Living Inside Out with John Peek
Welcome to Living Inside Out with John Peek!
Living Inside Out with John Peek
From Genesis To Grit: Identity Before Impact
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Start with who you are, not what you want. We go back to Genesis to reset the order—be, do, have—and show how identity shapes every choice, from family and finances to media and martial arts. When identity is settled, work becomes stewardship, dominion becomes care, and influence arrives without compromise. That thread runs through our Seven M’s—ministry, marriage, mentoring, media, martial arts, muscle, and money—so listeners can build a life that holds under pressure.
We bring these ideas to the ground with DefendFit’s approach to training the thinker to shoot and the shooter to think. You’ll hear how dry-fire safety, stress inoculation, and scenario-based drills create calm in chaos: startle responses that become assessment, purposeful draws, footwork that avoids slips, use of cover, and fast fixes for malfunctions. We unpack jam one, two, and three, post-engagement checks, and why moving with intention matters more than range selfies. It’s practical, civilian-ready, and designed to protect life, not dominate it.
We also talk relationships and leadership with Gen Z voices building a Turning Point USA chapter. Hype fades; personal invitations and integrity remain. We map drainers, maintainers, and gainers, and we lean into conflict ownership as the test of real friendship. Along the way, an Israel trip and Caliber Three training put Scripture in 3D and sharpen what service looks like in public spaces. The throughline is simple, smart practice: keep it simple, smart—not too simple—whether you’re managing emotions, media, or malfunctions.
If this spoke to you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more people can find purpose-first training. Ready to go deeper? Visit Israeliselfdefense.net or call 713-252-5836 and start building identity-driven strength today.
Welcome to the Living Inside Out Radio Show with John Peake.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome back to Living Inside Out on Patriot Talk Radio, where we talk about faith, family, freedom, and what it really means to live from the inside out. I've got some great guests for you today. I've got Pastor David Cisneros, who's also a church security team and a youth pastor, and he's going to talk about what it what his experience was traveling to Israel and training with Special Forces and Firearm Training, and then coming back here and training at DefendFit, our tactical firearm division, and then that that process of leveling up and all that went into that. I've also got uh Alex Weiss, uh president of a local Turning Point USA chapter here in the Friendswood Clear Lake area of Texas, uh, and what's going on with that and the relationship uh management they're doing, as well as uh uh Nate, my manager for DefendFit, and uh those both of those guys are 18 years old. They're right at that Gen Z where they're launching, and those are the next leaders of our community, and and we want to make sure we support those, mentor them, and listen to what they have to say and the struggles they they encounter and how we can coach them up. So we thank you for coming back to Living Inside Out, and I want to take you all the way back to the beginning, before politics, before culture wars, before broken systems, in Genesis chapter one. Because if you want to fix what's broken in your life, if you want clarity, strength, direction, and impact, you don't start with what you have, you don't even start with what you do. You start with who you're called to be. Genesis 1 1 says, In the beginning, God created. Before anything, God is. He didn't scramble for identity, he didn't react to chaos. He created from being. Then in Genesis 1, 26 through 28, God creates man in his image, blesses him, and then gives him an assignment. Notice the order be made in God's image. Do, be fruitful and multiply, fill and subdue, and then have dominion. Most people reverse this. If I can just have more money, if I can just have more influence, if I can just have success, then I'll do better. And maybe I'll finally be someone. You know, it's upside down. God says to be first, do second and have last. So why do most of us stay stuck? Well, culture tells us chase results, perform for approval, build an image. But when identity isn't settled, efforts burn you out, success corrupts you. God didn't tell Adam, earn my image. He said, You already bear it. Identity precedes assignment. And this is where the seven M's of living inside out come alive, because they aren't tactics, they're domains of stewardship. So let's walk this out. In ministry, you don't minister to earn worth, you minister because you're made in God's image. You be a son or a daughter, you do faithful obedience, so you can have spiritual fruit. In marriage, marriage doesn't fix identity, it reveals it. Two whole people build a covenant, be submitted to God, do love sacrificially, and have unity. Mentoring. You can't give what you don't live. Be transformed, do disciple, have generational impact. Media. Media amplifies what already exists. So be grounded in truth, do communicate clearly, have influence without compromise. Martial arts, self-defense. Strength without discipline is dangerous. Be self-controlled, do train with purpose, have the ability to protect life, not dominate it. Muscle and health. Your body is a stewardship, not an idol. Be disciplined, do train consistency, and to have strength to serve longer than money. Money's a tool, not a master. Be faithful, do manage wisely, have provision with peace. Dominion flows from alignment, not ambition. So dominion is responsibility, not tyranny. Genesis doesn't teach domination, it