can help them when they have to get physical with that person, when those other two aspects fail?
Speaker 3:my biggest thing that I focus on footwork and movement, and His footwork is key. And you know If you have to run, run, if you have to walk fast, walk fast. But if you're within arm reach of the person, you should be in a fighting stance, just so you can maintain that solid base so you don't lose the balance. And you have to know how to move in. That's that fighting stance. You have to know how to move forward, laterally, backwards, and pivots and angles are good, but I don't. I do teach angles, but Pivots are more Valuable, I would say, than angles. Inspiring. It's good to practice angles, but pivots, I think, give you a more advantage if you know, which is especially if you're backing up, like I told you when you were on my podcast that if You're backing up more than two times in a fight You're losing it. So if you pivot, then now you're putting that person in front of you. So you have the advantage now so you could start attacking them and put them, make them go backwards. So Footwork and moving a moving target is a lot harder to hit and if they do hit you, it's not gonna have as much impact as it would have. You were just stationary. So those, those are the big things.
Speaker 3:And sparring, sparring. I, I teach my students how to spar. I don't care what level they're at Now they're new students and it's sparring day. They're sparring because that's the best way to learn how to fight is by fighting, like we were talking about earlier, is you have to practice what you want to learn, to become good at it. And sparring is the closest thing you could get to of have been in a fight without Actually being in a fight where you're gonna get really hurt, you know.
Speaker 3:So we do a lot of technical sparring which is slow. It's maybe 10 percent, 15 percent Power, because you have to have something you know. You, you don't want to be the first time you get punched in the face Should not be when your life is on the line. So you know, if you already know what it's like to get hit or what it's like to hit someone, you're not gonna have that Reaction gap in an actual fight where someone hits you, your brain's not gonna be processing that so slowly because it's already used to being hit. So I know it's how to react. So now you're gonna it's gonna process it a lot faster. So that's why you know movement, footwork so you don't end up on the ground and Sparring. That's the best way to I've found to teach my students and my students love it especially. People have never sparred before. After two or three classes they're like hell yeah, in this bar again.
Speaker 1:Good, good, good. I like it when, when a student who's uncertain ends up, you know, liking the activity more, because most people are pretty apprehensive about getting hit. Obviously nobody wants to get hit, but then when you start letting them know, hey, it's, it's okay, like for training, then it makes it a little bit easier and they become more excited about it for sure. So I guess the last thing we'll do before we start talking about what you do and maybe Any courses that you're offering in the future, your podcast, before we plug those in, is there, you know, is there one tip or a couple tips that you might give in and in parting With the listeners of you know anything that you think is important to share with them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say, if you're on the fence, on what kind of style that you want to learn? Every style, every martial art has something to offer. The thing that led me to crop Macau was what it did. They use the punching from boxing, they use the knees and the elbows from Muay Thai Muay Thai. They use the kicks from Taekwondo and karate. They use the takedowns from Judo. They take the grappling, the stand-up grappling, from wrestling and they take the ground fighting from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. So it is a mixed martial arts. So you're learning. They take the best and most effective weapons from all All the different styles and put it together in a situation for life and death.
Speaker 3:Krav Maga is the Israeli martial art and Israel has been fighting for at least 60 plus years and this art was created for their military. So you know, it's tried and true, simple techniques, that when stress and adrenaline come in you, they're all gross motor skills. There's no wrist locks and all that kind of stuff, because once stress and adrenaline comes in, you're not gonna have Find motor skills. So they're very big movements, simple, anybody could do it. 100 pound woman could use it on a 200 pound man and have some kind of effect. So it they're really simple. And that's what I think is Most important that it has to be simple and you have to be able to repeat it and it has to be able to work on Anybody. Because if you're a hundred pound woman and you're fighting a 200 pound man and you do a technique and it works on him, but then you're fighting a 300 pound man and the technique doesn't work, the technique should not change because of your opponent changed the technique. You might have to put a little more force behind it to make that technique work, but the technique itself should still work.
