SCARS

[Stephenjudoka]

Ken,

Thanks for your comprehensive reply.
Sorry it was not me on the firearms/weapon contest between USA and GB. (I have only competed at Judo/Wrestling/Sambo)
If you come over to England let me know and perhaps we could meet up and arrange some training etc.
I know of many who would like to attend.

Once again thanks for your reply.

Stephen Sweetlove

[James Williams]

Stephen,

That was Ken's sense of humor, reference our countries mutual unpleasantness in the late 1700's. Where are you in England? Do you have a law inforcement and/or military background? Most of our training is in regards to a weapons based environment is this what you are interested in?

Regards,

[Stephenjudoka]

Silly me. very funny.

Stephen Sweetlove

[Derek McDonald]

"I have some observations and questions:- I know the heart rate does not determine who will perform better, but surely if the heart rate goes from 50 bpm to 180 bpm in a split second, this is an indication of the chemical cocktail kicking in."

" I am a great beliver in scenario training, I like to make it as realistic as possible (but it must be safe) and I have found the more of this I do the better the performance in live situations.
My question is how does one learn to control their breathing when suprised and not in a situation they have been in before."

Stephen,

I think you already have most of the answer. You overcome the adrenaline and increased heart rate by engaging in realistic training similar to the threat you expect to encounter. Adrenaline is not all of the problem, it makes me jumpy and elevates my heart rate, but what really does me in is my inability to process and analyze information with enough speed, and my attachment to a particular outcome (winning).

When I experienced my first force-on-force gunfighting simulation (with Ken Good) I felt like a fish out of water, every thing seemed to happen faster than I could react, I experienced sensory overload, and as a result I recieved a lot of high-velocity vectored instructional feedback (I got shot with paint projectiles). Three things allowed me to quickly improve my performance under duress, (1) I focused on controlled breathing, (2) I practiced some basic techniques and memorized a few basic principles of force-on-force (as taught by Ken) and (3) I spent enough sustained time training in force-on-force scenerios (with proper coaching from qualified instructors) that time no longer seemed compressed and I no longer experienced sensory overload to the degree that I had.

According to Ken Good, "The cornerstone of meaningful tactical training is the engagement of living, thinking targets that can, and do, shoot back versus the typical stationary silhouettes found on a range...This type of training is conducted with non-lethal, projectile firing training weapons. By learning to solve problems in a realistic high-stress environment an individual will be much more likely to succeed on the street or in combat when it counts..."

As an aside, some people say that there is no substitute for the actual experience of a gunfight (I have never heard this from an actual gunfight survivor). It has been my experience that once your unprotected flesh has been impacted by a paint projectile traveling at 270 fps, you will no longer differentiate between what is "real" and what is simulated, you will simply seek to avoid the next impact and all the pain that comes with it.

Here is the good news: with a valid principle-based operating system, good trainers teaching good tactics, and realistic force-on-force scenarios, you can greatly improve your odds of surviving a gunfight with as little as eight hours of training. How is that possible? It comes back to the "principle-based" part. Learning and then utilizing 8 or 10 overarching principles is much more practical than trying to remember a complex set of techniques and rules. The training I recieved from Ken was based on just such a set of principles, making it relatively easy to apply with a minimal amount of training. In case I have confused anyone with my attempt to communicate the difference between principle-based operating systems and ones that are technique-based, allow me to offer the analogy of learning to ride a bike: When your father/mother taught you to ride they did not (I hope) explain the proper angle of pedal attack, the sequence of minute adjustments your muscles would have to make, or how the laws of physics would interact througout the day. They told you to get on, keep your head up, and pedal like hell. In otherwords, they gave you a brief rundown of three principles: Stay vertical, maintain forward motion, and have fun. Your first attempt may have been a disaster, but by the end of the day you had a basic and life-long ability to ride bikes.

I'm not saying that the technical aspects of a combative art are not important, I'm just saying that when training for high-risk situations you should start with the principles and follow with realistic practice before seeking to apply sophisticated techniques.

Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble on an interesting subject.

Derek McDonald

[SELFDEFENSE]

I came to SCARS as a civilian who carries a concealed handgun(s)looking for basic unarmed skills to fill in better the center of my force continuum, and to enhance my ability to protect the gun from being taken away during an encounter which started as less than lethal.

