In the battle between a cheetah and a gazelle the cheetah only wins 40-50 percent of the time, that means, on average, the gazelle is more successful than the cheetah when it comes to survival.

Now in an all out fight – the cheetah wins, 10 out of 10 – but that’s not going to happen and it’s NOT the point of self defense.

You’ve been lead to believe that self defense is always a contest to the death. You’ve been told that you should be able to “take on all comers” any time, any where with nothing but your barehands and a smile.

And while we always assume the worst and hope for the best – the notion that you need to be an ultimate warrior bad ass discourages most people from even attempting to educate themselves on tactical self defense.

Look, the toughest person in the world today isn’t the toughest person tomorrow and there is always someone better, stronger, faster and luckier than you.

So you need to do things that MAXIMIZE your chance of survival and success based on your CURRENT physical abilities. Because in reality – you don’t need to defeat all attackers…at all.

YOU JUST NEED TO SURVIVE at all costs.

The vast majority of the time an attack is an attempt to get something from you as long as they don’t get caught, identified or injured. So during the attack there is a constant risk-benefit analysis and there usually comes a point where your attacker won’t think it’s worth it any more.

Just like the cheetah chasing the gazelle – at some point the cheetah will think it’s expending too much energy and burning too many calories to catch it’s prey, and it will stop the attack.

This is the perfect self defense analogy.

So while many systems and people will tout the ability to turn you into a cheetah…you probably only need to be a ‘smarter gazelle’. 

I think martial arts and self defense in general have done a great job of perpetrating the myth of being able to take anyone and turn them into a killing machine. 

Make no mistake, you put the right person, with the right attitude together with the right training — they’re going to be a tough SOB. But most people don’t want (or need) that level of expertise or training.

Most people, just need to be a little smarter, a little more street savvy and above all — they NEED a plan. 

The truth is the mistake people make is that they think they know what’s out there..but they don’t.

The project the thoughts of a gazelle onto a cheetah and they assume they know what motivates the cheetah.

But they don’t — because the gazelle would never dream of killing and eating another gazelle – and that’s ALL the cheetah thinks about.

Your Self Defense Journey starts with making you a smarter gazelle and then (if you got the stuff) you can become a cheetah…or the baddest MF gazelle that has ever walked the Serengeti.

But you probably won’t need to go that far.

Train Honestly,

Damian