The Art of Manliness - #334： When Violence Is the Answer

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast where we're often

00:00:18.840 told violence is never the answer but my guest today would argue that not only is that idea

00:00:23.500 wrong it's also extremely dangerous he says that sometimes violence is the answer and when it is

00:00:28.420 it's the only answer his name is tim larkin he's a self-defense expert and the creator of target

00:00:32.560 focused training tim has trained military law enforcement and civilians on how to use violence

00:00:36.460 to protect themselves and in his latest book when violence is the answer tim makes the convincing

00:00:40.600 case that civilians need to change their mindset about violence if they want to protect themselves

00:00:44.600 and their family today on the show tim and i discuss what he means by violence and why violence

00:00:48.720 is often the only possible response to violence he then goes into detail about the difference

00:00:52.360 between antisocial aggression and asocial violence and how to respond to both we then discuss why

00:00:56.880 good people should study criminals on how to use violence more effectively and we end our

00:01:00.640 conversation by exploring how knowing how to kill and maim people can counterintuitively make you a

00:01:05.580 more peaceful and gentle man really fascinating show after the show is over check out the show notes at

00:01:09.900 aom.is violence all right tim larkin welcome back to the show nice for having me brett man so it's been

00:01:19.540 a few years i think it was 2015 we had you on talk about what you do your self-defense stuff that you

00:01:25.540 talk about you got a new book out where you've basically taken what you've been doing for the

00:01:30.260 past several decades and and synthesized it and and the title is awesome when violence is the answer

00:01:37.220 learning how to do what it takes when your life is at stake so we're often told that you know violence

00:01:42.900 is never the answer but right here in the title of your book you're saying no sometimes violence is

00:01:47.380 the answer so when is violence the answer well it's the it's the question nobody likes to talk about

00:01:53.040 and i think that's why that's that's why the title of the book and i actually believe it or not i had

00:01:56.960 to fight for that title and you know my publisher was good enough to finally realize you know that

00:02:01.820 that's a it's a very relevant title that's how uncomfortable people are with even the word violence

00:02:06.720 the the idea behind the book is we we talk and we're very well versed on when violence isn't the

00:02:13.220 answer we've gone almost overboard on that aspect of it and the illusion that's out there is that

00:02:18.780 violence is never the answer and so the idea was you know by doing that the very people that need

00:02:26.260 the tool of violence the most have just self-selected out of even looking at the subject

00:02:30.960 thinking that it's you know somehow will make them criminal and so the goal of the book is to you know

00:02:36.420 not not even get to the training aspect i do talk a little bit about that but it's really like

00:02:40.360 how do we think about the subject and why is it so taboo and you know where can we actually learn

00:02:45.400 good information yeah that i thought was interesting i mean you there's just a like a like a chapter or

00:02:50.620 two about specific tactics but like most of it is just an argument for regular good people to be

00:02:58.360 comfortable with violence that's the biggest change the the physical training aspect is actually fairly

00:03:04.340 easy for for me to get through to people the hardest aspect and the ability to use that physical

00:03:11.080 training correctly is going to absolutely fail you if you don't have the correct understanding of the

00:03:17.040 tool and correct you know mindset to use it and you know it's that you know like the current

00:03:23.080 secretary of defense general mattis has that saying you know to his marines that he first wants them to

00:03:28.620 engage the brain before they engage the enemy and you know the idea behind that is i have to set you

00:03:34.800 know we're talking about you know real violence we're talking about criminal violence we're talking about

00:03:39.160 asocial devoid of choice violence and in order to understand that correctly you have to wrap your

00:03:46.900 head around you know what you think violence is versus what society tells you it is the media tells

00:03:52.800 you it is entertainment tells you it is right so let's get into that that like what violence is

00:03:58.280 because i mean i thought there's an interesting point you make in the book you know that it sort of

00:04:03.260 hitting on our discomfort with violence is that you know people will sign up for self-defense classes

00:04:08.900 but they want self-defense in a way where they actually don't have to do violence right they

00:04:15.940 they want like what can i do to like you know protect myself but not actually have to do something

00:04:23.060 bad right and that goes to the core of the whole misunderstanding of what's talking about you know

00:04:28.880 another guy a friend of mine in the industry tony blauer talks about a time he was on an airplane

00:04:35.960 and you know if you're in this business you get this question all the time and i thought his answer

00:04:40.780 was perfect you know the answer the question was oh gee i you know you teach they find out you teach

00:04:46.680 self-defense you know and they go i've always wanted to learn self-defense and tony was a little

00:04:51.000 irritated that day been a long day he's flying back and he looked at the woman he just said no you

00:04:55.200 don't and she's you know kind of was taken aback she goes no no i did he goes no no you don't want

00:05:01.520 to learn how to do this because if you did you'd already know how to do this and you would have

00:05:05.700 been training all these years now what you want is you want to learn how can i live a life that

00:05:12.860 avoids the possibility of me having to use self-defense and with that i can give you a lot of

00:05:18.920 information and so that's really what most of us want you know it would be crazy for us to think that

00:05:24.600 we want to go out there and actually you know test ourselves or or look for this and that's that's

00:05:28.980 the real difference between you know uh you know violence and you know people that survive violence

00:05:34.800 don't brag about it they don't uh they certainly don't want to seek it again the example that i

00:05:39.980 always give is the idea of you know uh people swim you know swimming i i usually you know in my

00:05:45.200 class i'll ask people i'll say hey how many people here know how to swim and just about every hand

00:05:49.340 will come up and i'll say how many of you have ever had to swim for your life and there'll usually be a

00:05:53.960 few hands including myself leaving their hands up and i said okay of you people that had to swim

00:05:58.120 for your life would you ever want to experience that again and nobody has their hand up at that

00:06:04.500 point and that's what violence is you know violence is that black swan event that you know just like

00:06:10.320 if you are you know in the water and you don't know how to swim you got nothing in the toolbox you're

00:06:14.740 in you're in a horrible situation same thing with violence if we have nothing in the toolbox and

00:06:19.140 society has got us to the point today where the people that need it most meaning good

00:06:24.120 law-abiding citizens you know most of us have nothing in the toolbox when it comes to dealing

