Interview with self defence expert Matt Frost, Part 3
This is the 3rd and final part of the interview conducted with head coach at Function First Lincoln, KFM Top Team Member, and developer of the Combat Resource Centre, Matt Frost. Part 1 can be found here and part 2 here. Links to the Combat Resource Centre can be found here. Enjoy! š
A big thing about self-defence nowadays is the legal aspect. KFM has been criticised for being quite smash and dash which sometimes wouldnāt be classed as self-defence. Has Renegade Street Tactics built on this in a legal aspect?
It certainly has, the programme has threat levels from stage 1-3. I was talking to Tony about this the other day and maybe you have experienced this where you train and the instructor says, āThe guy comes up to you, postures at you and points a finger. You break it off, headbutt himā. And youāre going Woah!!! Heās just pointed at you and youāve broken his finger and headbutted him! Not just in a legal sense this is wrong but also as a decent human being! Anyone can escalate the situation and thereās not going back from that. Is that the outcome we want? We have our three basic threat levels, thereās posturing and peacocking, then pushing and shoving to a full blown attack. Now obviously if you get blindsided, it goes to threat level 3 and do what you need to do to get out, thatās where KFM is great and you just survive. But the other elements were missing, and it doesnāt fit in with the family, community aspect! Teaching kids head stomps doesnāt really go with my philosophy of family community and development! Itās about redirecting the threat if possible, but if you canāt you go to the next level of force. Today with CCTV cameraās etc., you canāt just grab someone, head-butt them and stamp on them, youāre off to Prison. Iāve been to seminars where this has been taught. We teach stomps but from a defence, learning how to defend against it, not as an attack. We do not teach you how to go to prison but the opposite. Itās not acceptable martial arts behaviour. Thereās also a lot of bravado and macho talk in the martial arts which can lead to delusion in people which is dangerous. Iāve had to use violence on people and it was one of the most shocking things Iāve ever done. I went home and broke down. I used violence and kept it to a level that was reasonable, but I didnāt expect the way it would affect me after it had happened. I went home and burst into tears at the thought of doing that to someone, I wasnāt prepared for. Iāve been shot at and beaten up, but this really affected me. Itās great in theory, smash them and get out, but itās not that simple, and itās not something people talk about or consider really.
So finally, whatās the future for you, Function First and Renegade Street Tactics?
2015 will see the launch of the new satellite schools and coaching courses with great business backup for us so we can replicate what we have done here in Lincoln and in Louth.
This is not your average franchise, its an exclusive opportunity and model for those who are prepared to put in the work. We are limiting it to maybe 6 new school owners each year, this is quality not quantity.
Itās a little Utopian but why the hell would anyone settle for less eh? To build full time professional schools, and raise the level of martial arts in the UK is a massive goal. Martial arts are still in the past in terms of pricing structure and the way itās perceived. Thereās nothing wrong with church halls etc. thatās where we came from but, people donāt value it as much, it has a stigma. Modern fully equipped full time academies are what your students are paying for so they get the best of everything. We should be on the same playing field as a professional business which is what weāre trying to do here. Build coaches and savvy business people, deliver honest products and keep it really high level martial artists and schools, not the watered down Mcdojo model as you mentioned before.
Function First full time professional academies throughout the UK?
Thatās the vision. The martial arts changed my life, saved my life, itās done that for a lot of people, Iām sure itās changed yours. I believe thatās what Iām here to do now. To transmit that knowledge and grow it more from a place of experience. I think that can be achieved through the people we have here and itās an exciting time! I just love the martial arts and want to continue growing as much as I can. Iāve just competed in my first BJJ competition and look forward to progressing more and more in that for a new challenge and something to learn. Iām 45 now, MMA is great but Iām not too keen on a shin in the teeth or a punch in the face with a 4oz glove anymore, I know im getting soft! I love the sparring but itās much lighter now. All martial arts have something to offer and I want to learn as much as I can from all of them! As long as I, my coaches and students keep progressing Iām happy!
Interview with Self Defence Expert Matt Frost Part 2
This is the second part of the interview conducted with Matt Frost, KFM Top Team Member, Head Coach and Function First Lincoln, published author and, along with Tony Davis, developer of the Combat Resource Centre self defence programme. You can see part one of the interview here.