teaches delegation. God didn't give Adam permission to exploit creation, he gave him responsibility to steward it. True dominion looks like the fathers who lead, men who protect, women who flourish, families who stand, communities that thrive. When identity collapses, chaos multiplies. When identity is restored, order returns. Let me leave you with this question. Where have you been trying to have what God is asking you to become? The living inside out path is simple, but not easy. To be who God created you to be, to do what He's called you to be, have what He's entrusted to you. That's not religion, that's design. This is living inside out. And when we live God's order, we don't just change our lives, we change everything around us. So stay strong, stay faithful, and keep living inside out. Now let's talk about a little bit about what that looks like in terms of training at Defend Fit. So many of the times we think of DeFinFit as just simply a martial art or firearms or something to do with, you know, the physical. But DeFinFit really is about being fit spiritually, mentally, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and financially. So if we look at those four categories and we kind of break that down, you know, if I start with building myself up with my calling and my purpose, my faith, my understanding about what that means, it's not just about, for example, my belief in Jesus Christ, for that that is for me, but many of you out there could be unbelievers. And so I would encourage you to search. Search uh diligently, be a seeker of truth, and uh pray about it. Even if you don't know who you're praying to, call on God. Call on the God of Abraham, I've just and Jacob, and call on his son Jesus Christ. And I promise you, the word of God promises you that he will answer. Seek and you will find, ask and it will be given, knock and it'll be opened. Because the only prerequisite for salvation and to be really infilled with the Holy Spirit, which is like a it's almost like cheating in life to be filled with the Holy Spirit because He gives you discernment, He prompts you, the uh counsels, I mean the comfort. The Holy Spirit is given all those names, the counselor, the comforter. You will feel convicted in remorse when you do things that aren't in God's will. And then you'll be given this bonus of uh extra wisdom and discernment. And I promise you, every relationship in your life will improve because of it. Your outlook will improve. You'll you'll be able to fight off anxiety or depression. Uh you'll have a purpose. God will reveal to you the desires of your heart could be used for his glory. So defend fit is really about defending against letting evil in, letting corrupt thoughts, letting open portals, you know, where we all the time open doors we shouldn't, and have you know what I call stinking thinking. You know, oftentimes we don't make changes until our lives are completely falling apart. So living inside out is about restoration. It's about heading it off before it gets so bad. It's about mentoring the next generation. If we can start young with our children, uh teaching them the seven M's of Living Inside Out, uh, ministry, marriage, mentoring, media, martial arts, muscle, and money, I can guarantee you we'll have a much stronger society than what we see developing in all the problems we have in the world today. So join me with Living Inside Out. Join up at DefendFit. We're in Webster, Texas, 17317 El Camino Real. You can also look us up, uh, DefendFit at Israeliselfdefense.net. Look at our programs. Uh, one of the things that I'd like to highlight today that I'm going to do with Daniel Cisneros and talk about training, but I'd like to do a little pre pre-look at that is our tactical firearm program. So my tactical firearm program comes from the Israeli Special Forces. Uh, it's really quite remarkable. I've taken all that knowledge I've learned from a military's perspective and really catered to the civilians market. And so we do train uh police officer, military. I've trained the 147th Security Force out at Elkton Air Force Base, and we've done lots of uh small groups uh with both military and police. But the bread and butter is you, the listening audience, civilians. And so when we think about uh firearm training, uh we think about safety first and then functionality second. So it's not just about going to the range and shooting paper targets, it's really about thinking how deep do I need to think to really carry a gun and be responsible owner of a gun, and then truly being able to neutralize a threat if I were called to do so. So we do a lot of dry fire shooting, meaning we take the gun apart, do a safety clearing procedure, take the gun apart, put a safety barrel plug in that obstructs the barrel so no fire, no uh live ammunitions can get into the barrel. In fact, we all ammo is put away that's not even available in the training environment. And so we have a holster gun magazine, extra magazine, maybe two extra magazines, and we wear street clothes like we would be wearing when we're going out and carrying a gun, if in fact you're carrying a gun. If you're not carrying a gun because you don't feel confident with the firearm, this is a perfect place for you to train because you're gonna be trained with no bullets, you're gonna learn all the ins and outs of gun functionality, gun safety, and then gun handling, and you're gonna learn how to think under pressure. And let me give you an example. When I'm running classes, we go through the safety aspect of it. Now here we're ready to start training. I'll call threat directions, like I'll have descriptions, threat bob, threat fan, threat lion. And so I have these different images on the wall and around the room, and you'll have to find those images and look first. So there's a flinch