00:06:28.260 with real violence let's talk about like what do you mean by violence because i think that was probably

00:06:32.520 the most the foundational chapter of all this is that difference between uh social aggression

00:06:38.580 and asocial violence because i think what most people there when they take a self-defense class

00:06:43.280 they're preparing for social aggression but you're saying no like you need to prepare for actual

00:06:49.680 violence so what is the difference between aggression and violence so it comes down to

00:06:54.140 communication everything that we want to respond to that oftentimes we imagine we need to respond to

00:07:01.220 usually falls in the realm of social aggression i'm fascinated when i see training out there i have a

00:07:07.900 lot of the guys in the industry and a lot of the training revolves around social aggression which is

00:07:13.280 a fast track to jail time um you know they literally will teach things like hey here's what you do in a

00:07:19.420 bar fight hey here's what you do you know when somebody knocks into you hey here's you know all these

00:07:24.760 things that are eminently avoidable that you can use your social skills to get out of you know the the aggression

00:07:31.820 versus that rare occasion when you would actually the only tool available to you be violence and that's

00:07:38.640 when you're devoid of choice the way we define it is i am devoid of choice meaning if i had an exit i

00:07:44.040 would have taken it by now if there was a way for me to talk my way out of this i would have done that

00:07:47.740 communication is stopped i am facing imminent grievous bodily harm if i do not use violence to protect

00:07:54.140 myself i am basically participating in my own murder and that's that that uncomfortable time where

00:08:01.100 people you know recognize it you know and and a way to understand it when you see like a lot of these

00:08:06.280 uh these shootings that you're seeing you know people are realizing that oh my god you know this

00:08:11.480 is happening and they're having to take action and most people don't know what to do in situations like

00:08:17.440 that and they've had no skill training and a lot of what's really interesting to me is even in the

00:08:21.400 professional world they will give you an excellent training up the scale for social aggression and then

00:08:28.200 when it gets to asocial violence where say it's a law enforcement his life is on the line or a soldier

00:08:32.240 and and you know he's facing you know imminent bodily harm by the enemy the training when it comes

00:08:37.680 to the physical training self-defense whatever you call it they at that point say do whatever it takes

00:08:43.240 and they just send you on your way you know there's there's no specific information and that's that's

00:08:48.960 what i find is just amazing you know is is that you know that's when you need the most specific

00:08:52.900 information that's when you need to understand how to go after the human body how to take it out how to

00:08:57.580 actually injure it but the threshold to use this information is that of in the event that we're

00:09:04.800 talking about if you had a firearm you would be comfortable deploying that firearm and emptying it

00:09:10.800 into the threat that's the the level here so that eliminates probably 99.9 percent of most of the social

00:09:18.800 aggression stuff that we think we need to respond to you know we're talking about all the unpleasant

00:09:22.740 interactions that you can have with people you know road rage incidences incidences in social

00:09:27.240 settings like you know nightclubs and bars or restaurants on the street you know anything that

00:09:32.220 you could walk away from if you chose to walk away from it could happen you know and and it should

00:09:38.120 happen and that's what i go in the book in depth about you know the idea of what do you actually

00:09:42.680 have to respond to if there's communication still going on then it's not the time if you have

00:09:48.060 to ask yourself hey is this the time should i punch this guy should i do you know some of the

00:09:51.720 crazy questions that i get if you have to ask yourself whether or not it's the time to use

00:09:56.520 violence it's probably not the time to use violence all right so violence is let's get some definitions

00:10:01.160 clear violence is imminent like death or severe bodily harm or in the case rape is another one too

00:10:08.180 where you could use violence yes right yes if you don't if you don't basically if you don't take

00:10:12.760 action meaning if you don't try to protect yourself using the tool of violence in the situation i'm

00:10:17.580 talking about you're basically participating in your own murder meaning this is going to happen

00:10:21.480 this this violence is imminent you know and it's devoid of communication that's that's the big thing

00:10:27.120 meaning there's no communication i gave the example i've given the example a couple times of situations

00:10:32.940 where you it initially starts out and it's say a robbery and and the person is is is you know

00:10:41.320 communicating in an you know an unpleasant way but basically communicating with the guys that are robbing

00:10:46.500 him giving giving uh over you know all the the watches the wallets everything it's asked for

00:10:52.700 and uh you know the people go away there's an incident in london that i talked about that

00:10:58.440 kind of highlights this whole thing and the young lawyer did all that two guys held up against a tree

00:11:04.820 with knives and robbed him and he complied gave them everything and they left and he used his social

00:11:10.720 tools in that unpleasant situation to basically negotiate a favorable response where they left

00:11:17.040 and he started walking away everybody loves that part of the story because it falls into

00:11:22.140 the realm of you know what we're told to do by law enforcement you know don't resist don't do this

00:11:29.160 don't you know antagonize and that's fine problem was the second part of the story they came back

00:11:35.680 second time when they came back their heads were down their knives were drawn they rushed in and

00:11:40.080 just started stabbing him immediately until they killed him he was heard screaming hey why why why i

00:11:45.560 gave you everything i gave you everything what i want people to understand is the difference between

00:11:49.280 those two scenarios there's one scenario at the beginning where you possibly could use social

00:11:54.840 you know you possibly could you know use social it's talking your way out the second one where there's

00:12:00.500 no communication it is pure action and it's imminent and there's no escape the only thing that would

00:12:08.540 work is the tool of violence and if you have nothing in your toolbox at that stage of the game

00:12:12.660 you know you're going to be just you know just just an easy target right so the tool of violence is

00:12:18.940 basically you you have to be able to kill or bodily maim like seriously bodily injury that it's not

00:12:25.980 just like some you know a submission move or like a thing like you have to inflict severe damage to

00:12:31.900 this person well what we're talking about we're talking about injury to the human body it's very

00:12:35.200 specific we are you know our bodies are are all similar in in the fact that we all have areas of the human

00:12:45.420 body that can't take trauma meaning you know physics and physiology meeting badly a hard part of you

00:12:51.420 with body weight behind it going through an area of the other guy's human body that's not rated for

00:12:56.600 that type of traffic and so when we talk about injury to the human body we're talking about breaking

