Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Why I Unfriended Tony Torres

     Well here we are again. I have to take a break from something I'm working on because some doofus is trying to rewrite a past discussion and use some type of straw man fallacy to characterize me in a different light. I did not unfriend Tony Torres because  of a disagreement I unfriended him because of his behavior and dismissive attitude towards myself and others. A Straw Man Fallacy is what it's called in an argument when people tend to reframe the other person's position to gain an advantage. If people disagree then fine but I won't be lied about. This all centered for me around police training. The original argument did not involve MMA specifically it involved skilled fighters in general. Tony had posted some theory using numbers he made up to show that there was almost no chance of anyone having a fighting with a skilled fighter on the street. I pointed out that his equation was flawed that the chances of that happening varied on location and culture. In other words if your an MMA fighter and you hang out with a bunch of MMA fighters and you all drink together then you have a higher chance of getting in a fight with them than you would a wal-mart greeter, or if you were in an area were there were alot of MMA schools you would have a higher chance of it happening than if you were in an area with no MMA schools. Seems pretty logical right? Yeah he blew right past that and got all butthurt because some others agreed with me. He started trying to say that ALL MMA fighters would forsake their training when they got angry and that made his point correct.  Well I'm sure some definitely would forsake that training but all is a stretch. Remember the argument was about skilled fighters, not just MMA. MMA was just an example.
    Now he's posted some video which unfortunately is in a foreign language but it appears to show pro MMA fighters throwing right hand dominate punches and supposedly not fighting like MMA people when they were mad. I have a few points on that.

      No rational person could honestly think the actions of two guys could represent how every skilled fighter in the world would behave under stress. Plus if you really watch it you can see some of the guys using boxing footwork. You see them keeping their hands up.  You see them not leaving their arms out there after throwing punches. Any fighter would keeping throwing right hand dominate punches if no one was blocking it because it's the power side. I'd do the same thing. People with no training at all don't have good footwork and over commit with punches because they try to push with it instead of using inertia( in general). Even moreso in this you have to look at the culture. If these thugs weren't involved in fighting sports would they have even been so aggressive in the first place? Notice I said thugs first. This goes back to culture. Police Athletic Leagues do a great job getting kids off the street and fighting sports can be a positive influence but if they are already thugs to begin with and don't have the right mentor in can go the other way. The point is in the big picture the video proves nothing it's like a statistic taken out of context it's part of the picture but definitely not the entire picture.

