# Hello, Fellow Instructors and Practitioners!



## MartialMasters (Dec 8, 2015)

Nice to see a Forum for new members! Michael here representing the Martial Masters Academy. We've just launched after years of production and development, and now are keen to learn more, teach more, talk more, develop more, and just be more active in what ways we can!

For a brief look at who we are, what we're all about, what we do, etc. here's a short video of us in action!
DEMO
(So much of it was a lot of fun and really hard to film, but so worth it...self defense is a deep and wonderful world!)

Looking forward to making some contacts and participating here.
Keep ascending!
Michael


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## Jenna (Dec 9, 2015)

Ciao welcome to MT  I would agree there can at times be a closed minded approach as you say in "the common dojos" to the kinds of situations that we might have to encounter.. good for you.. And can I ask please what do you do different in womens defence?


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## Bill Mattocks (Dec 9, 2015)

Welcome to MT.


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## donald1 (Dec 9, 2015)

Hello.


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## SahBumNimRush (Dec 9, 2015)

Welcome to MT.


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## Tony Dismukes (Dec 9, 2015)

Welcome to MartialTalk!

What exactly is your training background? It's not quite clear from the bio on your website.


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## tshadowchaser (Dec 9, 2015)

Welcome to the forum


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## Paul_D (Dec 9, 2015)

Firstly, welcome.  Secondly, you have a nice looking website.

Thirdly though, it appears though from what I can see that you are confusion fighting with self defence.  The very fact that you use the words “street fight” I find hugely worrying.

Rarely in self defence do muggers, sexual predators, or idiots who want to kick the **** out you because they think you are looking at their girlfriend, square off at you from six feet away in a traditional boxing style stance.  Yet these are the picture I can see on a lot of the videos on you sight.

This is not self defence (which is legal), this is street fighting (which is illegal).






Opportunistic career criminals (muggers, sexual predators, murders) do not approach you or attack you like this.

Perhaps the videos so more realistic civilian self-protection scenarios, but I can only go off the screen shots you are using would be worried from what I can see that you are making the mistake of many male martial artists and mistaking street fighting with self defence.  Also, you appear to only offer physical response to situation, so are you saying the only possible outcome to a self defence scenario is that it ends in violence?  Is avoidance not possible, is verbal de-escalation not possible? 

Your promo video also contains the phrase "become aware", but nowhere on your site can I see any lessons addressing awareness skills.  For example, looking at your women’s self defence breakdown, it is 100% physical techniques:-

Beginner Lesson 1 – Unarmed Striking Part I: Long and Mid-Range Attacks
Strike Focus System Punch/Strike
Palm-Edge Inside/Outer Strike
Elbow Strike

Beginner Lesson 4 – Strength and Safety
Balance
Effective Dodging
Falling and Rolling

Beginner Lesson 5 – Joints and Structure
Wrist Locks
Arm Bar
Shoulder Locks

*Women’s Self-Defense – Practical Application*
Beginner Lesson 7 – Hold Break Part I: Moderate Intensity 
Collar Grabs
Hair Grabs
Wrist Grabs

Beginner Lesson 8 – Hold Breaks Part II: High Intensity
Throat Grab
Head-Locks
Bear Hugs

Beginner Lesson 9 – Indoor Environments
Drunk Uncle Larry
Restrictive Areas
Improvised Weapons

Beginner Lesson 10 – Outdoor Environments
Car Scenarios
The Beach
Sports Equipment and Improvised Weaponry

Intermediate Lesson 6 – Indoors
Drunk Uncle Larry
Bad Dates
Gauging Aggression

Intermediate Lesson 7 – Outdoors
Rape Defense
Purse-Snatching
Double-Arm Grab (from behind)

Advanced Lesson 4 – Dirty Tricks
Eye Jabs
Keys
Feigning Injury

Where are the awareness skills here?

