Go to the 11:20 mark to see the start of the pertinent part of this video, and pay attention at about the 12:15 part to see the female officer’s actions.

This is an interesting video. I’m not gonna comment on the law-enforcement Context, I’m not gonna comment on how they arrived in the situation that they’re in, and I am not actually going to make any points about what I think as an inexperienced non-law-enforcement professional what these officers should’ve done. But I am going to point out an issue that often gets overlooked in the self preservation training community.

Watch the video and notice what the female officer does while her partner is wrestling with the suspect over the gun. She is frantically hitting the bad guy as hard as she possibly can. And we clearly see the results. And said results add up to Zero. .

Further, that Female officer looked to be pretty good shape. She looks to be fit and looks to be the kind of officer that you would hope would show up to deal with stuff. Certainly you could make comments about how her striking could be better directed and the mechanics might be improved, but what she was doing was not really wrong.

What was wrong was that it was completely useless. And here is why. The female officer is not that big. Hard to tell from the video but she looks fairly average size for a female of her age. Again, obviously seems to be in pretty decent shape, but not super muscular nor super large. And that is the major issue with striking that far too many subject matter experts overlook when they bleat endlessly about how grappling will get you killed and what you have to do instead is hit the other person.

That sounds really great if you are a 200 pound person hitting somebody your size or smaller. Probably a decent and effective strategy. .However what is overlooked – whether through willful ignorance or flat out stupidity – Is that physics matters.There is a reason that every striking combat sport has weight classes.You can be the best 135 pound Striker on the planet, but if you go to punch somebody who outweighs you by 100 pounds, it’s not going to do a whole lot. Roberto Duran was one of the greatest boxers of all time and his nickname was Hands of Stone, so that lets us know that he could hit really hard. He was lightweight through middleweight champion in the 70s and early 80s. But you know what title he never won, what title he never fought for? Heavyweight. Why is that? Because the worst top 20 heavyweight boxer on the planet would have destroyed him and maybe even killed him. There’s almost no boxing commission in the world that would’ve sanctioned a fight between Roberto Duran and some heavyweight. Because physics matters. So if someone like a Duran would have a hard time hurting someone 80 pounds heavier, what chance does that middle age guy, who has never fought or trained H2H before, and has a short weekend course on it going to be able to accomplish? 

You can have all the technical skill on your side. You can be an abnormally proficient striker. But hitting somebody 50, 80 or 100 pounds heavier than you negates most of that and anybody who tries to argue that is lying or they’re an idiot. And anyone who tries to say “well, that’s why you strike to specific points” has never fought anybody for real. The best we can do is hit general targets as often and as fast and as hard as we possibly can. And if you are substantially smaller than somebody else, that is not going to be super effective as the video here so ably illustrates. 

What we know does work from decades and decades of jujutsu and MMA  is that you can be a smaller person and win at grappling against a bigger person. That is not a debatable point. I can point out an incredibly dense amount of empirical data to prove that. It’s easier for a smaller person to win through grappling than it is through striking.

Am I saying that striking sucks? Obviously not. I have spent an inordinate amount of my own personal training time working striking. But we have to be conscious of the limitations of striking.  It absolutely has its place, but it is almost never a more superior tactic than grappling in the real world. 

Another “Rare” Entangled Fight with a Private Citizen and Weapons 4/7/2026

While many online commentators keep bleating about how these things are rare, we have another one that just happened in Oklahoma. Take a look : A high school principal tackles an attempted school shooter with a gun. Not only was it entangled, but it went to the ground, where the fight was ended successfully. 

https://www.kptv.com/2026/04/14/saved-lives-video-shows-principal-tackling-gunman-oklahoma-high-school

Just published the first of my new YouTube series that I am calling Mat Side Chats.

I will use these as informal quick discussions talking about important issues and needs that require a bit more nuance than can be covered by writing a post or article.

The first one gives the viewer tips on finding the right facility to train combatives. This has been one of the most frequently asked questions to men over the past 25 years, and it is crucial to make the right and informed choice.

I post it here, but I would really appreciate it if people would view it directly on YT to help my channel out, as well as hitting like or even subscribe. My channel is NOT monetized and this is completely free information, with no BS of me trying to get you to buy stuff from me or giving me money to get access to the real details. All of my videos will be exactly what I would tell you in a private lesson or in seminars. So if you could support me with likes/subscriptions, it would be super cool!

It continues to amuse me that people in the firearms training community still try to deny obvious evidence. I posted yet another “rare” entangled fight with weapons and private citizens, and even wrote how that the Flat Earthers use ambiguous language and terms, and I even had commentators on my post still use that language without even a bit of self-awareness. 

So I am going to do it again. The following incident just happened and it was reported by a major news source, the New York Times on March 15th. A private citizen stopping a potential mass shooting by not only going to an entanglement, but actually and purposefully taking the bad guy to the ground. No lives lost, good guy wins by using grappling against a handgun. I must be living in Princess Bride land when I hear certain people use the term “rare”. 