Youāve said about the bad experiences you had. Presumably this was pre any martial arts training. Are you OK to talk about some of them?
….This one though, I knew it was real and he was going to kill me. It was a rifle to my forehead and I grabbed the barrel, pulled it to one side of my head shouting āheās got a gunā I then front kicked him in the stomach, falling backwards but firing the gun as he fell. It sounded like an air rifle, and my girlfriend went āheās shot meā! I thought it was just an air rifle so said it would be ok. The gun ripped through my fingers and my girlfriend pulled me off as he ran away. I slammed the door of the truck we were living in and heard him shooting, I then realised it wasnāt an air rifle. I looked over at my girlfriend and there was blood just squirting everywhere then she just said, and Iāll never forget it āitās like bloody reservoir dogs in hereā! It was so surreal and electric, everything was super enhanced. I said Iāll go for help, luckily the guy had gone but we didnāt know that, so I went and got an ambulance. She lived and all is good now. But those are just some of the experiences Iāve had and how it escalated from some kickingās in Lincoln High Street to a gun attack in Portugal.
That’s certainly some very intense experiences you have had which I’m sure give you some very unique perspectives on realistic self defence training. After Portugal did you then come back to the UK?
We travelled for a while longer in Czech, Germany, Poland etc and had a really good time. We were a bit cautious after everything that had happened but then came back to the UK in the late 90ās where I started training with Andy in 1999 until last year really. In the beginning it was mainly Andy I was training with, Justo came over for seminars but I still didnāt really understand the Keysi thing at this time. Then I joined the instructor programme to immerse myself more and in my second year training I went to Spain and thatās when I really met Justo and the European Keysi scene. I didn’t have a job at that point, I had money from travelling and I ran sound systems for festivals in Europe, I was still running those businesses but my time was pretty much free so I just absorbed the training in that time. Andy offered me a position coaching and it went on from there. The position was in Spain coaching the coaches. I used to do an obscene amount of time, 50-60 hours training a week, morning till night straight through as it just gripped me so much. Andy offered the job to coach the coaching courses in Spain and I just said Yeah! Thatās fine but didnāt think much about it. I didnāt realise until I got out there that Iād never actually taught anyone. I was training hard and meticulously going through lessons plans, teaching people in different languages for 8 hours a day, thatās a bit of a brain melter. Thatās why I opened the Priory in Lincoln, it wasnāt for a business, it was to learn more how to teach and develop myself, gaining more experience. The instructor programmes for Keysi were becoming popular, I was teaching in Norway, Spain, Italy, America and Australia and it was growing massively and I knew that it was going to be a big part of my life so I had to know how to coach at a high level. I went on coaching courses with people such as Mark Dawes, NLP coaching courses and National Federation of Personal Safety courses and started getting really interested in the coaching styles. In 2005 I opened the Priory two nights a week, adults only. Andy then shut down his academy in the UK and rewrote the Keysi syllabus in Spain. Thatās where the Urban X came from. Keysi at the start was very different to what people know as KFM now, there was a lot of JKD in there and other art forms such as ground work that isnāt in there now. Andy moved to Spain and after about 2 months rang me asking me to come teach the new programme the next day. So I jumped on a plane the next day and spent 4 days looking at the syllabus and working on the first yellow grade. For the next year, I was there every other weekend for 4-5 days where we restructured what the world now knows as Keysi Fighting Method.
When did you make the decision to jump to a full time academy and step it up?
It was actually Paul, one of my coaches that suggested the jump to move to the current location. I was thinking about a full time academy. Iād been at the Priory 4-5 years and was only teaching adults. I was getting a bit bored of flying around doing the KFM seminars. In the beginning it was good fun and I enjoyed it, rock star lifestyleā¦.but on Ryanairā¦.but then it wore off. The coaching and seminars didnāt, but travelling all the time wore off. I was thinking about the transition where I could build a healthier lifestyle when we found a unit, checked it out and the second I saw it, picked up the phone and made an offer.
KFM is now obviously split up with Andy Norman taking the Defence Lab route, and Justo developing Keysi by Justo. What are your thoughts on the split from someone who trained so closely with them for so long?