response we go through when we're startled, like a gun goes off, somebody screams, and we want to build that flinch response first so that we turn, look, and assess, then decide: do I pull my gun? Do I get down? Do I run to cover? Uh, do I do I engage right away? And so there's a lot of thinking going on. I like to think of it like this we train the thinker to shoot and the shooter to think. So you may not be shooting or you may be shooting right away. We give context to that. But if you were to pull your gun, and and we often do pull the gun, not 100% of the time, because I'm bringing in scenarios inside that training environment, but when you do pull the gun, we have a very specific procedure of getting the gun on target. We have a very specific procedure for handling your body, your grip, your eyes, your understanding of what's happening around you, beyond the target, around the target, and then we'll do multiple targets back to back, changing directions. We're teaching you the proper footwork so you don't step backwards, for example, and trip. We also cover all kinds of malfunctions. What we call jam one, jam two, and uh jam three could also be called magazine. We have very specific verbiage around that so that you can really start to digest. When your firearm fails to fire, you immediately know how to fix it. And I'm talking seconds and fractions of seconds to get that gun back on target in the fight. And then when your gun does malfunction, the confidence that you have to fix that and get through it is just priceless, especially if you're carrying a gun. Many times we uh we think we already know, and sometimes we know we don't know, and sometimes we think we can't know. But I'm here to tell you, my firearm program, the DeFinFit Tactical, actually is called Armed and Ready Civilian Defense. I also have 40 videos, four and a half hours of training that you can purchase, and then that would accompany the class. So you come and do the class, learn what you learned, go home, look at the video or two, come back to class, and as you repeat that, you're gonna greatly increase your understanding and your proficiency on handling a firearm and specifically how to use that firearm to neutralize possible threats. So shoot training the shooter to think and the thinker to shoot is a critical component. And we like to say at Defend Fit that we're a family of warriors training with purpose. And on the back of the my logo on the t-shirts, it actually also says something that uh Einstein actually coined many, many years ago, and he used to put it like this Albert Einstein said, make it as simple as possible, not simpler. And I really love that. But we didn't I don't use the word simpler for one thing very often, but I would say this we do hear a phrase often said, and you could probably complete this sentence for me when I give you the first part of the sentence, you say the last word. Here it is. Keep it simple, and almost always people will say stupid. I had one of my mentors correct me on that, my good friend Hakka Kaim, who's also a in the world-class martial artist, he'll he's uh in the martial art hall of fame. And so one day we were teaching on the mat, and I mentioned that to a student, and he pulled me aside later and said, Hey, you know what you said there that earlier, we don't say it like that. I said, Well what's that? He goes, keep it simple. I go, oh, and immediately I knew stupid was not the good word, right? You just kind of have an intuitive, you're taught very young, don't call your brother stupid, you know, those kind of things. But keep it simple, dash smart. So keep it simple, smart, but not too simple. Now that really registers with me. Say that to yourself. Keep it simple, smart, but not too simple. And apply that in every area of your life. Apply it with your faith, with your family, with when you're teaching or learning, you know, when you're listening to media that could be indoctrinating you or lying to you, search for the truth when you're hopefully training in one of our classes for martial arts or firearms, and then around your money, too, man. Tie into the Living Inside Out program and get into our tactical training program because this Patriot Talk Radio is about faith, family, and freedom. And one of the freedoms we have in this great country of ours is the Second Amendment to carry a firearm. Even just with constitutional care, you don't even need a license. But I would highly recommend getting the license, getting training. Come see us at DefendFit. Uh we have uh another guest coming up in the next segment of our show, so stay with us. Uh we have Daniel Cisneros, and he's gonna talk about training and what that looked like training with some special forces. And we're also gonna be having Alex Weiss, turning point president, and uh my manager uh Nate can tell us a little bit about what's going on in their lives and managing relationships. So thank you for being here, and we'll be right back.
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SPEAKER_02:Welcome to Living Inside Out Radio Show. I'm your host, John Peake. Thanks for being with us on Patriot Talk Radio, 9 20 a.m. Faith, Family, and Freedom. Today I've got some special guests again. We got Alex Weiss back, Turning Point USA Pre Chapter President. We've got my manager, Nate, as here as well. And I've also got a special guest, Daniel Cisneros, pastor uh at Townwood Church, youth pastor. And we're going to be talking about how to do what you don't want to do with Pastor Daniel. And we're going to be talking about generally relationships with uh Alex and Nate. All right. Well, thank you guys for being here, Alex and Nate. I appreciate y'all coming. Thank you for having us back on.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, thank you. Excited to be back on.
