History of US Fighting Systems
My name is Dave Young the Founder of US Fighting Systems. My background is slightly different from most. Different in the way of informal, formal and traditional martial arts, training and fighting styles. Most people take a series of classes in hopes for a fight to never occur and mine was the opposite; everything I learned on Saturday and Sunday was used in the school Mon-Fri from the age of 7-17.
Most martial artists train for months to a year before entering a sparring tournament; my training was during the weekend, either while walking to school or home from school, or playing at the park I would get the pleasure of having a fight to confirm what did and did not work. This is when you realize there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between what you think you know and the reality of what you can really do that works!
When you’re young these fights start off being about how you look or smell, the color of your skin and language you speak, who you are hanging around, what kind of clothes you wear then escalate to why you looking at me, saying bad things about your parents, calling you names then escalating to being pushed, kicked, punched, shoved, poked, spit on, kicked, hit with crushed paper rolled into a ball, shot with rubber bands and paperclips, their intent to embarrass you, humiliate you and cause great pain but definitely not death – but when your 6-13 years of age you do not know the difference between of what you don’t know and fear of what you know will happen.
Graduating from being attacked with rulers, books, rocks, sticks and bottles to the more organized fights where you got the note on your locked to meet them after school, behind the gym or at the corner and at times when you show up you then realize there are more than one attacker, to jump outs from vehicles and again the intent was to create fear, shame, embarrassment, humiliation and a lot of pain which resulted in planned injury.
Then you graduate to being swarmed by 3-5 attackers, gangs, people hiding behind around cars or corners or in the dark, to drive-by’s (yes the drive by’s where they shoot at you), then the attack from rulers, scissors, broken glass, knives to the final graduations of them bringing guns, and all this before I graduated high school!
Attending college in Long Beach, CA I was the plain clothes shoplifting agent catching everyone from 6-80 years is age of shoplifting in the hundreds of Sav-On Drug Store chains in the Compton, Inglewood, Watts, and East LA areas. Now this is what I call the test of patience, humility and courage. My first day of work as I entered the store there was an outline of a body in the ice cream section were the store clerk was shot and killed for attempting to call the management on a patron who did not pay for their ice cream – now that is a tough crowd!
Each day was filled with verbal assaults, to light physical confrontations to just plain out attacks and assaults when you confronted someone for shoplifting. This is when you realize that you never begin a confrontation without the end in mind and if the end exceeds the consequence for actions just let them go! Unfortunately advice I learned after the years I worked there, and apply to our training today.
Then after serving as a corrections officer and police officer the verbal altercations escalate into physical encounters get more personal and end more violently, resulting in either their arrest or your death. You’re attacked from others with a certain comfort level in their own skills and have a reputation and record that follow them, their intent to hurt you regardless of the methods their intent is to kill you.
Then this is when you learn one of the greatest bits of information when it comes to learning how to defend yourself in the real world, is when the intent escalates the outcome the motivation of the attacker changes. Here are a few examples;
1. Verbal Attacks/Resistance – Harassing/Teasing/Bullying/Name calling
a. Intent is to Embarrassment/Shame/Humiliation
b. Outcome is non-physical unless contact is made – intent is not have kill
2. Non-Intrusive Attacks/Resistance – Body Crowding/Bullying/Pushing/Shoving
a. Intent is Enticement/Emotional/Embarrassment/Humiliation/
b. Outcome is non-physical unless contact is made – intent is not to kill
3. Intrusive Attack/Resistance – Poking/Slapping/Grabbing/Punching
a. Intent is to injure, hurt and harm
b. Outcome creates injury – possibly trying to hurt and harm you
4. Intentionally Attacks/Assaults – Punching/Elbows/Kneeing/Kicking
a. Intent is to injure, hurt and harm
b. Outcome creates injury – trying to hurt and harm you
5. Conventional/Unconventional Weapons – Attacks/Assaults
a. Intent is to create serious bodily harm which may result in death
b. Outcome – stop you
After working as a corrections and law enforcement officer in the state of Florida, I decided to join the United States Marine Corps, and this was where I was able to put everything together. The ability to organize the proper format, develop the right sequence and field validation of techniques and tactics. Working in the Marine Corps as a military police I was an CID agent working black market details in Japan, gaining experience with the Japanese Police (JP’s), on base, as a watch commander for the military police units and eventually being promoted to a SRT Commander assigned to Headquarters Marines Crops as the training non-commissioned officer in charge (NCOIC) of training. During 1988-1996 I attending various informal and formal defensive tactics programs from around the United States and learned styles and from;
• Sambo – Russian Spetsnaz
• Systema – Russian Spetsnaz
• Kampfringen – Germany GS-GS9
• Tae Kwon do – Seoul, South Korea ROK Marines
• Hapkido – DMZ, South Korea ROK Marines
• Aikido – Okinawa, Japan
• Karate – Okinawa, Japan
• Krav Maga – Israeli Mossad
• Boxing – Washington, DC
• Judo – Toyko, Japan
• Greco Wrestling – Columbus, OH
• Jujitsu – Oskaka, Japan
• Street Fighting – Detroit, MI
• Shoot Fighting – Okinawa, Japan
• And a few others
This was the personal research that founded US Fighting Systems. How would you be attacked, what are your options, needed movements, gross motor skills, works on standing and ground environments, not two hand dependent, easy to remember under extreme duress, regardless of age and physical limitations?
In addition to this was the articulation component needed for the ability to defend your actions in court, visit onestopplumbers.com. How do you separate yourself from the attacker, how you describe in court what you did compared to how the bad guy is going to explain what he felt you made him do?
What worked within the defenders limited physical abilities and conditions, our tactical responses are never two hand dependent, and allow for various environmental factors.
US Fighting Systems ultimately resulted surviving the attack and was field proven to be effective against most fighting styles in the real world without rules and in court where you actually will end up to defend your actions!
Give US Fighting Systems a try – you have NOTHING to lose and EVERYTHING to gain!