Get Real Self Defense Podcast
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Get Real Self Defense Podcast
Ep #30: Martial Arts and Law Enforcement: A Personal Journey into Self-Defense and Police Training
Are you curious about the intersection of martial arts and law enforcement? I sat down with my father, Mick Jolly, a seasoned martial artist from a military family, to discuss how our martial arts backgrounds have influenced our mindset, approach to self-defense, and our careers in law enforcement. We also touch on the essential role of mindset in martial arts training and share firsthand experiences from a law enforcement training center, where we observed a diverse range of individuals honing their self-defense skills.
From personal experiences during a mission trip to Puerto Rico to handling unexpected situations in law enforcement, we explored how martial arts training can be beneficial in unexpected circumstances. My father and I also delve into the importance of continuous learning, adaptation, and having a mentor in self-defense and law enforcement. We also discuss the benefits of teaching self-defense classes, particularly to college students, as an empowering tool for personal safety.
Wrapping up, we shed light on how martial arts can play a significant role in law enforcement. We discuss the importance of ongoing training to effectively assess and de-escalate potentially violent situations, especially for police officers carrying firearms. Lastly, we share insights on the evolving mentality in martial arts schools and the legal system and how they impact self-defense training. This conversation promises to enlighten and provoke thought on martial arts, self-defense, and their application in various fields. Tune in for an engaging journey through martial arts and self-defense, laced with personal experiences and invaluable lessons.
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Hey guys, adam here, welcome back to another episode of the Get Real Self-Defense podcast. Today I am pleased to announce that I finally got him, after weeks and weeks, months even of talking about getting my father, mick Jolly, to officially be interviewed in an episode of this podcast. I finally wrangled him, got him to sit down from his busy schedule of running a household of multiple kids still and a business and taking care of his mom, my grandmother and assisting with a myriad of other tasks and things giving service to his community. He was able to sit down and actually talk with me about his life in martial arts and self-defense journey and one of the cool things is that when recording the episode with him, he actually reveals something that I didn't get to really know about until this interview happened, which is that his father in particular really impacted his self-defense journey.
Speaker 1:As I've said before, in the past, my father, mick, the one we are interviewing impacted mine. So I'm really pleased to show this with you guys, to share this bit with you guys and kind of peel back the curtain a little bit on where I get a lot of my learning from and get to see where the man that taught me learned some of the things that he has taken now to a high level through law enforcement, through the Secret Service and beyond. So with that guys, I'm really excited. Let's dive into it. My father, mick Jolly, of Risk Solutions Unlimited.
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:Well, dad, here we are. We're finally getting something that's a long time coming. How are you doing?
Speaker 3:Doing well. Well, I enjoyed the podcast that we had an opportunity to do together in the past, so, yeah, it's a little bit different being in the hot seat this time, though, so let's hope we share something worth sharing.
Speaker 1:Sure. So like we talk about all sorts of things I mean obviously father and son, so we'll talk about a myriad of subjects, but oftentimes we go to talking about self-defense and defensive tactics, law enforcement, all that kind of stuff, and with passion, yeah, and with passion To, I think, the sugar in of, like mom, sometimes, she kind of mom, wife, sisters. So as far as it goes, obviously I introduced you a little bit at the beginning, but why don't you give us a kind of a 30,000 overhead view of you, your journey, what you did, what you're doing, so on and so forth?
Speaker 3:All right. Well, let's see, I was born into a family that moved a lot, hit 13 schools growing up, so it was often the new kid on the block, so to speak, and that brought with it its own adventure when you're being introduced into new communities, some of the communities being very strong and from an ethnic background, others being, you know, very rural. So it just was all across the the board, some the larger city communities to just, you know, small farm towns and everything in between. So, in that backdrop, though, I had a mom.
Speaker 3:Of course, your grandpa, my dad, was a former military guy and he grew up with a bit of a hard life and in an era where, you know, the Vietnam War was going on, so that tempered some of his attitudes. Serving in the Marine Corps during that time and being raised under his hand, you know it made made life interesting and worthwhile to at the same time. So I love my dad, as you well know, and, of course, you had an option to get to know him before he passed away, and he and he instilled there's a really a sense of self-sufficiency because, you know he wanted you to be able to solve your own problems and he was accustomed to solving problems, and so that translated to the expectation, you know, don't ever start a fight, but if, if there is a fight, you know you better win, kind of attitude. And you know he's certainly not the only person to say that, but he lived that and he expressed that. You know it wasn't about, you know, cause and problems, but if a problem came to you you were expected to resolve it on your own and of course he didn't just leave that alone. He tried to equip us with some tools for doing that. So he was my first combatives instructor, if you will, though be it somewhat rudimentary. You know, to his Marine Corps combatives long before there was McMahon and some of the just rural, you know, take care of yourself skills from even his childhood, you know, as because he was in it he had very interesting childhood and we won't go into that deeply. But yeah, he learned to take care of himself early on and that continued through his, through his life. But he was always a gentle guy and so that's something that try and model.
Speaker 3:In terms of his outward attitude, he was calm, but if it was time to be a storm, he knew how to be a storm and that was really something, but he also used, you know, something you and I talked about, to resolve things that I saw in real time.
Speaker 3:Sometimes it required to be a little more physical, but other times it was just as posture and demeanor. And we've talked about posture and demeanor from the standpoint of law enforcement as a stamp, from standpoint of just the everyday citizen who's trying to diffuse a problem, not allow something to be escalated, but also not be able to be tagged as a victim. I remember one time in particular, when I was probably 12 or 13, and my dad had just had hernia surgery and there we had an individual that showed up at a business location and was being problematic and my dad just simply stood and looked him in the eyes, says you know, sir, I don't want to have to have these stitches, I just got from hernia but I will if I have to. And he just looked the guy dead in the eye. The guy just turned about face and walked away. Yeah, and that was an example early on.
Speaker 3:That really met something. He didn't say I'm injured, I can't fight. He was still willing to do what he needed to do Sure.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so then you started doing some, some mic map, and you know equivalent.
Speaker 3:Because they didn't have the program when he was coming out of the Marine Corps and he served in the Marine Corps and then later on, he served in the Army National Guard for a time too, and put in some extra time there. So, yeah, so he was a guy that knew how to serve in whatever the capacity for for, you know, local climate issues to, you know, to being prepared for overseas issues as needed. So that's that.
Speaker 3:But yeah, and so somewhere along the way, probably about the time I was 12, 13 years old, we settled into an area and dad thought it was time for me to work with other people in my Marsh Rarch training. So so he got me involved with the Marsh Rarch training center. That was run by a gentleman who had been at one time a collegiate wrestler. He was ranked number three in the in the country in CAA wrestling but he ended up getting an E injury in his junior year and so he ended up basically at some point in his part of his recovery process turning to very traditional martial arts, an art called, an art called Shikaru, which is, if you think of your typical Japanese, you know, white uniforms, very straight but powerful type of movements, explosive type movements. That he and he got into that and that really worked well for strengthening his legs and the ligaments. But he also brought with him that wrestler grappler kind of of actinian with him into the studio. So it was a little bit of an early mixed martial arts before there was mixed martial arts, if you will. And we were doing, you know, take downs and throws on hardwood floors and wrist locks and all kinds of fun stuff with that. But that individual he was still competitive and he went on in very hard style, fighting you know when, because pads weren't really a thing. Then pads came on right around that time in certain tournament circuits, but at that time it was bare knuckles or these little tiny, almost cotton cloth like things that went over the over the over the fist. But he ended up competing in Osaka, japan, and winning a world title in the Kymote in the fighting. And during that time I mean unless somebody think it's light I mean I saw compound fractures at tournaments. I saw broken noses that were gushing at tournaments. I saw broken jaws at tournaments. I, you know, I got kicked in the groin many, many times at tournaments myself and so you end up developing a hard attitude.
Speaker 3:The other thing that was interesting about that particular studio it was located near a university, so there weren't a lot of, there weren't a lot of kids. You know maybe a few few older teens, but for the most part it was college students age. You know young men that otherwise might should have been. You know thinking. You know thinking military or whatever intermarital athletics, and it was an aggressive studio People. You know uniforms getting grabbed and tossed and twisted and thrown to. You know in need. And so it was a different.