Itās sad that they split. It was such an amazing experience and group of people that I donāt think will ever be replicated, definitely not in the KFM circles. Andyās pushing 50 now, Justo is pushing 60. We virtually lived together, Andy has kids as does Justo and things are different now. Iām 46 this year and Iām a different person to what I was. At the time there were a lot of people involved that just taught and developed Keysi travelling around the world. It was intense, but incredible and I wouldnāt change it for the world. Itās just really sad that it went wrong. I learnt a lot from it, I learnt a lot of what not to do, and how to do things. Iām sure Andy and Justo are grown up enough to admit the same. There were a lot of things done wrong but a lot of really cool things done too. Itās just a shame that couldnāt be worked out, but the whole split and fighting for public attention and stuff, I just stay out of, Iām not interested. The nonsense questions people ask, Is KEYSI better than DL? I mean you may as well as is Batman better than Spiderman, come on. At this level its pointless to ask that question. No one art is any better than any other. Ask yourself, Do you like it? The people around you? Are you enjoying the journey and development? Thatās all that should matter.
So you now have the Renegade Street Tactics programme that is being developed. Tell me all about it!
Oh yeah!! Iāve just been working on it this morning actually. Iāve gone through the whole hard-core thing, you know fighting in car parks, toilets and years of crazy realistic training. Ask anyone about the Priory training days in Lincoln, they are legendary. People that were not there even talk about them. But you cant maintain that level of intensity, you cant run a business like that if you want to help the majority and its only a small % of the bigger picture. As I said my experiences of violence are extreme and I donāt think a lot of people can relate, some people donāt even believe me. Iāve only told you a few, thereās a lot more. But because of that, my self-defence has to be realistic and from a place of truth. I have to sleep at night knowing that what I teach is based upon my experiences.
Everyone has different experiences. At the end of the day, who can say what works and what doesnāt, its dependent on the situation at hand. So The tagline for the new programme Renegade Street Tactics Program is `The Art of Self Defence` so a bit of play on Sun Tzu, but that hard-core mentality is not even 5% of what we do or want to do or transmit to people. That doesnāt mean itās diluted, I got to a very good level in that, and me getting to an even high level isnāt going to help the general student that trains twice a week. I mean I did over 10,000 hours in the first 10 years. Most students wont do that in a lifetime. Me polishing my skills is great for me, thatās a personal thing, but itās not going to help most of my students. Then I started looking at the traditional arts and liked what they had to offer in some of them, not all. The Renegade Street Tactics part of the new name stands for the hardcore realistic no nonsense training. The tagline āThe art of self defenceā represents the ethics, morals and community, nutrition, well being, balanced life and so on. I mean we even do postural assessments on our students as they train to prevent injury in the future. We do all this with simple realistic self-defence.
Well actually we do this with all our programās, MMA, Kickboxing, Kids classes, Fitness. Ā For example, we have kidās classes now, with parents coming and saying to us that the kids are asking to eat more vegetables. Itās a simple thing but itās massive for me that theyāre conscious of their nutrition. Others come in with problem children, where they donāt actually like their child, which is a difficult thing to admit as a parent, that you donāt like your own child. But they come back to us in 6 monthsā time and comment on how weāve changed the family and itās become tighter, they enjoy spending time with the kids, pad feeding for them etc. and this for us is a massive thing. Itās not just the kids either. My coaches, some of them were packing eggs for a living and not enjoying it, but now you see they have responsibility and professionalism and love what they do. Its changed their lives which has changed their familiesā lives. Its things like this that are in the new programme, looking at how we coach, mindful training in a world where we are easily distracted.
Youāll go for a drink with a friend in a pub but spend all the time on the mobile phone, itās almost a disease and perhaps a reason for the misdiagnosis of ADHD, we donāt know the knock on effect of this in the years to come. The programme is designed through education and teaching people how to learn and stay mindful through the drills we do and thatās much more what Iām about now. The hard-core thing needs to be real, but the delivery system is more about the lifestyle and community. The hard-core stuff is very niche, we had 30 students maximum, which was great, it was a great moment in time, but itās not where Iām at now. We still train hard as you work through the ranks but we donāt scare off new students the second they look through the door, were much more professional now.
