"Thug- Jitsu" Intelligent Asymmetric Responses to Real World Violence

In a fight “thugs” tend to keep things

1. Simple

2. Brutal

3. Rooted in Aggression

This is a good strategy for training for street violence.

Shouldn’t we be modelling the “experts” in street fight experience?

The thugs themselves?

Shouln’t we be drilling for the REALITY of what real world violence is?

Sample from the “Thug- Jitsu” DVD

how NOT to train for a punch



The idea here is to get away from a sparring, tit for tat model of violence
and focus on delivering violence one way , asymmetrically using
deception and surprise.

By stealing the initiative and then having stolen the initiative to keep going
until the job is done.


Simple, Brutal, Rooted in Aggression.


“Thug -Jitsu” is a training concept that allows you to use the best strategies developed by criminal predators against them.

Sample from “Thug-Jitsu” Manual Page 5:

Stylised responses only work against specific stylised attacks, against a weak attack ANY defense will work.


“Thug – Jitsu: Intelligent Asymmetric Responses to Violence”Manual and DVD Course

Topics covered in the manual:

Redefining the Attack: how street violence occurs vs how it is assumed to occur in martial arts and self defence schools

“Thug Jitsu Defined”: the name thug jitsu is a tongue in cheek reminder that violence is ugly and that how we best train for violence might not come from shoehorning pre existing martial arts training into a street context but by modelling the criminal predators, the “thugs” themselves. Taking the advantages and strategies they have and giving them back to the normal person in an effort to level the playing field.

Combative Ergonomics: applying concepts from industrial psychology and ergonomics to make the training process more objective, more specific and more effective.

Principles: you don’t apply principles to tecniques, technical applications flow from capability, context and key principles. The principles you work from are key. These are my suggestions for the most important principles to be trained in for real world violence.

Core Game Plan: developing a core game plan with multiple layers of redundancy (if the first plan fails, you switch to the second, if that fails to the thrid and so on) that is durable, reliable and effective.