Speaker 3:It was a different experience than what a lot of modern studios have, you know, because now there's so much more liability, there's safety and one of the things that occurs, of course, with a lot of modern training centers, and it's not not to fault them, because I like to think that doing something is better than nothing in whatever kind of training. It is, as long as you're not buying into your own baloney that you're invincible, because nobody's invincible, right, and everybody's got vulnerabilities. It's a matter of can you protect those vulnerabilities while exploiting the vulnerabilities of, of your assailant, of your opponent, or in whichever environment, that is, whether it be a competitive one or a a rally based situation where you're trying to save your own life or life of another. You want to be able to protect your own vulnerabilities, exploit others. But nowadays, so much of the martial arts studios and of course you know I have some experience with we're going to some martial arts studios as well as yourself but the goal, in order to keep a door open, you end up having to train.
Speaker 3:A lot of people didn't do need the training, those, those people that are not that, that super competitive to toss to soster on field college age. You know young, young, young guys that just want to get in there and see, you know, see what they're made of. That's one, one part. But those guys aren't enough to quite make the bills get paid at your most traditional martial arts studios. So they end up teaching a lot of kids, and that's good too, because those kids need it. They need some things to help them develop some, some some confidence, some strength, some some fitness and those. So there's some really great byproducts. They're just not at that age yet where they can really, you know, start to express themselves in a, in a true combative way, to not until they get to be about 12 or 13. And, um, so they end up seeing a lot of that type of attitude sometimes also then drifts into the adult training. You know, what's appropriate for the kids isn't necessarily what the adults need.
Speaker 3:Now, some adults, you know, they may want to look at it just an activity like doing dance or tai chi or whatever, and that's and I've known some tai chi guys that could, could rock and roll with most fighters. But when we think of tai chi generically, we think of the exercise, the smooth, flowing drills that a lot of people do. We think of the seniors or maybe the you know that type of a situation which is great, you know, for for their balance and their strength and agility and all that. That's fantastic. But very few in Americanized tai chi are really teaching tai chi to each combatives, if you will, even though the art is full of them if you go back in its history. So it's really about starting to pick up those kind of elements.
Speaker 3:Well, I again back in up a little bit. I had an opportunity come in during an era when the karate kid hadn't quite made its splash yet and hadn't created that whole rush to all the martial arts studios. That really changed. And then, along with that came there's a taekwondo competitor by the name of and master, a great instructor. I've never worked with him, but he's. He's somebody that helped revolutionize the industry.
Speaker 3:A guy by the name of Junri came up with those, this foam padding. He took what was like life vest material, thought we can use this for padding and that's the only thing. You know. There's head pads and foot pads and things like that. By the time I was college age myself that the whole market had changed in commercial martial arts studios across the country, and, and I think that's a good thing, and, and and. The reason why I think that was so good, adam, is because it opened the doors for a lot of people to train that might have been too timid to go through the kind of training environment that I had an opportunity to be exposed to in my youth, coming from dad training me to the, to the martial arts studio, with you know, with these, you know, there was really a you know there were some women and there were some tough women, but it was really a place where the were boys wanted to, you know, be boys.
Speaker 3:I mean when I say that in the, in the sense of figuring out, you know, you know how they stacked up against each other. It was interesting to me I'll share a quick story is there was a guy named Lance and Lance was this bodybuilder guy. I mean, in fact he ended up owning and running a huge bodybuilding location later on. You know, huge, huge dude. I mean the guy was Arnold Schwarzenegger, ask, actually little taller, little bigger, but he was really super explosive. But he was also very agile because he was doing this karate. He wasn't that what we think of, that that bulky can't move. This guy was nimble and he could dump pretty well everybody in the studio with the exception of the instructor, but he could work the instructor pretty good. But he the instructor had, you know, had the skill inside and that wrestling, grappling thing was really saying. But then there was this other individual that was a veteran. You know he didn't have former training in his growing up but he the way he zeroed in on training in his, his objective, kind of that killer instinct. He had Lance's number and he could at any time just smoke him and it was just interesting because he was half the size and and just this skinny, wiry, fit dude. But he had it up here that he didn't care how big the other guy was and and he would just trounce the floor. It was amazing to watch because he didn't have the same amount of time on the floor, necessarily didn't have the same same physical attributes that Lance had, but this gentleman, his name was Doug Doug Doug, could you know, run the floor and it really bothered Lance. I remember being just, you know, being this young guy on the side of these guys that I really looked up to and listen into this conversation to. They liked each other friends, wasn't that they were, you know there was animosity between them but when that was time to far spar, when it's time to be on the floor fighting, it was, you know, they were all business and it was just interesting to watch and that. That that's something. That's something sink in at an early age that you know it's really about mindset as much as it is about physical attributes and skill. The skill counts, being physically fit and having the machinery to deliver. The skill counts, but the mindset, that willingness to go all out, and sometimes you know, you didn't have to go all out very long. That's one of the things that you know there was. We had the continuous sparring, but we also had had, we would practice some of the sometimes the point sparring, and that point sparring got some things that you wouldn't get necessarily if you just focused on the continuous sparring. And that was that going all out, making that punch count.
Speaker 3:You've heard the, the term I know growing up one punch, one kill first. The objective in self-defense is not to kill anybody, it's to stop them, to impede them from causing injury. You know we don't want to say that, hey, we want to teach people to kill somebody from a self defense perspective. But that just that determination to make that first strike really count, land it with everything. You got hit that target, you know. But it's also the art of setting up that target, of being able to get close enough, get the right angle of attack and and you not be thinking about all that stuff what happens? Just naturally, being able to flow through it, just like listening to a person playing guitar and singing so fluidly and naturally, you know you're getting to that point where it was just like you know they don't, you know they're already moving to initiate and strike a target before their minds even processing it. It seems like because it's that fast because of what's been drilled in and that's so that that was interesting to you know. See that that dynamic as well in that studio environment. The difference between continuous because you know you might throw caution to wind and a continuous thing and take a chance on getting hit by something while you're in order to set up something else, and that's not not going to say that's a bad strategy, but what if that's something else, is a knife? I don't want to. I don't want to take a chance on getting that something else first, but, on the other hand, being able to have somebody drive in and and make that first strike count and hit a vital target.
Speaker 3:Now in in sport, we might be looking at things like the chest and the head, but how about the eyes and how about the throat? And those were things were actively discussed in that self-defense environment. You know because, okay, you know, change, change up the mindset. What are we dealing with? Okay, let's change up the target, and same thing, the same thing that you're gonna crush through somebody's you know abdomen and into their solar plexus to try and remove the wind and create that spasmatic response. You know where they're like a, you know, basically can't breathe. You know that that's great. But now how about same thing at the throat? How about the same thing with a, with a, with a chuteau, with that, basically a spear hand right to the, to the eyes, bribing it through, just so. So those kind of things were very much in harmony with what your grandpa was teaching early on, and you know so I was. I appreciate that he chose that particular training center of those who were available in the area because you know it met his, some of his goals of what he saw as a valuable place if he was gonna place his son into a martial arts training center. So that made a, made a difference. And having mom and dad support to to get there.
Speaker 3:I worked, to pay for a lot of it. They paid for the first part of it but it was valuable and so, coming into summers, I would spend my entire day, sometimes during the week, if I got. I get into town, I train in the morning, get dropped off studio at 11, train train and direction train at 10. No, no strain, get it dropped off at 11. We did the 12 o'clock class pardon me, but I did get some training in ahead of time and then I would in that class would go for an hour and a half and then we would, you know, have a little bit of break in between some more training time and then I could come back and there would be two classes and the evening.
Speaker 3:Each class was an hour and a half. The first half hour would be nothing but physical fitness knuckle push-ups and setups and pull-ups, so whatever, just just totally wearing you out. And then the last hour you'd be getting into your some of your technique, and then the, and then the sparring and sometimes the forms as well, doing the kata as it's called, so you know. So there were many days during summers I'd get entire. I basically spend the whole day at studio and get, get picked up again at nine o'clock at night, and those were awesome days. They, they, you know, definitely led to a stronger and more able body at that time. I mean your fitness levels gonna be very high when you're training. You know, informal classes three times a day, plus additional training in between, and then getting to do that, for, you know, multiple days each week. You know all summer long, that that that had an impact.
Speaker 3:So and that became my, my favorite sport. So I wrestled in high school. I was not a standout wrestler by any means, but I got involved with wrestling and and did okay, you know, I was, you know, never, never was one of these guys. I went to state. But what was satisfying was knowing that I had enough other skills and understood enough vulnerabilities about the body that even on the, on the wrestling matches where I was challenged at my wrestling skill, I knew that up here, that if push came to shove I could turn the, turn the whole match around. If it would be, if it took that moment time, that snapshot in time, I knew up here in my brain now, whether it's true or not, who knows, but appear in my brain, I knew that I could turn that around. And if it became a, if you took that and put it into a, a self-defense situation, all of a sudden, because the things that I was limited to in wrestling you wouldn't be limited to and I would, you know, exploit those targets.
