Senshido is a Reality-Based Self Defense for Everyone

A Little Background on Senshido

Senshido Combative Technology is the brainchild of Richard Dimitri of Montreal Canada . He is considered to be one of the top instructors of self defense in the world and has taught the system in law enforcement, military personnel as well as the average Joe.

Senshido is self defense for everyone because it doesn’t rely on strength, size or athletic ability. It is truly the great equalizer in self defense. Because it incorporates all aspects of close quarter combat, it is considered to be a holistic form of self defense and self development.

What You Learn In Senshido

One thing that has concerned me for many years about self defense and martial arts is that most tend to focus solely on the physical aspects. While it is important to understand and appreciate how to fight, it is equally important to understand that the physical is only a small aspect of fighting.

Senshido features self defense and self development from a holistic aspect incorporating all the aspects of fighting: the emotional, environmental, behavioural and the physical.

We teach how to be aware of your surroundings; how to listen to your intuition; and the proper way to defuse and deescalate a situation. If a situation can’t be defused or deescalated, students learn how to behaviorally and psychologically set the predator up so that if it goes physical, they increase their odds of getting home safely.

We stress doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done, understanding that the force you use must parallel the danger you are experiencing . . . and no more.

A Typical Class…

A typical Senshido class for newcomers revolves around getting properly warmed up and then doing light stretching. Next is the completion of several rounds of Thai kicking and focus mitt drills.

After participants are nice and warm, we get into the lecture portion of the class. This could be going through scenarios, coming to grips with understanding behavior of a predator, pre-contact queues, pattern interrupts, understanding fear, how environment affects your outcome or how to control and channel your emotions to remain calm in the face of adversity.

After students gain knowledge of the fundamentals, common attacks are simulated, using restrained force and realistic dialogue. Full attacks are safely drilled so that students have an opportunity to experience an adrenaline dump. These are usually done in scenario format which replicates a potentially dangerous situation safely.

Students are debriefed afterward to see what they did that helped them ‘get home’ and what they need to pay more attention to in the future. Class ends with stretching and comments of what students learned in the session.

Students eventually learn the physical hallmark of Senshido – “The Shredder”™. This close quarter aspect of Senshido utilizes the five (5) principles of physical retaliation to ensure your safe finish to a fight.

Senshido’s Five Principles of Physical retaliation.
The principles are simple and will maximize your physical response:

1- Economy of Motion
2- Non Telegraphic Movements
3- Closest Weapon To Closest Target
4- Tactile Sensitivity
5- Primary Targets

It is gross motor based which is what is optimally available to the human body under stressful situations such as an attack would produce. After students have a firm understanding of the fundamentals, we teach them how to handle situations with weapons and multiple attackers.

Required Equipment and Costs

Students are required to have MMA style gloves that allow them to punch but also deliver open hand strikes. Rates vary among Senshido Affiliate Instructors and HQ in Montréal, but they are very affordable. All Affiliate Instructors are handpicked and screened by Richard Dimitri in Montreal as a form of quality control and also to ensure each individual affiliate is of high character.

Other Benefits

And the great thing about all of this is it can be added to your arsenal of tools if you’re a martial artist. If you have no martial arts experience, that is OK too. This is easy for you to pick up with no prior training.

So, if you are looking for a means to develop yourself as a human being and to learn from the undisputed leader in self defense, incorporating Senshido may be exactly what you’re looking for.
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About the Author: Glenn Wilson is the founder and Chief instructor of GoldenEye Martial Arts and Self Defense in Silver Spring, MD. He has over 20 years of experience in personal protection, holds a 2nd degree Black Belt in Kuk Sool and is a Certified Affiliate Instructor in Senshido Combative Technologies under Richard Dimitri. He can be reached at (301) 318-7959 or at http://www.goldeneyemartialarts.com

Self Defense 101

Where to Start, What to Look For, What to Avoid, Who to Train With

First of all, I prefer the term Personal Protection or Protective Offense to Self Defense, for the former is proactive (placing you mentally in control of the situation) while the latter is reactive (makes you feel like a victim waiting for something to happen before choosing a response).

An article by Georges Z. Fahmy, Senshido Affiliate Instructor for the Greater Middle East Area.

