MAKING THAT FIRST MOVE

By Bradley J. Steiner, American Combato 
Failing to avoid trouble, the next best action is to preempt it. That is, ATTACK THE ATTACKER! which we first formulated as our basic strategy in American Combato in the early 1970’s, for anyone seeking self-defense instruction and training for the real world.
OK . . . attack the attacker. Simply and plainly put, and easy to understand. The problem lies in the doing. That is, confronted by an obvious threat that will not go away and that you realize must be defended against—the sooner the better—the big question is: WILL YOU? 
For the typically decent individual it can be a tremendously difficult thing to “trip the wire” and take offensive action in self-defense. Nevertheless, it must be done, and if you aspire to be able to handle real world dangerous violence you must learn to do it. 
Merely learning reliable attacks and attack combinations will not guarantee that you will employ them without hesitation if they are needed.
This concept applies to weapons and unarmed combat.
There have been people whose skills and in some instances whose armament was quite adequate to deal with a dangerous threat; but because these people were not sufficiently attack minded their potential for effective management of their crisis proved to be of no use. 
So how can you be assured that, should the worst happen, you will go into aggressive, ferocious, preemptive action?
There is only one way: You require a made-up mind, and a decision that is settled within you regarding what you will do if it ever happens “for real.”
“If I am placed in a dangerous situation where violence against me or those I love presents itself, then I am going to render that threat harmless. I will attack and keep on attacking until my enemy has lost the will and the capacity to cause me or any harm.” 
Read that above statement a few times. “Feel” its meaning. Get with it. 
That is what must become your inviolate decision, made well ahead of time—right now, in fact!—so that there is no need to argue with yourself, equivocate, hesitate, consider, or otherwise delay a millisecond in a real situation. 
This is not a trivial point. No instructors that we ever had (save three) ever addressed this point—and they did so indirectly. We believe that it should be brought out clearly and deliberately, stated firmly, and PUSHED to the Nth degree in mentally conditioning our students. It is too vital to be left to chance. 
We are confident that our teachings—in person, and via such mediums as DVDs and CD publications, etc.—go to good people who have no evil desire to harm anyone, but who merely wish to have an elevated level of competency in self-defense.
Our understanding of such people (whom we have been teaching for well over 50 years) is that their essential decency and reasonable lifestyle makes for a possible mental block against violently harming another human being.
That has simply got to go. When a crisis strikes you cannot see “another human being”, but instead must realize that this scum before you will happily beat you, stab you, shoot you, stomp you, or do whatever its deplorable excuse for a “mind” enjoins it to do.
It is not fully human, it is not at all civilized, and when it decided to be a predator it gave up any rights to being treated with anything but ruthless disregard and brutality. NOW GIVE IT WHAT IT DESERVES AND DO NOT LET YOURSELF OR ANYONE YOU LOVE BE VICTIMIZED BY THIS CRAWLING EXCREMENT! 
These are the things that should be pounded repeatedly and again into your head by a qualified teacher, or—if you either train in a less-than-fully-adequate combat system, or on your own with DVD and book instruction—by you, yourself! 
Your goal is simple, legal, honorable, moral, and by any rational standard, reasonable: It is to be 100 percent prepared to dish out the most fiercely merciless brutality when one or more extralegal pieces of s—t decide that you or someone you love will be their next victim.
You want to be prepared always, during your normal daily activities of work, school, recreation, family time, whatever, to turn into a vicious warrior—a merciless savage who can meet the worst and most dangerous violent garbage that may come at him from amongst the dregs of the society in which he lives. 
We hope that you get this message. In those cases where intended victims of violence exploded with fierce action and the will to destroy their victimizers, they did simply fine!
The sewage does not expect that its intended prey will be able to offer much if any resistance. Otherwise, the sewage would look for another person to attack.
So, thank God you will have the advantage of surprise, which as any military tactician knows is more than half the battle won, if the appropriate use is made of that advantage.
Please . . . for your sake and for the sake of anyone dear to you, take this to heart. 
Decide. Decide now and decide with all your heart, soul, and mind, that if you ever find yourself (if you ever again find yourself—because we know that former victims of violence are among those who come to us for training) in a situation where scum has intruded upon your existence and threatens to maim or to kill you, it will be you who makes that vital first, preemptive move—and you will crush that evil bastard like a used paper cup! 
You can do it. Just make up your mind that you WILL do it.

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