Attack Proof: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Protection

by Al Ridenhour, John Perkins, Matt Kovsky, et al.

Book Overview

" Martial arts can teach people many important lessons about discipline, conditioning, and dedication. But as an effective means of self-defense and survival in brutal, real-world attacks, almost all martial arts come up short. This is because most self-defense applications of martial arts rely on patterned, choreographed techniques that have no relation to the chaos and randomness that rules during life-and-death fights. Attack Proof offers a dramatically...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0736003517
• ISBN13: 9780736003513
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Human Kinetics Publishers
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 1.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.6" x 11.1"

Customer Reviews

Real World Violence not Dojo Dancing

This book is what I have been looking for. As a former Marine, SWAT team member, and a reservist I have trained, studied, and researched martial arts and fighting for over twenty-five years and have always felt that something was missing. I have studied Tae kwon do, boxing, Ninjutsu, Muay Thai, and Jujutsu, and while I learned something from each art, the number of techniques I found to actually work in a real fight was very few, even though I became very proficient at utilizing them in the dojo. The dynamic violence of an actual physical altercation can vary so widely that you cannot train or prepare through the use of repetitive action-reaction training. The missing link was filled by the drills and training in Attack Proof. Attack Proof emphasizes close quarters combat techniques that enabled the Allied soldiers in World War II to beat the superiorly martial arts-trained Japanese in hand-to-hand fighting on islands all over the Pacific. It includes fright reaction training that is essential for anyone that wants to survive a sudden violent encounter, which is something most arts don't teach, and the ones that do don't emphasize it enough (because there are too many other techniques and forms to learn in that art) but it's a cornerstone to Attack Proof training. You won't find lots of cool techniques to impress your friends in here, but what you will learn will put your self-defense training way ahead of anything you will learn in a traditional martial arts dojo. There are many drills designed to build your balance, looseness, sensitivity and body unity to allow you to fight from any angle, position and the beauty of it is that if you do have a martial arts background you'll find that many of the things you will learn in this book will greatly enhance what you know already. Don't be misled by those who criticize the book for lack of ground fighting; the book DOES include ground fighting but not as a useless grappling or wrestling methodology that is only suitable for competition between people of similar weight classes with rules against attacking the eyes, throat or other vulnerable areas. These sports always have one assumption that negates their use on the street; that you have only one opponent to worry about. Go ahead and wrestle me to the ground and get your arm bar on me while my two buddies stomp your head into mush. Arts such as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu flourished under the `no holds barred' promotions because the reality was that there were rules against eye gouges and groin ripping; things that are perfectly legal under street fighting. And the idea that a 110-pound woman is going to successfully take a 200-pound attacker to the ground or get into a guard position and fight him off is ludicrous. The ground fighting in Attack Proof is a devastating and deadly form of fighting that can't work in the ring without maiming and killing people, but it's based on movement and not techniques. To see it demonstrated in real life show

And from the other end of the skill spectrum . . .

. . . here's a review from someone with very little martial-arts experience (a couple of years of Tae Kwon Do about thirty years ago). It's been suggested that this book isn't suitable for beginners. I disagree; I think it's terrific. John Perkins's Ki Chuan Do ('way of the spirit fist') isn't just a 'martial art'; this is real, practical, hardassed Taoism in action, the kind that trains your body to move like a mind. Even apart from the close-combat stuff, just doing the exercises -- even for a few days -- will make a palpable difference in how you inhabit your body and navigate your environment. (Try the Ninja Walk and the Vacuum Walk for a couple of days and watch your balance improve -- even if it's already pretty good. Combat aside, this stuff is helpful to e.g. hikers who go on difficult trails. Of course this sort of balance/awareness is a kind of 'self-defense' in a hiking context too.) The martial-arts portion is probably not for me to judge, but it makes good sense. Essentially, what Perkins is trying to do is teach self-defense to people who actually want to defend themselves. In order to do that, he's cut to the chase, omitting all the formal stuff that makes sense in a dojo (where you can count on your 'opponents' to fall courteously when you throw them) and taking you straight to the awareness/body-unity stuff (which will help keep you alive and kicking when your friendly neighborhood mugger ungenerously refuses to give you time to assume your favorite fighting stance). If you're already training in a martial art, you don't need to _stop_ or anything; Perkins's 'guided chaos' will simply help you apply your training in a more realistic context. But if you're not already training in one, I think you can feel safe in starting here. Perkins's purpose is, after all, to help beginners develop close-combat skills as rapidly as possible. As with other martial arts but perhaps even more so, the preferred aim in Perkins's Ki Chuan Do is not to go around beating people up but (as Sun-Tzu also recommended) to avoid violence by never letting it start. Perkins doesn't advise fighting unless you're backed into a corner, and he doesn't hesitate to advise running the heck away if it's at all possible. (All in all, Perkins's book fits well with Gavin de Becker's _The Gift of Fear_ -- a book that, incidentally, appears in Perkins's list of recommended reading.) The most devout peacenik (Perkins's apt phrase is 'pacifist warrior') should be able to get behind this approach. But make no mistake, if you _aren't_ able to get away from an attacker, Perkins wants you to fight like a brain-damaged wolverine on PCP. And he shows you how. He accomplishes this not so much by showing you specific blows and such (which he does, but you can learn about most of them by reading e.g. Fairbairn) but by helping you get your body in the right frame of mind, if you know what I mean. His exercises are designed to bring you to a condition in which you don't need to

