A principle is a law or rule that has to be, or usually is to be followed, or can be desirably followed, or is an inevitable consequence of something, such as the laws of nature or the way that a device is constructed. In our case we are talking about principles that apply to violence.
Some examples of principles that apply to violence are:
- Violence is an essential survival tool
- Cause-State is you doing violence to your assailant. Every act of violence begins in the Cause- State. Whoever causes the first effect stands the best chance of winning the violent encounter. In the cause-state if you are able to produce an effect you will be acting as the stimulus in the violence. Action always is preferable to reaction.
- Effect-State is the assailant's specific response to serious injury. The human body reacts in specific ways to injury. For example if a man is kicked in the groin, rupturing his testicles, he doubles over and extends his chin. In the Effect-State you get the assailant to react to stimulus.
- Injury is serious debilitating trauma
- Penetration is striking sufficiently hard to reach a vulnerable part of the
body
- Rotation refers to the follow-through in striking.
Two conditions must be present to be successful in the Cause-State. They are:
- Intent - Intent is a single focused desire to inflict serious injury
- Targeting - Targeting is striking at the precise point on the human body
that is susceptible to serious injury.
The principles of the Cause-State are:
- Injure your assailant
- Strike now
- Continue causing injury until the assailant is reduced to a
nonfunctional state i.e. incapacitation, unconsciousness, or death.
The principle of the Effect-State is animals move away from negative stimuli. There are elements common to all reactions.
- The head and hands will move towards the injury
- Strikes to either side of the spine rotate the body in the direction of the
strike
- Strikes above the solar plexus bend the body backward
- Strikes below the solar plexus bend it forward
Learning Template
A useful template for learning what to do when faced with a felonious assault where you might be killed or seriously injured is the following: "Situations dictate Strategies, Strategies Dictate Tactics, and Tactics Dictate Techniques." This approach was developed by Roger Phillips and is explained in great detail in his book, Point Shooting Progressions
This book is highly recommended and is a must read for anyone who wants to learn point shooting. Roger also has authored two DVD's on Point Shooting. These DVD's are worth purchasing as well.
Situations
Situations refer to the context of a felonious assault. A felonious assault should be thought of as a "fight for your life." Some of the items that are pertinent to understanding the situation are:
- Time of the assault,
- Place where the assault happens,
- Amount of light available during the assault,
- Weather conditions
- Type of criminal doing the assault
- Type of weapon being used by the criminal
- Distance from the criminal to the person being assaulted
- Age and physical size of the person doing the assault
- Your age, size, and physical abilities
- Number of persons involved in the assault
- Proximity of loved ones to the person being assaulted
- Whether the person being assaulted is armed
- Whether the person being assaulted can be proactive or must be reactive
Strategies
Strategies refer to the responses that are hard-wired into our DNA. These include freeze, flight, fight, posture, and submission. While each response can have value in specific situations the ones that can benefit from reality-based training are flight and fight. In our courses the use of a flight strategy will be developed by teaching students how to recognize and use flight strategies (movement) that are appropriate to specific situations. Our students will be asked to identify situations where each of our hard-wired responses are appropriate and to understand how to employ different strategies in a smooth fashion. Fight strategies will be taught as well.
Tactics
Tactics define the specific ways that a given strategy is implemented. For example, if your strategy is flight then thought needs to be given to the direction of the flight (movement) along with which movement techniques are most appropriate to implement the movement. If the strategy is fight, then what shooting or other techniques are appropriate to use in the situation.. Within a given strategy, the tactics must be flexible enough to be adapted to fit changing situations.
Techniques
Techniques are the specific skills that the person has available for use. Since no two situations are likely to be exactly the same, it follows that having a limited set of shooting or movement techniques available for use is not the best way to go. Techniques should never dictate your response. In our classes we teach techniques as a continuum. Learning techniques this way provides the maximum flexibility for adapting a technique as the situation changes which is likely to happen in an assault. For example, the type of shooting that will work at contact distances is not appropriate to use at 25 yards. As the distance changes so must the ability to employ a shooting technique that is appropriate to the distance. If you have trained only to use your sights what happens when there is not enough light to see your sights even though you can still see your assailant? The same for movement techniques. A movement technique that will cause an assailant to miss you at 3 feet is not likely to be as effective if the assailant is 50 feet away from you. In the latter case, if available it may be best to move to cover.
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