   Now back to the original argument. At some point it seemed really pointless to continue the discussion. I believe when you reach an impasse the discussion should end because there is nothing more to be gained from it. So I tried to chalk it up to a gentlemen's disagreement and leave the thread. This wasn't good enough for Tony Torres he had to make things personal and become insulting. You see I'm a police trainer for a living it's what I do. I teach hand to hand combatives in several states such as Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. The discussion got around to police. For some reason he seemed to want to stay on MMA and veer away from the skilled fighter discussion. My position was that skilled fighters should be addressed in police training. His was that it was a waste of time to do so, and continuously said that people who believed in it were chasing ghosts. Now make a note I said addressed. That is not the same thing as saying police officers should train in MMA. I don't believe officers should train in MMA for defensive tactics and I even wrote article called How MMA Can Be Bad For Police Training several years ago and it's still available to read on our website. I believe there are some common sense gross motor solutions that can be taken to deal with the threat that he claims does not exist. When the ghost thing first started it didn't bother me. I thought well I'll give him a couple of examples some of the officers in my classes have gone through. I'll repeat those. The first one was a officer from Brookshire, TX who responded to a call of a guy being irate and threatening people. Two other officers responded to the call. Turns out the guy was a golden gloves boxer. He beat both the officers unconscious and in the process damaging the facial bones of one which would require surgery to correct. He was using  his footwork to keep just enough distance but not enough distance that they could draw a weapon and he made them pay for it. It was during this time that Officer House arrived and the other two officers were already out on the ground and the guy jumped House as he was getting out of his car and knocked a tooth out. House, still cognitive was able to use our training and down the guy. The other example was from Brown County Sheriff's Department in Texas. This was a question in class because a couple officers had been attacked by a third party while trying to cuff someone on the ground. The third party attacked from behind and attempted to pull the officers off with a rear naked strangle. So he had a question about it and we addressed it. It was a simple thing, nothing too complex.
     Now this didn't sit well with Tony Torres. No, even though he was two states away and nowhere near either incident and had no previous knowledge of them he kept trying to say those weren't skilled attacks even though eye witnesses prove they were. When he continued with his "chasing ghosts" rant after that then I started to get angry because continuing to do that after hearing about two solid examples is nothing more than the man either calling me a liar or every officer that has been a victim of these attacks and has attended my class and told me about them. That is ridiculous. It really shows me someone who is overly competitive and lets that nature pull them away from the truth because they care more about winning an argument than helping people. There should be no argument about police training changing to deal with more skilled fighters because it has already changed. The fact is the Arizona Peace Officer Standads & Training, Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards & Education, Alabama Peace Officer Standards & Training, Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards & Training, Tennessee Police Officer Standards & Training, and Oklahoma Council on Law Enforcement Education & Training all already agree with me. They already have things in their basic courses to attempt to address these concerns. These are only the commissions that I have worked with I'm pretty sure other states that have commissions that do the same thing. Now did all these commissions simply make these changes because they like to watch UFC pay per views on weekends? That doesn't even sound intelligent. No they made these changes to keep officers from getting injured. So the burden of proof otherwise isn't on all these commissions it's on a doofus who thinks the entire industry is lying and only he holds the key. One video ain't gonna get it done dude.
     Now I want to talk to you about confirmation bias. This is a term that was brought up by Tony Torres and wrongly applied. I want to tell you how I arrived at my conclusion. For about 10 years off and on I was a bouncer at a gentlemen's club in Huntsville, AL and worked for some of the girls on the side as well. In a given week there were usually a couple fights we had to break up this was in the mid 1990's. You see guys windmilling and throwing John Wayne punches. Basically what you would expect from a bunch of drunks. At the time Alabama was one of the only states in the country where MMA fights were legal(this was before the Dana White era). Birmingham even hosted UFC a couple times. By the 2000's things started to change and people were learning MMA. These people would come into the club and drink. Eventually fights started taking place and they fought different. It wasn't clean like the pros on tv but the footwork was different, distancing was different, restraints were harder because they knew some grappling. That being said it was in it's infancy those guys were nowhere near the level of the guys today and it's much more widespread. My point is a change happened and I saw it. Now a one club is not representative of the world either. It's just one place it would be wrong to make that judgement, but it turned out to be a microcosm over time.  Fast forward a few years later and I'm traveling and training police. Now before I travel to these place you should understand there is alot of prep work that takes place. You don't just set a date and these officers show up. No, you have to call every department in that area and talk to them. Sure you could just email them and I do that too but I like to talk to them. As I spoke to these officers from everywhere a common thread started to emerge. There was a big concern about criminals being better skilled at fighting than the police and police being injured. Even the ones that didn't attend my course were still worried about it. It was the same in every state. Officers were being injured. Now my argument isn't that it is all necessarily done by people who actively train in stuff. If your talking about MMA it could be just people who try to mimic what they see in PPV's. Maybe it's not clean but it can be enough to surprise someone that isn't looking for it. Anyway I was asked if my program addressed this problem before they would send people to train. These coordinators are not delusional. For Torres to be correct every cop who has ever been injured and missed work because of this is lying. No they are not lying Torres is just wrong. Me arriving at my conclusion involves no confirmation bias. For those that do not know the term confirmation bias refers to basically someone arriving at a conclusion while only paying attention to shit they wanted to hear and ignoring evidence that contradicts it. Here is the problem. Officers came to me in class or their admins brought it up on the phone that they were experiencing a problem and asked for help with that problem. So I addressed the problem they were experiencing. Not believed they were experiencing. Not worried they would experience. Problems they were in the process of experiencing. There is no confirmation bias there. I will however give you a good example of confirmation bias. Let's say a guy wants to prove police never have to deal with skilled fighters that it's a waste of time to train for it. So he posts a video to prove it. Meanwhile in his research a rudimentary search of google or yahoo would pull up things like:

Story published Dec 20th 2012 - MMA fighter gets 7 years for attacking police. One officer suffers concussion in Dayton, OH
http://www.wdtn.com/dpp/news/local/montgomery/mma-fighter-gets-7-years-for-attacks#.Ud2dV_UY3ro

Story published today July 10th 2013 - MMA fighter attacks police at a McDonald's. One officer required stitches due to injury
http://www.wifr.com/news/headlineshttp://www.wifr.com/news/headlines/Man_Allegedly_Attacks_Police_Officers_at_Janesville_McDonalds_158321285.html

Harper Wrestler Attacks Wood Dale Cop
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20111024/news/710249729/

Ohio Deputy Attacked By Former Wrestling Champ
http://www.policemag.com/channel/patrol/news/2011/10/13/ohio-deputy-attacked-by-former-wrestling-champ.aspx

     I'm not gonna spend that much time on it but these could be found in a matter of minutes where skilled fighters got into a tangle with cops, more could easily be found with more time. But ignoring all that and posting a video it apparently took him a couple months to find that doesn't actually prove anything is a textbook example of confirmation bias. Now during the first argument I could've easily found a couple of these to post but chose not to. The reasoning being very simple. Who the fuck is Tony Torres to demand anything of anyone? Furthermore, who the hell actually accuses a nation full of DT instructors of confirmation bias while actually being in the middle of committing confirmation bias?