SPEAKER_02:So last week we were talking about some good stuff. We talked a lot about turning point. We talked a lot about relationships. We talked about some things that turning point's doing and building how it's building relationships all over the world. We had some like 500,000 new chapters. Uh so that's exciting stuff. And you know, the number one thing that's connecting all of these things, uh, whether it's training or you know, turning point or managing defend fit is relationship building. And so it's one of the areas I think that we need the most help is relationship intelligence. You know, a lot of times growing up, you uh your parents tell you whether you know you should be hanging around this person or that person, and sometimes we understand you know why and sometimes we don't, but it's such an important topic that I want to introduce our listeners to what I call drainers, maintainers, and gainers. Now, you know, you you oftentimes know a drainer because everything's about them. We can call it narcissism, we can call it selfishness, we can you know be self-absorbed. And you know, the first thing we need to do is we need to look at ourselves in the mirror first. Where where do we fit in? Are we a maintainer, more like a healthy peer, or are we leveling up in the areas of life that are important and we could be a gainer, a true mentor? Or are we really like draining people, man, you know, where we have to have a lot of correction and and constantly being told what to do or you know not do? You know, so let's talk a little bit about that in terms of um turning point. So when you're developing this new chapter, you're uh you're really trying to set uh a tone of a mindset. And so when I had you guys here on the mat on Saturday, we just didn't have a lot of people in terms of great numbers. The people we did have here were very attentive and engaged. But one of the things that's gonna be always be a challenge when you're starting something new, like your turning point chapter called 1776 Collective, is how do you get those people to a to a meeting? And so one of the things I want to suggest to you, Alex, is start with prayer. Start with communicating with the Holy Spirit, surrender to the Holy Spirit, get your yourself right, and so that you're thinking with the right perspective. And then let me ask you, real quick, what has been some of the communication you've had with some of your turning point chapter attendees?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so some of the communication we've had is really um setting the standard for What we want in the chapter. And so with that, it's really going to be all about a mindset shift from kind of like the usual high school student to kind of being chilled back, not really caring too much all about things, and really getting them to shift into this is important. This is where I need to be. And you know, why is this where we need to be? Well, because we are the future of this country. We are the next generation growing up, and we have to be attentive to what to our surroundings. So it's been shifting that mindset from oh, I don't really care, to I need to be here. This is my responsibility. And so with that comes uh diving into scripture. Um one of our focus recently has been the book of Proverbs, and then going to, you know, all right, well, just as human beings, what is our nature and how can we use that to our advantage, or maybe shift away from it to you know, maybe rewiring to okay, it's more about scripture, less about nature. Um, but yeah, it's it's it's really been a a challenge to motivate people to show up. And um, we've used many resources for getting people to show up, flyers, social media, etc. It's it's it's been a learning curve for many of us.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's good. There's a lot of challenges, you know, when you're managing human beings. You know, uh one of my friends said, you know, I'd really rather just train dogs than train human beings. They're so much easier. You know, our brains, man, have a lot of free will decision making. And so that's what's so challenging. But one of the best things you can do is mentor people spiritually, and then the other areas, you know, if they're willing to receive that, the other areas are much more, you know, moldable. You know, so I want to talk a little bit about what we talked on Saturday uh when our during our training, during our spiritual talk, I talked about be, do, and have. And so the word of God talks a lot about that, you know, be who God's called you to be so that and do what he's asked you to do so that you can have the blessings he wants you to have. And when we talk about like your communication using media, like is it your voice or your text or your outreach through turning point, um, one of the things that I think about in the media is be grounded in the truth. Do communicate clearly and then have influence without compromise. And so when you think about being grounded in truth, when you're communicating to those guys, man, one of the things you want to do is have a way to communicate to them in a way that they'll receive it. Sometimes when we talk at people, yeah, they're not really interested in hearing it. It's almost like you know, I hear this all the time from my parents or my pastor or whoever, you know, but when I'm working in my job, but you know, you have a way to connect with them, you know, as a leader at turning point in a new unique way, because this is really, you know, student-led. This is really, you know, you're leading your peers, which is pretty neat, man. It's not like you know, this older person leading them, a teacher, a coach, you know, a pastor. So leading your peers is a great training ground, and you might introduce them to um some things about leadership first on and say, you know, I'm leading this meeting today, but I'm gonna ask some of you other people to step up and lead the meeting as we go along. So they'll have a like, oh, I'm gonna be having to do what he's doing. So they tend to be less critical when they know at some point it's gonna be their turn.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, um, it actually might be the other way around. There's never you set a pretty high standard, they um might get a little scared. Yeah, you could scare them right off.
SPEAKER_02:You know, having um your ability to be transparent to them, thinking about some of the mistakes you made, communicating, you know, I was thinking about this and I decided that wasn't a good idea, you know, tell them a little bit about being um, you know, just being normal human beings, not trying to be anything you're not, communicate such authenticity that I think people are much more willing to put themselves out there, you know. And that you know what they can do? They can lead right from their seat too. They don't have to necessarily get up in front of the group, you know. So, you know, it starts with uh getting people to share, tell their story a little bit, you know. If you can get people to share something, some experience they've already had that ties into your subject, it's very easy to talk about.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because it's their experience.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, people love to talk about themselves. That's for sure. Yeah, no, what what what with the chapter, it's um right now it's it's kind of in an odd place, as we're actually seeing with a lot of the other chapters. We're in contact with actually um Houston County, um turning point USA chapter. And so they're going through a lot of the same things we're having as um, you know, we had our launch event uh we discussed last week where we had 80 people in attendance, and then we've had now 15 people in total, like it really interested in chapter. Houston County has had 40 students involved, but now the hype has kind of died died down for turning point a lot, and they're starting to lose numbers a lot. So now it's kind of reframing to this needs to become a whole lot more personal. It's the hype isn't here, the the hype culture isn't here on social media anymore. So now how do we reach out to these students in a more personal manner to where then they come in? It could be a bit more personal, like you were saying, is they need to be able to relate everything back to their everyday life, which has been a huge which has been the largest challenge. Um, because you're saying, hey, we're coming to let's say maybe a Bible study, like alright, do that at church on Sundays. So now it's how do we shift that Bible study to be something special and unique, personalized for them, and make it applicable for whenever we'll, let's say, we go out and do an outreach at a school, a university, or something like that in the near future.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, there's um there's a lot of opportunity for growth there, man, for sure, both as a leader and you know, the people that are um in your turning point. Well, let's make a little switch here and think about you know some of the friendships we have, our personal friendships, you know, in terms of relationship intelligence. Uh, because, you know, even your turning point people, some of them are probably already friends, and then there's gonna be new friends coming in and out. And so I think all of us have had experiences where we've chosen uh a friendship, and then for whatever reason we realize, you know, I'm not so sure this person's really a friend. Have y'all Nate, have you ever had that experience before?