I went to the SCARS partner board and found five people in my area who were using the Hostile Control System, Trainer's Review tape, and H-2-H Professional Series tapes to practice the system.
All the members except one had previous MA experience; the most experienced being a 2nd degree black belt in karate and the others Aikido, college wrestling, and judo.
Yes, the hype that it was adopted by the Seals helped lure me (us) in. (However, the ludicrous claims of being "undefeatable" and the money-back guarantee if you were butt-kicked in a fight were many times a source of hilarity; especially trying to figure out how to posthumously collect on the guarantee.)

After doing the various moves a fair number of times and trying to defeat the moves, it was clear that many of the technique chains were not practical. Also, the people with martial arts experience were always commenting on how each new technique chain was drawn from various traditional martial arts.

We set out to distill all the techniques to one technique per assault type (e.g., choke from behind, punch from the front, etc.), which we felt was the best from the standpoint of:
depending only on gross motor skills, least easily countered by an unschooled opponent, worked more on skeletal manipulation or function disruption than pain compliance, worked on assailants with heavy clothing, was easiest to apply against left- and right-handed attacks, was best in a multiple-attacker situation, and best lent itself to a smooth aggressive flow of execution; all divided into lethal and non-lethal versions. I made a tape of that distillation and that is what we used to practice and put into our toolbox.
Since in a fight you have to do something other than stand there and get hit, this is one of the things we studied to do in such a situation. There are probably better systems out there, and maybe a few that are worse. But from the standpoint of someone who does not want to spend a lot of time going to a school in a particular art, the tapes provided a means to get started doing something as long as you were willing to intensively go thru the tapes at the beginning and discard the majority of techniques that had serious flaws.
I think one of the strengths of SCARS is the opposite of Peterson's advertising hype. It is not some new undefeatable magic art, but rather a wholesale borrowing and chaining of many of the traditional Eastern arts into a basic level system which may be useable as long as the KISS principle is strictly followed.

[Sgathak]

I followed this thread from beginning to end. Alot of you made wonderful comments.

The marketing is a joke
Peterson has absolutly no respect for "tradition"
his claims are based on "science"
the system is gross motor skills based.
etc etc etc

I think that with few exceptions much of the actual exposure many of you have had with thi system is based on SCAR/HCS.

HCS is NOT "SCARS".. it is "demilitarized" it is rough, it is brutal, and it is there to keep you alive. many of you critisized the techniques as being sophmorish and basic. Thats the point. They are just that. KISS. the "meat" of the system is the Autokenimatic responses which i didnt see a SINGLE post on. Autokenmatic responses are medically provable and more importantly scientifically reproducable.

there are levels of response depending on various critieria. (ie a testical kick will produce X response 99 out of 100 times, in varying degrees of severity. (the remaining 1% are usually drug related.) The key to SCARS is understanding the reactions of the body and setting up targets using those principals.

I in NO WAY consider SCARS to be fake or phony, just misunderstood. I also do not think its philosophy is limited to SCARS. Peterson and his company will tell you SCARS is a complete system... Nope. But the science in it is a PERFECT augmentation to other systems.

Also, I think that many of your "reviews" of the tapes were again, just the HCS tapes (which Peterson no longer sells) and you would do yourself a significant amount of good looking at the stuff produced by him (NOT TRS like the HCS tape was) I recommend the tape package IQS-1. If looked at objectivly and responsibly it will shed valuable insight into fighting.

[Michael Morning]

Hi, Sgathak,

Some good points...I also liked the simplicity of the movements from what little I saw. In real life-and-death fights you do need to hit first, hit hard, hit effectively, and move on (esp. against multiple attackers). However...

Two questions/problems I had:

1) The sounds you were supposed to vocalize when striking I thought were pretty silly and the reason behind them seemed fairly shallow. I would think 0 effeciveness would be lost by omitting them.

2) I was pretty stunned to see the HUGE amount of telegraphing of strikes and punches. The training shown against the dummies was ludicrous...we always called those types of punches where the guy cocks his fist clear back over his own shoulder as "hillbilly punches" or "haymakers". I love when guys throw them because they are so great to defend against. A seriously hard strike can be thrown using the whole body without ever cocking the arm. And really, this is Martial Arts 101 knowledge level spanning most any style.

[Sgathak]

1) The sounds you were supposed to vocalize when striking I thought were pretty silly and the reason behind them seemed fairly shallow. I would think 0 effeciveness would be lost by omitting them.