Youāve said about the coaching courses and now you have satellite schools running in Newark, Stamford, Retford and Louth. Are you planning on doing more in the future?
Yeah. We started the coaching course last year as an experiment for years 1 and 2. Next year it gets launched to the public. Year 1 was to get feedback and iron out the wrinkles. I wanted to build this place here in Lincoln as the business model has to be built around the main academy, this is what we can achieve for anyone looking to get into the business, itās a great advert. I wanted to grow it to a place where I had employed staff, dealing with HR issues, legal sides VAT sides etc, itās a complex beast and itās been a really interesting journey. We now have a full time business manager on board to take it to the next level. What I wanted to do was build this as a tight ship to build other models around. Im in no rush to do this, its going to be done well, tight and right. It has to be done right for the people who trust us to look after them when we roll it out to the public and we need some successful schools to show people what we can do. But what happened was a couple of people came to me that were having problems with their schools, it just wasnāt working for them. James from Louth came in January 2013 nearly in tears; he was going to lose his business and had little to no back up from the people he was paying to help him run his business. I didnāt want to step on other peopleās toes so we introduced kidsā programmes, as they didnāt do that, we built the business up that way. Eventually he just said āMatt the way you do things is much better and thatās the way I want to goāā. He was with another Martial arts Franchise so I rang the owner and said this is what weāre doing and if thereās issues we wonāt do it, so it was all above board. He gave me his blessing, I donāt do business any other way. It wasnāt in the plan, but now heās up to 80 students in less than a year and has moved to a bigger academy and is in a really good place. Heās just had another refit and the place looks incredible, this is what we plan to do with the new Function First Franchise model around the UK.
The model we have works well and so thatās what we plan on doing in Newark and Stamford. The course will be launched to the public next year with business back up, renegade street tactics programmes, fitness, kids leadership programmes etc. so itās just a really tight package. I believe our business model to be unique in the martial arts industry, What we are offering is taking people to the full time professional academy business. We have encountered many problems growing our main academy but learnt a lot from it. Hitting the 150 students and then employing staff and sales people in the academy pushed us to 300 very quickly which again brought all sorts of problems. Managing that and leading a team is a skill set that we are now very lucky to have covered with our business guru Mark. He ran teams of over 100 people that he built from scratch for huge multi billion dollar (yep billion) dollar companies. The guy is a genius, I love learning from him as much as I love learning my martial arts. Sitting with him is like sitting with the master and he is now responsible for looking after the new franchise schools and business training. You see were training our new school owners to be business people as well as great martial artists.
If this is being filtered down through all the schools, are you at all worried that the level of knowledge will also be diluted? I tentatively use the word āMcDojoā and itās sad to say but a lot of martial arts now have become filtered down from what they were in the beginning through knowledge being passed down inaccurately with the root of the art being lost.
Itās a valid question. The term McDojo is a funny one. I know what people mean by it, but I actually think that if they were McDojoās Iād be impressed. I understand what they mean, cheap low quality product, but my business head is different now. I see McDojo as systems and procedures which in my opinion help us deliver a product. The McDojo is a low quality product, unethical, large business sort of model, but I am a fan of systems and procedures that make it easier to transmit knowledge. We are going to teach coaching skills to everyone in the new programme as it means we have to sharpen our skills and keep progressing. In terms of the systems and procedures, if you think of it like this. You had to go in and teach an elite team of soldiers, going into high intensity warzone in 6 months. You go in as a paid coach to teach self-defence or whatever. You teach things in a certain language and certain way, but one day youāre ill and have to get someone to cover. They then teach in their language. A takedown could be a double leg to someone, a shoot to someone else. The message is mixed and confused and its not completely clear where the coaches are coming from. Therefore to get the best, the coaches all need to speak the same way. Thatās the essence of McDojo to me, the delivery system. Its sleek and a blueprint for teaching. Thereās no room for misinterpretation, so its 100% understood by everyone and delivered the same. So if someone ever says to me youāre a McDojo, and no one ever has yet but im sure they will, part of me will say thanks very much! But equally I know what they mean. The systems and procedures we have for our coaches are to get all our coaches to transmit the same way. They have their own personality, theyāre not robots, but they work to a system and structure we all understand so that if people come here for a grading, everyone knows where they stand. Itās an efficient way. Did that answer your question?