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah. Yeah, I've definitely experienced um you know, being friends with somebody and then realizing they're maybe not the person that you thought they were, or maybe the person that you presented or they presented to you when you first met them. Uh definitely had that happen with one of my former best friends. Um you know, just over time I figured out just through the way that he was acting and the way that he was treating me that he he was not my friend. He was very much uh an opportunist. He was taking advantage of what I could give him because for a long time he didn't have a car, and I was more than willing to drive him around because I thought he was my friend. And it turned out that he was just using me to get free rides and things like that, and uh just a lot of situations like that where I learned that he was not my friend.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, I think you could have that in I know I have that at DefendFit where that can happen. You know, people try to be interlopers, uh, try to be your best friend real fast, kind of thing, you know. And I'm sure with turning point that's gonna be a thing. And uh you probably had that in your fitness community too, huh? Uh Alex?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, uh absolutely, yeah. No, there's um especially amongst the turning point. Um one one of the biggest learning curves I've experienced for sure, and uh this goes even into the fitness space, um, I've been heavily involved in, is um, is this like a more personal friend or is this a business friend? Um two very different things, I'm sure as many people know with their careers. Um and so, you know, can I talk to this person on a super personal, intimate level, or am I gonna keep distance, but you know, we're very open about you know what turning point, let's say the what's happening amongst chapters, how are we gonna get more numbers up, things of that sort. Talk more statistics and actual personal life. Um that's probably been the biggest distinction I've had to learn. Uh and uh you learn learn learn learn through um testing and failing, you know. Yeah, the old school of hard knocks.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, I would say that many times uh a great gauge of a friendship is when you finally have a conflict of some sort, and maybe not even finally, maybe you've had a conflict early on, but the results of that conflict disagreement oftentimes tells you very clearly whether a person's a good friend or not. Because good friends or friends that are going to be potentially great friends will find a way to reach a conflict resolution. You know, they're willing to to take responsibility for their part of it, you know, they're willing to yield to a certain degree to to to salvage the relationship, to make things work. And uh those that aren't willing to do those simple things for reconciliation, they very rarely will become good friends.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, um recently been uh reading a book called Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink, and um that's one of the big things. Um, you know, working amongst a SEAL team was that uh we are family and we're gonna take ownership over our own our own actions. And that has been one of the biggest, you know, I say biggest again. Uh but that's another learning experience here with this is uh you know, with amongst everybody president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, any of the members take ownership over your your wrongs and your rights.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, good, good. One of the things you can do is write a pro and cons list, you know, when you're thinking about a friendship. What are the pros of this friendship? What are the cons of this friendship? Nate, what do you think?
SPEAKER_04:With uh the taking responsibility thing, that was one of the major problems between me and one of my former friends was he went we were all out and he made a major mistake. Uh he was dating somebody and did something with somebody else while we were out. And uh and then eventually of course his girlfriend at that time figured out what he had did. And instead of taking responsibility and maybe owning up to it or and you know, sh he deserved to get broken up with, he decided to throw everybody else that was there under the bus. And he somehow twisted it and pinned it that it was my fault that he had done that with somebody else. He wasn't willing to take responsibility for his own actions. And that's that that was really the moment where I realized, oh, this if he's willing to do that, like he's he's not willing to take responsibility for his own mistakes.
SPEAKER_02:Integrity issues, yeah, absolutely. Major integrity issues. Sometimes we don't want to admit it. You know, we see the red flags and you kind of ignore the red flags or justify it, or you kind of buy into their story.
SPEAKER_04:Thinking back now, there was there was a lot of red flags. He showed me who he was really fast, he showed me who he was. But I was I guess I was so desperate for a friend at that time. I was willing to overlook so many things and so many behaviors. He he wasn't even sneaky about it. He told me who he was immediately. And uh my sister, she's got this uh real talent for for seeing people who for who they really are. And she told me the entire time that he's not my real friend. And it it took me uh it took me a long time, and it took me a lot of hurt to figure out that he was not my friend. That that was really rough.