Where is your:-
Threat Awareness & Evaluation
If you can spot and evaluation potentially dangerous situation as or before they develop you can take avoiding action)
Coopers Colour Codes
(Being aware of your surroundings and the people in them, setting action triggers)
Target Hardening
(Learning how career criminals select their victims, so you now what to do and not what to do to make yourself a more difficult target, and therefore lessening your chances of begin selected as a target)
Verbal de-escalation
The Fence
(Protection the personal space form encroachment to avoid begin sucker punched/grabbed)
Pre-emptive strikes
(Including brain engagement in increase your chances of landing a successful strike)
Self Defence Law
(Knowing what you can and can’t do so you don’t have to process "can I do this or not" decision during an altercation.  Also, giving statements to the police and including key phrases as the majority of people consecutive in self defence situations are not convicted on their actions, but on the mistreat they make when giving instate to the police in the immediate aftermath)
Becoming familiar with the Rituals of Violence
(If you know about victims selection and the "interview" process used by criminal, you can spot the  dangers and deal prevent situation escalating).\

In my opinion (and it is of course only my opinion, and is worth no more than that) from what I can see of your material without purchasing the videos, that it is very good, but it is not self defence.  It is illegal street fighting, coupled with the extremely worrying approach of giving lip service to “being aware” without actually teaching awareness skills, coupled with a mind-set of “let’s not try to avoid situations, let’s just wait until we are attacked and _then _we do something".

For me, and many others, Self Defence is  1% Physical response. 4% verbal de-escalation, and 95% Threat Awareness and Evaluation & Target Hardening.

To put it another way.  We don’t teach children to cross the road by teaching them to do a stuntman role if they get hit by a car.  Instead we spend our time teaching them to avoid getting hit by the car in the first place.  All you appear to be teaching is the stuntman role.  As far as I am concerned, The Suzy Lamplugh Trust teach self defence, you are teaching violence/what happens when self protection fails.

Lastly you state "there are no rules" in the street.  I think you will find there are many,  if you hit an assailant and they are incapacitated, and instead of fleeing you stay to "finish the job" you will go to prison.  To teach that there are "no rule" is wholly irresponsible. 

I appreciate that "knife fighting" and "rape defence" will sell more lessons, but you are doing a disservice to your students if you do not address the non physical side of Self Defence.


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## Buka (Dec 9, 2015)

Welcome to MT.


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## Brian R. VanCise (Dec 9, 2015)

Welcome to MartialTalk!


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## Dirty Dog (Dec 9, 2015)

Welcome to MartialTalk. Hope you enjoy it.


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## oftheherd1 (Dec 9, 2015)

Welcome to MT.  Look forward to your future input.


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## MartialMasters (Dec 9, 2015)

Jenna said:


> Ciao welcome to MT  I would agree there can at times be a closed minded approach as you say in "the common dojos" to the kinds of situations that we might have to encounter.. good for you.. And can I ask please what do you do different in womens defence?



The Women's Self Defence section is still a big work-in-progress! We have some starter elements within the regular series (and what we tried to do differently from many other male instructors is have a real girl do the work, and in particular...one with no martial arts training, to really see if our techniques are easy to learn/apply, and would work for a normal gal!).
Once we get the time to do more filming and editing, we're looking forward to getting a pretty slick WSD mini-series done!


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## MartialMasters (Dec 9, 2015)

Tony Dismukes said:


> Welcome to MartialTalk!
> 
> What exactly is your training background? It's not quite clear from the bio on your website.


We've both been around a bit...for myself, I started with several years of Tae Kwon Do (got up to Black), did a year of Kung Fu, too. I've dabbled in Ninjutsu, Krav Maga, and Sambo, but spent several years doing Takenouchi Ryu (even went to Kyoto to train with the grandmaster, that was amazing). I did a lot of independent sparring with passionate practitioners. I've also spent the past several years exploring a lot of Western Martial Arts (I am currently a senior student at Academie Duello, arguably the world's biggest centre for Western Swordplay, wrestling, and Western Martial Arts, etc.!). So, I've even been able to have fun branching out into exotic areas of mounted combat and archery. I love hand-to-hand...but like having fun elsewhere, too! So much to do, so much to learn...quite an adventure!


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## MartialMasters (Dec 9, 2015)

43





Paul_D said:


> Firstly, welcome.  Secondly, you have a nice looking website.
> 
> Thirdly though, it appears though from what I can see that you are confusion fighting with self defence.  The very fact that you use the words “street fight” I find hugely worrying.
> 
> ...


