Joe Hubbard's Street Survival Close Quarter Combatives Blog

Attack Strategies & Counter Assault Options

Most people when faced with a violent attack are afraid of the unknown.  Fear and anger can take a trained black belt and reduce him to a white belt in a matter of moments.  In other words, not knowing what your attacker’s opportunities are increases your anxiety exponentially when you are “in the moment” of [...]

Stories, Anecdotes & Metaphors

All of us have probably experienced the power of a good story.  In fact, most of us were brought up by listening to stories, anecdotes and metaphors either by being read to at bedtime, or bestowed to us by our mentors to enhance our wisdom and increase our general knowledge of the University of Life. One of the [...]

Practice! Part 3

Recapitulate   Reflective learning enables you to reflect on how you would use your skills for future situations.  I recommend keeping a “reflective learning journal” where you “collect” your ideas and interpret what you have learned previously.  This way you are always linking the skills you have learned to some type of active application.  It is also useful [...]

Practice! Part 2

    Motor Memory Once you understand the basic movements required for the attributes, skill sets and applied combat scenarios that you are learning, it is then advisable to commit the understanding of these movements into your long term motor memory.  This is the way forward to internalising whatever it is that you are learning- maintaining it and [...]

Practice! Part 1

What does mastery actually mean?   It defies classification, but is always recognisable.  It comes in many varieties, yet follows the same successful principles.  It bears many rewards, but is not so much of an end goal or a destination as such, but rather a journey of self-discovery.  As the axiom goes, “It’s not about the [...]

Danger Indicators

In general, most people do not instantaneously switch from being a non-violent person into a raging lunatic overnight.  Garden variety non-violent people do not “snap” or decide on the spur of the moment to solve every problem with full-on violence.  Instead, the road towards violence is an evolutionary one, with numerous “danger indicators” along the [...]

Hard Target with Soft Skills?

All threats are not to be treated in the same fashion.  With that said all threats should be taken seriously and dealt with quickly and efficiently. In today’s environment, many close protection operators tend to adopt a “one size fits all” approach to any signs of potential danger.  The response to every threat becomes the same, [...]

Establishing a Belief System

Your values and belief system contributes significantly towards how you will respond to the threat of a violent attack.  Your attitudes about self defence, the defence of others and the defence of your property all begin here.  All people are shaped by what they have experienced in the past; by what they have seen and by [...]

Threading the Needle

Have you ever tried to thread a needle?  If you have, you may have noticed that your hand was perfectly steady until you were very close to the eye of the needle and suddenly your hand starts to shake uncontrollably.  The pressure of getting the thread into the very small opening of the needle causes [...]

First Boot Camp Successfully Completed!

On Sunday December 6th, 2009 my first Certified Professional Combatives Instructor Boot Camp was successfully completed.  Six hard-core participants grafted week-by-week through some of the most gruelling 6-hour sessions I have ever taught; definitely not for the faint or the weak hearted! All of the lads on the course passed their assessment with flying colours and [...]

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