Speaker 3:So this was interesting to be. You know, working through a wrestling situation and you're looking at how you work from a wrestling standpoint. But the back of your mind you're going I could do these other three things and it would just totally destroy the whole match. You know, it's just a different attitude that you entered in with. And then you know, but that that was something I, you know, I didn't necessarily gravitate to say, hey, I'm gonna be a great wrestler. It was actually my karate instructor who said you should look, you should go wrestle, it'll help you to develop some of these other skills. So he encouraged that. He was not an isolationist saying no, don't look over there, this is the path. It's like no, look over there and look at some boxing and look at some other stuff. He was, you know he was. He was a bit of klek to klek, save the head of his time. So I was lucky. He had his very staunch traditional martial art at a core that was being taught, but that was just a mechanism and then pulling in some of these other elements that were very helpful. So that gives it in a nutshell for my early years.
Speaker 3:I would say, you know, not to go into too much of the the new kid on the block thing, but one of the things that happened in a little ways that made an impact, or maybe made a big impact is. You know, I didn't like necessarily having those encounters when you be the new person, but I learned real quickly when you're a new person in school to identify who the problem was and, you know, not go looking for that but watching for it and when it came, meet that challenge head on very fast and then that changed the rest of the school year and whatever school you're in. If you know, if you went ahead and just took the task and made it real clear that you know you weren't gonna be an easy target, nobody was going to get to mess with you for free, then that that sent a message. But then you still be nice to everybody. You know you didn't. You don't come in being a jerk. You don't come in saying, hey, I'm this, that or the other. You just come in that new, new environment. Be nice to everybody but be watchful of everybody as well. Look for who the you know.
Speaker 3:So from an early age start identifying. You know who the potential threats are, who the people are that you know. When I say threats, the people that you know want to want to. You know, test the new guy out if you will. And then you know, challenge accepted, but not in a, not an inflammatory or both full kind of way. Just, you know, you know, just don't be a victim. You know, not large, so it'd be a victim.
Speaker 3:But so by recognizing that, and pretty quickly you, after going to different schools and different environments, you start to identify the patterns, and that I think is is huge, starting to identify the patterns of those that you know Want to be bullies, or those that want to Put on a show for their friends, even if they're not bullies in the classical sense. You know, they still want to train again, just like all those college kids in the martial arts. They want to prove themselves right and, um, you know, so you know what are they gonna do? Well, you know, we hear steel sharp and steel or steel against stone. You know there's gonna, you know there's. It takes hard surfaces sometimes to help sharpening edge on other hard surfaces, and so that, uh, you know, gate became my privilege to help them with with that journey a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, uh, one of those things where, um, you know, definitely, nowadays, you know, schools, uh, uh, uh, are a little bit different than what they were before. I kind of wish that it was more back at that time where, you know, some problems were just solved in-house, and then this, and then you know you're not doing what they do today, which is like, oh, you defended yourself. Well, you're gonna get, you know, suspended or expelled or things like that, which is pretty ridiculous in my opinion. Um, but as far as, as far as all that goes, I mean some of the things that I find interesting, obviously, for those that are listening, you might have picked up on some of the things he's talked about. I wonder where you've heard that before, when I talk about it and how I got to that conclusion myself.
Speaker 1:Um, I'll be it as far as, uh, you know some of the principles of mind setting and things like that. Yeah, a lot of this started from, you know, this man that I'm talking to right now. However, it also is just their time and experience on my own time, that, and also being able to observe my father, just like he observed his, on certain experiences, that really made an impact to some of my outlook and philosophy on self defense now, with that being said, as far as um, you know you journey is a young lad and and whatnot. What about how it pertains to um, you know you go into your law enforcement career as a deputy, uh, and so Talk a little bit about that and maybe some of the things that you might have learned that said, oh, what I learned in martial arts, this doesn't work, or really, this actually does work extremely well. Like, did anything evolve? What changed for you?
Speaker 1:as far as my background mindset and all that.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a big, there's a big chunk of something that took place in between. Um, I was looking at military as an option and some other Things coming out of high school and I ended up serving a church mission actually, and I ended up serving that mission in in Puerto Rico. Uh, spanish speaking, my first words were Spanish too, so that probably didn't Didn't hurt me to go to a place where I could really develop my language more, so as well. But, um, that particular Time and season I mean you're coming out of the time of a lot of narcotics transport, the some people refer to what was going on in Miami with the cocaine cowboys for those either older, remember Miami Vice a lot of that stuff would truck into Puerto Rico. In fact, san Juan and and uh, ponce were Puerto Rico were very, very, um, by a lot high homicide rate. Um, it was Every time the bossaero as paper came out, you had somebody that had a the proverbial Uh, excuse me, necktie, or some other scene where somebody's been slaughtered. I mean this was, this was uh, uh, not every place in Puerto Rico I don't want to paint it that way because it's a wonderful place, wonderful people, but that that kind of stuff was going on in the background. So at that time, you know the homicide rates were extremely high in in in Detroit and in uh DC, um, but uh Miami and uh San Juan.
Speaker 3:Puerto Rico took the cake and, if you may, you may not be aware as a, as a listener, but Puerto Rico is a protector of the United States. So those FBI crime stats Uh existed to cover Puerto Rico as well. But you know it was an area where it's also a machete-wielding culture. You know a lot of people working Coffee and, and shurkenas is also an area where pharmaceuticals were produced because they could be produced there Uh tax-free. Basically it was kind of a free trade zone before the free trade zone for NAFTA and the. But the other half of it was that if narcotics could get from South America into Puerto Rico, well then that meant they kind of got a got through customs already in an effect, and so that um that made a a difference as far as what Uh certain mentality is worth.
Speaker 3:Now I didn't have to deal with those those kinds of circumstances all the time, but occasionally you did run into the gangstree type people that and uh, and then you would get individuals that maybe were Um a part of a gang in New York, because there's a lot of Puerto Ricans in in New York that would come back to to Puerto Rico, and so they bring some of that, um, attitude, mentality, and again, please don't take it that that's, that's the norm. But you, you don't get to choose who you run into on the street and and when. You're walking or riding a bike, pretty much everywhere you go, or taking some kind of public transportation when you're rubbing shoulders with everybody, and the vast majority of people were awesome and, uh, super, super great people. I mean love, love the love, the culture, love the people. But then, just like everywhere, it doesn't matter, you can pick whichever community, usa, and somewhere amongst the group is somebody that is a problem or a handful. And so that gave me an opportunity, one I was identifiable by by how I was dressed as a, you know, having a white shirt and tie at, with the particular church mission I was I was serving for the lds church and and riding a bike for sometimes kind of identifiable.
Speaker 3:So there were times when I was struck by cars and one time I went right over the hood of a car and the ride and and the person was yelling, yankee, go home because there's still a lot of animosity, going back all the way to the spanish-american war, with people that went independent. Some Puerto Rico, um, uh, there was a. There was a group of folks ended up running, running headlong into and a whole huge protest. People all masked up and and and going through that whole mess and and of course they, you know, see you with your white shirt and tie and think that you're part of the cia, even though you're there for other purposes and dealing with that conflict and just just uh in.
Speaker 3:Then, of course, uh, you know not to use term religious persecution, uh, too broadly. But there's other churches that that would be super combative towards a faith they didn't necessarily find in aligned with their own. So I mean, I was even hit once by a, another time by a by a minister Of another church when I was out riding a bicycle and going downhill and I went tumbling. But the point of that is is, uh, and aside from several assault attempts that occurred during during that time, um, the martial arts, uh, training that I had, uh, prepared me physically To deal with those encounters and keep myself safe. Um, even though there were times that it's attacked for the Club, there was times when you know, basically a big stick, if you will, um, there are times when dealt with, uh, individuals that were Basically you know what's the right word I'm looking for dealing with some mental disorders, perhaps you know, mentally unstable Uh there.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, dealing with these uh times that I was struck with by by vehicles multiple times and never had a broken bone. I did have, did have some times when I got skinned up pretty good, but never had any serious injury out of any of those uh, be it the altercations or the times that I took the spills and and I and I attribute a lot of that I mean I could say, hey, yeah, I was looked out for above. But also learning how to fall, learning how to throw, landing on those hardwood floors, um, I think made a big difference in being able to not have broken bones. Doesn't mean I didn't hurt. They hurt sometimes, you know you hit the pavement, you go over a car, you get, you got some bumps and bruises, but I had nothing that was significant that I couldn't heal from Very quickly, and so I think that's that's something else that, um, you know you may not even know it that you could be falling off a farm implement somewhere or, uh, you know, be working on the side of the house and fall off a ladder.