Reality based fighting principles

I have read many martial arts books in my life and most of them had nothing to do with the blood and guts of actual mayhem as it visits you on a personal basis. After some time in my youth of getting beat up just going to school nearly every day my father realised that I needed to learn how to defend myself. After many years of classes in classical martial arts I found that I still couldn't handle the really tough street fighters that I came up against. I later found that there was a thing called Close Quarters Combat. I Learned some of the basics from an ex marine and found it to be more viscious than anything else. I then read many books and have seen many videos on CQC and stumbled across Attack Proof by Master Perkins and Major Ridenhour USMC and a whole new world of fighting ability became available to me. I can't stress enough how serious and on the mark the information in this book is for the person who is serious about protecting their life in a life and death altercation. Check out this book and their website. Good Luck

The best !

I have done Tae Kwon Do and jujitsu, as well as judo and boxing, and read a lot of martial arts books. This one is the best. One reason is that the author has so much experience (he was a cop and taught cops and Marines, and has REALLY FOUGHT in real life situations (unlike a lot of martial arts authors who have only "fought" - i.e. sparred - in the dojo). The author says up front what the reality on the street is, and illustrates that with real life stories from the streets of New York. He tells the reality - that fights are not "correographed" like in the dojo, but are "mahem" and "chaos". Every fight is different, and you don't have time to think which defense to use, you have to intuitively know it, and then flow into the fight. That is the problem with most martials arts like Tae Kwon Do, they teach correographed fighting. Many, many black belts have been "sucker punched" or even killed in bar fights or on the streets, while smaller, untrained people survived, because their reaction, or response was better. The author gives the example of a small woman defeating a 300-pound felon in an elevator as a good example of that. For modern "street survival" in America (or anywhere), I would recommend this book and the book "The Gift of Fear", by Gavin de Becker - for a little more on the sociological and psychological side of the criminal. I hope a lot of people read this book ("Attack Proof"), because I think it could save some lives.

This is not your father's Karate! Get this book!

I've been training and teaching Shotokan Karate for nearly 25 years and over the years I've accumulated a sizable collection of books based on various martial disciplines. Many of them talk about "real fighting", but most of them are pretty much the same, emphasizing flashy "cool looking" moves over common sense techniques and skill development. So at first glance at the book's title I was skeptical. However, after reading Attack Proof: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Protection, I enthusiastically recommend it! While I have a lot of classical training under my belt I also know that the streets of Brooklyn are anything but "classical." The book Attack Proof offers both the martial artist and lay person a bare-bones methodology to real self-defense and street survival skills. The author's base their techniques on sound principles of fighting found in most martial arts systems, and support them with examples of real world applications and experiences. I was so impressed with Attack Proof's practical approach to not only fighting, but to street awareness as well, that I bought copies for my sons, both who are trained in Shotokan and one who is a "Rookie" cop with the NYPD. Whether you're a seasoned martial artist, martial arts instructor or just someone who wants to learn enough to protect yourself. You'll find that the techniques and principles taught are understandable and easy to grasp, but most important of all, effective!