Speaker 3:So this is you know, it doesn't matter what style you get into, everything's gonna have something to offer. But know what you want to learn. If you want to learn how to compete crowd McGar's not for you Go with taekwondo or karate. If you want to just learn how to throw punches, then take boxing. If you want to learn how to just throw kicks, I highly read.
Speaker 3:How do you recommend taekwondo? You know. So just understand what you want to learn and what you want to get out of Whatever style you want. First, before you look into and it's okay to shop around, there's a lot of taekwondo dojos, you know. Find one that fits you, or whatever style you choose. Find the location that that fits you. Don't just go to that one because it's close to your house, because the instructor might be worthless. Unfortunately, there are a lot of McDowjos or or Instructors that are not very good and they're more than happy to take your money and not teach you anything that will actually Keep you safe. So do your homework and find a style that suits you with an instructor that suits you.
Speaker 1:Excellent. So, andrew, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about Rise above self-defense, the course that's coming up that you have, as well as your podcast?
Speaker 3:Yeah, cool. Yeah, I have. My website is riseabovesouthdefensecom. My podcast is mind your self-defense Available now providers and I offer firearms training and empty-hand skills and I have an online course coming out. I have a webinar on August 30th I don't know this is gonna air by then, but August 30, at that 10 30, I have a webinar and you could get the link and everything on my website and that's gonna give you like a Inside look of what to expect for the online course. And the online course is called self-defense for busy adults and we're gonna focus on fundamentals and, like we talked about footwork, movement and basic strikes make it effective and Make it count.
Speaker 3:It doesn't matter if you hit your opponent with 5% power or 100% power. The brain has to process whatever you hit them with. So even a shot with 5% power, it's gonna make their brain have to process that. So by the time they're processing that, you should. I already hit them two or three more times, so you always keep the brain lagging in the process department and You're gonna win the fight one or two ways. You're either gonna take their heart, or they don't want to fight you anymore, or you're gonna take their consciousness. You're gonna knock them out. Either way, you win. So it's just like a computer. You just keep feeding it, open up so many pages, the computer is gonna crash. The brain is the computer of the body. Just overwhelm it with so much Impact. Doesn't matter how hard the impact is, it still has to process it and then you're gonna crash that computer.
Speaker 1:Very good, andrew. Well, I'll be. I'll be sure to check out your webinar when it, when it comes up. They'd be very interested to see what you have to offer with that and what you're doing. You can check out your podcast. For those that are listening, go check out his podcast and mind yourself defense. It's like you said, everywhere Spotify and and Apple, you know so all of those places. You can check them out. There'll be links down in the description, as well as his website, andrew, thanks again for being on today, today, brother, and I appreciate you sharing some of your wisdom and your experience with me and the listeners, and I hope you have a good rest your day.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Adam. I appreciate you having me on man. We'll talk again.
Speaker 1:All right, guys, and that was Andrew waters for mind yourself defense podcast.
Speaker 1:Like I said, very interesting how he took his self-defense training and was able to Use it to help him overcome his challenges, his uncertainty, a lot of his depression and anxiety. I think that a lot of us have those challenges and a lot of us can use different things to overcome those challenges. And maybe for you, as you journey down this path of self-defense and Personal protection training, you will find that it also will help combat a lot of that anxiety and depression and help you lose weight because and get fitter, because all those things coexist as far as things that you Overcome as you are progressing towards a specific goal and in this case, if your goal is self-defense, which I'm sure it is one of many goals, then pursue that goal and pursue it relentlessly. Train so that you too can also start seeing the fruits of your labor and start seeing results for yourself and Therefore, as an extension, for your family.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for watching and for listening. If you are listening to this podcast, please be sure to share this podcast with your friends and your family so that they can benefit from this as well. I appreciate your support. I thank you for listening and, with that guys, train today so you can protect tomorrow. I will catch you guys next time, oh.