Speaker 3:Some of these, you know, some of these skills that, uh, we think of for a combat purpose, may actually help Diminish the amount of injury or minimize the amount of injury that you'd have in in your routine life, other, other places. So that that's kind of a another sidebar, but that that too, had a big part in my development. So I, you know, learning to uh work with a whole whole, another culture on a daily basis, dealing with some of those kind of conflicts, and then later, um, you know, uh jumping into uh Law enforcement. Well, there was a longer path. That too, because I took some time out, went to college and I went to university and Wanted to train, and so I got involved with the martial arts studio again. You know what you do, and I looked, I looked at every studio in the area now, ufc was just starting to be a thing at that time and, um, it was just brand new.
Speaker 3:Dill. No, you know, hadn't been been around previously, and then all of a sudden, that's a thing. So I ended up, though, landing in a in a chem post studio, um, where they were pretty aggressive on their fighting and and a lot of other things, and and then end up teaching martial arts at for Class credit at the university, and, of course, that followed later on, um, myself and in Adam here, uh, we later had an opportunity to work at another university. I started a program there, and then adam took it over at a future point time, uh, teaching a self-defense class for credit for, for, uh, college age students and, you know, trying to add some elements of realism there in those classes. And you know it's a different audience, and I'd have to tell you that, um, the overwhelming majority of students that participated were females, and that that was great, you know, because you know there, there, they might be too timid to go into a regular martial arts studio and sign up with all those guys that we were talking about from the earlier studio, but taking that college class was a safe environment for them to to uh, start to gain some skills and, um, and and that was a.
Speaker 3:That was a great thing, but then, um, fast forwarding, you know I had an interest in and um, um in martial arts, for sure, but also had an interest in in law enforcement, and I had a good friend whose uh Dad was a was a assistant deputy director in the CIA. Um, I worked with him and another passive while out of country again, and so that developed a relationship there and kind of got my my mind really working more towards that law enforcement side. There's some earlier things about it, um, police interactions and things and family friends that we had that were in law enforcement and you know whether it be local law enforcement, sheriff's office, of border patrol, um, growing up, so there's a lot of different influences that way that made that a very apparent uh, career path, um, if you will, or an area of, of A potential career, but I hadn't really mapped it out specifically. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do this. So, fast forward, though, I do get my first full-time law enforcement job with local sheriff's office and, um, it was great, uh, you had, uh, you know there was, there was some learning, you know that went along with that going through the field training and whatnot, but I love the academy and I had an opportunity to uh develop a rapport with the, the defensive tax structure.
Speaker 3:That just was my, my, um, you know that that was like my break. Every I felt like everybody else was like, oh, I got to learn this technical stuff and learn how to, and me it was like, oh, I'm home, I can just take my Set, my brain aside, I don't have to worry about constitutional law and In criminal procedures for a few minutes and just enjoy the class. And I did and uh excelled in that and and I would get extra workout times with the instructor, who is a master dt instructor. You have my name in dangula. If you google him, you'll find some content on dangula, that on on youtube and other places this, uh, but um, you know. So he was uh somebody that I, you know, had as a mentor then and we maintained a friendship.
Speaker 3:I didn't, you know, get to train with him a bunch after leaving academy, but we we maintained a relationship and had a chance to visit from time to time and go over tactics and and things like that. In fact, he ended up running an executive protection team the dignitary protection team for his King County not their mayor, but what so ever trying to think what the name of it is but their lead for their county and I ended up later on in the Secret Service and we had an opportunity to work together on an assignment there a couple times and get a chance to exchange ideas again. So you know two people. You know he's much, much more senior and it's a lot of fun because I'd come up with some different things and my turn in the sheriff's office and and covering control tactics with Secret Service and I thought I had some innovative ideas and I started sharing those innovative ideas with with Don, and he, as I'm starting to talk about it, he'd say, oh, I've thought about this, and he'd already have bridged what I was talking about. He was, you know. So he was truly somebody that had mastered the craft and I was. I was trying to catch up with him, if you will, in terms of outlook and who knows? I mean that's, that's the thing. There's always the person that has invested the time and energy. And the guy was a walk, a ninja, if you want to call it that. I mean you know he traveled and worked to different Olympic Games as a law enforcement, you know, and things for the different Olympic events and you know, it just really was a great experience.
Speaker 3:But the big thing was having that background all along the path of law enforcement, as you're interviewing people, as you're making contact with people, as you're making a rest, as you're making plans, as you're going into uncontrolled areas, that martial art mindset. Even though now you have additional tools at your disposal via firearms and and pepper spray and a baton or whatever, a glass of baton, whatever you may have, the mindset was still the same. It's just new tools. Your body is still your body. Your body's going to control the firearm, your body's going to control your flashlight and use of light as a, as a tool of distraction or whatever. But it's the mindset had. Having that martial mindset meaning you know the warlike mindset, if you will, then not that you're there to go to war, but you got to have that that already planned and was fantastic about. That is similar to something that I'd experienced early on as a, as a kid.
Speaker 3:There were a number of times in altercations where I felt like I had I don't want to sound too woo about it, but you know, felt like I had kind of this bird's eye view watching myself in these, in these situations a few times it didn't happen every time, but a few times where it felt like I just had total visual control of the, of the environment, what was going on. And there were times in not, and again, not every time, but there are a few times in my law enforcement time where I've go in with a complete calm about everything and is kind of like you kind of knew what was happening before it happened and I and it that you know that's maybe the mind playing tricks as you're processing things, but you're so keyed in and tuned in to everything that it has that perception. So I'm not saying it's that way, but the way you're processing things when you're in the zone and the in, your in, is as if there's no preconceived thoughts. You've made your plan, you've done your training and now you're just happening to take action as actions required, without having to give it a lot of thought, because the training proceeds, the action. I mean you can't act on something efficiently in that way if you haven't put in the time and the training. But that's that mental attitude and that confidence that comes from it makes all the difference. And I don't want to take too big of a leap forward, but one of the things that I get asked by people you know about.
Speaker 3:You know firearm choices from time to time and you know there's a whole candy store full of different firearms and that, and you could really spend a lot of time trying to get the perfect weapon and changing weapon and the perfect fit. And I put out a YouTube video myself a few years back. I'm kind of denouncing that and saying, hey, you know training, you know getting training, training over equipment. You know, get your training because training's where it's at, because it's one thing to have a tool, it's another thing to know how to use a tool. And once you know how to master that tool, then you can start to insert other tools, because the principles that we're going to help you to use one handgun correctly can help you to use another handgun correctly. There's even and the better you are with your with a handgun, for example, that I would suggest that you would be better with your rifle, not necessarily the other way around, but some of the principles still apply.
Speaker 3:But if you can be very precise with, with something that's a little more fidgety, and then take some of those skills in to the other than then it carries over, but then integrating that into your, into your self fence mindset, because, again, from a self fence mindset, we don't want to be out causing problems. We want to, you know, avoid a problem. If there is a problem, we want to control it, we want to repeat it from happening and ultimately we need to stop it from happening. And we look at that as a, as a use force, continuum, from a, from a law enforcement perspective. But same thing applies for us in day to day self fence, for trying to use the least amount of force necessary. Now you have more choices if you have physical skills and still having the, the ability to use deadly forces necessary, but only if necessary, right? So that's that mindset carries over, and then that allows you to actually save lives instead of instead of finding yourself in a situation where you're left with less choices and have to potentially take a life.
Speaker 3:So by training, by having a good mindset, by staying super aware, by learning to read people, read situations, as much as you can Now saying you can't miss something or that I can't miss something, but the more of that that you can just build into your day to day, just general awareness and application of that awareness. You know, it's great to identify a problem. Cool, you've identified a problem. Now what? What are you going to do about it? You know when now you're, the more training you have, the more fluidly you can work around that problem, over that problem, through that problem. So, but it comes from training the brain first and from a long first standpoint. The same.
Speaker 1:Sure, no, absolutely. I think it's definitely true that mind mindset. It almost sounds like a cop out. You know if you when someone says it too much, but mindset comes before anything else. I mean how your brain functions. We've talked about the before. You've mentioned it yourself, I've mentioned it many times on this podcast and other people is that if you you could be the most fancy skilled, you know like, like, imagine, I guess you know for you guys listening imagine like. You know, like a Superman. But if Superman was mentally weak where he was like you know, a coward or just didn't know how to use his powers, you know like if he doesn't have the training.