“”You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

https://www.breitbart.com/2nd-amendment/2026/04/08/armed-man-100-rounds-ammo-tackled-texas-church

We can read about it, study it, learn from it, but we can’t live there. Or, at least, we shouldn’t. 

It is important to learn from the past. Whether we have made mistakes or we have made good choices and done good things, It’s always good and useful to touch base with those things to help us ensure that our future path is as good as we can possibly make it.

But we can’t wallow in it. Whether it’s a great decision or a poor decision. Whether we had a fantastic experience at some point in our past or we had a horrific one. Dwelling on any of it does no good. You cannot move forward while dwelling.To move forward we must live in the present and plan for the future.

For example: I had an opportunity in high school to follow quite literally the best strength and conditioning plan a person could follow. I had the book and the template. If I had followed  that template I would have been in much better condition, far less injured, and had a base of health and vitality that would’ve followed me to this day at 61. Instead I followed trends and what was popular and what I thought was the cool thing. I wasted a good 15+ years. That mistake is certainly embarrassing to me and disappointing in what I missed out on. However, letting it guide me going forward is literally a waste. It would do me no good to beat myself up over and over and over again and cry about what if. Instead, I put my focus on building Health and Vitality the correct way and using that book and that old template to move forward. I’m not gonna waste any more time whining about the past because the future is too exciting.

Focus on where you’re going and ensure that your path is as smooth and productive as possible. Learn from your past mistakes but leave them there in the past. They can be monuments, but they should not be an albatross around our necks.

Grips and Hips

There are a lot of things to remember about what we have to do in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Hundreds of techniques, different positions, thousands of counters, a large number of principles and concepts that we have to be doing at all times; in short, a long list of things to not forget, and all of it can be altered in the blink of an eye by what our partner does. It can be daunting, especially to the beginner, thinking about all of this and trying to figure out how we are going to remember any of it in the heat of the moment all while another person is trying to choke us into unconsciousness.

There are a number of mantras that try to help us put this into understandable chunks. Perhaps the most famous in Jiu-Jitsu is “position before submission”. All of these are good and useful but what I have found as an instructor that works particularly well even with complete beginners are three simple words. They are: grips and hips.

What I mean by that is that most things in Jiu-Jitsu are only accomplished when you have good and superior grips and your hips are dominating the fight (i.e. can exert more control over your opponent’s hips and base). It doesn’t really matter how good you are at a particular technique if your opponent has his grips and he is shutting down your hip movement. Conversely, if you have superior grips and you can use your hips in the manner that you want to, you will find that you can make a lot of techniques work even if they are not your particularly best performed ones.

Techniques are not the important part of the fight. Techniques are only guidelines to physical action. The key factors are what are the drivers that allow those physical actions. Base, posture, position, pressure, are some key ones that are not attribute based, as well as the idea of keep breathing (it may be shocking but beginners forgetting to breath is a chronic event). Similarly, the simple focused idea of always fighting for the best grip possible, and always fighting for the best hip position is easy to remember and does not have to be tied to a specific way of doing it. My methods of using my hips and establishing my grip may be best for me, but for you, another method may be superior. Think of any technique that shows those things as guidelines and suggestions, but don’t get bogged down in them and go into mental vaporlock trying to remember them in the middle of training.

Watch this short video of a master of grips and hips. Note how Matteus always makes the adjustments on both that keeps him in control. Every successful attack is preceded by a solid control of these two things (also take VERY careful note that after each attack he takes the time to stabilize his post-attack position by making sure he has new established grip and hip superiority so he does not get reversed or countered):

To sum up, don’t try to remember every technique all the time. Remember the principles and framework of jiu-jitsu. If you can consistently do that, you will learn to see the appropriate time for the technique.

When in doubt, get grips and hips!

To me, this is a fascinating video.

It is incredibly fascinating for multiple reasons.

1) People on the internet LOVE to say grappling never happens in the real world, especially for private citizens, 2) the same people will also say that you will get killed if you do go to the ground, and, 3) in a key point pertinent to the context of this video, “just shoot the bad guy”.

Let’s look at these points in a bit of detail to help illustrate why you should not necessarily listen to many internet comments.

On #3 – Sure, IF we can get a gun out without interference, and IF we can get effective hits on target, then this could be a good plan. Except that here that is completely off the table. Why? Because the victim was a flight attendant just getting off work (i.e. she just got off a plane) and was still inside the airport, meaning she had zero chance of having access to a gun! Does that mean she does not deserve to defend herself? Should she just accept her fate? That is a repellant thought, and anyone thinking that should be ashamed of themselves. But unfortunately, that is a mantra that keeps getting spouted by some elements in the gun community. It’s a crazy idea but there are other eminently practical ways to effectively defend yourself that does not involve firearms.