Wow, thank you for offering such a thorough response! This is much appreciated. I will admit, the usage of some terms and glossing over of other details is a bit fuzzy...in particular with the street fighting and lesson overviews. We certainly aren't advocating that people go out and pick fights or anything. We really are focusing on how to react to situations...and that includes proactively! There are elements sprinkled through the series of how to not make yourself a target through attitude and choices, preventative measures, using obstacles, being mindful of environment, and especially with women's self defense: gauging how aggressive a male is (because the last thing you want to do is suddenly get violent and just make everything ten times worse!). There's even bits about dealing with people you don't want to hurt but are dangers to others and themselves, and lots of messy elements that come up in ways more realistic and more subtle than a boxing fight outdoors!
But mostly, to try to defend what we've done a bit better, I'd say that this is really just our beginning. The Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced series are our planned ground-work. We really look forward to branching out more thoroughly in a lot of those other areas (including dealing with fights that start and end within 5 seconds, more about awareness, especially a bit more about knowing laws and what counts as excessive, etc.). Mostly we've found that beginners want to learn how to do techniques. In many martial practices there is a trend from the "external" to the "internal" which manifests itself in many different ways. From striking to body control, or from techniques to mindsets...it is a fairly common progression. Not that we have to follow it...but it was a choice we made to put a bit of focus in this area first and hopefully won't be too bad.

It's all a process, and quite an adventure, and it was certainly impossible to put everything into a one minute demo video!


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## hoshin1600 (Dec 12, 2015)

Hi Michael,  welcome to MT.  While I will admit i am responding before watching the clip, I am with Paul D. on this. After reading your second post on your experience I wanted to point out that there are people out there who specialize in this stuff.  Your background seems to be standard martial arts. This in no way fully qualifies someone to teach self defense. (However many think they are one and the same)  There is to much missing.  It's like a carpenter trying to do a plumbing job. There are overlapping skills but there is a lot of specialized skills and knowledge that need to be learned. I would suggest looking more into the subject.


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## MartialMasters (Dec 13, 2015)

hoshin1600 said:


> Hi Michael,  welcome to MT.  While I will admit i am responding before watching the clip, I am with Paul D. on this. After reading your second post on your experience I wanted to point out that there are people out there who specialize in this stuff.  Your background seems to be standard martial arts. This in no way fully qualifies someone to teach self defense. (However many think they are one and the same)  There is to much missing.  It's like a carpenter trying to do a plumbing job. There are overlapping skills but there is a lot of specialized skills and knowledge that need to be learned. I would suggest looking more into the subject.



Yes, there are people who specialize in self defence outside of formal/standard training...like Tony, who I've worked with and under for over ten years developing the Martial Masters Academy. When I was asked about my Martial Arts background, maybe it was presumptuous, but I figured it was asking about my formal/standard background (the more martial/traditional side of my past)!
Specialization is really good and important, but being well-rounded is pretty good, too!


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## jks9199 (Dec 13, 2015)

MartialMasters said:


> The Women's Self Defence section is still a big work-in-progress! We have some starter elements within the regular series (and what we tried to do differently from many other male instructors is have a real girl do the work, and in particular...one with no martial arts training, to really see if our techniques are easy to learn/apply, and would work for a normal gal!).
> Once we get the time to do more filming and editing, we're looking forward to getting a pretty slick WSD mini-series done!


Here's the problem:  How will you find out if they really work?  Are you going to send her out on the street to be attacked?  Really, you can only test them in the "laboratory" of your training hall.  And there are flaws there... 

I DO think it's great that you're actually trying to figure in a "normal gal" in your program.  But there's more to it than the physical techniques.  There's the awareness and conflict management training (do you know how many woman are not taught to say NO! in a way that they actually mean it? or that it's OK to be rude sometimes?  do you know how many women are victimized because they don't want to be rude?)


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## MartialMasters (Dec 13, 2015)

jks9199 said:


> Here's the problem:  How will you find out if they really work?  Are you going to send her out on the street to be attacked?  Really, you can only test them in the "laboratory" of your training hall.  And there are flaws there...
> 
> I DO think it's great that you're actually trying to figure in a "normal gal" in your program.  But there's more to it than the physical techniques.  There's the awareness and conflict management training (do you know how many woman are not taught to say NO! in a way that they actually mean it? or that it's OK to be rude sometimes?  do you know how many women are victimized because they don't want to be rude?)



