My students get taught what I am about to teach you in greater detail than what I will go into here, but here are the basics you need to know.  I have never heard of and don’t know of any other martial arts instructor teach their students what I am about to tell you so, focus on this because it could save your life and possibly your girlfriend’s life as well. Studying the reaction time of your attacker is a very particular way of looking at attacks in a general sense but learning how the solution to his attack is going to be carried out is in a specific sense is the best way to really understand something that is so important. But before I get into that, I want to talk about you as a beginner student who really does not know anything about fighting, and needs to know normal reaction time before we take a step further.  Even though the lesson seems to be about the reaction time of your attacker, we need to go a little deeper and find out what else is there for you. To begin with, you are right in the middle of a strategic fighting class in this very moment. You are examining as much as anything not only what I am going to teach you about reaction time, but way more importantly, what your attacker does not know at all. Your attacker does not know anything about his vulnerabilities and things that I am teaching you right now.  He is wholly ignorant about all that you are about to read here. Re read that last sentence at least five more times before you start the next paragraph. He is wholly ignorant about all that you are about to read here. He is wholly ignorant about all that you are about to read here. He is wholly ignorant about all that you are about to read here. He is wholly ignorant about all that you are about to read here. He is wholly ignorant about all that you are about to read here.

 Remember and understand this: you cannot put a reaction in front of an action. What does that mean? It means that a reaction is the second thing to occur on a time line following the initial action, which is true now and forever. But what that sentence really means to me, is that woman are not trained to think of a reaction as something that can be fully taken advantage of for what it actually can do for them. Said another way: girls and women have a goldmine of time safety and they don’t even realize it. The attacker’s reaction is always going to follow whatever her initial action is going to be. That is a big deal to the trained martial artist, because it gives my students a universal time cushion, when they need it most, for every day for the rest of their lives. And believe me, your attacker, does not know anything at all about reaction time either, so that means you have an advantage that does not cost you one penny! And as a bonus I am going to teach you a super secret bonus trick that I have taught my students for decades in just a few minutes of reading time.

The following is how to make that time awareness advantage work to your personal victory in the streets. Most students will tell you they understand all that I’ve written, and it is almost too easy for them, but in time it begins to sink in with awesome certainty that this is a godsend to all of us, so we just have to get the word out. It is so simple to understand that when you hear it the first time, it could go under your radar and you don’t fully appreciate the implications of what it means to you, the student of martial arts. But it means a great deal to the trained woman or girl, as you will soon learn. We are in the business of manipulating how “it is in real life”, with what we need it to be for us, the martial artist and absolutely yes, we manipulate time to our advantage. There is just no doubt about it.

You are about to be taught something, that will change your life and it is quite irrefutable in its power to make that change in your life. This is a martial arts secret, so write this in your martial arts journal: you cannot put a reaction in front of an action. Also, in your journal write down today’s date,  the time of day, and what you think those words mean to you today.  Your personal martial arts journal is dearer to you than diamonds or gold, so keep it hidden away and safe from any eyes that would not appreciate or even understand you for wanting to learn this work.

When an attacker is standing in front of you and holds a knife to your throat and you know that all he has to do is flick the blade sideways and your bleeding like a stuck pig from your sliced apart artery, you have a problem, or so you have been trained to believe. You have been trained to believe something as far as I am concerned is what I call “patriarchal yarns”. Patriarchal,  flapping of the lips and nothing more. There are two worlds, the one I live in and the world you live in. I am doing everything I can possibly do to convince you that my world over here is a lot more fun to live and play in and a world of safety, for every day of your life. So, does the attacker have the problem or does my student? I want to see if you can figure the answer out for yourself. Here is a hint: it is most definitely not you!

Do you remember what I said about: what he does not touch, he does not control? In this self-defense scenario, my student’s chest is facing the attacker’s chest and his left hand is grabbing her right shoulder. His right hand is holding a knife in front of my student. It is now as good as it is going to get for my student! The party can start whenever she wants it to.

Do you think there is nothing for you to do but stand still and hope that he doesn’t sneeze? The attacker is talking on and on about what he is going to do to your body (his sermon) after he cuts your throat. Certainly, hilarious nonsense because it has nothing to do with what is actually going to happen to his body. When she makes her move, he will instantly become, just a ghost of his old physical self. Truly, your attacker is a “fool in a fool’s paradise”, with no doubts about it.