    Now he didn't mention my name  in his recent whatever the hell that was supposed to be but people who were on that thread knew exactly who he was talking about which is why I don't feel bad writing this. So why did I unfriend this guy? Well he isn't my friend and I wouldn't want to be friends with him. He's the kinda guy that takes 15 minutes to explain what anyone else could do in 2. He fakes being humble as long as someone kisses his ass and plays into his ego but gets personal when he is legitimately challenged. He is dismissive towards towards the opinions of others when they contradict him. He is condescending to people. He is one of these guys that tries to correct people when no one asked for his opinion. Dude you are not the God of all knowledge. You are not any smarter than anyone else. There are alot of talented and intelligent people on facebook.

You are not smarter than Mia or Rick.
You are not smarter than Ed La Vos
You are not smarter than Nat McDonald
You are not smarter than me
You are not smarter than Trevor Wilcox
You are not smarter than Chris Roberts
You are not smarter than John Moore
You are not smarter than Richard Dmitri
You are not smarter than Brian Opdenkelder
You are not smarter than Mark Cann
You are not smarter than Marc Joseph
You are not smarter than Wes Derequito
none of us are smarter than Hock Hocheim

There are a whole multitude of people that you are also not smarter than I just can't remember them right now. So when your on facebook you are not entitled to try to talk down to people as if they come on facebook just for your opinion. We all have our strengths and weakness. There's shit we know alot about and there is shit we need to study on a little more. You are not the God of all knowledge your just some asshole with a false sense of entitlement. That is why you were unfriended. Since that last thread I'd forgotten about it and moved on and done other things. The fact that you would still be bringing this up is mind boggling. Agreeing to disagree is too much for you. You just can't handle it. Everyone has to agree with you and your giant brain. When you are in a facebook thread generally everyone on it  is an instructor in something. They all have some type of expertise in something. They are your equal. You should show them at least that much respect. With you trying to continue this bullshit I have lost the little respect for you I still had. You have alot of talent, just not enough that it entitles you to have some smug attitude towards others. Now you can post some reply to this I really don't care I've said my peace. I'm sure you will post something because your character flaws will not allow you to do otherwise. I'm not going to reply anymore. The simple fact is Tony I don't give a shit about you. Your irrelevant to me. You thoughts and opinions mean nothing. You've shit that bed. You just go ahead and do whatever you do and I'll do the same. This is boring to me and I have better things to do.




Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Stonewall Tactical Judo

    First and foremost Stonewall Tactical Judo is a modern day fighting system. It isn't so much based on classical judo as it is based on American Combat Judo from 1944. Though based on Jujutsu it includes more modern and scientific developments in self defense as well as learning strategies. It also draws from other systems such as Catch As Catch Can Wrestling, Boxing, Muay Thai, and other modern systems from all over the world.
     So why call it Judo instead of Combatives or something else? Well frankly with all the saturation and marketing behind it as well as the so-called reality based self defense movement the term "combatives" has lost it's meaning for me. What people are actually teaching today is more like combat martial arts. Combat martial arts basically means your doing the same old mcdojo tactics but your more aggressive with it. People are just taking whatever they do and slapping the word combatives on the end of it for marketing, it just doesn't mean anything anymore. The simple fact is that if you look at the upper level kata of Judo you will find disabling blows,knife defenses, stick defenses, and gun defenses. Does that sound familiar to you? Yep it's everything they teach in modern self defense today. By the way I didn't just pluck the word judo out of  nowhere. I have a 4th dan in Judo and a 6th Dan in Jujutsu as well as a Professorship( Kyoshi Sho). I also have a 5th Dan in Ninjutsu but hey  let's stay on point. Now we don't use the same weapon defenses they teach in Judo I'd like to think we are a little more evolved I'm just saying the blueprint was always there. Actually, W.E. Fairbairn was a Judo exponent as were most of the original "combatives" guys.
    If you've looked at the rest of the site you will notice I teach police departments all over the country and we are going international soon. This system uses the same teaching methodologies as I employ when teach defensive tactics to police. If you read the testimonials over on the S.T.A.R. Method page you will see this teaching method works wonders for these officers. Taking these ideas and applying them to martial arts will get you much better and much faster than you will see in other so- called combatives or reality based systems. I've always disliked the term reality based self defense because it is subjective and situational. We start you out learning verbal de-escalation then managing awareness and avoidance. You can't be attacked if you aren't there. Then we teach you basic self defense. You will be able to reasonably be able to defense yourself after just a few classes. Not a couple years like other systems. Once you have a firm foundation then we can add other things. Want to see us in action? if your in the North Alabama area contact us through the contact us link about a private class. Outside that area you can contact me through the same link about hosting a seminar at your school. You will definitely notice a huge difference in quality. Let us show you that difference.

Thursday, August 30, 2012