My Fifth Hard Target: The Evolution Continues Day 1 (diary entry)

After a successful session teaching for Telford’s Kyushinkai Martial Arts Centre I caught the proverbial “red eye” train from Charlbury to Paddington to stay overnight to teach another great two day seminar for “Mo Teague’s Hard Target System”. Once again, the group mainly consisted of Close Protection students who have to complete the course in accordance with the Response Security Training set standards. The group was very responsive and enthusiastic from the very beginning with a broad range of ability. Very much like my own Clubb Chimera Martial Arts, Hard Target’s strength comes from its evolving and progressive nature. We are always revising, checking and updating information, improving training methods and apply critical thinking. We do not seek to brand what we do in set-in-stone techniques and unquestioning dogma. Additions to the physiological soft skills included more detail on the effects of the individual chemical components of the “chemical cocktail” that naturally occurs in the body at times of stress, as well as what happens to a person’s physical actions when the heart rate goes above 175 beats per minute. The offender profile was taken out this time to give the course a more generalized feel. Physical training for today consisted of introducing the 13 standard self defence techniques. As previously mentioned, these can be divided into two front-line primary attack weapons and then variations on these weapons as well as support weapons, such as anti-grappling and high percentage grappling techniques. These techniques are taught in controlled exercises for target familiarization and then full contact on the focus mitts. Later various techniques are applied in live pressure testing with escalating levels of pressure. I accompanied this with an introduction to basic fighting postures – these are natural positions made more efficient for combative movement, attack and counter-attack – that was first delivered as part of the warm-up, then as a way to better learn the standard self defence techniques.