Definitely, we have no desire to teach only techniques...there is so much more to it, and I'm looking forward to covering a lot of it in the coming years!

There are flaws everywhere. As has probably been discussed in some other forum topic many times, no single technique or strategy will work in all situations. Nobody can guarantee that a particular mindset or technique will "really work"...but some are undoubtedly a lot more likely to succeed than others, and it is especially easy to see when some attitudes, strategies, or techniques definitely won't work (boy, I've seen some appalling stuff in my day, as have we all!).

Again, there is no perfect art, or perfect strategy, or perfect and ultimate/complete martial defense system anywhere on this planet! We will never be perfect, nobody will be (or can be), but we're still going to try to make the best system and series we can...! Already the three lesson sets we've done have the kind of pacing and content I wished I could have had access to fifteen years ago! And we're just getting started, so much to look forward to!


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## Monkey Turned Wolf (Dec 18, 2015)

This is late, but based on your replies, I would suggest that you add in the awareness, threat evaluation, legal discussion, etc. into the listed schedules as quickly as possible. You don't need to necessarily flesh it out right away or add videos on there, but add it in for yourselves. Having helped build a similar program in the past, it is incredibly easy to forget to add something to the program, and if it's not in the program, especially when it comes to the non martial aspects, it is incredibly easy for a martial artist to overlook it and end up not training it at all, or as much as you should. This can happen regardless of whether or not you're personally trained in those aspects, and whether or not you intend on including them, but having them in the program can serve as a reminder to yourself to teach them/force you to teach them and not forget.


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## Chris Parker (Dec 20, 2015)

Hi, welcome aboard.

I'm not going to deal with your video (I applaud the ideas, but have some issues on the execution… as well as the content of your "self defence"… for another time, perhaps), but was intrigued by some of your background… most specifically, the Koryu and HEMA portions… as there appears no real aspect of such in any of the video or other material I've seen. Had me wondering why you're focusing on a reconstructed sword system… and what you feel that has to offer your "modern street defence system".



MartialMasters said:


> We've both been around a bit...for myself, I started with several years of Tae Kwon Do (got up to Black), did a year of Kung Fu, too. I've dabbled in Ninjutsu, Krav Maga, and Sambo, but spent several years doing Takenouchi Ryu (even went to Kyoto to train with the grandmaster, that was amazing). I did a lot of independent sparring with passionate practitioners. I've also spent the past several years exploring a lot of Western Martial Arts (I am currently a senior student at Academie Duello, arguably the world's biggest centre for Western Swordplay, wrestling, and Western Martial Arts, etc.!). So, I've even been able to have fun branching out into exotic areas of mounted combat and archery. I love hand-to-hand...but like having fun elsewhere, too! So much to do, so much to learn...quite an adventure!



The mention of Takenouchi Ryu in particular caught my eye… especially when combined with some of the other comments around the forums here. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that you're lying… but your understanding is a little off… so I'm not sure how long ago you were with the Ryu. I'm assuming you were training with the Shofukan Dojo in Vancouver under Anna Seabourne, yeah? That explains the mention of Kyoto… however, the line that is found there is not Takenouchi Ryu, it's Takeuchi Ryu Bitchu Den. A small thing, perhaps, but the two other main lines of the Ryu use the pronunciation "Takenouchi Ryu", the Bitchu Den doesn't. Additionally, it's very rare for practitioners of Koryu to refer to the heads of their systems as the "grandmaster"… it's really not a very Japanese way to describe things.



MartialMasters said:


> Just to let you know, I've practiced HEMA for over five years, and am a senior student at one of the biggest schools for Western Swordplay in the world. And I trained under a legit Samurai in Kyoto (not a bullshido guy, but 33rd generation grandmaster from an unbroken line originating in the Warring States period), so I'm not a "keyboard warrior" who just wathces Anime and jackie chan movies and thinks himself an authority!



Yeah… Ono Sensei is not the 33rd Generation head of the Ryu… he's the 16th of the Bitchu Den (for the record, the Soke and Bunke/Sodenke lines are in the 13th and 14th Generations respectively), and he is not a "legit samurai", as the samurai were a warrior class, and there aren't any, legit or not anymore.