There is a trite idea that floats around the gun community and that is something along the lines of “I don’t go anywhere without a gun!” First of all, that is a lie. There are a number of places in the world , even in a pro-carry state like AZ where you cannot, under possible penalty of law, carry, even if you are LE or military. If you choose to live your life where you go to very few places and live like a hermit so you can always have a gun on you, then cool. What you do does not impact me so go for it bro, but like 99.5% of the people in the country, I prefer to enjoy my life and will go to many places where I cannot have a firearm. And as an instructor of self-preservation skills, I believe that every single person anywhere in the world has the right to defend themselves no matter what the circumstances, and I don’t want anyone to suffer pain, violence, or death merely because they don’t have a gun as a crutch.

As to point 1) if you still continue to bleat about grappling does not happen, then you are either willfully lying (probably to rationalize your own lack of skill in that area and you do not have the moral fiber to admit it), or willfully ignorant, in which case you should not be listened to at all because you are wrong about this, so you are most likely wrong about most everything else. We have thousands of real world DOCUMENTED cases where grappling happened, and addressing point #2, grappling worked great! Is it always a good thing to entangle or go to the ground? Of course not! This is the real world we are discussing, and in the real world there is nuance and context to always consider.

But, we have a monumental amount of empirical data where it does work, and is a good idea. As in this case with this woman. Do you really think she could have stayed on her feet and fought off a substantially bigger, stronger committed attacker? By going to the ground and using good techniques and good strategy, she took minimal damage, and came out of this violent encounter pretty well. I will wait for someone to come up with a “better answer” that makes sense and would be a real world possibility.

While many people prefer to focus only on lethal force level incidents where guns are primary, I will continue to be a generalist in my self-preservation outlook, both as an instructor, as well as an individual.

This course will teach you to work verbal, physical and gun handling skill sets at close contact distances. Scenario based training is used heavily throughout this program, and the entire course is hands on. Students will learn how to consistently engage live fire targets at arms’ length, and also use UTM and demo guns to engage in force-on-force training with role players at close contact distances, out of vehicles and inside structures.

Close Contact Handgun

12 Hours of Instruction Includes:

• Pre-Assault Cues
• Criminal Assault Paradigm
• Utilizing Verbals
• Body Positioning
• Recognizing Tripwires
• Live Fire at Close Contact
• Scenario Based Training
• UTM Force-on-Force Training

Required Equipment:

• Comfortable clothing that allows for a full range of motion
• Training gun/blue gun/red gun (if you don’t have one, we will have extras)
• Boxing gloves (if you have them)
• Reliable Semi-Automatic Handgun
• Backup or Secondary Handgun (if available)
• 200 Rounds of Handgun Ammunition (more is always better)
• Sturdy Handgun Holster and Magazine Holder (no metal belt clip-style nylon holsters)
• Sturdy Belt
• 3 Magazines or Speed Loaders (more is better – please load them before class starts)
• Hearing Protection and Eye Protection (electronic hearing protection recommended)
• Closed Toed Shoes are Required
• Bandanna
• Long sleeved shirt or light sweatshirt
• Gloves that do not prohibit your ability to shoot, hold onto things, etc.
• Mouthpiece and Athletic Cup (recommended but not required)
• Pants
• Hat and Sunscreen are Recommended
• Lunch and Water

I, along with a lot of other people, was once obsessed with fist loads. But I matured and now look at them from a historical or intellectual perspective. 

What exactly is a fist load you may ask. Any hard object that we can hold in our hand that allows us to still make a fist with the object inside, and gives us the illusion that we can hit harder. And after 46 years of playing with them, I do believe it is an illusion. A proper fist – first two knuckles aligned with the forearm and back of hand even with the back of the forearm – gives you just as solid a hitting surface, is more resilient, and protects your hand and wrist far better than a fist load. 

The problem with any hard object in our hand is the same as when we wrap our hands as a boxer does – it gives a false sense of what is happening. It is easy to have a bad wrist angle, or the knuckles not lined up, and some of the pressure is absorbed by the object. And we may get away with it much of the time, but when it goes wrong, it may be catastrophic. After one strike to our attacker is not the time I want my hand to give out. 

I believe in software (skill and training) over hardware (the fist load). With a bit of practice under the instruction of a good coach, we develop the ability to always hit hard and with less chance of injury that we always have with us rather than rely on a tool that may not even be legal in the area where we may find ourselves. 

The one place that I think some version of a fist load may be useful is when it projects out either end of our hand and allows us to use hammer fist strikes. I particularly like a handheld light for this purpose. The bonus is such an object is almost always legal anywhere reasonable. 

Another negative aspect of a fist load is how it looks from a legal viewpoint. Even if it is legal, what is a prosecutor going to say to the jury as you stand trial in a criminal or civil action? “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this person walked around in society with the intent of pummeling another human being so badly that he carried around an object that has no other purpose but to severely injure another person!” 

And for those who think they can disguise theirs and pretend it is something else (like a massage tool! Ridiculous!), don’t count on it. LE agencies and investigators are pretty tuned into to these things. 

I get it. I too once loved the idea of them, but over the years I have realized that the niche for them is so minuscule that the juice is not worth the squeeze. But as always, I am not the Tactical Gestapo. It is not my place to make your decisions for you. Choose as you like, but make sure you are armed with real knowledge, not a superficial version of “knowing”.