Speaker 1:I love the movie. I just watched it recently. I'm not a big superhero movie watcher. I have brothers who are complete nerds about it and they just think it's the most amazing gung ho thing, and they've watched every single superhero movie. But one movie in particular was called Shazam and it came out a couple years ago and Shazam is about this kid and Billy Batson, who basically gets picked by this wizard who has all these powers of the different Greek gods and gives it to him at once.
Speaker 1:And so he, but he's 14 years old and the guy had to like he was running out of time because the world's, at you know, going to end and all this kind of stuff and he's the only one that can save it. He had no other choice. And so Billy Batson gets these powers but he has no context, no idea what to do, and so half of the movie is just him with his buddy, who's a superhero nerd who understands, even though he doesn't have the powers and the capability, because the kid's got a bad leg injury where he uses a crutch. He's basically trying to walk Billy Batson through how to like find those powers and the theory and stuff. And so you had this one kid with kind of the knowledge and mindset but not of the ability physically. And then you had the guy who was Billy, who had all the physical ability and all the powers but had no idea what to do with it and just didn't even know what powers he had. And they had to work together.
Speaker 1:And that goes the same way as that. If you are skilled, you know, if you have all the skills, but you have none of the mindset and none of the training, you're useless, You're not going to be able to utilize what you have. You can be very gifted athlete, but if you don't know how to use your, your athletic gifts, for protecting yourself and self-defense more than just your basic physical acumen then you're going to have a harder time than someone like Doug. You know, as we backtrack where someone who, who had that mindset and some skills, you know he's able to go toe to toe with people much bigger than him. And so I guess the the biggest thing that I want to jump into now, now pops, is the, is that you know you touched on.
Speaker 1:You touched a little bit on your law enforcement and and what not. Talked about Don Gula. You touched a little bit about secret service. But what, what? What changed in your mindset from what you learned as a pup to what you learned now? Yeah, mindset, mental, but, like you know, where did you start doing de-escalation? Was that back in Puerto Rico? I mean, what did you? What are other skill sets that you now preach and you've you've talked about multiple times in the past? Where did that?
Speaker 3:start, I think, to be be fair in a small way, I was probably doing de-escalation. Before there was I'd ever heard the frame, you know, the it framed as de-escalation. So going back to watching your grandpa, you know, diffuse that situation with posture and demeanor as we would describe it now. But I didn't have, I didn't possess that terminology then when I was, you know, you know that, that age. But at same time then going from school to school, you know, de-escalating things. Again, there was a physical side of de-escalating things in its own way, but later on that that that became where, as I had interactions with, with people, you know, maybe you're going to a rival school's football game and people are being rowdy, whatever it is, you can fill in the blanks, it don't really matter, but learning to deal with those people because you're wearing the wrong colors. Now again, I'm not talking the same thing as hey, you know the trips in the blood and you're wearing the wrong color shirt walking on the sidewalk and somebody drive by shoots you.
Speaker 3:You know that's all I'm talking about. You don't get those guys poor. Poor individuals do not get a chance to de-escalate. Their awareness level needs to be up. We could suggest and maybe thinking about fitting into your environment and making clothing choices. You know to blend in better and might be suggested.
Speaker 3:But you know just the mirror interaction though, which you think of some of that would have started in in the high school era. You know being able to de-escalate and, verbally and with posture and demeanor, make it clear that you know. Hey, you know you want to have a problem, you're going to have a problem, I don't want a problem, but if you do, there's going to be a price and be no relay that maybe not necessarily use those terms, but let them know there's going to be consequences for those actions, but also that you're not trying to create that situation and would gladly walk away, and some of that you know. It can be as simple as saying hey, man, you're real calmly, sorry, man, didn't mean anything by that, you know, and just keep simple. Let them have a little bit of pride, I'm not worried about that. Let them feel like they got amongst their peers got a little bit of a, they have the upper hand. I could care less about that. That old adage that you never lose the fight, you never fight, right, you know? So that's easy enough. Or you know, you could twist it and say you win every fight, you don't have to fight If you want to twist it a little bit further because it is a win and you walk away. There's no injury. You didn't have to injure anybody else. That's a win-win situation. And who cares? I'm not even breakfast for those people in the next day, right, you know, somebody has an issue. By making that clear, now, that's a little bit different than the situation where somebody is going to choose to, you know, basically make you their mark and so meaning, you know, when we think of the mugger, I love, I love statistics from big cities where they talk about muggings, because that can be anything from a rape to a armed robbery to just a, you know, a simple whatever you know. But so it could be. You know this whole range of assaultive behavior.
Speaker 3:But something you've talked about on the show and we've talked about in the past together is you know how a nasalint chooses their victim and they're watching for things about posture and demeanor. Are they aware? Are they alert? Are they looking around and at their environment? Are they distracted in some way? Are they seem like they're dealing with some kind of heavy emotions and head down and looking like they're a bit depressed or something? Or are they just on their phone, just totally oblivious to everything?
Speaker 3:And I always like the visual of the cartoon that came out when you were super young of Beauty and the Beast of Bells just walking right through the town singing. You know there's a song being sung and she's just got her face in the book and the whole. You know things are falling, chicken coops getting knocked over, will Barrow's getting, whatever. I mean all this stuff's happening because you know she's creating part of the problem for herself in the community, but she's not been aware, she's oblivious and so avoiding being that far gone. But also, you know, being able to be at the other end of it, super confident, being alert, being aware, and you can be on your phone but be scanning, be looking. I'm not suggesting, though, you know, earbuds. You know most of the time you can have one earbud. You don't need both earbuds in your ear if you're talking on the phone walking down the road. Yeah, exactly so I mean there's all kinds of things of that nature, just making sure that you are not making yourself attractive as a potential target, and so those things that you know, I think, have been learned a long way.
Speaker 3:And then you jump forward to the law enforcement side, and your de-escalation is a little bit different to again, because now you have the law on your side, you have a lawful purpose for being there. If you're a good cop, following criminal procedures and representing the Constitution like it's meant to be represented, you've got the law on your side right, and so that's huge. And you come with equipment. You know, hopefully, depending on the community you're in whether it's, you know, if you're in a rural sheriff's office versus being in a big city you may or may not have backup, or your backup may be from a different agency, be it, you know, the Forest Service or Tribal Police or whatever. So you know, but being aware of what your resources are and making decisions based on that, you know. That all again applies to the same kind of mindset, that it's just you're working with new tools, but the mindset's not that different in my opinion. So, as far as de-escalation goes, though, now you have a different task because instead of it being a de-escalation mindset to get yourself or your immediate family out of something that could potentially boil over and become volatile, now you're diving into situations that are new, that you may not really have any context beyond.
Speaker 3:You know a few lines of information from the dispatch, you know that's sending you on that route. Occasionally there's more content or the reporting parties on the phone or something like that with the dispatcher so you can get fed more information, but sometimes not. Sometimes it's just hey, there's a 911 hang up. Well, is it because it's raining out or is there something really ugly going on at that place? And I've seen both and you know so you know, I've seen it where often it's just oh well, there's some issue with the rain and connectivity with old school phones. To the other end, where it ended up becoming a complete, you know, surround the house, pepper balls through the, you know, through the walls, and I mean it, you know so it's those 911 hangups can, you know, be unpredictable.
Speaker 3:So you've got to show up, you've got to assess and if somebody is being honoured in some way and potentially violent, you need to make good judgment in real time for your safety Because, remember you, as a police officer, you have a gun. As a citizen that chooses to exercise their second member rights, you have a firearm on your person as well. So you need to make good decisions to keep that firearm ideally in the holster and not certainly allow for it to come out of the holster at the bequest of the person you're dealing with, right, you need to be in complete control of that tool, if you will. So your de-escalation skills take on a whole new meaning, because now you're trying to perhaps deal with the domestic violence issue, or perhaps a child abuse issue or something else, or maybe it's just a neighbor dispute that seems like it's getting aggressive, and we both have knowledge of an agency where a neighborhood dispute turned into a couple of responding officers getting shot Real ugly thing. And of course there is the other side of it that a citizen exercising second member rights actually came to the rescue right. But you're being able to de-escalate something, and also recognizing, though, when verbal de-escalation and recognize when presence and those kind of things.
