Step One:
Determine exactly what you want.

The first thing you need to understand about positive change is that it does not happen by accident. If you want something to happen, it must first be planned, and the first step to planning is to know exactly what you want. When making a proclamation of what it is you want, you are pouring emotional and psychological concrete that will act as the foundation that supports the remaining six steps throughout this entire process. It is also important that whatever is stated or declared must be able to be measured. After all, if it can’t be measured, how will you know if you are on track to achieving it or if you have obtained it?

For example, if you determine that you want to lose weight and if you shout it from the rooftops, this declaration is not enough because it cannot be measured. Even if you become more specific and declare that you want to lose 20 pounds, this is not enough either. In this example, “determining exactly what you want” would be to say that I am going to lose at least 20 pounds by a specific date.
By doing this, there will be no question as to whether you hit your mark by your predetermined deadline or if you are on track to doing so.

Determining exactly what you want must be the first step in the process of promoting positive change in your life. Imagine deciding that you want to go vacation so you begin the process of planning and budgeting. Nothing can move forward until you first decide where you want to go on vacation. By setting a specific geographical location—everything else can now fall into place within the planning process.

The same principle holds true for students who decide to take private self-defense classes or enroll in hand to hand combat training at our facility in Plano, Texas. When asked what their goals are, a new student will typically say something like; I want to learn to protect myself or I want to earn a Black Belt or I want to become more disciplined. This is when a qualified instructor should begin asking the new student a list of highly targeted questions to help them move from broad and vague answers to very specific ones, answers with laser-like focus.

Click hereOne question I get asked frequently is; What style of martial arts do the United States police and military use? This is a simple question with a complex answer. First of all, it wasn’t until WWII that the U.S. began to fully realize the importance for this type of training. German bayonet’s and intense fox hole fighting played a major role in raising our awareness for this need.

Currently, the U.S. does not have a single uniform system in place for its military or law enforcement personnel. The Army does its own thing, the Marines do their own thing, the Navy is still contemplating if they are going to have a thing, and our Law Enforcement does a variety of things. Does this help? I didn’t think so, so let’s break it down in the form of a bulleted list (this always helps me).

· U.S. Law Enforcement / Defensive Tactics (No Uniform System In Place)
· U.S. Army / Modern Army Combatives (MAC)
· U.S. Marine Corps / Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP)
· U.S. Air Force / Air Force Combatives (Adopted From Army Combatives)
· U.S. Navy Seals / CQB (Close Quarters Battle) or CQC (Close Quarters Combat)
· U.S. Navy And Coast Guard / Showing Interest In MCMAP

Now before you begin to jump to conclusions, don’t let this list fool you. Although it's true that as a whole we are not uniformed in our approach, we are very prepared as a nation. In a perfect world, I would like to see all of the branches of the military learning a single hand-to-hand combat system and all of our special forces learning their own unique system (or the same system at a much more advance level). But, until that day comes, I sleep well at night, every night, knowing that "One Of The Best Trained Fighting Forces In The World" has got things under control. After all, sometimes patchwork quilts are the warmest.

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For self-defense practicioners and numerous other groups, pain compliance is one of the primary methods used to stop, break free from, control and restrain, and neutralize an aggressor. For this reason it is important that we have, at minimum, a general understanding of the difference between one’s pain threshold and their pain tolerance. Let’s begin by defining each term.

Pain Threshold – The minimum intensity or duration a sensory stimulus is needed to produce pain.
Pain Tolerance – A measure of the amount of pain that a person can withstand prior to breaking down either emotionally or physically.
 
Now let’s put it into layman’s terms. I could get a general idea of your pain threshold by very slowly pressing a thumb tack into the palm of your hand. Once you begin to feel the pain, we have identified your pain threshold. For the most part, the majority of individuals would begin to feel the thumb tack at or around the same time. Where we differ is the amount of pain we can withstand prior to yelling “uncle” and quickly jerking our hand away (pain tolerance).
 
Someone with a low pain tolerance may pull away the moment the pain is felt while someone with a high pay tolerance may allow me to deeply pierce them with the tack and possibly still not yield. This is why certain self-defense and pressure point techniques will work great on some people but won’t work at all on others. It also reinforces our need to learn which parts of the body are most susceptible to pain compliance and to focus our energy on them. Remember, hitting them where it hurts isn’t nearly enough. We must hit them where it stops them.