00:13:00.080 the structure of the human body or we're talking about breaking a sensory system of the human body

00:13:04.180 you know things like broken joints you know destroyed eyeballs crushed throats you know something as

00:13:11.600 mundane as breaking the top of the foot anything that elicits a level of trauma that creates what we call a

00:13:19.060 spinal reflex reaction and that means it's a reaction that takes the brain basically captures

00:13:24.240 the brain and takes the brain out of the equation meaning the trauma is so much is it's so great on

00:13:30.380 the body that the spine gives the re that gives the uh feedback to the body to pull away from it and

00:13:35.660 we've all experienced it when you touch say a hot surface your hand automatically comes off that surface

00:13:40.540 your brain isn't engaged that you don't realize that you've touched a hot surface until after

00:13:44.860 if your limb has already been removed from that and that's to protect you and what we do is we use

00:13:50.260 that info that information of how the body tries to protect itself to actually destroy itself we flip

00:13:56.320 it upside down and we use the fact of you know these spinal reflex uh reactions to trauma to basically

00:14:04.000 take the brain out of the equation because the most dangerous thing that you and i ever faced with

00:14:07.880 another human being is an active brain you know as long as his brain can as long as he can think and

00:14:13.160 move he can do damage to us as soon as we take his brain out of the equation and we do that through

00:14:17.480 injury and injury is something that all of us are capable of we are all capable of delivering injury

00:14:24.760 to the human body we're not all capable of competing in combat sports but you know that's the great thing

00:14:30.860 about violence is the tool of violence is available to everybody and it works on everybody and that's

00:14:36.220 that's the education process right let's go back to this the the social aggression aspect of this

00:14:42.900 really trying to figure out the difference between social aggression and asocial violence so you

00:14:48.900 mentioned communication is one thing right they're communicating with you it's you know it's probably

00:14:53.520 social aggression but are there any other signs that someone you know how can you tell if someone's

00:14:57.660 asocially violent if there's just besides just like they're not talking to you well it's it's really

00:15:02.440 it's really the cues it's not really when somebody's asocial the way we highlight asocials in our

00:15:07.840 training in our training we basically have no no communication meaning there's no talking when

00:15:14.560 they're out in the mats when my clients are out in the mats training there's no music there's no social

00:15:19.540 interaction meaning you know you don't help each other up you don't do any of the social things

00:15:23.600 that are out there you'll see this in a lot of other like combat sport gyms and you know martial arts

00:15:27.700 facilities and that's fine there's nothing wrong with that the problem is you know my goal for

00:15:32.780 training people is to get them to trigger on asocial and the thing that saved my clients lives

00:15:38.760 across the board and across all the demographics that i've trained is they're triggering and

00:15:43.780 understanding that oh this just went asocial and what that is is it's getting used to training in a

00:15:51.580 non-communicated communication environment you know in a devoid of social communication

00:15:57.060 and it's just it's a it's it's just a recognition system everybody understands it we've all done it

00:16:03.060 before we've all walked into situations where all of a sudden our non-verbal cues are hitting us all

00:16:07.160 the time we call it intuition sometimes it's dismissed sometimes you know people think it's uh

00:16:12.580 you know esoteric but it's not we have non-verbal uh warning systems that are inherent in our in our

00:16:20.180 physiology that are designed to protect us you know and just you know things where you know people say

00:16:25.620 hey the hair on the back of my neck standing my stomach feels queasy these are all this is your

00:16:29.880 body screaming out saying hey there's something wrong here there's i'm picking up something that's

00:16:33.700 wrong here you need to pay attention to this and one thing you also highlight in the book that's

00:16:38.320 useful for just good regular folks to watch are videos or films of asocial violence going down

00:16:47.520 because what they'll be surprised by is that there's no yelling there's no screaming there's no that

00:16:52.240 that war face you talk about in the book it's just quiet and there's just like an intent and it's

00:16:58.040 done fast well that's if you watch violence across the board real violence you'll just understand like

00:17:03.720 if you you watch say uh you know animals you know predator animals when they're in there when it's two

00:17:09.960 predator animals of the same species in a territorial situation it's loud they're making all sorts of

00:17:16.400 gestures towards each other they're knocking into each other not really trying to injure each other

00:17:20.800 they're just trying to run each other off the land it's usually a an alpha type of situation if you

00:17:26.760 watch that same predator going after prey they're usually in a low crouch super silent just waiting for

00:17:34.460 the right time and when they strike they strike fast and silently and just you know get into it right

00:17:39.400 away that's exactly how asocial violence goes down with with people and that's you know the

00:17:45.800 difference the difference is your you know one person oftentimes is trying to communicate and

00:17:52.840 usually the person that ends up being the victim is trying to communicate with the predator who is

00:17:58.100 merely just taking action and getting right into violence and getting into the work right away and when you

00:18:02.800 watch acts of violence there's a lot that can be learned but most people watch them incorrectly

00:18:08.700 so how do they watch them incorrectly they'll usually empathize with the victim and they'll usually

00:18:13.680 try to look at a situation and they'll look at you know because oftentimes it'll be a criminal act of

00:18:19.980 violence and oftentimes it'll be the criminal that is successful using the tool of violence and so

00:18:25.460 oftentimes people will look at it and say well the victim could have done this or the victim could have

00:18:30.040 done that and well maybe you could get your way out of this or you could have dodged this punch or you

00:18:34.260 could have you know x y or z and that's the exact wrong way to look at it when you're looking at the tool

00:18:39.040 of violence when you look at the tool of violence you want to inoculate yourself to always identify

00:18:44.000 with the winning side of violence you want to train your brain to look at an act of violence and say

00:18:50.040 okay at what point did it start to work for this person the person that ultimately won what happened

00:18:54.940 usually what you're going to find is you're going to find there's going to be an exchange and at one

00:18:59.020 point one person injured the other and normally right after that injury they piled on on those

00:19:05.040 injuries and were you know ended up being the victor now the hard part for us the same socialized

00:19:10.960 you know humans is that we you know we tend to identify with the story and so i often have people

00:19:18.480 watch the video with no sound in it whatsoever they just watch the physical acts of the video

