Chuck's new web series: How to Defeat Dudes

About 6 months ago, during a trip to LA, I had a chance to spend some time with a good friend who works in production. While we were at the beach, just for kicks, I showed him a bit of martial arts, and when we sat down to have a beer, he told me about a few rough situations he had gotten into in his past. During the conversation, he mentioned that he would love to see me make a show for normal people (I.e. Non-martial artists) that teaches people what to do when they get into bad situations.

The idea seemed simple enough, but there in lies the challenge: How can you teach people who aren't interested in fighting how to fight? At first I wasn't really sure if it would be possible to do, or why it was necessary when there is already so much out there on the topic of self-defense. The more I pondered it however (and the more time I spent on Youtube watching "self-defense tutorials" ) the more I came to realize that my friend was right, there isn't really anything out there for normal people. While there are a ton of videos out there, most of them don't really suit normal people for one (or all) of three reasons.

1) The techniques shown aren't explained well enough (or sometimes at all)

2) The techniques are too complex for the average person to get in the first place, let alone remember.

3) Even in cases where the instruction is okay, the videos are just poorly done, and/or only interesting for people who already like fighting.

Although it seemed like it would take a lot of research and planning and a production budget to do correctly, the creator, the producer, and the teacher in me couldn't resist the challenge. Now six months later, "the solution" I've come up with is getting ready to go live. The show will be called: "How to Defeat Dudes: Useful Stuff for the Non-martial Artist" and each webisode will be a 5 minute treatment of a single technique for dealing with a particular situation. In order for a technique to be considered for the show, it must meet the following 5 criterion:

1) It must be simple enough that an average person (with no martial arts training) can understand it.

2) It must be comprised of no more than 3 movements.

3) It must rely on gross motor skills. (Generally when people get scared, fine motor skills go right out the window)

4) It must be geared towards situations that normal people get into (I.e. Not police or swat tactical stuff)

5) It can't rely on physical attributes like size, strength or agility.

Additionally, for the show, there will be no belts, uniforms, fancy foreign words or talk of martial arts styles, and of course, itnmust be entertaining. ;) With the production team I've put together, we have done the first three episodes, and I'll be releasing them within the month. Although I am happy with these, producing them was a learning experience, and I already have ideas as to how we can make the next set of episodes even better. Really looking forward to seeing how they are received! Hopefully, if people like the show and find value in it, then it's something that I can continue to do for a while to come.