Now that we have discussed how a reaction always follows an action, you rightfully ask me, what’s the big deal; aren’t those just words? The following, will answer your question, quite nicely.

Given the student is going to be trained to always move first, you will learn how good it feels to make your move before your attacker makes his. And you will learn why you will always have time to be the first to strike your attacker well before they can blink their eyes.

The woman is trained to move her entire torso a good 36” before the attacker can blink his eyes, let alone do anything like moving a knife to cut her throat. Why is that? Because the body, when reacting, to visual stimuli uses about 1.5 seconds per reaction. You will see that this length of time is a really plenty of time! It gives the average untrained beginner, loads of time to do what needs to done. She will sting him with his own blade like a ghost in his personal machine.

But there is more than just the reaction time to learn about. Now we have to answer the question of what could an average woman or a girl do to make the above statement true? She can learn to perform several movements of her body all at the same time which will make her a “producer and mover of her body’s beginning location” over to where she needs it to be in a much faster elapsed time than it would take to do all the things she is going to do if she did them one movement at a time. Our “magic word, and the phrase that pays” is called “AS” which signifies to my students that they learn to do many movements, but always at the same time, effectively cutting the “preparation” time to the target by at least 80% or more. This makes her a very effective producer of her body’s steps (which can really cut her time) that it takes to do the normal moves of any martial artist. That was a martial arts secret that will become normal for you as you learn the self-defense technique.

But today, I am going to give all my students a bonus martial arts instructor to student “trick” and you get to be the the joker! We have talked about reaction time as being 11/2 seconds in duration of time and I think though, to add a “small-degree-of-insult-to-injury” let me tell you this little truth that no one and I mean no one can refute. I won’t even ask you, my reader, if you can do this because I have asked too many women all over the world in classes, demonstrations and workshops this one single solitary question. And here it is: Can you fool a man? Because if you can fool a man, and I have never known of or met a woman who couldn’t I need to tell you this: if you know when you are going to commence the counter attack and he knows nothing and you decide that you are going to fool a man first, just for fun, here is what you do.

First take a deep breath and relax, “be dead still on the inside and be quick on the outside”. Ask him if he minded if you said a little prayer for yourself? When he says: you want to do what? You start your counter attack when you hear the sound of the w coming out of his lips and long before the t in the word what is sounded out.  In fact you want to hit him so hard that he never gets to even finish the word what? You commence firing your empty hands techniques on the sound of the w and that’s the start of your counter attack and you don’t stop until he is on the ground.

Why though, ask if you can say a little prayer for yourself? Because it would be the most off the wall, crazy thing you could say to him. Because it will confuse him for just long enough to be immobilized for a second, (frozen actually, he will be physically unable to move and you will have a free extra second of complete luxurious, utter safety!  And for sure, he will be without any movement towards you. And also for sure, you will appreciate by realizing that one question was important to you: that you did in fact trick, a man as sure as you are female. This is a martial arts secret for you to tell no one but the women and girls that you are training and coaching with.  Remember if it is not going to be funny, why say it? Your girls are certainly going to want to hear the details so remember: “Do you mind if I say a little prayer for myself?” 

Now, onwards to the actual counter attack! If the knife is not touching your body but it is close, that is ideal placement of his body for you. No extra step is required of you. You do three things at the same time. Form your right spear hand to your right side waist if he is standing about 2-3 feet away. Right foot (pointing forward) slides to your left foot (also pointing forward), as (there’s that word) your left hand grabs the wrist of the outstretched arm. AS you are doing those three things, in the same instant, you are also pivoting on the ball of your right foot and hopping to the right side of the attacker, as your right spear hand penetrates the attacker’s trachea. You should be able, with practice, do the entire technique, in less than a second.

In demonstrations that I have done over these last 45 years, I can do the technique in the blink of an eye with no problem. My students can do this too. This is where on-going practice is so important to you. In my video presentation, I will go over these moves in great detail for you.

The web site is www.Protecttheroses.com and you are invited to come and buy this video, where the cost is $1.00 USD.  You keep the video for life and pass it on to your daughters. Hope to see you there.

Just take this new adventure of learning how to be a great street fighter a step at a time and a day at a time. Viva’ la revolution!