I agree with you. on the surface. bare with me here... if you look over his video "breathing dynamics" it explains pretty comprehensivly what he is doing. Though he denies it pretty intensly in the video it is actually a form of Kiai. In the video he explains that actually making the sounds allows you to "hear" the way the air should move. YA! DOH! RA! However... once you understand the breathing dynamics he says your supposed to STOP making the sounds. (the SEALs would loose the element of surprise pretty quick if they made goofy ass sounds with the first sentry they took out eh?) the sound itself is irrelevant, its the breathing that matters. dont beleive me? try doing a drop onto something and holding your breath... then retry it and as you fall say "DOH"... the sound release lets your body put full mass into the fall. All 4 sounds in SCARS are there for a reason. Though it may not be apparent without real life instruction.

2) I was pretty stunned to see the HUGE amount of telegraphing of strikes and punches. The training shown against the dummies was ludicrous...we always called those types of punches where the guy cocks his fist clear back over his own shoulder as "hillbilly punches" or "haymakers". I love when guys throw them because they are so great to defend against. A seriously hard strike can be thrown using the whole body without ever cocking the arm. And really, this is Martial Arts 101 knowledge level spanning most any style.

True, no doubt, the telegraphing in the videos is appaling. However in later videos which are more "advanced" techniques with almost no telegraphing because they come from the "natural" posture (shizen no Kamae).

Remember HCS is not SCARS.. it is "Hostile CONTROL systems" Its to keep you alive in a bar fight or a street brawl or a mugging... Its allows you to CONTROL the situation just long enough that you and your family can get away safely. NOT to take to the Dojo to go toe to toe with.


(typo edit plus a few additions)

J Robbins

[Kit LeBlanc]

Originally posted by Sgathak

many of you critisized the techniques as being sophmorish and basic. Thats the point. They are just that. KISS.


the "meat" of the system is the Autokenimatic responses which i didnt see a SINGLE post on. Autokenmatic responses are medically provable and more importantly scientifically reproducable.

there are levels of response depending on various critieria. (ie a testical kick will produce X response 99 out of 100 times, in varying degrees of severity. (the remaining 1% are usually drug related.) The key to SCARS is understanding the reactions of the body and setting up targets using those principals.

.

KISS is always a good thing, and probably a good point of the system.

But I think if you go back and read more carefully, you will see Ken Good and at least one other person discussing "autokinematic response," if not in those words. And there is where one of the problems lies.....no matter how much so-called "scientific" data you present, I have been in enough rough and tumbles to know people RARELY move the way you expect them to move in response to a strike/hit/etc. Ken put it succinctly "I don't expect my techniques to do ANYTHING.... " this is wise advice, and more often than not what is to be had in the real world.

[Sgathak]

Autokinematics arnt fool proof. Understanding them however can do absolutly nothing but help... as long as you dont fall into the trap of RELYING on them.

example from personal experience. One of my only "real" exposures to Aikido was at a YMCA where an Aikidoka was demonstating (it was a weird "open dojo" type thing) a throw against a huge hulk of a guy. The big body builder dude wasnt getting thrown though. He was about twice this Aikido guys size and could out muscle him... Well, I had a friend in the "audience" teach me how to do the throw... It was rough and very inelegant, but when I pulled the Big guy to the side after the "demo" I asked if I could try it out. He said sure and I grabbed him by the wrist with one hand and smacked him on the radial nerve before I did the throw... the throw was ugly but he went down. It wasnt because I out muscled him or anything, I was about the same size as the Aikidoka... It was because i KNEW that giving that nerve a quick smack before I did the lock and throw would keep him from locking up his muscles. I didnt HAVE to out muscle him because his muscles essentially didnt work.

I would never fully rely on SCARS, (My personal system of Combat integrates Taijutsu, Hoshinjutsu, SCARS, and ROSS, as well as a few other arts interspersed...) I know better and have got my ass kicked trying to do just that. BUT. It has some GREAT prinicipals that ARE based on science... Principals that I think anyone would be doing a disservice to themselvs by not integrating to their personal system... or at least understanding the principals and not debunking the whole concept because the guys on film yell funny or you dont like how they talk about "chi" or you think the video is hoaky. there are more to the arts (ANY art) than can be shown on film...

[Sgathak]

why isnt it posting my Sig?

hopefully it will work this time

[Sgathak]

J Robbins

[Michael Morning]

Sgathak,

Interesting to note your training background...I'm familiar with Taijutsu (I'm assuming you mean Bujinkan/Genbukan/Jinenkan taijutsu though aikido also refers to their empty hand as taijutsu), my wife and I trained once with Glen Morris at a seminar for Hoshinjutsu, but what is ROSS?

Just curious.

[Sgathak]

Please also note, I didnt list my training background for any other reason that to illustrate that im not in the "cult of peterson" now, moving on....

