Tag: self-protection

SAFETY IS AN ILLUSION

SAFETY IS AN ILLUSION

Posted on by Evan Perperis

GUEST COLUMN BY EVAN PERPERIS, A U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES COMBAT VETERAN AND A WORLD CHAMPION OBSTACLE COURSE RACER

Tiga Tactics has several slogans that describe how they approach self-defense. We are going to do a little deep dive into some of them and explore each one in more depth.

The first one is “Safety is an illusion.” Let’s look into what this means.

While you may live in a nice neighborhood without a lot of crime, this is just an illusion. All it takes is one person with bad intentions to shatter this peaceful atmosphere. While some criminals may operate with targets of opportunities in their own neighborhoods, all it takes is just one violent offender to drive to your upscale area to start committing crimes. After all, when a thug wants something expensive, he doesn’t go hunting in the ghetto.

This is how most terrorist attacks have occurred in the United States — someone evil does something unfathomable that no one expected to happen.

On a smaller scale, let’s look at your house or neighborhood. Even if you live in a gated community with tall fences and security guards, how secure is that community really?

While fences and gates may discourage people, it really only stops the lazy and those who aren’t dedicated. As someone who spent most of his adult life looking for security vulnerabilities of not only my own forces to enhance force protection but also of our nation’s enemies to exploit their weaknesses, I can attest that is definitely true.

Furthermore, how much of your life is spent behind your gated community wall?

A good percentage of your life is spent at work, driving to/from work, socializing in public, eating at restaurants or wherever else you go for fun. Most of those places have little to no security. With safety being so fragile and fleeting, you don’t want to wait until after something bad happens to decide you should prepare for it. Instead, you prepare ahead of time so you are ready when you end up in a bad situation.

In the military world, we have a series of truths that guide our behavior of developing and using Special Operations Forces (SOF). One of these SOF truths is “competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur.” While this is focused on SOF, I would argue that it is true across the board. You can’t be a competent protector and get prepared for an emergency after it occurs.

If you’re figuring out what to do in an emergency after it has occurred, it’s already too late.

This is why Tiga Tactics talks about mental games to play in some of their courses to help with situational awareness. This is why it teaches important defenses against common types of attacks. This is why it teaches how to go on the offensive using their P.R.O. methodology (Protect, Reposition/Restrain, Offense).

You need to start training now so you are prepared when the emergency does occur. Luckily for you Tiga Tactics has a full suite of online courses available at your disposal right now that you can start training from the comfort of your own home

Train With A Special Forces Combat Vet

If you want to train with Evan Perperis in person, secure your seat for the upcoming Modern Self-Protection Seminar.

He will be a featured co-instructor at the debut of our new program on October 17-18, when he’ll show you how to stop an armed threat — from both sides of the muzzle.

Having been deployed to some of the most dangerous places on the planet and earned instructorships in multiple combat systems, Evan will also share how his experiences shaped his approach to personal protection.

Secure Your Seat

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A SPECIAL FORCES SOLDIER USE TIGA TACTICS COMBATIVES AGAINST OTHER SOLDIERS

Posted on by Evan Perperis

GUEST COLUMNIST:
EVAN PERPERIS — A U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES MAJOR (RETIRED) & A CHAMPION OBSTACLE COURSE RACER

“LIVE” KNIFE DEFENSE APPLICATION

It should surprise no one that, as a certified Tiga Tactics instructor, I like and believe in the techniques and content that Tiga Tactics has created.  However, I don’t put them all on equal levels. 

The one I had the least confidence with, Knife Defense, I actually had the opportunity to pressure test.  Here’s that story and why I have greater confidence in this program than ever before.

Methodology in Training: 

As part of the military, we like to increase the stress on soldiers through training.  This is done in an incremental fashion, much in the way Tiga Tactics teaches by starting off “slow,” then going to “smooth,” than gradually speeding things up to “fast.”

This is a common practice you will see in all of Tiga Tactic’s online courses; the military calls this approach “crawl, walk, run”.

Situation:

As part of training, we did a “live” (AKA competitive) drill where one person was armed with a Shocknife and the other person had no weapons at all. 

The Shocknife delivers a jolt of electricity — up to 7,500 volts — like a stun gun if you touch the “blade edge.” Clearly, this is the “run” or “fast” phase of training. 

The goal of the unarmed person was to disarm the person with the Shocknife.  The soldiers were taught several self-defense techniques.  One of the options partially overlapped with what Tiga Tactics teaches in their Knife Defense course but with some (what I would call significant) differences.

Each soldier was then required to disarm his opponent in a round robin fashion by grappling over the Shocknife.  For the drill you ended up doing three disarms against three different attackers.

Plan of Execution:

Rather than use the military-taught technique, I decided to use this as an opportunity to pressure test Tiga’s techniques, since I would get to watch other people use the different military techniques around a couple of dozen times.  I was excited to test it out because unlike a martial arts class where everyone is learning the same technique, the other soldiers wouldn’t know my plans and thus would respond more instinctively and naturally.

Furthermore, the group was legitimately trying to shock each other, as is the case when you take competitive soldiers and put them in an environment where people are watching and judging. 

Results: 

So how did the techniques taught by Tiga Tactics in Knife Defense play out? 

Well out of the three disarm drills, I only got shocked once during disarm attempt number two to my forearm/hand area. 

That was three successful disarms using Tiga Tactics techniques against stakes that are about as high as you can get while still operating in a safe training environment. 

Possible Critique: 

I know what you are thinking, were the soldiers actually going hard in this training environment or just going through the motions? 

If you have worked with Type A personalities like soldiers you probably already know the answer.   The more one person gets shocked often the harder they’ll go the next round, creating an increasing level of resistance that just occurs naturally.  If you still have doubts as to how hard we were training, as further evidence I’ll cite that one of the 12 soldiers broke his hand in the scuffle that was part of the disarm. 

Yes…we were going hard. 

Conclusion:

Not surprisingly, Tiga Tactic’s techniques work when pressure tested.  This is what you get when you take real world video, come up with solutions, pressure test it and refine it to the best product.  If you aren’t training at home, now is the time and with how easy it is to conceal a knife, you may want to start with  Knife Defense.