00:19:25.460 which normally makes it a lot easier for them to see they go oh there's the point yep okay now what

00:19:31.580 are you doing you're training your brain to always identify with the successful use of the tool

00:19:36.200 you're not training yourself to look at the tool being used at you and trying to figure out how to

00:19:42.740 un you know you know you know block your way to success and it's dramatic and where it really became

00:19:49.320 relevant was when you look at alpha predators and you show them acts of violence you know we're

00:19:55.420 talking about the worst of the worst in the prison systems they'll look at an act of violence they

00:19:59.800 never identify with a victim it's it just never happens they they always identify with the winning

00:20:05.940 side and if anything they'll be critical of the winning side they'll say okay he did this this and

00:20:12.380 this and yeah it worked but i would have done if they're going to say if they're going to do anything

00:20:16.560 they're going to prove on the results the individual got with violence they're going to say i actually

00:20:22.300 would have done it this way whereas well-meaning people would say would try to do that with the

00:20:27.640 victim say well i would have you know blocked the punch here i would have grabbed him here or maybe

00:20:31.980 i would have done this or that they won't look at it that way they'll look at it from the successful

00:20:36.060 use and then how could i improve upon the successful use of that tool and what that does is your brain

00:20:41.420 says okay this is what you want me to do you always want me to look for options you always want

00:20:46.280 me to look for potential injuries you always want me if this situation comes about my job is to

00:20:52.600 immediately start looking for opportunities for you that's what you're telling me to do and you

00:20:56.000 don't want that because you did you want the only option to be inflict injury on this other person

00:21:01.260 but that's what you're training yourself to do by watching video correctly i mean if you watch from

00:21:05.460 successful side all the time you know the people that are successfully using the violence so you know

00:21:10.420 uh act an act of violence goes down and i'll usually find really challenging ones where it's it's pretty

00:21:16.460 bad and how people sit there and i'll have them watch it there and i'll say okay why did that work

00:21:21.840 or you know and as soon as people start going from the victim said well she could have done x y or z i 0.72

00:21:26.580 said no what happened he goes and then some people say oh okay he stepped through he used his body weight

00:21:31.800 he hit her to the side of the neck and she went to the ground and that's when he started stomping her 1.00

00:21:35.900 now that's really hard for us to deal with as as uh you know citizens but what we're doing is i can't

00:21:45.860 learn anything i can't undo this all i can do is protect my brain from making sure that it gets the

00:21:51.160 right information the right information is not trying to you know figure out how the victim could

00:21:56.980 have not got struck and hit we have to find out okay what works and and you know that's that's

00:22:04.020 the difference because what makes us what most people do when they see a bigger faster stronger threat

00:22:09.880 a bigger faster stronger individual and most you know if we're going to face a predator usually

00:22:13.820 that's what we're going to be facing somebody who's bigger faster and stronger than us

00:22:16.520 if we focus on all those differences rather than the similarities meaning oh my god this guy's so

00:22:22.080 much bigger than me rather than oh there's his throat or you know oh there's his knee there's his

00:22:28.520 you know there's the side of his neck there's you know once we start realizing all the similarities

00:22:33.340 and the options that we have areas of the human body this individual can't protect

00:22:37.780 you know that's when you start making the change and that that's when violence starts becoming you

00:22:43.980 know universally available to everybody it's just whoever gets the injury first right and going back

00:22:49.980 to this you know how thoughtful these some of these criminals are about violence you mentioned

00:22:55.300 like the mexican mafia has this reading list for new recruits that i thought was surprisingly heady

00:23:02.160 what are some of the things that the mexican mafia has their their guys read well there's a really 0.97

00:23:06.420 there's a really great video that's out to interview with one of the uh the the heads of the mexican

00:23:12.760 mafia that uh was was debriefed by law enforcement and they shared the video with me and he goes over

00:23:19.480 the education portion and the books that i'm about to talk about this literally is probably 80 of these

00:23:28.360 books are books that i read as a young special warfare intelligence officer at the jfk center at a course

00:23:34.360 that i was at uh in in fort bragg and you know it was machiavelli's the prince it was the 48 laws of

00:23:42.280 power it was psychology and abnormal psychology it was what was the other book they had uh forgot they

00:23:49.840 had one they had one other one other book that was you know very much a special warfare book you

00:23:54.460 know type type book that they had and that was that was great the consistent book that they had

00:23:59.080 that our first responders and our military people weren't reading were books on anatomy

00:24:04.500 and it's interesting he says this he goes he goes oh yeah he said we have to know anatomy

00:24:12.340 because we have to know how to kill violence is our currency that's how we derive our power that's how

00:24:18.320 we control things that's how we are able to make money everything derives from the successful use of

00:24:23.320 the tool of violence and you have to know anatomy in order to be successful and that's absolutely true

00:24:30.480 meaning the the reason these guys are worth looking at not in it's really it's a road that you have to

00:24:37.000 be very careful with because it can seem if you soundbite this information it can seem like you're

00:24:42.640 somehow promoting these guys or somehow thinking they're great people they're not but often the best

00:24:48.780 information comes from the worst people and what he is saying is we can't afford to get it wrong when

00:24:55.120 we use the tool of violence it's a very specific use of the tool and that's the other thing that i

00:24:59.740 learned by you know studying with the law enforcement officials that i did and really going in depth and

00:25:04.680 realizing that for them violence is currency and there's nothing random about its use we as society

00:25:12.360 think oh you know we think these prisoners are crazy and there's all these random acts of violence

00:25:16.060 going on everything has to be condoned everything has to be approved for the most part if you just go 0.89

00:25:21.580 off on your own and violently attack somebody you could have serious repercussions for doing that

00:25:27.460 because you're going to affect the business of the prison the business of the prison is to make money

00:25:31.060 for these gangs and they control acts of violence so when they set up an act of violence they have

00:25:36.740 to be successful it may have taken them six months to set that up and therefore they can't afford to

00:25:42.140 get it wrong so they need to know okay we've got the shanks we've got we've got all this information

00:25:46.980 where do we put it to get the maximum amount of damage in the minimum amount of time because we

00:25:51.780 don't want the prison SWAT team the CERT team to respond in time to save this guy and so they need