Partly, if you could just say a little bit more about the quality of the syllabus being kept strong and not being filtered down through satellite school openings?
Itās been a big discussion with the coaches on our course so far. I canāt ever measure someone against my level. That sounds egotistical, but when Iāve trained that much and have a good understanding of coaching and can transfer between arts quite quickly. That takes time, maybe 10 years to develop and Iām still developing. So you have to be realistic but have metrics and standards in place and constant growth for all. We constantly assess our coaches both in business and the arts, we donāt accept anyone. I think thatās what people mean when they call things Mc Dojo, itās the ones who just accept anyone and let them go out and teach after 3 days training. Were not that model, you have to apply to join us and you have to pass a lot of requiremnets. For coaches we have to see them teach and they have to deliver to a certain standard each year.
They have to understand certain concepts and principles and there has to be a certain movement of body mechanic. If weāre talking straight jab, is their shoulder replacing the fist? Is the chin down? Is it tracking in a straight line? There are variables for each movement, and have they got them right and can they transmit that? Itās self-coaching. We get our students to learn like that itās great. It happened in class the other day; stick this in the interview, Stu one of my coaches will kill me for it, but I donāt care! We break all movements down to lots of beats, so he was teaching a move in the MMA class, and it was down to 3 beats at a time so people donāt get confused. So moves one, two, three, then four, five, six. Then putting it all together. So he then said weāre going to stitch it all together and missed a beat out. I saw it and someone went, āStu, you arenāt putting the arm over the headā! The student hadnāt seen the technique before but picked up on it through the use of the beats! Showing our way of teaching is replicable, our students get it, and then our coaches have to get it or our students will be the coachās case as we cultivate that type of culture. It raises everyoneās game. By the end of an hour class, no matter how complicated something is, it should be able to be broken down and explained. Especially in self-defence where it needs to be simple and effective. You then add your personality and individualism into it and thatās really important!
Letās talk Combat Resource Centre then!
When KFM split, we were in a bit of limbo stage. What do we do? The Renegade Street Tactics is the result of the Combat Resource Centre that I did with Tony Davis. We said letās get together and put an online programme together to see feedback with our interpretation. The feedback was amazing, its selling really well all over the world. It was myself and Tony putting our name out there, not just copying KFM but adding our own bits too. KFM is sort of one dimensional, itās awesome at it and possibly the best self defence method in the world in that range but it didnāt deal with all the ranges of combat and all the natural instinctive reactions to threat, so for us was not complete. Myself and Tony wanted to show a bit more, such as how to use trapping to protect someone else youāre with. We wanted to show weāre not just KFM and the Renegade Street Tactics programme came out of that. It was really enjoyable and we also learnt quite a bit filming, training developing stuff. It was really enjoyable.
Links to the Combat Resource Centre Page can be found here
KeysiĀ is incredible, its as simple as that. My experience of Keysi before training with the founder, Justo Dieguez was relatively little and so I was eager to learn all I could in the two hour seminar hosted by Keysi Lincoln. Keysi is a martial arts method developed in the 1980s through life experience and study. It aims to develop personal defence through instinct and personal growth and has now grown international recognition as an effective form of self defence, as well as through its use in Hollywood movies such as Batman, Jack Reacher and Mission Impossible III.
The seminar focused on principles such as trapping, and before long we were working in groups practising the Pensador or Thinking Man technique that is synonymous with Keysi, followed by strikes such as elbows and hammerfists that are again, part and parcel to the Keysi way. Throughout the training, we were encouraged to think about what was happening around us, not just focusing on our partner and the technique, but also thinking who was around us and what was going on. If someone’s back was turned while training, we were to tap it and that person then had to complete two press-ups. Before long the press-ups mounted up in to the hundreds! As Justo explained, that tap on the back where you were not aware of the people around you could quite easily be a knife in a real situation and that split second where concentration and awareness is lost could cost you your life.