I ment Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu with a snippit of Genbukan Taijutsu here and there.

(the following is taken from their website and edited by me for brevity LOL) ROSS is a Russian Martial Art with a history stretching back into what is considered the "Tribal Period" (one of 6 noted periods in its develoment). Its started it development between uprisings between the Kosog and Pencheng Peoples.

in the Southern Period (3 of 6) it was influenced by the Huns, Tartars, and other "Barbarian Hordes". The "western period"

(4 of 6) is when Firearms became common place and hand to hand combat became a secondary skill and therefore was more "exclusive".

In the Global period (5 of 6) was during the communist era. During their regime, they attempted to repress all nationalistic martial traditions of native lineage. The result of this was the creation of a group assembled by Stalin to develop a combat system and national sport that would unite the Soviet State under one combative tradition and one national sport. The sport was Sambo. Due to the influence of foreign "tricks", Sambo soon became a mere curriculum of techniques lacking any high degree of depth and substance. At higher levels within the military, among the elite combat subdivisions of the Special Forces ("Spetsnaz"), Russian Martial Art remained in practice and was further developed as a science of biomechanics and psychophysiology ("Survival under extreme conditions referred to as "Combat Sambo Spetsnaz.")

The contemporary training of Russian Martial Art, culminating from each of these periods of influence and development, is known as R.O.S.S. - "Russian Native Self-Defense System". ROSS is the national training system of Russia, directed by the International and All-Russian Federation of Russian Martial Art, who was approved and recognized by the National Olympic Committee of Russia as the sole representative of Russian Martial Art, within Russia and worldwide. R.O.S.S. is further recognized by the Russian Ministry of Sport, and by Russian President V. Putin

The Global period of influence dealt with the nature of combat during this century. Therefore, weapons adopted by the Russian Martial Artist included bayonet-equipped AK47 machine gun, the earlier SKS rifle, even earlier carbine, the spetsnozh (special forces knife/bayonet), entrenching tools (shovels), throwing knives, batons, military belts (used as whips and immobilizing shackles), pistols, sword (European saber and Cossack shashka), axe.

Following the fall of the Soviet Union ROSS was allowed out of Russian Borders... The man who was asked to head up the Training in the US is named Scott Sonnen. He was trained by Gen. Alexander Retuinskih with the admonition "don't try to be Russian. Take ROSS and improve American life." The Universal Period took Russian-Style ROSS and transformed it into a System of Performance Enhancement for all aspects of physical culture. Scott Sonnon and Nikolay Travkin, President of AARMACS, Inc. and General Director of the American Annex, enlisted the aid of an American team of researchers, Benjamin Brackbill, Scott Fabel, Shawn Menard and Michael Hults - collectively "the American National Instructor Cadre" became the forefathers of the ROSS Performance Enhancement System. No longer was this "Russian-Style" but now through the sciences of Biomechanics and Psychophysiology, ROSS became a Performance Enhancement System of Somatic Engineering through the vehicle of martial art.


ROSS is very cool because not only does it have such a colorful history but its movements and actions are so fluid and graceful. It is often ranked with Aikido and Taichi for its fluid movements, but also due to its Force of Force philosophy. it is extremely homeopathic in this sense. The homeopathic approach is seen in very few forms of martial art, for it orients not on attrition, not on conquering and controlling adversary, but on non-resistance and amplification. (the following is from their website word for word) The homeopathic approach does not resist force (symptom or foe). It does not impose force against force or resist force with subsequent force, but finds alignment with the nature of the conflict, empowers it, and guides it to resolution. Only three major martial art forms appear to practice this approach: Aikido, Tai Chi Chuan, and ROSS. The ROSS doctrine, being a homeopathic approach, is based upon a unique amalgam of the concepts of Non-violence, Cooperation, Non-resistance and Plasticity.

One could interpret Non-violence as being present in certain esoteric Chinese schools of martial art, in soft, natural movement, as well as in the flowing motion of the Morihei Ushieba's Art of Peace. In the coordinated search for harmony of Aikido and in the soft, sensitive Pushing Hands of Tai Chi Chuan, one can see indications of the homeopathic approach.