00:25:59.060 to know exactly where to stab people exactly where to hit people exactly where to you know open them

00:26:03.840 up so that they they die and it's very interesting it has nothing to do with opinion it has all to do

00:26:10.260 with results and they're very very methodical about it you i there were less the fascinating

00:26:15.600 thing was letters that i was seeing that were decoded of one prison gang member sending to his

00:26:22.320 cousin who was coming into prison for the first time he sent a letter that if you and i read it

00:26:26.640 would seem very much like a family member sending us a hey good luck you know uh letter and oh here's

00:26:32.800 a little bit of information about the family when it was decoded it basically was telling him exactly how

00:26:38.120 to create what you know make weapons where you can make weapons in the prison where to attack people

00:26:44.160 you know specific targets of the human body of where to attack people and how to make sure that

00:26:48.920 you do it efficiently and effectively each and every time you know it's very very specific information

00:26:54.180 and um the reason they do that is because these guys can't afford to get it wrong and that's why

00:26:59.180 it's worth looking at how they look at the tool because they look at it very different than we look

00:27:05.120 at it we try to sanitize everything that we do and we try to make a an approach that's a very indirect

00:27:10.440 approach oftentimes because you know we're trying to be good people and that i you know and

00:27:15.460 unfortunately if we meet up against one of these predators who uses a much more direct approach and

00:27:19.840 direct methods we're so far behind the power curve that you know we're going to probably not come out on

00:27:25.040 the right side of it right and going back to social aggression so you know most self-defense

00:27:31.220 methods out there or people often confuse sport martial art with self-defense they're going to use

00:27:37.240 that in social aggression because they think that they're they're being threatened that they're going

00:27:41.940 to have bodily harm so they use those tactics but what ends up happening is it often elevates it to

00:27:47.120 possible asocial violence yeah well when we look at the the world of combat sports you know i live in

00:27:56.260 vegas and i'm surrounded by some of the top ufc competitors a lot of these guys are friends of mine

00:28:01.340 i love combat sports i grew up with it you know but the only way you can make you know you can gamify

00:28:09.480 violence is to take out injury to the human body and so if you want to find out how to be effective

00:28:17.440 in a life or death situation all you need to do is look at the rules in any of the combat sports

00:28:24.200 and the last time i looked at the ufc there are 31 rules 28 of them revolved around injuring the

00:28:32.140 human body that they were taken out and the reason being is because that's not the goal of a combat

00:28:37.520 sport application combat sport application is to pit skill against skill these amazing athletes that go

00:28:44.400 at it but if you allow injury to the human body you can bypass it right away um you know all of a sudden

00:28:51.800 what happens if a guy you know accidentally rolls up and breaks another guy's ankle in an mma fight

00:28:56.620 you know it's over right away and everybody's all you know upset because hey the fighter can't go on

00:29:01.080 and you know it wasn't intentional but it was an injury to the human body and so those are all the

00:29:06.960 telltale signs when when you see things like that happen in a combat sport environment that's the

00:29:13.000 learning curve that's where you sit there and say oh hey wait a minute i had two two highly trained

00:29:17.840 guys that were completely committed to train for at least a 10 week training camp for this were in

00:29:23.180 amazing shape and all of a sudden something just happened that this guy who had all the will in the

00:29:28.080 world to to keep going can't keep going regardless of his resolve he's got an injury to the human body

00:29:35.240 and that's what these prisoners understand at a much more base level they want to go right to the

00:29:41.680 direct injury they want to go right to the thing that shuts down the athleticism that shuts down the

00:29:46.760 brain's ability to think the guy's ability to respond and and that's by breaking a structure

00:29:53.000 or sensory system of the human body right so if you are faced with a social aggression situation

00:29:59.800 right there's you know that i mean i think men probably encounter this more often with each other

00:30:05.060 the shoving the the name calling the chest puffing up and the yelling and shouting what should uh your

00:30:12.720 response be well you just walk yourself through the scenario okay so i'll give you three scenarios

00:30:17.800 first one i walked into the bar this guy came by and he you know he knocked into me and he told me my

00:30:26.360 wife was fat i went over i slammed him on the side of the neck i grabbed his head i gouged his eye out 1.00

00:30:32.780 your honor second scenario i'm going to the whole foods parking lot i've been waiting for uh parking 0.98

00:30:42.640 you know a parking spot for the last couple minutes i go to go take it when the guy backs out 0.94

00:30:49.420 small little mercedes comes in grabs spot guy's a real jerk gets out flips me off i run over there i 0.99

00:30:56.540 throw him down kick him i stomp him on the neck and then i gouge his eye out your honor 0.99

00:31:02.380 third scenario i was at my office when he came through the door with the firearm he shot two of 0.99

00:31:10.680 my co-workers his gun jammed i noticed that he went down for a reload i tackled him the first thing i

00:31:17.140 saw was his eye and i was able to use my thumb and i gouged his eye out and i stopped him from

00:31:24.040 continuing to shoot anybody else officer now i did three scenarios there we knew the first two were crazy

00:31:31.420 and the reason i ended both of those with your honor is because you're going to end up if you're

00:31:38.000 lucky in front of a judge for something like that and there's no way you're gonna be able to justify

00:31:42.440 anything like that the last thing you were talking to the officer and the officer dismissed it at that

00:31:50.340 point and realized it didn't go any further up the chain because it was a justified use so

00:31:54.340 when would gouging and i ever be acceptable you know it has to be there we are not talking about

00:32:01.320 a dust-up fight we're not talking about things that are voidable that you can absolutely walk away from

00:32:06.560 we're talking about things when you're devoid of choice and you have to use that's the only time

00:32:11.140 does it meet the threshold of if i had a firearm i would take it out and deploy it on here now can

00:32:18.000 you don't know once you cross the physical plane you have no idea where it's going to end up and

00:32:24.480 this is where social aggression can turn into asocial violence even though neither party intended it

00:32:30.780 you don't have the luxury of that choice because literally there's there's you know one of my

00:32:37.160 instructors for years collected uh collected news clippings of two guys who get into an argument one

00:32:43.320 guy pushes the other guy he falls over brains himself and he's dead now the other guy's facing

