Customer comments on this selection.
 The real deal...
In a violent encounter, your heart rate can jump from 60 or 70 beats per minute (BPM) to well over 200 BMP in less than half a second. While this adrenal dump gives you a survival edge by making you more resilient during combat, it severely degrades your motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and sense of timing making complicated techniques very challenging, if not impossible, to perform. This stress can even cause you to experience tunnel vision, suffer temporary memory loss, become hyper-vigilant, lose rational thought, or even lose the ability to consciously move or react. If your training does not account for adrenaline it will be of dubious value on the street. That's what this excellent book is all about. Contents include the fear factor, combat mindset, muscular memory, strategy, training methods, scenario based training, and using weapons.
Lawrence Kane
Author of Surviving Armed Assaults and Martial Arts Instruction; co-author of The Way of Kata and The Way to Black Belt
A book full of knowledge right here.
Someone that tells it like it is. No yin-yang stuff. No umpteen different colored belts each costing $$$ for tests etc. This is scientific/street proven stuff that defines natural fight and flight reactions, predatory behavior, instinctive self-preservation mechanisms, and minimalist survival on the street. The kind of book you wish you alone had access to. With Quinn's premise to grow upon, I see unlimited benefit. Read this first and then become a martial art expert if you wish.
If you're concerned about your personal safety, buy this book!
Being the author of several books on the martial arts and fighting, I am always looking for books of exceptional quality to add to my library. If I have a book in my library, it's definitely worth owning. One such book is Peyton Quinn's, "Real Fighting."
I found Peyton's book to be a very good "reality check" for those of you out there that think that your "martial art" is superior to everyone else's. Well guess what, its not! As every person who has more than a passing resemblance to a human being will tell you, there are no superior martial arts, just superior martial artists.
The most important thing to remember when reading this, or any book dealing with self-defense techniques, is that the principles behind the technique are far more important than the technique itself. Peyton does a great job of this, and you would do well to sit down and read this book from cover to cover several times in order to grasp what he is trying to teach you.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed what Peyton had to teach in his book, I must admit that I am not a big fan of the generalization that seems to take place when people compare "real fighting" to the martial arts. It seems that a lot of the martial arts are pigeonholed into the prevalent "McDojo's" that seem to be so popular these days. That simply is not the case.
Peyton is one of the few "self-defense" authors out there that seems to realize this. He not only respects the teachings of the martial arts, but also understands their overall purpose and the benefits derived from them for those of us that study and live the martial way.
I am a traditionally trained martial artist in both Karate and Tae Kwon Do, as well as being ranked in several other disciplines. However, unlike a lot of schools that seem to have degenerated down to teaching a diluted "sport" version of these arts, I was fortunate enough to be taught the practical version of each technique alongside the traditional version.
A lot of traditional martial artists may find the information contained in this books a little disheartening, but take it from me, if you have one ounce of sense you will buy this book and study it. And when you think your finished and have learned everything in this book, take it off the shelf and read it again.
I think we would all do well to remember that the most important element that the martial arts teach you is not technique, but self-discipline!
Great Book!
First I would like to say that the negative comments about this book are NOT valid. This book is not a step by step self-defense technique book. It is to help people understand what actually happens in REAL ATTACKS and how you must train to survive them. It is one of the best books for explaining how the brain works under stress and why/how most Martial Artists will fail outside of the dojo. In addition, Peyton also explains how any Martial Arts can work for real if the training methods are beneficial to real fighting and, how to do it. I never thought that the book was designed to push the training at his school. He does explain why he believes his training methods work however, anyone that understands what he is saying knows that you can train on your own to apply these methods. I believe his main point is that you train for real fighting by "really fighting". Moreover, the physical attributes of self-defense are secondary to a properly trained combat mind. This book is a must for anyone that wants to make sure that any training they have will not fail them in real combat.
 On force on force training
The first third or so of this book is similar to Quinn's first book, Bouncer's guide to barroom brawling. There is some discussion about the realities of real-life fighting, Quinn teaches one technique to the reader, and so on. After that, Quinn starts to discuss the benefits of realistic force on force (FOF) training. The tone of the book changes totally, and it seems that the first third of the book doesn't really belong into this book. It's as if Quinn did not have enough things to say about FOF training, and he had to put some extra material to the book. This doesn't mean that the beginning of the book is not good, though. In fact, I thing that the beginning of the book is the most valuable part (if you are already familiar with FOF training, that is).
As the book is almost ten years old, at the time of writing the material on FOF training (which Quinn calls "adrenal stress conditioning") might have been new information, but today everyone realizes it's importance and benefits. As Quinn concentrates mainly on establishing justification on using FOF training, and because today FOF training is recognized as superior training method, that means this book is at least partly outdated. In the book, Quinn does not tell how to organize FOF training scenarios, nor does he give any other practical advise on the subject. It may be because he considers these things trade secrets, but still the main portion is of little use, if you already realize the benefits of FOF training.
Through the book, Quinn makes references to his earlier book and his instructional videos. I find this kind of advertising a little annoying. If I like the book I am reading, I might buy other books by the same author, but not because the author asks me to. Otherwise, the book is easy to read and there are some war stories from Quinn's bouncer days to spice up the text.
I believe that this book was much more important when it was published, but today the ideas are not new, therefore lessening the importance of the book.
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