However, ROSS differs from both the Art of War, which we have seen above, and the Art of Peace, such as Tai Chi Chuan and Aikido. This should be obvious for War and Peace are corollaries of the same doctrine. Non-violence is perpetually confused with Peace. Peace is the cessation of War; and War exists only in the culture of the practitioners of ad baculum ("Might Makes Right"). A bobcat killing a rabbit is not violence or warfare though the doctrine of ad baculum would attempt to convince you so. A bobcat killing a rabbit is only misperceived as violence, and therefore not peaceful, and therefore 'bad' or 'evil'. Since War is seen as an innate human condition, and not as the cultural creation it truly is, survival is misperceived as warfare. Non-violence refers to neither War nor Peace, which were exclusively fashioned by a specific culture of humans, not to be found anywhere else in the community of life. War and Peace are two wheels of the same cart, trudging along unstable in its anthropocentricity, ignorance, and doom

The rest of this artical can be found here... http://www.amerross.com/character.html its well worth the read



Everything you ever wanted to know about ROSS but were afraid to ask



J RObbins

[Psyillirabbit]

SCARS advocate Kungfool fled from an excellent opportunity to prove that he was more than just words and a hopeless Jerry L Peterson wannabe fraud. An offer was made for an all expense paid trip to Texas for a match, in order to demonstrate that his ability was so much more advanced than all of us "mere martial artists" who spent years developing into the fighters that we are. It is this writer's opinion that he must have ruptured something trying to decline so rapidly. When challenged on his insults to the military and his posts concerning the tragedy in New York as well as the fact that he had never been in a real conflict with his SCARS he did not reply, leading this writer to believe that the truth is too much for him to admit to. Instead he became evasive and insulting as well as obscuring the facts by censoring the posts in his forum. The following challenge came about after several months of insults, lies, and BS in the SCARS club. Below is the commentary. Please let me know what you think.

The challenge-
>>>Kungfool, Your words are meaningless, they are nothing more than typed words on a screen, they neither affect me nor disturb me. Your opinions and thoughts are garbage to me. I know that you have not served your country in any branch of the service, so your conceptions about the service are a waste of time. I also find it to be almost positive that you have never used any of the skills you claim to have in a real fight. I will not waste my time with your gibberish. I will simply address your "professional" opinion with a simple challenge. <smirks>

I am challenging you. Your words are a waste of time, I am betting your skill is as well.

If you can successfully defeat me in unarmed combat I will pay for your flight and expenses to fly to Texas. If not, you pay for the trip yourself and crawl back to your hole where you came from. You will pay for the flight and the lodging up until the "test" after that I will pay you the full sum of your flight, food and lodging. I will not pay up front, as you strike me as the type of person as to be unscrupulous enough to take the front money and run. Sorry if the truth hurts but that is about the level of personal honor that I feel you have. I will cover the location of the "test", the medical personel, as well as the waivers of liability. Before the "test" I will have a third neutral party hold the money for the trip to ensure that you get the money if you should win. Further, there will be a video device present to record the event, and two copies will be made so that each participant has an original unedited copy.

Put up or shut up, the ball is in your court.<<<

Please see post 2

The cowardly decline-
>>>I'll tell you what gentlemen, it never fails to astound me how psychotic these martial artists will become after testing their wills against mine. Well, you now see the result in Psyillisrabid's 4 posts. (The fifth one was deleted due to stupidity.)

Although your challenges would be enlightening for you personally Psyillisrabid, it is not my mission to go through life beating up and humiliating every egotistical martial artist with something to prove. Sorry, but I am not Miyamoto Musashi. Get a life, and tell your mommy at the dragon elite forum to stop fighting your battles for you. Be a man and stand up for yourself, that's the best advice I can give you friend.<<<

The rebuttal by the author-
I figured you would not accept the challenge. Obviously you are too pathetic and weak to even stand up to a "mere" martial artist as myself, who as you put it, has his mommy fight his fights for him. <smirks in derision>

Best advise I can offer you is to give up on fighting and martial arts in general, go on to news commentating like your other God Rush. Tell me is Jerry upset that you have too heros to worship? It is also amazing that censorship is so obvious here. I see that you like absolute control, sounds a little totalitarian if you ask me. Well, I will leave you here now. I have the answers I was looking for. Scars obviously is not up to the challenge. Time to go let others see that Scars can not even handle a challenge as small as mine.

Psyillirabbit>>>

Well, that is it in a nutshell. Of course there was other posts and censorship as well as insults thrown out to me, but that is what you get when dealing with a child such as kungfool that hides behind his little computer spitting out propaganda and rhetoric. The sad thing is that it is not even his original ideas, but all quotes from Jerry L. Peterson whom he hero worships and idolizes. Well, please let me know what you think.

Jason Sallas a.k.a
Psyillirabbit- Co-founder Dragon Elite
clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/dragonelite