Deadliest Warrior star Nick Hughes tells us more about self-defense training and combatives, his affinity for Krav Maga, and the three most important aspects of martial arts training in this week’s interview.

Can you share your thoughts on the importance of technique, tactics and mindset? Of those three, which do you think is the most important?

I could never figure why so many students seemed to jump from style to style without sticking with something. Then I began to realize it was the schools they were attending.  They weren’t addressing the fear these students faced.  All they were doing was giving them a set of techniques to master and yet underneath these kids were still afraid of getting in a fight.

I began to break things down and realized you need 3 things to win a fight:  You have to have techniques, you have to have tactics and you have to have mind-set.  (I was happy to have this validated in the French Foreign Legion during commando training when they talked about the same thing – only they had the addition of equipment as well.)

The analogy I use to explain the difference is imagine cops being called to an armed robbery in progress.  The first cop, an excellent technician, i.e. he can shoot flies off the proverbial pig’s back at 10o yards, stands in the middle of the parking lot and gets blown away.

The second cop, also a good shot has taken a tactics course and knows he needs to be behind cover.  When he pops up to shoot a bad guy he has, for the first time in his life, a real live human being in his sights and can’t bring himself to pull the trigger.  (This happened to a SWAT sniper I’m aware of by the way in case you think it couldn’t happen.  He claimed later in the debrief when they asked him why he didn’t fire “you expect me to go to church this Sunday and tell my fellow parishioners I played God and killed someone?)

The third cop has a grasp of tactics and a great mind-set but he can’t shoot worth a damn.  He pulls his gun, shoots himself in the foot, shoots his partner, the lights off the police car, pigeons on the roof and a little old lady at the bus stop.

Only the fourth officer, one who knows he must take cover during a gun battle, can hit what he’s aiming at, and can drop the hammer on a real live target, can possibly prevail.  As the example shows, everyone else will fail somehow unless they get lucky.

So, you need to be in a school that’s teaching those three things if you’re going to have a chance in a real altercation.  Of the three, mindset is hands down the most important.  Mindset will give you the discipline and motivation to learn the other two.   The other two, without mindset, are about as much use as a snooze button on a smoke alarm.

That explains why the average street fighter beats the average black belt.  The latter has a collection of techniques while the former has an abundance of mindset, a good grasp of tactics and techniques that he’s pressure tested in real fights.

If a hapless black belt has had the good fortune to be in a school that teaches all three but they’re sports-oriented, then he’s in trouble.  The techniques in sports are safe: no eye gouging, no biting, no small joints manipulations, no stomping on a man who’s down, etc.  The tactics that work in tournaments such as feigning injury and getting the other guy disqualified don’t work in a bar fight. The mind set in a tournament is “if I don’t win I don’t go home with the trophy.”  In the real world, it’s “if we don’t win, we don’t go home.”

Do you see a difference between self-defense training and combatives?

A subtle one.  Self-defense training can be a couple of women attending a lecture at the local community center on keeping their doors locked followed with a couple of hands- on techniques like palm heels and kneeing someone in the groin or escaping the ubiquitous wrist grab.

Combatives, on the other hand, tends to encompass a much more aggressive hands on program designed to take the fight to the enemy that’s based on, or relates to the military.  I love Kelly McCann’s description:  “Traditional martial arts is what we do WITH someone, unarmed combat (combatives) is what we do TO someone.”

“My own personal definition of what we do is “We’re not learning how to fight, we’re learning how to end the fight.”
—Nick Hughes

You have an extensive martial arts background whose depth and breadth is second to none. Why do you choose to study and teach Krav Maga?

Prior to 9/11, I was still teaching traditional martial arts and didn’t figure there was much of a market for combatives-style training.  After 9/11, I was inundated with calls from people wanting to learn what to do should they be caught in something like Flight 93 and not having the time to study the PhD program.  I went back to my antecedents of hand-to-hand from the Legion and began teaching the short course applying the filter of “can I teach it in 30 min or less and is it practical?”

I was doing okay with what we labeled FIST or Fight Survival Training but the problem was nobody had heard of it or knew much about the Legion.  A great friend of mine and long-time training buddy Ernie Kirk was doing Krav Maga at the time but I didn’t want to join any organizations.  After Krav broke apart I was able to get involved with Ernie and switch over to something that more people had heard of.

If you want an analogy it would be as if I was a teacher of some obscure French weapon like the FAMAS that nobody here knows about and I was able to get a job teaching the AR-15.  They’re both effective only one is more popular.

I haven’t forgotten my traditional stuff by the way.  I still think if you’ve got the time to study it’s better for fighting than just about anything else out.  It’s just that people don’t seem to have the time any more.  If I can use another analogy I liken Combatives and Krav Maga to being a Para-medic or EMT and traditional martial arts to being a doctor or neurosurgeon.

Who are your favorite Krav Maga practitioners?

Ernie Kirk and Ryan Hoover spring to mind here in the States.  David Stevens in the UK

You say on your Facebook page that you have incorporated “soft skills” in your self-defense training. What does that mean? Why does it matter?

Yes, one of the tweaks I’ve made to my Krav and indeed all my martial arts is the addition of “soft skills.”  In a nutshell, if hard skills are fighting techniques then soft skills are everything else such as the techniques of avoidance and awareness, the legal ramifications of taking action, psychological preparation, stress inoculation and so on.

When I went through my bodyguard training every course I did stressed the importance of never getting in a situation that you need to fight your way out of.  I heard it a hundred times “If you get to the point where you need to pull your weapon you screwed up.”

Afterwards, it struck me as strange that we didn’t teach that same attitude in self-defense training.  It always seemed to begin with the attacker has his hands around your throat, or he’s coming at you with a knife.  Why not take a page from the body guard’s playbook and teach the same principles of avoiding trouble before it begins?

In most martial arts classes, we deal with the attack portion only but if we break it down like this, fully seventy-five percent of violent crime isn’t about fighting at all.  If I can teach someone how not to be chosen, how to be hyper vigilant and what to look for when alone, what to say and not to say during the “interview” then they shouldn’t have to fight their way out of trouble in the first place.

Next week, in the final installment Nick Hughes continues to share his thoughts about why no one has to be a victim; self-defense training and combatives; his appearance on the Deadliest Warrior; and the mixed martial arts.

Until then…Train hard, stay safe, live well.

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