SPEAKER_02:Very good, man. Well, thank you guys for sharing those details, intimate details, you know, of what's going on in your lives. We're we've got a lot to learn from each other, you know. My motto is iron sharpens iron as one sh person sharpens another. And so that really ties into our training at DefendFit, where we are simply a family of warriors training with purpose, keeping it simple, smart, but not too simple. And so we're gonna talk more about that too today. We're gonna have Daniel Cisneris come on and we're gonna talk about uh the training we do at Defend Fit and Firearm Training, and we're also gonna talk about how do I do what I don't want to do. So you're listening and listen to that to you're listening to Living Inside Out Radio. Don't go away, we'll be right back.
SPEAKER_01:Life doesn't wait for perfect timing, and danger doesn't announce itself. That's why at Defend Fit Self-Defense and Fitness, we train you with real techniques for real situations. From Krav Maga to knife defense, from stick fighting to firearms awareness, our system is built on real-world defense, not rules or forms. Our Defend Fit classes combine intense functional fitness with practical self-defense so you get stronger and safer all in one session. Whether you want to protect yourself, your loved ones, or your community, we've got you covered. Beginners welcome. All fitness levels invited. This is empowerment you feel on the street and in your life. Visit Israeliselfdefense.net or call 713-252-5836. That's 713-252-5836 now. Defend fit, where your confidence becomes your strongest defense.
SPEAKER_02:And we had his brother David on last week, and we talked about how we met. And so Daniel came with David and the rest of the security team for firearm training. And that's how we met. And seven years later, we've got a great relationship. We're on the security team together. We serve at church. Daniel's also the youth pastor at Townwood. So welcome, Daniel. Thank you, John. It's an honor to be here and to be a part of this. So let me get your impression about going to Israel and what that was like first.
SPEAKER_00:Well, going to Israel uh was truly, truly you don't realize how special it's going to be until after, right? You go with this with this idea, well, it's going to be a vacation, but you know, you're going with your church. So it's a little different. But once you're there and you truly realize how alive something that you've only read about really is, where now you can take something that you've read about and you've imagined, and now you can actually see it and be there. Uh, it truly is eye-opening and humbling in a way because it brings literally, it brings your faith to life. So being an Israel man was truly, truly a blessing. Uh, it's one of those trips where I constantly find myself wanting to go back over and over. And uh hopefully by God's grace, right? We do plan on going back this November, which I'm still praying and hoping that uh both me and my wife can go. We've only been together, uh we've only gone together to Israel once. And uh man, this year it's one of those times where I'm like, I really, really, really want to make, want to make it happen to where we're both able to go together.
SPEAKER_02:So Yeah, amen. Well, I'm gonna be praying about that for you as well. Uh I know when I talk to people about uh what it was like to go to Israel, what I like to say is I read the Bible in 3D now because I've been to the places that are talked about in the Bible. I see where Paul's journey was, you know. You go to the Mount of Olives, you know, and then there's all these bonus things you get to do around adventure, where there's like going to the river up in Getty where you can get in the water and do adventure stuff, or you're on the Sea of Galilee, you know, on the boat, man. And you know, there's just a lot going on that people don't realize, full-on adventure, but also all the history and your faith, of course. And it strengthens your faith too, as well. Oh, absolutely. So the one of the things y'all did is uh y'all trained with some uh special forces soldiers in IDF around firearms.