Speaker 3:Having the overwhelming presence of tools and force may not be enough. If somebody's mentally disabled, somebody's drunk or on drugs, they may choose to take other actions, regardless of your show of force, regardless of your most polite, respectful or authoritative commands, they can choose to ignore you and you don't get to make that choice for them. They have their own decision-making process that may or may not be working correctly according to societal norms, and so you need to recognize that when things are not working and sometimes be willing to take a preemptive strike. If it's a physical situation, rather than you know well, he threw the first punch, that's something I would say he hit me first. Okay, cool, that sometimes works and that can be helpful.
Speaker 3:But if you've done everything reasonable to control a situation, remove yourself from an situation, extract a situation and somebody's not letting you, then occasionally you have to be able to articulate it. But you need to be willing to take that preemptive strike, as one of our instructors in common would say. Mr Sullivan talks about that preemptive strike. In fact, I had a big puge write up this many years ago about that and it's true. And if you have done your homework and you've prepared, then you can be your own best expert witness as to why you did something.
Speaker 3:But being able to articulate the things you did to resolve a situation without force and then being able to articulate why you use force are both important.
Speaker 3:And that skill becomes honed because you train, because you invest time in it, because you think about these things and you put yourself through scenarios, either mentally or in drills and training, so that you can get perspective and then the judgment that you're going to be judged by, or the standard, is going to be that of what a reasonable person in your situation would have done a reasonable officer for police officers, but what would a reasonable citizen have done, and I would suggest that the bar for the citizen is a little less than the police officer in many respects.
Speaker 3:However, there is something that's very, very important that I learned as an expert witness in a case, and that is that the more training you have, then the document of training or that you can articulate, the better it is for you in the courtroom, because if you use a skill, even if somebody who had the training would use that skill justifiably, but you can't articulate and justify it, it's going to be harder for you to get the skill. It's going to be harder for you to get that reasoning presented in the courtroom on your behalf by having an expert witness come in and speak for you as to why. But if you have the training and now an expert comes in and says, yep, that is valid training, then good to go. That's an immense difference versus well, first got lucky and made the correct decision to save their life. However, they didn't make it for the right intent, because intent is a big, a big thing when it comes to law. What was the intent of the individual?
Speaker 3:So, and more training, train, train, train.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I guess the next question that comes to mind for me, if I try to think about, if I was listening to this for the first time we've done quite a bit going over how you did like traditional martial arts.
Speaker 1:This was the rise, you know, during the time of UFC, around that time later on, and then you know you did a lot of stuff as far as like learning through your you know, your father and whatnot. So if someone wants to learn right now in today's environment where a lot has changed I mean a lot really has changed as far as the mentality in martial arts schools, the mentality in legal, like a lot of states have gotten really really soft on crime and hard on citizens, to be, to be quite honest. So as far as all that's that's concerned, if someone wants to train right now and at a traditional martial arts school or at a firearm center or anything else, if you were to, you know how would. You could start over from scratch with no knowledge but as far as like or no skill set, but you have the knowledge of your previous life of what you should do to get those skill sets back that you think are essential. What do you suggest people do?
Speaker 3:That's a. That's a great question and my mind goes all over because there's so many options these days that didn't used to exist. Going back to that world of kind of a little bit more neural funnel, when I got into law enforcement, because of my acumen and in martial arts and my previous experience, I was able to be the defensive tactics instructor right away and be involved with physical training of the of the deputies and later being a physical training coordinator as one of my assignments to assess, you know, the fitness and the ability of of agents and in my field office. So you know. So I had that kind of an opportunity which was kind of what kind of it was. It was fun. I mean, it's fun to do those things that take your skill and build, imparted to your, to your colleagues.
Speaker 3:But nowadays there's so many more options, so there's a lot of garbage on the internet, to say the least. But compare and contrast. You may not like somebody I can think of. You know what's it with. I'm going to, I'm going to drop a name here. Was it Detroit survival or something? Do?
Speaker 1:you know, yeah, detroit, herbert, survival training or something bad, okay, yeah. And as a disclaimer as a disclaimer. I think it's satire for views.
Speaker 3:I mean I'm not doing it in a way, but you know it's one. It's one thing if some because the reality is he does that stuff in some and he gets mocked a lot and you know but the but the route, yeah, his views are up there through the roof. I mean, how many times have I watched some of his stuff that comes up in my feed and sometimes you can look at and go, well, that's a model of what not to do, and then other times you go, well, that that's very similar to what you know other people do. But he's kind of taking a little bit like maybe on perspective, but at the end of the day, let's, let's say that he's as serious as all get out. He's doing something which is better than doing nothing.
Speaker 3:Somebody can start there, and I've often wanted to do the video or write the book of techniques taught by professional martial artists that will get you killed. That's something you know, that title, in fact, you probably heard me say make such statements and in some of the past training, you know, because and I've seen some stuff with Navy Seal guys do, and our Nisa Screama guys do, and, and not saying that there aren't a whole bag full of great things and either one of those camps that are very effective. I'm just saying I've seen some stuff that's like you know you're a little out of your water. You know as far as what. What you're applying here, and you know this is in the forum to do a demonstration of some of these things and the fallibility of those particular elements. But there's in one of the top firearms instructors in the in the country Well, as far as being known by name brand, he basically was trying to take switch gears to integrating unarmed self fence.
Speaker 3:So instead of going from an arm to add in a firearm, he was a firearms guy trying now to add his unarmed skills. He was on the right path as far as what he's trying to accomplish, but some of the stuff he was, he was suggesting from a just a human mechanics standpoint, was just out of out of this world. So you got to be, you know, you got to judge some of these things and take a look from a practical standpoint on one side. But doing something is better than nothing. So the internet's full of opportunities for you to get a, get an overview of things. Talk to people that you may know who's. Who is the local police officer or deputy sheriff or the former you know special forces operator or somebody that you may know in your network, or maybe a friend of a friend that you maybe could just get a chance to talk to in your area. Get their perspective. You know what about? You know, listen to podcasts like this to get perspectives on things.
Speaker 3:Because I would rather somebody go to the most cookie cutter not throw a complete martial art genre or area under under the bus, but I'd rather somebody go the most cookie cutter taekwondo, beltmail and do something and do nothing. But I could go into that same studio in train. Get the physical benefits of it, get the flexibility of it, get the, get the fitness of it, get this, get you know, get the speed. You know my ability to move with speed, continue to maintain and develop that better. But then flip the switch up here, because now I'm changing targets, I'm changing techniques, I'm integrating other tools that that art as a frame. So you know, if you look at it like a frame of an automobile, there's the frame, and whatever art could be the frame, it really doesn't matter to me. But you need to then personally pick your wheels you'd put on that car, pick your paint job. Do you want a convertible or not? You know you design your own, your own car.
Speaker 3:Just because some, you know something provides you a framework, doesn't mean that fighting doesn't mean that that's all there is to it. So don't isolate yourself and say this is the path and be willing to change studios. Don't get in and go. Well, I'm already, you know, two belts in on this art, but I really want to try this one. I'm going to finish this one all the way through. No, you know what? If you see something across town, be a bit eclectic and go for it. If there is a seminar in the area on a topic that interests you, there are some instructors that feel threatened if their students go to a seminar that they are not hosting or conducting and that says more about them than it does even their art. Right. So, because it's about you and your safety, so go out there and and try and learn from as many people. Put yourself in situations where you're, where you are being pressure tested a little bit, so it's not just the show, performance, doing, doing techniques on the floor without some kind of impact, some kind of opposition and opponent. You know some of the things that are easy to come to mind. You know, adam, you're familiar with all the line drills. You're familiar with semi circle drills, where you got people coming in throwing attacks randomly and you don't get to choose what they're attacking. But you've got to defend and you don't get to choose which person is coming in next and versus even sparring and all of a sudden there's a second or a third person that enters that sparring.
Speaker 3:I remember going through Fletzy as a part of first leg of my secret service training went going through Fletzy and the control tactics portion of that, and there's myself in there and there's some other good folks. There's a guy in there that was a former Delta Force operator, and really, you know, I won't name his name, his name, but he was. He was just to stand out I mean I can on their swimming and water survival stuff. The guy looked like an Olympian coming through the water. What was interesting, though, is going through the. I was first to go through this final scenario, for the Fletzy portion wasn't the final for all the defense acts. Then we went to secret service training center, and I put us through a whole lot more. What a great time. But the I was back when they were. You know who wants to go first. You know this is me.