“Training is training, the situation is the situation. You have to separate training from reality. In training, you miss what happens around you, you don’t hear, you don’t see anything, and you don’t move your body the way it needs to be moved. 90% of the people in the gyms go for sweat and feel happy but they don’t learn anything. In Keysi, the intention is to enter into the situation, with the physical, mental and emotional all coming together.”
The class ended with some two on one drills that again got us thinking about what was happening around us, hoping to develop a 360 degree awareness that is necessary for self protection, especially when there is more than one assailant. As Justo says:
“I don’t sell security, that is impossible. I sell the fact that we are vulnerable, I don’t have a magic formula for anyone, its attitude and training that matters.”
I found the seminar incredible, the techniques Justo demonstrated were simple enough to be effective, and Justo explained the principles of Keysi with a mixture of real life examples, valuable insights and humour, taking complex ideas and simplifying them for us. Keysi is seen by many as one of the most effective forms of self defence available today, yet Justo acknowledges that no system is perfect and that he does not have all the answers.
“The important thing about Keysi is who you are – your value. Through training you feel better and learn more about the street, but we can’t sell security. We sell good training and development to understand and recognise situations. In a real situation, in one moment you need to have the answer. If you’re thinking about how many techniques you know, you die, if you think about what you are going to do, you die, what do you do?
One time in Spain on TV, a guy showed a knife defence technique from the throat, playing to the camera. When the knife is put against the throat, the guy says show the camera you are scared. You really have to show that?! Of course its a scary situation. Then he says when this happens you catch the arm and the knife and apply this technique. Not possible. If someone put a knife against my throat from behind, guaranteed I would shit my pants. It’s ok to train like this, but don’t believe you can do it in real life. The attacker is angry, crazy, maybe on drugs and you try to disarm the knife? It’s impossible. How these people have the bollocks to stand in front of the camera and say in 10 minutes I will show you how to defend against a knife attack I don’t know. These people need to go to jail, they are selling lies. Maybe you believe it, and then if you ever try it, you are dead.”
Keysi is by far one of the most developed and intelligent forms of self protection around today. The seminar taught by Justo was incredible and thought provoking and it will be interesting to see Keysi develop further in the future, reaching wider audiences and spreading it’s message of self development and self protection.
The Fence concept, developed by Geoff Thompson can arguably be seen as one of the most effective, yet overlooked real self defence principles around. The Fence controls the distance between you and your attacker in the run up to an altercation, and allows you to control the situation as your first line of defence.
Geoff Thompson states that it is all very well having a catalog of incredibly powerful techniques or strikes at your disposal, only they are useless without the element of control. The Fence aims to dictate distance and timing, while being relaxed and natural. In many cases, altercations occur, and people immediately throw their hands up in a boxing style, assuming their position to fight. This may work, yet it screams aggression and may simply escalate the situation further, taking the element of control out of your hands. The Fence is unassuming and passive in a way, and aims to diffuse the violence, not increase it which taking up a boxing stance may well do. Subliminally the fence aims to take control of the situation and let the attacker know in some way that you know what you are doing in the hope they will back down due to this deterrent, allowing you to get out of the situation without fighting which can lead to trouble with the law, as well as putting you at serious risk or injury or even death.
The Fence in action
The Fence keeps the arms outstretched, keeping the distance of around 18 inches between the attacker and yourself. It blocks the path of the attackers arms so punches are difficult to throw, as well as the path of the headbutt. Geoff equates this idea of The Fence in terms of building a fence around a factory. The bigger the fence, the more of a deterrent to people who want to break in there is. The smaller, weaker fence will be more susceptible to attack, while the larger stronger fence may not keep people out forever, but will certainly be more effective than a small fence, or no fence at all.
This simple concept is overlooked so often in self defence training, where people become too focused on responding to the attacks, rather than looking at the events leading up to the attack. If we simply respond to attacks, we are already on the back foot and the defensive. You could be very skillful at defending yourself and be winning the fight once it occurs, until the attackers friends decide to jump in and you are suddenly being beaten up by four people at once. The Fence aims to take control of the situation before the physical attacks happen, allowing control of the distance as well as the psychological aspects of the fight. The Fence and its principles should be taught in all forms of martial arts in my opinion due to its simplicity, yet extreme effectiveness.
More information on Geoff Thompson and his ideas on self defence can be found here