SPEAKER_00:We did, yeah. So it was uh it was a program called Caliber Three, and uh the the the how we found it was my brother had mentioned that uh before going, he had mentioned that, hey, you know, I think there's this uh program where you get to go and you actually get to well to shoot guns. And that was what we wanted to do. You know, we we grew up, you know, uh around firearms, not not, you know, maybe a little later in our life, not since we were kids, but that was something that we really wanted to experience. We had a lot of respect for the Israeli army and the military and and stuff like that. We thought, man, that would be really cool if we could go and maybe shoot firearms or maybe even play paintball. We were really into paintball at the time. So uh I got on, I got online and I started looking for for anything that they could offer to tourists. You know, I thought, well, surely there's got to be something. And we ran into a program uh called Caliber 3. It's a program where uh they do actual training for special forces for their security forces. Uh anyone in Israel that I think holds a security position, they're able to go and actually uh receive training from them. But they also have a program for tourists like me where I just want to go and I want to experience it and I want to be into it. And it was really cool because it wasn't just this thing where you walk in, they give you a gun and they let you shoot. They had this whole demonstration of how they uh interact with strangers or suspicious people out in public. They even had a demonstration with their attack dog, right? With their with their dogs, and where one of the guys would get in a bite suit and and he'd actually provoke the dog into biting. They showed how they restrained, they showed how they they would respond to uh an active shooter situation in a crowded area. Uh and man, that really, really sparked my brother and I's uh desire to want to train, not just shoot and not just, you know, have the knowledge or or the teaching of dealing with firearms, but we're like, man, we want to train. And then looking at it more and more and thinking about it, we kept going back to the same idea. It's like, well, we want to train not just so that we're dangerous, but that we can actually protect the people that we care about, you know, like for example, our church. It's not just uh a building full of people that we know. Our families go there, my children go there, my wife goes there. We're we're a part of it. It's become really a family uh of many families, right? So being there and having that opportunity, man, really opened up the desire to want to look for more. And uh my brother David came back super fired and was like, you know what? We're I'm gonna find a place, man. There's gotta be a place in Houston where we can do more of this, but on a more consistent basis. It was a nice experience, but now we want it to become something that's a part of us. So that's where uh I I I don't know the full details, but I know he contacted a couple of places, and one of the last places that he found and reached out to was uh with you, John, and your school. And uh ever since then, Matt, we've we've we haven't left your side. We're like gum on you now, huh?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, man. It's been a good sticky situation too for for me as well. So one of the things that we do is we train a couple times a week, and what that really has enabled us to do is do a lot of uh blending, right? What I call blending, you know, it's it's oftentimes uh in life we're using a combination of different skills to solve problems, you know. Even in traffic, you know, we'll use a combination of different skills, time management, you know, geographical placement, you know, checking our sticks, you know, looking in our reverse, making sure our placement's right, managing our speed, you know, and braking and all that. And so oftentimes we don't think about that, the need for that in firearms, but that's exactly what's needed, especially in a church dynamic with security teams. But I would say that's no different than just walking around life. You know, you're gonna have people that you're gonna be looking Out far, whether it's your own family or complete strangers, if you had an active situation, an active shooter. And maybe it ramps up from just an argument, you know, and it progresses. Like today, when we were training, we did a conflict in a parking lot, and I throw a sucker punch at you, and that you weren't expecting that, but you were ready because you're trained and you dealt with that primary threat. You hit me in the palm strike in the face as you block my arm coming at you, and then you overlap strikes and you neutralize that threat with a great hard push after seven strikes of the face, man. And I hit the ground, and that freed you up to look around for any other threats. Absolutely. And then all of a sudden I did call another threat, and we've already done a you know safety procedure. You've got your firearm on you, you've got a barrel, safety barrel plug, and so you're ready to rock and roll on the firearm side, you know, and you transitioned right away to a threat that was uh pulling a gun, and so you neutralized that threat right away, and then you had a malfunction because I called malfunction. And when you looked at the gun, it was what we know as a jam one, which is your slide is locked closed. And so you immediately slapped racked and fixed that, but you also did an advanced tactic of move to cover from a distance. There was a pillar and you slid behind it. It was only a couple feet away as you're fixing your gun, and now you took the next shot to center mass uh behind that cover from a distance. It was still 20 feet away, and then you're neutralizing that threat. And so we also continued the drill and had you close distance to cover, and the guns open as you took that first step because you slapped rack and you don't you have an empty magazine, right? And so it locked open. And that presented us with the dilemma of hey, I'm simulating a magazine change now, and so you notice that because you've been trained, and you as you're closing distance, you're changing magazines, and then we have a special thing to break without slipping. We call stop stopping. It's like uh shuffling to a stop so you don't slip as you get to cover or run run right into the cover, you know, the wall, and then you took the shots from there, and then we went into post-engagement protocol, right? So you're looking for the next threat, and you're going through this whole sequence that frankly takes quite a bit of time to process all the information. So talk a little bit about how you uh journeyed from, you know, you came for that initial training that just kind of got your desire up, although I'm sure you learned some techniques. Uh but now that you've been with us seven years and you're really qualified as an instructor to teach the course, and in fact, you have done some of that, and we'll continue to do more of that. We're gonna also be offering some courses in Spanish, because that's one of your languages that you use to teach at church as well. And so tell us a little bit about some of these um gun fixes, the malfunction, the using cover, the entering unsecured areas that you've uh embraced and gotten so good at.