00:32:47.660 manslaughter over nothing you know i think i think we talked about this before on the last podcast but

00:32:54.260 it's still very relevant for your your listeners to hear again you know you have to ask yourself the

00:32:59.000 act that you're about to take and these are things that you have to think about and this is what the

00:33:01.880 book really does it really walks you through these scenarios to think ahead of time about this stuff

00:33:06.680 but the idea is if i do what i'm thinking of doing right now if i participate in this three days from now

00:33:12.340 if i'm sitting in a jail cell facing charges is this going to be worth it for me or if i'm six

00:33:20.540 feet in the ground dead is it worth it very few things pass that three-day test and it's an education

00:33:28.920 process especially you know this is the art of manliness and men have a huge challenge in this

00:33:34.980 because we we sometimes confuse like our locker room culture and we communicate with violence

00:33:40.640 sometimes and and we have this this nebulous you know uh relationship with violence at times that

00:33:47.760 can get us into trouble and and this is where we really have to do some deliberate thinking about

00:33:52.600 this and and you know understand the difference between that's why i use term violence i don't use

00:33:57.580 fight i don't use any of those specific terms i don't use the term self-defense you know when we're

00:34:02.700 talking about self-defense is what is determined after you use an act of violence after after you

00:34:08.920 participate in an act of violence it is then determined whether or not it's criminal or self-defense

00:34:12.760 any of the things coming up any of the conflict coming up prior to that any social aggression coming

00:34:18.980 up to the point of violence is all being dealt with anything prior to that point where we actually

00:34:24.680 use tool of violence all that can be dealt with in anger management classes and and you know

00:34:29.940 social interaction and all of those things but when you get to that point of violence you know

00:34:35.320 what we're talking about when violence is the answer you have to be very specific about that

00:34:38.540 information and so you have to use correct terminology right and i thought it was interesting point you made

00:34:43.500 that by knowing how to inflict violence right it can actually make a person more confident more calm

00:34:52.740 more peaceful in those social aggression situations because they realize like you know

00:34:57.820 okay i can just put my knee right there in that kneecap or i could do this like by understanding how

00:35:04.580 fragile the human body is it like makes you realize this is not worth it like it's totally not worth it

00:35:09.660 yeah well you know one of the one of the things i was thinking about is you know and there's some there's

00:35:15.040 some great guys out there you know from from the combat sport world martial arts world that's shared stories

00:35:19.740 you know some of them are incredibly tragic but i'll give you one that's not it could have been

00:35:24.620 tragic but it wasn't most of your listeners that follow any martial arts or anybody you know one of

00:35:29.340 the big personalities is boz rootin and uh he's a former champ uh ufc champ heavyweight champ and he's

00:35:35.500 a really interesting guy he's dutch and he talked about a time it was really interesting in an interview

00:35:39.740 that i heard him and he talked about a time that he was in i think i believe it was amsterdam

00:35:43.260 and he he got baited he got baited into going outside of a bar and fighting two guys

00:35:50.060 and he did it and at the end of the confrontation one guy was breathing the other guy was out cold

00:36:00.860 conscious you know unconscious and he wasn't sure if the guy was alive and he ran to his hotel room

00:36:09.300 and he said he spent a terrified night in his hotel room just waiting for the police to come take

00:36:14.820 him away because he thought for sure he had killed that guy and the reason he felt the way he felt was

00:36:19.720 because he realized it was all avoidable he didn't have to participate in that and it was just such a

00:36:25.600 learning curve for him that he he recognized i allowed myself to be baited into that i mean the

00:36:31.220 reality was hitting him after the fact and thankfully he didn't murder that guy and it didn't go horribly 0.56

00:36:37.940 wrong and it was over nothing it was over just you know typical bar room you know ridiculousness

00:36:44.660 that he got caught up in it and i thought it was a really honest um honest thing and i i hope most

00:36:51.860 young guys could hear stuff like that because uh you know it really it really made a difference i mean

00:36:57.380 you know my my situation i've had a couple situations that have happened where um you know where it's

00:37:04.660 really it's really educated me on what's worth responding to and what's not worth responding to

00:37:11.060 and um you know the last the one that uh the one that hits me that still to this day is i was a young

00:37:19.780 guy and doing a lot of work in south america as an intelligence officer um we were doing a lot of like

00:37:26.420 back then counter narcotics type of work it was really interesting it was really you know what we thought

00:37:30.740 dangerous i get back to san diego it's a real uh you know i i just i'm feeling very comfortable in

00:37:36.900 san diego it's my hometown so we're driving around an area where you know we get into a little bit of

00:37:41.060 traffic some buddies of mine were going downtown to go to the happy hour and we get caught in a little

00:37:46.500 bit of traffic and there's a guy that's behind me that somehow and i'm talking about traffic that's

00:37:50.660 just inching forward this guy somehow thinks that i cut him off and he you know he starts making faces at

00:37:57.300 me and do anything and i'm laughing i got two of my friends in the back of my jeep and i just start

00:38:02.500 making eyes to this guy through my uh you know rearview mirror and i mean i'm incensing him i'm

00:38:08.980 like blowing him kisses he's getting just more and more fuming fuming so he he angles his car around

00:38:14.420 in about like a four to five minute time frame to get in front of me stops the car gets out of the car

00:38:20.820 and i'm thinking oh this is great here i am this you know highly trained hand-to-hand combat instructor i

00:38:25.700 just got back from south america we've been doing all this badass stuff uh you know i get to show my

00:38:30.260 skills off to my boys get out of the car i take two steps out of the car and from the back my friend

00:38:35.700 yells gun and i realize at that point i'm fully exposed that i'm in the like a you know just a

00:38:45.140 complete complete fatal funnel if the guy has the gun and i've screwed myself i just instantly realize

00:38:51.220 what i've done to myself you know at this stage of the game turns out it wasn't a gun turns out it

00:38:57.380 was one of those things back back then a lot of people had things that that that tied up your uh

00:39:02.500 your your steering wheel you know the club and he had one of those things it was a metal piece of uh

00:39:07.940 you know like a metal metal club that he had there and i just looked back at those guys i said you know 0.99

