Benefits of Being a Self-Defense Instructor

When I first took krav maga I fell in love and immediately dropped out of school to pursue martial arts in a modern urban context. It was so amazing to me. Fast forward to 2005 when my love for self-protection and self-preservation burned in me and I wanted to understand as much as I could about violence and how I could most effectively prevent and counter it in my life -and then translate that via instruction to my students.

The best way to understand violence is to study it’s chief perpetrators – us.  So began my personal journey really studying everything I could get my hands on – a habit I still keep today: human behaviour, violence, sexuality, conditioning, sociology, evolutionary biology and psychology- the list goes on and on.

The human animal/machine is such a fascinating, often infuriating phenomenon, but the more I understood how this clock ticked the more I was able to mitigate emotional responses to non-physical threats in my life.  As I objectified them, and understood them in the context of an abused child acting out their traumas, I could even feel compassion for them.  Coupled with these fields was an interest in neuro-criminology, which is the study of brain anatomy and the effects of head trauma, brain mal-development, and other biological influences on the brain with respect to anti-social and violent criminal behaviour.  It also helped me objectify my prejudices and perspective to allow me more rational decisions under pressure.  Grouping these areas of knowledge together lends to a broad understanding of violence – which was my first goal – and that hunger grows and burns more every day.

Also gained were/are the social skills that are necessary to successfully navigate confrontational behaviour.  And at the end of it all, if my social skills failed, or in most cases of all-out attack, my physical skills were enough to do the required job at the time.  So being a self-defense and combatives instructor has really made me a better person all-around- and geez, you get to help people along the way, and help them find the same heights of growth you did.

Life is good.

–T.J. Kennedy

Founder, Hybrid Fighting Method