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the only reason I'm good at it is I really can't take any credit. Uh, like I said, man, when we came back, we wanted to learn, we wanted to train uh to better ourselves, to be better protectors, right, of our family. We're we're really big on you know being someone that that is capable of protecting. And you know, every every guy deep down always feels like, yeah, man, when it when the time comes, I'll step up and I'll and I'll be this brave lion. But uh, it wasn't until we were we started training with you, John, that uh I realized my skills were very minimal, very low quality, uh, to where I even said, man, I don't trust myself with a gun anymore. What was I thinking carrying a firearm without training? Because you know, a lot of people consider training as, oh, you go to the gun range and you shoot the bullseye. That means you're good. That means you're good. But uh beyond that, you're in a very controlled environment where you know nothing's gonna go wrong, you know what to expect, you're shooting at a paper target. The reality of life is you're in places surrounded by people that you don't know, you don't know the condition of their mind, you don't know the condition of their heart, you don't know what they're capable of or what their real plans are. And uh something that you taught us, right, called stress inoculation. That kind of training, I think, is where we really, really saw the flaws that my brother and I, well, me personally, I'm gonna speak on myself, I really needed to work on uh to be able to think clearly through uh the necessary actions or movements that I needed to do in order to be effective, efficient, in order to be safe uh for myself and for the people around me. And I think a lot of people don't stress inoculate, or at least don't train with stress inoculation. And and in doing so, man, you're really putting yourself in a potential situation where instead of helping, you're really gonna hurt someone or hurt yourself. So whenever it comes down to the to the way that that you teach us, John, right, it's always verbally. You tell us what's gonna happen before we do it, you show us what's gonna happen, and then we have to do the action ourselves. Now I love it that you don't expect perfection, because you know we're just learning. Uh even though now, seven years from now, uh every time I find myself making a mistake, I'm like, I seriously? Why? You know, uh it's been seven years, I should know better. But uh, it's one of those things where uh, you know, the the detail of every single movement, for instance, like you mentioned the the uh the well, the manipulation of the firearm, right? The draw of the firearm is done in a specific way that you taught us, which is you clear your shirt and you don't just clear the firearm, you pull your shirt as far up as you can, and then you tighten it to your body so that there's no way you can accidentally grab your firearm with your shirt still being in the way. That's that's the first way, and and uh or that's the first you know step of of being successful in in the sense of pulling your firearm out and using it, is first you gotta get it. Get it right, get a good grip on it. Once you draw, man, you present that firearm, and and uh it's it's from there it's knowing the condition of your firearm, right? Early on you taught us uh if we if we carry, you you asked us before we even started training, how do you carry your firearm? Do you carry one with a chamber, uh, with a round in the chamber, or do you carry one where when you pull it out you have to rack it? And you know, there's a huge controversy in the gun world about how you should carry your firearm and all that. We're not gonna get into that. Uh, I think every person needs to make their personal choice, but it was because of the specific questions that you were making us ask ourselves as to why you do the things the the way you do them, that really had me consider like, man, okay, I really need to be conscious as to how I carry my firearm, and then and I need to train accordingly. Because if not, you know, you just you don't learn. You you don't you don't you learn a muscle memory that's not gonna help you in the moment where you have very little time to think. That's the first one, right? Uh the jam fixes also, you know, uh the so-called training that I would do before we met you, John, was a bunch of YouTube and John Wick, right? Just like a lot of people out there that have firearms but don't train, train, right? We train as in YouTube. Uh nothing wrong with you know the knowledge of that, but it's the training and and the and the reason, the intention why you're doing that movement, why you chose you you taught us to clear the jam the way we do, right? And it's it's funny because now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense. Whenever our trigger, whenever we pull the trigger and the gun goes click, obviously something went wrong. Something that was supposed to happen didn't. And instead of immediately going into fixing it, you taught us, no, look at the gun first. The gun will sometimes tell you what's wrong, right? And then we go into the jam one, two, and three. So then that jam one, as you look at it, you don't see anything physically wrong with the gun, but you know, okay, then probably something called a universal jam correction.
SPEAKER_02:Instant jam correction.
SPEAKER_00:Instant jam correction is needed. And what that looks like is it's simple slap to the to the magazine and rack to the to the slide, right?
SPEAKER_02:Good. Awesome. Yeah, you know, there's a whole procedure for those, and we drilled those today pretty good, even verbally talked them through. Absolutely. So you mentioned John Wick. It's interesting because uh Aaron Cohen has a YouTube channel out there that's a security and and counterterror expert, and he's actually the one that trained John Wick for John Wick 1. Yeah, and he was a former Duvdevon member. In fact, the very first American that went to Israel and volunteered and became a Duvdevon member, which is a Tier 1 Special Forces. They call him Duvdevon as a nickname because Duvdevon in Hebrew means cherry. What rises to the top, the cream of the crop. What goes on top of the cream, the cherry. Yeah. So it's an interesting, they actually have a unit number name, Unit 217. And I got to train with a uh a young man that just had gotten out in 2010 from Duvdevon and started training with him, been training with him ever since, Garrett Machine. And Garrett's the one we got all this information from primarily, and his good friend Bernie uh Contreras, who also was with uh bodyguard of the prime minister. So we this comes from some of the best in the world at what they do in the counterterrorism field. And so you too have a chance to train. So come look us up at DefendFit. We're in Webster, Texas, 17317 El Camino Real. We're holding shooting courses all the time. We do dry fire weekly and we hold shooting courses on the uh weekend. Um come check us out. This has been Living Inside Out Radio Show. Uh we're on Patriot Talk Radio. It's all about faith, family, and freedom. Uh join us every Saturday at starting at 12 p.m. on Patriot Talk 920 a.m. Thank you for being with us. Also, check out our Apple and Spotify podcast.
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