Speaker 3:I jumped in there and there's all these different things and I didn't know what was going to get thrown at me next. And these different stations and drills, they move you quickly to another one. You have to work through that, this and this grappling situation, this combative situation, and you're you're fighting with one guy and all of a sudden there's another one in, another one in, and they're hitting you and they. You know they got, they got some like gloves on, but they're hitting you and you. You better be fighting back, you know, and they're not even really looking at that point in time to say, hey, are you winning? They're looking to see. Are you quitting, are you continuing on? What are you going to fight to survive? And so it's a goes back to that the mindset.
Speaker 3:And so I was first one, so I got to then also see that you have to, like, exit the room. I, you know this, this big mat room where all these stations were set up and all these different instructors were there to thump on you. I didn't have to exit because I was the first one, so I got to watch some of the other folks come through and I watched some people that didn't make it very far before. They were just like burnout, exhausted, didn't manage it to make it to the final station, and I remember how many stations were seven or eight or whatever it was.
Speaker 3:But I remember this other individual that I mentioned.
Speaker 3:He made it all the way through where I did and the same thing.
Speaker 3:He got there and when there was two and three people beat him, he was struggling every bit as much as I did and and I'm not saying that that's a great thing while he struggled, haha, I'm saying it made me realize, wait, you know, there's this guy that that was, like you know, to me a super soldier compared to where I was coming out of local law enforcement and things, and you know, and, and I knew people that had met, people that knew him and knew of his background, and the guy was solid and and and I could name some of the things, places he'd been that I didn't get from him specifically, but from his wife at a barbecue, and and from other soldiers that were running, running, some of the things that I'd met in my training, and so the guy was solid, but it made me feel good, at least in this one category I did basically as well as he did.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm not gonna say I did better, I'm not gonna say I did worse, because I was kind of on a par, I mean we were about an equal point. Now there are other areas, like like, say, swimming, running. I mean I got on treadmill with the guy and I and I was I used to run a lot more than I do today.
Speaker 3:I got treadmill, because the it was black flag day is way too hot out, or whatever it was. We were indoors and so we're on treadmills and the dude is clipping sub five minute miles on a treadmill. Yeah, yeah, and I'm next to him and I thought I was doing good. You know clipping, clipping right around six and this guy's beating you by a minute per mile. You know, and you know in. You know, when you look over real time, you're there hustling and you know, yeah. I mean.
Speaker 3:I mean I was out of my, out of my league as far as some of those areas go, but the mindset, I think, was a thing that was the equalizer for the combative part. The training too. Don't underestimate the value of training, but the mindset I was willing to fight all the way through just as much as he was and he was just as much as I was. I would say he was probably a better equipped warrior in a lot of other areas. I probably was not, but at the same time the mindset was probably on a par for dealing with that situation, that particular training drill. So that was kind of that was interesting. That was an interesting observation because I somehow I expected that he would be much, much more superior in dealing with those things than I was, but I'm not. He certainly wasn't worse. So whatever that, whatever that means, point being, get your training. But this is the most important thing to train Also learn some things about the law. There was a little videos out there where it talks about self-defense situation. Some of the videos that you're going to come across when you start opening up to searches, dealing with dealing with law enforcement on traffic stops or when they come to your home. Those are good. You should take a look at those. There are some. There are some negative police interaction and I think some of those videos focus on the negative ones when you think of the hundreds of thousands of positive police interactions every day. And then they focus on a handful of them where there's some cops that don't quite understand the law or they don't care sometimes about somebody's constitutional rights as much as we would like for them all to, and they should be highlighted to a degree. But my point is, by studying some of those you start to also learn where what your rights are, but focus mostly on the ones of self-defense. Self-defense where somebody is charged because they did something poorly. Self-defense where they are its on-raider or not charged.
Speaker 3:There's some great contrast. The sheriff Brady Judge out of Florida You'll hear him talk very pro-citizen self-defense and he's very much a second amendment and personal Everybody has a right to defend themselves, kind of sheriff. And then there are some others. I mean, if we want to look at Cal Rittenour or where you had a guy you can say good, bad, dumb kid for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he still, he exercised a right to keep himself safe, no matter what. Whatever reason he put himself there. Okay, I can criticize that all day long. That's kind of stupid kid. You don't have a lot of life experience and you put yourself in this situation. But I can't criticize him for taking steps to save his life or defend himself. He did that, in my opinion, brilliantly. But you also can see the recourse, because there are some people out there that don't agree with your right to defend yourself and what he went through. So the better you can understand between the sheriff, brady Judd, all the way to the Cal Rittenhouse type of a prosecution and everything that lies in between.
Speaker 3:And there's other more infamous cases that we could look at more in the last 10 years. That could give perspective, but there's not enough. I don't want to take the time to do that in this podcast. However, by studying some of these cases out, that'll help you to get an understanding of what you can and cannot do. Now I do want to say you don't want to get caught up in paralysis of analysis. You don't want to be in a situation where you are so aware of the legal repercussions that you don't take action, but you also need to not be so amped up on your right to protect yourself that you take action prematurely. It's a balancing act. So if you live with the idea I think the medical profession fails at it sometimes but they do no harm. But the new harm in principle is really good. Now that's a little bit of a joke because there's some as far as the do no harm. But if we can do no harm Reason why it's called a practice, not a profession.
Speaker 3:Exactly, that's true, but we do no harm.
Speaker 3:Also, that means no harm to ourselves. We're not going to allow harm to ourselves, not allow harm to our loved ones. We're not going to allow harm to another citizen that we can help protect if we're in a position to do so. So those kind of things, I think, play into it. So get involved with some training. Find the most realistic training you can. That's going to press you. If you've got a Jiu Jitsu studio in the area, get involved with it. You're going to learn some things.
Speaker 3:If you're a wrestler in high school and you feel like you can kind of handle that, there's still things to be learned from Jiu Jitsu. But maybe you want to work on your striking. If you were already a crane martial artist at some time in your youth, then find something different to expose yourself to than the art that you were exposed to in your youth. If there's a Judo program, don't be caught up. That's got to be Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
Speaker 3:If there's a Judo program, I mean one of the things that you'll hear that is, I think, incorrect in the perception. You'll hear this phrase 90% of all fights end up on the ground. Well, that's true, but most fights are also going to start on your feet and so being able to take some of the ground, put some of the ground. As law enforcement officers, you want to put somebody to the ground and put them into cuffs as a matter of controlling them. But same as a citizen, though, doesn't mean that you want to be down there wrestling with them on the ground, because I have some opinions about that, particularly with multiple attackers and whatnot. We had an opportunity to go to the Gracie Academy years ago and have a little bit of one-on-one time with with with Hall at Gracie, one of the one of the brothers there. Don't don't take this wrong. I wouldn't want to go toe-to-toe with the guy, but as we were, as we were working together, going through some techniques and things like that, and the law enforcement side and arm side to arrest and control side.
Speaker 3:You know he agreed that as well as we were talking about the on some of these things, that the two things are, you know, a second attacker or a knife or other weapon being involved. And he says, bro, that's what we all worry about. You know, because that's that's it. You know is you, you got to be, you don't want to get yourself so sunk in on one method of dealing with things that you're oblivious to other vulnerabilities. Out there you can be doing the perfect arm bar on somebody else. Come up and start kicking. You might be dealing with the boyfriend. That's the girlfriend that has the gun in the purse. So you know you got to be looking at the thing holistically, not just from your finite view of of March. So it's really about trying to expand again, train the mind, but the body is the best tool to use to help you have immediate feedback in response to your mind of what works and doesn't work through your training experiences of your physical body. But do it with the mind open and aware that what you're working on this moment isn't everything. Give all you got to that thing you're working on physically, what is? Just remember that there's other aspects that need to be covered and that I don't probably make this podcast way longer need to be but one of the things that early on in in yourself venture, you talk about range of motion or range of distance, and so you got this distance where you're, you know you're outside, maybe, you know, in a modern world of farms, you know that to be the long ways way, but just taking, taking farms out, you know, and just going, even empty hand. We talked about that, that idea of kicking range, of punching, range of grabbing or grappling range, right, and so in it's in. It's not necessarily fixed one another, it's fluid as you go back and forth in something potentially, but the more you can collapse it down towards not fluid, and you take control of that other person's height, width and depth and you manage to get them in a position where you can control it faster.
