Tony Blauer says he is engaged in “the study of human movement as it relates to violent aggression.” Tony has been teaching self-defense tactics to cops, tier 1 special operators, and housewives for over thirty years. Blauer created the S.P.E.A.R. System, CrossFit Defense and many other self-defense courses and he’s made a career out of training people to be prepared for the first 3 seconds of the fight – it’s an important 3 seconds.
Tony studies our natural evolutionary gift of fight vs flight instincts and how to utilize those instincts to begin our defense against an ambush within that reactionary gap.
Tony’s system and methods fill a gap in our defensive tactics instruction, and it’s one I hadn’t given much thought to before learning about Tony. We learn about reactionary gap with our firearms training but it does seem to be lacking from most ARCON / Defensive Tactics methods. Blauer says there’s nothing wrong with what we’re taught in ARCON but the best BJJ, ARCON, Defensive Tactics methods are useless if we lose the fight before our brain knows it’s happening.
As a natural part of this, fear needs to be addressed because fear is what motivates our bodies to fight or flee. It’s also what triggers what Tony calls the “startle flinch” response and how we can train our flinch to become a self-defense reaction.
In this episode, we talk about a lot:
- How all of our fights are reactive and defensive in nature and why that will never change.
- Why self-defense is not the same as fighting.
- The 4 elements of fear
- Why he doesn’t train for fear inoculation, at least not how you would expect.
- Why he thinks muscle memory doesn’t exist.
And much more. I hope you enjoy Tony’s appearance on the show.
Follow him on Instagram @tonyblauer and @spear.system
Stay safe.
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