MartialMasters said:


> I remember many years ago when I went to a martial art demo in Kyoto (that I was going to participate in). I'd learned my part, was ready to do my thing, and was looking forward to seeing some cool stuff. Then out of nowhere, it began with some incense being burned, and chanting, and people bowing to some little stone figure. And we all had to do this. I had no idea what on Earth was going on, or why this was being done, or what it meant ("Is this some symbolic activity I just don't get? Is this real-life idolatry, which I've only read about in books? Is it just a tradition and I've been left totally in the dark?").



Really? This surprised you? It was most likely the Shimogamo Jinja… a Shinto shrine… which is one of the most common form of locations for these Embu (martial demonstrations)… and you were surprised that there were Shinto religious elements at what is essentially a Shinto religious location and event?

My point is that, while this is part of your background, you might want to hold what you say about the system… as the initial impression given was that you were making it up, due to the number of factual, philosophical, and cultural errors, combined with the almost entire lack of any resemblance to anything like Koryu methodology in general, or Takeuchi Ryu in particular… but I'm presently chalking that up to you only being involved for a short time a while ago, and your memory being a little cloudy. But again, I'd be cautious about exactly what you're presenting.


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## Tony Dismukes (Dec 20, 2015)

MartialMasters said:


> Already the three lesson sets we've done have the kind of pacing and content I wished I could have had access to fifteen years ago!



Just a question about pacing...

I was looking through your lesson descriptions and this caught my eye.



			
				Martial Masters website said:
			
		

> *Content:* Shoot Counters (Body Peel, Close-Quarters Lock), Hip Throw Counters, Kicking Counters (Front, Side, Roundhouse). Counter Throwing, Counter Kicking, Training Tips, and more!
> 
> *Specific pre-requisite recommendation:* Beginner Lessons 1-6, Intermediate Lessons 1, 3-4
> 
> *Lesson runtime:* approximately *6 minutes*



That's a lot of unrelated material to cover in 6 minutes. If I was putting together videos on those topics it would probably end up being several hours worth without even going into extreme depth. You can doubtless squeeze in a quick demo of a technique for each topic listed, but how are you fitting any real instruction in that time?


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## MartialMasters (Dec 24, 2015)

Chris Parker said:


> Hi, welcome aboard.
> 
> I'm not going to deal with your video (I applaud the ideas, but have some issues on the execution… as well as the content of your "self defence"… for another time, perhaps), but was intrigued by some of your background… most specifically, the Koryu and HEMA portions… as there appears no real aspect of such in any of the video or other material I've seen. Had me wondering why you're focusing on a reconstructed sword system… and what you feel that has to offer your "modern street defence system".
> 
> ...



The Classical Jujutsu was mostly under Alex Kask at UBC, and through Tony Abry that we went to Kyoto. I've heard Takeuchi and Takenouchi used, mainly the former where I was. I was in Japan for only a short time, but spent about five years training it in Canada.

That and the HEMA aspect of my martial background are just part of what I've done...there's no sword in sight for even one clip in our lessons. Cross-training has just helped me be well-rounded. I'd be less than half the martial artist I am now if it wasn't for all I've been able to see and do!

I was long ago in my early twenties when I went to Japan, and I had never travelled much prior to that trip. It was an eye-opener, and I was surprised by lots of things over there!


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## MartialMasters (Dec 24, 2015)

Tony Dismukes said:


> Just a question about pacing...
> 
> I was looking through your lesson descriptions and this caught my eye.
> 
> ...



We have videos, voice-overs, and text to optimize how much is presented. It may seem like a bit too much all at once, but it flows well! The beauty of videos is how easy it is to pause, rewind, etc., too! Also, with the long list of prerequisites as we build up to certain aspects, it means we don't have to explain every single small detail, which also saves time. Also, once someone gets to intermediate and advanced...it is expected that students already have some understanding of the art...which means not needing to spoon-feed quite as much. So, certainly as the series progresses, some of the areas in a few videos are given just a short flash, with several concepts, techniques, and ideas presented for inspiration (for more experienced practitioners to get a healthy handful of things to play with). Meanwhile, other core areas are fleshed out more thoroughly.


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