Speaker 3:Go all out for like 30 seconds. It's not a competition. So you got to be able to flip that light switch and go all out for that 30 seconds it takes and there is not a fight. Well, my dad, you say that a fight goes more than 30 seconds, not a fight. So that was that. You know you're just, you're just messing around, you're just playing. You know, you're, you know. Or you could say it's competing, because sometimes, a lot of times, two guys don't really want to kill each other. They just want, you know, they just want one upsmanship, they want to show who's who's tougher, who's the boss. The social posture, yeah. But you know the old story you take you take two guys that are, that are posturing up and what, and then you say, hey, hold on, let me give you guys each a gun, or give you guys each knife. It's like dude nuts, some of the people.
Speaker 3:On the other hand, there are those sneaky people that will back out, go out to the car and get their gun, get their knife, try and get their buddies or wait outside for somebody to come out and be aware, because there are people that that truly are, you know, evil and mean. They're not playing the game of social posturing. They just, you know they don't care. And you got to be able to recognize the difference there's, you know, and can't ever anybody promise that there'll be 100% on that. Maybe not, but you know, the more you start to hone in on that, then the safer you'll be and the more you'll be able to avoid and or minimize, mitigate those kind of circumstances when they occur.
Speaker 1:So All right, well, with that pops, is there anything else that you can think of, that you'd like to impart you know, any sort of summary or thought before we close this off?
Speaker 3:Well, there's one other topic and we talked about this a little bit offline and that's. You know, we've talked a lot about from an individual, from it from being a cop. But and we can save this for another podcast you decide to edit it and edit out. But that's family. When you have your family involved, there's things that you need to do, one of the things that I observed early on when Adam was born he was our first, you know we had to spend all our time taking care of him, managing him. Then he got a baby brother and then, hey, adam, go grab that bottle. Adam was toddling along and he go get, do something. Go grab this, go get that. Hey, give your brother this. Hey, sit by your brother. And then there's a little sister came along and some of those habits started there where the older two kind of helped out with the, with the baby. Well, that kind of mentality and talking about self-defense things and being aware, pays off and we could go into a whole another podcast about this in the podcast about this in the future as a dynamic, but that mindset of siblings, looking out for siblings, but then also with equipping your children with the same type of skills, not to make them paranoid but to make them aware so that they are confident in control. Then they can start to keep an eye out for their brothers and sisters. And I can think of a case in point. And, adam, I think you may have even shared this on a previous podcast. If you have, then then that's, that's cool.
Speaker 3:But I remember being we were involved with a martial arts school event at a fair, of kind of a marketing thing. We had a booth there and of course with these fairs you get the carnies that travel with their rides and amusement park folks and things like that, and his sister, who was also a young martial artist and liked to play with her none charcoals and stuff like that, two little girl at a time. Adam noticed out at a distance somebody who was a bit of an odd individual, that was an observer. He noticed and the person came over and tried to kind of make some small talk with her and he kind of monitoring, paid attention that and noticed that the guy was just being a bit creepy. Well, you know he he learned of me to that. I talked to some of the security folks on site. Well, it turned out that the guy was a was an old pedophile.
Speaker 3:So again, you know that, just being aware and there's a whole lot of other things that I could go into in terms of family, looking out for family and your kids when they're off on their own, and some of the things that Adam had and some of his siblings had encountered as far as when they had to act independently, without a parent there or other other support systems, to make sure they stay safe and avoid conflict where possible. But but that type of awareness, teaching your children that awareness early on of different risks Again, not to make your kids paranoid, but empowering, you know, give them some basic self-fencings. Hey, what do you do if somebody comes up and and tries to persuade you into the car with the candy or the lost dog? Those are some of the obvious things we talk about but strange enough, they're the same tactics, over and over and over again for hundreds of years that people have used to lure kids away. Right, they don't have to get that creative because they got these spongy little minds to work with.
Speaker 3:So taking those spongy minds and then filling that sponge up with things that are useful for them early on to keep themselves safe and aware of the world that they live in is huge. So don't just sit there and be an island to yourself. If you have your family and your loved ones, try to impart that to your family and loved ones so that, one, they can be safe in your absence and two, they can be protectors and watch over your family when you can't. And then one more critical thing I would suggest with if you have family is if you are the protector in your family and I'm going to assume most time it's a male role I know of several instances where it's been a female role. Maybe that she's just a better martial artist, she's just got the mindset for it. I have a good friend that I know in the area that it's a lady that drives the big four by four truck, tows the trailer. Her husband is taller, bigger than she is, but she is the one that takes on those kind of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not saying that in terms of how they run their hierarchy, but she's the action taker of this family and sometimes it's because it's a female that may have a long first background, so she's better equipped and trained to deal with the conflict. But if a conflict occurs, having a plan with your family in advance and this is something that we've done well at sometimes and not done as well of trying to pass that along and make sure that it's kind of like a fire drill, you've got to refresh it once in a while. But having a plan, okay, honey, you take the kids and go here. This is having a signal for your spouse or your children to know, to step away and so you can deal with something or know that when you engage, that's time for them to put some distance in why you resolve the problem. That way, if something goes south, they're not right there in the middle of that conflict.
Speaker 3:So just again, it's just pre-planning, again to not to be paranoid but be prepared. So I'd say those are my last little nuggets of wisdom. And again, we could take those topics right there, probably create a whole nother podcast or series of podcasts if we really want to break it down, but probably information overload right now. But the big thing train mentally, train physically and try and pass that on to your family and loved ones as well. Have a plan.
Speaker 1:Perfect and yeah, the full intention is. I mean it took a while to catch you this go around, but hopefully sooner than later we can catch you to do specifically talking more about family dynamics, family training, family interactions. So I have a plethora of memories myself of you and I going out in the backyard and you just we're sparring, you're letting me mess around and experiment just to figure out how to like.
Speaker 3:I got one of my cut eyes from you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. We'll say that story for another time, but no, that's exactly what. I think that diving that in is going to be super important, but everything that we talked about is great. So, pops, thank you so much for being on. Oh, glad to. I appreciate you taking the time and your busy, busy, busy, busy schedule. Is there any sort of links or social media that you want me to plug in?
Speaker 3:You know I have Mick Jolly at LinkedIncom there's. You can find Mick Jolly on Facebook there's. We have a couple other pages, but the biggest place to if you want to reach me is right through the Get Real Self Defense with Adam. That's probably the easiest way, since you're already here, and encourage that you just continue to follow the podcast and get the nuggets of wisdom as you can, and, if you are able, I encourage you to share it with other people too, so that they can, you know, glean what they can. Not everything that I've said today is going to be useful to everybody, but you never know. Something maybe will be, and that's the same with every podcast. There's going to be some nugget of wisdom that you can walk away with, and so encourage you to keep listening.
Speaker 1:So All right, ed. Well, thanks for being on. And what about you? I guess really soon, because I mean we're family. We're going to be speaking probably right after this.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, we'll talk soon, and we got the holidays to get together for too, so Absolutely All right, thanks.
Speaker 1:You know, guys, this was super cool to sit down with my father and actually go through some of his past. I've had bits and pieces talking with him about his self-defense journey, especially at a young age, but a lot of that stuff at the beginning, talking about my grandfather, his father and what not these are things I've never even heard. This is the first time I've actually heard this. So, for posterity sake, for my sake, that was actually super cool to actually be able to listen to an experience. Now, one of the things that I also want to add is we have we could have gone for so long and, however, the problem is that, out of respect for my father's time because he has a very busy schedule, as do I I wanted to make sure that I did not blow it into a three or four hour episode, like we easily could have. At the end, you notice that we started talking about family and family, self-defense and personal protection and how to juggle that as a father, and that is something that we are going to be doing very soon, so look forward to that. However, I wanted this to be organic. I wanted it to be coming from him directly and what he wanted to express and share, and I'm very happy to have gotten some of those bits and pieces of information in my family's heritage as to why we are the people we are today, why I am the way I am today, and with that guys, I hope that this was enlightening as far as my father's background, my background and some of the reasons why I believe in the things that I believe and the things that, through my father, we've been able to pressure test together and the solutions that we've come up with.
Speaker 1:And if you guys enjoyed this episode, please be sure to, as usual, make sure to, if you haven't yet hit that five star review, share with others. And, on top of that, guys, keep throwing the emails at me, keep letting me know what you guys want to see. Next, I'll be conducting a survey next week to see what you guys would like to see more of or listen to more of. So look forward to that. I would really appreciate that survey. That way I can give you exactly what you guys are looking for. If you haven't noticed, I've been kind of trying out different things to see, because these are all things that are interesting to me and I want to see what you guys are interested in, so I am really excited to put out that survey next week along with the episode. There will be a link in that, so look forward to it and with that guys stay safe out there. I hope you guys enjoyed and I will catch you guys next time.