00:39:13.380 a couple expletives to my friend for being an idiot you know scaring that scaring me that it's a gun 0.97

00:39:17.780 i looked at it it's a club no big deal i i can deal with this all day so the guy like is a little 1.00

00:39:22.820 bit shocked that i charge him he comes and he tries to swing the club at me i strike the club

00:39:27.620 out of his hand grab him by the side of the neck i do basically 270 and i slam him on the back of his

00:39:33.540 car and i'm just about i'm holding his neck down and i'm just about to hit him because i'm so pumped 0.61

00:39:38.740 up from the fact that i thought it was a gun and then i was mad that he was trying to hit me with a club

00:39:43.460 and i was just going to take my aggression out on this guy i'm a young guy i'm in my early 20s

00:39:47.620 and just as i'm about to hit him the little girl's face is pressed up against the window he had a 0.84

00:39:52.260 four-year-old daughter in the back of his car and she was saying please don't hit daddy and

00:40:01.380 to this day you know it still hits me

00:40:06.660 so that was the last time i ever responded to social at that point i got lucky um

00:40:13.300 it's not worth it it just isn't worth it and i know you know my passion is to teach young guys i

00:40:19.620 love teaching young guys and really get them through this and help them navigate through this

00:40:23.140 because there's two things there's the young guys that will get themselves in trouble and when i say

00:40:28.740 young i'm saying anybody under 50 you know um we'll go headlong into something and not think

00:40:34.820 and i'm hoping that through this education process i can get them to think about the subject

00:40:39.620 more scary for me though are is the other side of it brett where they have to take action and they

00:40:45.300 don't know what to do they've never been taught about asocial they've never been taught about

00:40:50.580 the fact that hey here's the rare occasion when violence is the answer and by the way here's how

00:40:56.180 to look at the subject matter here's how to look at the human body here's how to activate your brain

00:41:01.380 and and here's how to get the most out of this because there's so much you know there's so much

00:41:07.300 hero worshiping out there when it comes to the media you know we see like you know the jason

00:41:11.860 movies we see all of these ridiculous uh ideas of what we think you have to do to be violent and

00:41:18.100 violence is really very very simple and straightforward to use and it doesn't require great coordination

00:41:24.740 it just requires intent and knowledge and it's a very simple skill set that all of us have access to

00:41:31.860 and very few of us in the last 50 years have really looked at this and trained ourselves to do this

00:41:38.340 you know i use the analogy of swimming before i look at this subject matter is the same i look at

00:41:42.660 teaching my kids to swim i don't teach my kids to swim so they can be the next michael phelps

00:41:48.820 you know i teach my kids to swim because i don't want them to drown and it's the same thing with the

00:41:52.580 tool of violence everybody should have a working knowledge of how the tool works yeah and and as you

00:41:56.900 said it it's dead simple and this is where your your target focus training comes in and you like

00:42:03.860 that's what i love about the book like i mean it's like super simple it's basically you know

00:42:07.300 no certain parts of the body will if you hit it hard enough inflict it with enough damage that it

00:42:14.740 will you know have that spinal reflex thing and you you highlight all these stories of of students

00:42:20.660 you've had some were 110 pound you know sorority girls taking down 215 pound rapists just by using 1.00

00:42:29.380 these this this target focus training thing yeah well it's not it's not target focus training is the

00:42:33.940 is the method we're talking about we're talking truly about violence i don't have a patent on

00:42:37.460 violence you know we know like the mexican mafia as we were talking about earlier you know they 1.00

00:42:41.940 understand it's anatomy it's understanding how do you you know make an you know an anatomy you know

00:42:47.300 physiology and anatomy meet in a really bad way and you know physiology and physics meet in a really

00:42:52.900 bad way and the best data that's out there comes from sports and you know sports injury data and

00:42:59.300 the reason we look at sports injury data is because those are humans those are injuries that that come

00:43:03.380 from humans colliding with humans and humans colliding with a planet and we can replicate those those

00:43:08.100 forces you know and that's where we talk we really draw all our information and there's about 70 areas

00:43:14.340 on the human body that get a an injury threshold that we're looking for where the brain's taken out of

00:43:18.900 the equation and those 70 areas of the human body keeps showing up time and time again in the data

00:43:24.580 and you only need to know a small portion of those to be effective you know uh that's that's

00:43:29.460 the whole idea i mean i'm living proof of that i mean that's you know for me the the seminal event

00:43:36.660 for me was i was in seal training i'd been training to be a seal for about 10 years as a young kid

00:43:43.620 i was a navy brat i knew everything there was to to know about the seal teams you know i was fortunate

00:43:49.380 enough to live in navy housing in coronado and was around a lot of seals

00:43:53.780 and just learned everything i went through college got selected got there flew through

00:43:59.700 training was just doing great and a couple weeks before training was over and i'd already been

00:44:04.820 assigned to the seal team i wanted to go to i was a young officer i was full of myself i was at the

00:44:08.980 height of my physical abilities i was absolutely sidetracked by an injury a small injury just a burst

00:44:15.780 i burst my eardrums and the semicircular canals you know emptied out i went into vertigo and literally

00:44:22.740 instantaneously my body just failed me and i was you know my career ended before it even started

00:44:30.260 in the seal teams you know i had to switch over to intelligence at that point and i stayed in special

00:44:35.220 warfare but for me injury just realized that it just showed me that bigger faster and stronger

00:44:41.220 which i was always up until that point inculcated and thought that was that was the way to go i realized

00:44:46.500 that no that's that's not enough because it had nothing to do with my will it had nothing to do

00:44:51.940 with you know my desire my desires through the roof i had no control over my body when i went into vertigo

00:44:58.100 and you know that was true injury and my ears just never healed correctly so i could do couldn't

00:45:01.860 do pressurized diving uh anymore and that's what got me on this this journey you know it was just uh

00:45:08.900 i ended up meeting people we ended up meeting people that started changing the way special

00:45:13.060 operations looked at hand-to-hand combat and it was all based off of injury the human body

00:45:17.940 and the problem with that is it's it's hard for people to wrap their heads around because there's

00:45:23.380 nothing rewarding you know you know when you compete say in jujitsu or um any combat sport and

