I train to be better than I was yesterday.
I train to be better than I was yesterday.
Director Of Sales
Knight's Armament Company
Originally Posted by Failure2Stop
It's all well and good to set long term goals. Heck, I write about it on my blog frequently. But the reality is that improvement happens incrementally and when people start looking at the Big Goal At The End sometimes they lose sight of what they need to do today.
I realize there are those who find the uber-villain motivational, and if that is what motivates them, so be it. But if you go back and read that description seriously, you're talking about someone who is a full time athlete, full time martial artists, full time shooter, full time tactical bookworm ... all wrapped into one. He's someone, candidly, without a life. Or time to sleep. Ever.
Me, I enjoy a good nap once in a while.
Luckily, being a Todd just comes naturally to me.
(and for God's sake if we're going to continue this conversation further on this forum, we need a different name for the uber-villain... I vote for Thanos)
You know, I've never thought of all the physical training (running, lifting, pt) that I do as training for a fight. I do it because I like bacon and beer but I also like looking with my shirt off, and those are frequently mutually exclusive.
spoiler alert!!!!
This^
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using Tapatalk 2
I've always felt that the uber-threat Todd was really just a boogeyman. A Keyser Soze. He's shorthand for an opponent who is top-tier in the phase of conflict under current discussion, whatever that discussion is anytime Todd is invoked.
"Yes, that technique/gear (hip-shooting, a warning shot, bluffing with an empty gun, a side headlock, a finger lock, a Swiss Army knife, a Seecamp carried C3 at the bottom of your purse) worked in situation X, but what happens when you are dealing with Todd?"
We at pistol-forum, who train and practice in our chosen area(s) of dedication, are well aware of the self-defense oriented gun folks who fail to adequately prepare for anything other than a real dunce. The same phenomenon occurs with practitioners of all other sub-sets of self-defense skills too - that is, self-delusion about the potential efficacy of a threat and what it might actually take to overcome them. And the Todd idea addresses that delusion from every angle.
Uber-threat Todd is an impossibility. As pointed out by Todd Green, each of his mastered sub-disciplines is itself a lifetime undertaking and study. He'd generally be unbeatable, and we'd never fight him anyway. We wouldn't be aggressing against him, and what do we even have that he wants? If he were going to rob people, he'd be a bad-guy hedge fund manager or something.
Uber-threat Todd has no balanced life to be sure. He doesn't exist or have any life at all, except as an idea to remind all of us not to get complacent, and to correctly recognize the potential level of threat we could face in any given situation.
How about the old man that Mike Tyson beat the crap out of after a fender-bender? That was Todd.
How about the combat-experienced Rangers who were taking down banks several years ago in Washington State? They were Todd.
He's a multifaceted motivational tool and walking worst-case scenario boiled down to a single four-letter word, and he exists to help us not kid ourselves.
You don't even need a fictionalized ultimate threat like Todd to recognize that things that may work against incompetant boobs or marginal threats would not work against a serious violent criminal, many of whom you can learn about by reading crime reports and police reports.
You can even read first hand accounts of defensive gun usages by Tom Given's students and see where certain less capable, methods, skills, or guns would not have worked.
This is true. That old man could have spent his whole life doing nothing but training full time in boxing and would have still gotten his ass kicked by Mike Tyson. Tyson was a champion for a reason and was only beatable by a few people in his weight class who did nothing but train full time to do so. Even after not training for a few years or decades he would still be very dangerous. This is where I have trouble with the whole Todd paradigm and training to beat Todd or training to be Todd.How about the old man that Mike Tyson beat the crap out of after a fender-bender? That was Todd.
Exactly how I feel.He'd generally be unbeatable, and we'd never fight him anyway. We wouldn't be aggressing against him, and what do we even have that he wants?
By the description and definition, this Todd--a golden gloves boxer, MMA fighter, BJJ black Belt who benches 350lbs, a superskilled shooter who is always armed, a former SPECOPS, who always strikes first--ths Todd is unbeatable, be it in an armed or unarmed confrontation.
If most people were to quit their jobs and spend the entire waking hours of the rest of their life training (assuming that they had the money to do so), 99.999% of the people out their still would not be able to beat this Todd or survive a violent encounter with him.
I understand the point of the original post and mental exercise, but I think it is over the top in that it is a completely unbeatable threat that most people would not stand a chance against. They wouldn't stand a chance even if they devoted the rest of their waking moments to nothing but training. It's like worrying about how I would defend myself if a drug cartel paid off a corrupt SWAT team from Mexico to launch an attack on my house.
By studying crime and criminal activities, there are enough real threats to worry about and prepare the best you can for.
Just to clarify, I am a huge believer in training & preparation, but not a fan of this Todd paradigm--be it preparing to beat a Todd or seriously expecting to become near Todd level.
I'm not saying that it isn't a goal that some people may choose to strive for, just an unrealistic objective for most people.
Last edited by Ed L; 06-26-2012 at 02:49 AM.
This thread makes me laugh.
I believe a couple of us (or 99% in this thread) have completely missed the point.
http://thedownzerojourney.wordpress.com/
To add to the 'missing the point', let's look at this another way for my own amusement.
Anyone can beat you anytime. The old man with a cane with bad vision could also be randomly pointing and gesticulating at Tyson while calling him a 'big jerk' and accidentally poke him in the eye and detach his retina.
I believe it was John Stuart Mill (someone find this quote for real, plz) who said something akin to this: "Man is equal only in his ability to do each other in."
Fairness leads to extinction much faster than harsh parameters.