“Like many people out there, I turned to Self Defense to avoid, escape, or survive violence (in my case, High School Bullying). To help you guys and gals avoid the hassles I went through, and save you time and money, I’ve decided to write this article to outline what you should be looking for in a Self Defense school/ system/ method.

Choosing to train in Traditional Martial Arts (TMA) schools, like Karate, Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do, Wing Chun, Kali, Aikido, Systema, etc should not be your objective if you seek to learn Personal Protection (PP). Although the abovementioned styles and systems are beautiful, culturally rich and allow their users to become disciplined, these methodologies have remained fixed in time, not evolving with the rising tide of violence, or are found lacking in one or more aspects. I personally trained in Chinese Kung Fu while a child (from age 10 to 15) and am proud to say that the art has allowed me to be flexible, fit, as well as disciplined.

Sadly, it did not help me in learning effective and realistic PP.

Combat Sports like Muay Thai, Boxing, Kick Boxing, Wrestling (Greco-Roman, Freestyle, or Catch-As-Catch-Can), Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), Sambo, and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA, also called Vale Tudo), among others, are very beneficial in developing a fighter’s toolbox. However, these arts and systems while allowing you to dominate a single, unarmed opponent, do not fare as well against multiples or armed aggressors. Additionally, it lacks the crucial pre-contact (psychological, emotional, and behavioral) as well as post-contact (evasion, legality, revenge and other factors) aspects a respected Self Defense methodology must have to be complete. I personally favour and wholeheartedly recommend training in MMA, as well as BJJ and Catch-Wrestling, for they teaches an individual useful tools, covers striking, grappling, and submissions, conditions its aficionados to full contact full speed training, and provides a great workout.

The third category people encounter while looking for Self Defense instruction are Reality Based Self Defense (RBSD) programs. The name itself, as Richard Dimitri, Senshido’s founder, states, is an oxymoron: RBSD as opposed to what? Unreality Based Self Defense? Nevertheless, many so called RBSD schools are just TMA repackaged, without uniforms and belts. Others are taken from Military systems (Krav Maga, Kapap, WWII Combatives) and may not be applicable by civilians because of numerous factors (such as legal, use of force, etc).

How do you distinguish between the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?

Well, for a PP methodology to be efficient, applicable by anyone (regardless of sex, age, build, strength%u2026), and realistic, it needs to cover the all-important trinity of emotional, behavioral and psychological training. Cover, not dabble in, not mention – fully cover.

These three elements have to be addressed across the three phases of combat, namely the Pre-Contact, Contact, and Post-Contact aspects.

Allow me to outline each phase in detail:

- Pre-Contact phase includes awareness training, fear/ anger/ adrenal management, evasion and escape tactics, understanding the criminal mind, tactical assessment of one’s environment, and much more

- Contact phase includes one’s ability to protect oneself and others from armed as well as unarmed assaults while covering the ballistic, kinetic, edged, striking, kicking, close quarters, grappling, and ground fighting ranges against one or more aggressors

- Post-Contact includes the legally of one’s actions, talking to the police, preventing revenge attacks, debriefing and analyzing the confrontation for enhancing one’s survivability, etc

For one to be ready to survive modern violence, I believe it is vital to train full speed, full force, with intent, while replicating realistic scenarios that induce an adrenaline dump similar to the one experienced in actual life. If what you do works under these conditions, then it is a realistic PP training methodology. If it doesn’t, then it isn’t and you need to change what you’re doing.

I have searched for a methodology that fully integrates all these aforementioned crucial elements and am glad to have discovered Senshido in 2002. After comparing it to other, more technical RBSD approaches, I decided to train in it and one day become an instructor. This great honour was mine in December 2006 and became responsible for the Greater Middle East Area since that day.”

Take care and stay safe.

Georges Z. Fahmy
Senshido Affiliate Instructor for the Greater Middle East Area, spanning from North Africa to Indian subcontinent.

Do you have any questions, comments or are you looking for training and seminars in the Greater Middle East Area? Visit my site www.senshido.net , email me at info@senshido.net, or call me on + 961 3 499 712 .

Senshido saying of the week: “Rather than provide technical aspects for people to use in specific situations, we provide analytical skills that will be useful in any situation”