00:45:30.740 you better one of your opponents there's a lot of you know there's a lot of social gratitude to that

00:45:36.260 and there's a lot of camaraderie and there's a lot of you know there's a lot of social validation

00:45:42.100 and proof on that when you use violence there's nothing i mean when you when you see a really cool

00:45:47.940 fight on tv you know where two guys were really going at it it was a great fight that that's that's

00:45:53.300 amazing then you see videotape of one guy taking a hammer and hitting another guy in the head and just

00:45:57.140 you know continuing to hit him until he's dead nobody you know there's nothing there's nothing rewarding

00:46:04.020 about that there's nothing to learn there that's just an act of violence you know yet that tool is

00:46:09.940 exactly what we need when somebody's trying to take our lives and we need to know how to access that

00:46:16.100 and the scary part for most people isn't the fact that learning it it's when you start to learn it you

00:46:22.260 realize you're already pre-wired and hardwired for this we're really good we're predators we're the top

00:46:28.180 predators as a species and what's interesting about us is we are not the biggest fastest and

00:46:33.620 strongest because if we were we wouldn't be the top species but we have brains and the brain is

00:46:39.300 what makes us dangerous you know and when you train your brain correctly then everything else is

00:46:45.380 available so you train your brain first your body is your your first line of tools that you have access

00:46:51.220 to and everything else is ancillary and once you train that way you you know you physiologically you

00:46:58.820 change on the way you look at things you have a different outlook on life it's really what you came back to

00:47:03.300 talk about i mean the more competent i am in justified lethal force the calmer my life is

00:47:11.700 because i understand the threshold of when i would ever use that and i would understand

00:47:15.460 everything else that needs to be dismissed so i'm a really friendly guy you know when people meet me

00:47:21.060 i'm usually and i look you know i've got tattoos and i'm a big guy and i work out and and i have all

00:47:26.500 that look i have the look of it but i'm always engaging with people and people are often it's often

00:47:33.060 funny when i see that you know there are some people that'll go socially they'll take it they'll

00:47:38.580 try to take advantage of it they'll you know they'll say oh okay he's he's not he's not scary so i can kind

00:47:44.020 of screw with him and that's when i know i have them at that point because that's exactly what i want

00:47:50.740 to do i don't want to trigger anything that says you know i may or may not use the tool of violence i

00:47:56.500 want that available to me and i want it to be a surprise each and every time you know that i use that so

00:48:01.460 i don't want to trigger off anything that shows me as being a violent person or somebody who's who's

00:48:06.100 used there i know it's a tool that's available to me i know how to use it and i don't need to make

00:48:09.940 people feel uncomfortable but what's really interesting is i treat everybody that i come

00:48:15.780 in contact with if i've never met them before i tell people it's gonna you know it sounds kind of

00:48:21.780 you know crazy sometimes but you know i treat them like they're six seconds away from a shooting spree

00:48:26.340 and i don't want to be the one to trigger it so how would you communicate with somebody like that

00:48:30.980 well you'd be really polite you know you'd engage people that way you'd let a lot of things go

00:48:37.140 and it's just a much easier way to live you know when you do this the problem is is when you don't

00:48:44.180 look at this subject and you don't have that you have these irrational fears and so oftentimes you'll

00:48:48.580 do things you'll you'll respond aggressively out of fear you'll think oh okay i'm feeling really

00:48:54.100 uncomfortable right now so i'm going to respond aggressively and maybe that'll make the person

00:48:57.780 back off you know and oftentimes that's the worst thing you can do but when you really understand okay

00:49:03.060 i understand how violence works i understand this person's doing this for whatever reason but hey i

00:49:08.020 still have options so i can still deal with this socially and you know he may still call me names and

00:49:14.660 it may be unpleasant but i don't need to escalate it at this stage of the game because i don't want to flip

00:49:19.780 that coin tim this has been a great conversation i mean i think the big takeaway from the book like

00:49:24.820 as you said violence is simple i think what i think you're doing with this book and you did a good job

00:49:29.700 with it is just changing the mindset of just regular people about violence so where can people go to

00:49:36.020 learn more about the book in your work the best place to go to learn about uh you know our stuff is

00:49:41.860 probably uh target focus training dot com and if they go to if they go to the book and pre-order

00:49:48.500 the book i have a i have a lot of free information i'm giving i'm giving out a 10-week course on the

00:49:53.780 book where i go in depth on all of the subject matter that i couldn't cover in the book for each

00:49:58.580 chapter but that's only for people that are that they go in pre-order and and that's at when violence

00:50:03.300 is the answer dot com the name of the book and uh they can get that but i i really appreciate the

00:50:09.700 opportunity to share the message i know it's a it's a different message for people and i hope

00:50:13.700 they really understand that intent of this you know we're with with what we just saw in charlotte

00:50:20.020 with what we've seen you know with the pulse nightclub and all of these shootings and everything

00:50:24.500 that's going on overseas right now this is very much a topic that we're all aware of it's the 800

00:50:29.780 pound gorilla that's in the room and this is a real opportunity to explore it and understand it

00:50:36.340 and then probably you'll deal with the news reports in a much more you know effective manner

00:50:43.060 in how you look at the subject because uh you don't want to control you don't want to have

00:50:47.380 irrational fear and you know the way you get over that is by just looking at a subject and studying

00:50:52.740 it and this is a real simple straightforward entertaining way to do it awesome well tim larkin

00:50:56.980 thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure thank you brett my yesterday was tim larkin

00:51:00.420 he's the author of the book when violence is the answer comes out september 5th next week and

00:51:04.820 it's available for pre-order right now on amazon.com you can go there today pre-order it

00:51:08.900 and you'll get it september 5th the day it launches so go do that today it's a fantastic book also check

00:51:13.460 out our show notes at aom.is violence where you find links to resources where you can delve deeper

00:51:18.180 into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips

00:51:30.580 and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you

00:51:34.260 enjoy this show i've got something out of it i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give this

00:51:37.220 review on itunes or stitcher helps out a lot and thank you to everyone who has given this review

00:51:40.660 we really appreciate that as always thank you for your continued support and until next time

00:51:43.860 this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - August 29, 2017

#334： When Violence Is the Answer

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