Welcome back to another episode of The John Hallett Podcast! In Episode 87, we break down one of the most vital concepts in self-defense: Situational Awareness Zones.

Whether you’re a seasoned martial artist or someone just starting their journey, understanding your environment can mean the difference between avoiding danger and walking straight into it. This episode is all about training your awareness like a skill—because it is one.

Early in the episode, John reflects on a conversation with a beginner student who was discouraged about defending against a larger attacker. His answer was simple and powerful:

That’s what training is really about. Not perfection. Not guarantees. Just stacking the odds in your favor through preparation and awareness.

This is your default zone when you’re out in the world.

You're calm, but switched on. You’re scanning your surroundings without looking paranoid.

You’re not expecting a fight—you’re prepared to recognize a potential threat before it gets close.

When someone enters your space—maybe a bit too fast, maybe watching you—it’s time to shift posture and mentally prepare.

It’s not go-time yet, but your mind is moving. This is your cue to reposition, plan an exit, or be ready to send a clear command: “Back off.”

This is within striking distance. The moment where the fight might erupt at any second.

In this zone, hesitation is dangerous. Your training needs to kick in—striking, blocking, or gaining positional control. As John says:

You're now chest to chest, inches away from violence.

There's no time to talk, only time to act. Clinch control, elbows, knees—this is full-blown combat, where your survival depends on your ability to stay calm in chaos.

Every zone has a mindset, a strategy, and tools. The clearer you are on which zone you’re in, the faster you can adapt—and the more likely you are to survive.

Listen to the full episode for insights, examples, and tactical takeaways:

🎙️ The John Hallett Podcast #87 – Situational Awareness Zones

📲 Available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube

🌐 Learn more: www.ClearSky.Training

Foreign. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. How you doing, Josh? I'm good. How are you? Got my coffee. I'm feeling good. You got your coffee? Yeah, I'm only on one cup of coffee here, so come on. Yeah, I might have to hit pause. So. Been a good week. A lot of new things. Training hard. I got. Just got crushed by big Jeff yesterday. My chest is killing me. No, that's good. £280 on me or whatever. I don't know. Right. Oh, it's tough when you got that big guy on you, man. Yeah, Serious. It just is. Yeah. I was just saying to a beginner in the. In actually, Jeff's class, Jeff was covering for Ryan today that, you know, sometimes I'm just trying to wear down the big guy. Like, she's like, I'm not going to be able to defend it. Yeah, you're upping your chances. When you do self defense, martial arts, whatever it is, you're upping your chances or survival. Nothing's 100%, you know, and sometimes people are like, I'm not going to be able to do it. Yeah, you

might not be able to do it. It's called winning and losing and somebody being bigger and stronger. But I said, you know, sometimes it's about not making a mistake and just wearing somebody down until they make a mistake or get too exhausted and it kind of starts to equal things out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true. When you get gassed, you get gassed, right? Yeah, that's. That's a tough one when you do. Oh, I guess. Do I have this up on the screen already? You do. In here today we're talking about situation awareness, so a good topic. You know, just being aware can keep you out of a lot of trouble right from the get go, you know, just avoiding it. Right. I like that you put in there. Don't. You know, not paranoid. You ever seen that one guy for me? You mind the guy standing there in the line just like doing a crazy surveillance scan every 10 seconds. Yes. That's what told me like a year ago that you were in, like, I don't know, a person. Were you. Was she shopping for purses or something?

Wherever you guys were. The outlet mall. All right. I may have been practicing there. People are like, that dude's gonna steal something. No, I'm crazy. I did feel like I intimidated everybody in the room. And I was like, well, maybe this isn't smart. Yeah. So, yeah, even one of our teenagers was just in Paris and he said, I saw a guy got jumped and, you know, Kind of avoided it, you know, seeing it and seeing something happen. Even like in the real world, you know, coming from a small town like Castle Rock, sometimes that, you know, opens up, like, oh, these things do happen. It can happen. I mean, it can happen in Castle Rock. I mean, who knows? You never know. I mean, they just found that dead body off a Larkspur exit. Right. We should talk about that. No, but I mean, again, that's situational awareness. Even someone seeing that body, like indicators around you that things are going bad, you know, it's. It's real. Yeah. Just seeing somebody get jumped. So we'll jump right into it.

Blue situation awareness zone. Be aware, not paranoid. Be covertly aware of your surroundings. Distance is fluid and may change in a split second. Right. Just, you know, you're walking around kind of every day. Should be your state. Shouldn't be paranoid especially, and jumpy and getting yourself all freaked out. I mean, most of the time, depending on where you're at, it's a pretty low probability situation now, you know, you just see somebody get jumped. Okay. You know, this walk in the park or wherever the heck you are just changed. So. Yeah. Up in your level a little bit. Seeing some violence in that area, even if you can avoid it, going, okay, this might not be a good area just in general. So. Yeah. And you don't know where that thing's going. Like, it could escalate from a simple assault to somebody pulling a gun or a knife or something weird. And it changes the whole dynamic. So if you can see it before it gets to you, get the heck out. I mean, like, you always tell me the first

rule is go home safe. Yeah. If you can just get out of there, be fantastic. Right? I mean. Yeah. But, you know, being. Being aware and. And you're not. Your head in the phone, as everybody says, or just looking around, that helps you out a lot, you know, to avoid getting attacked by that bigger guy, you know? Yeah. Get distance. Get distance. Green in an hour. More of an action zone. Somebody's close and we're thinking there is a potential threat there. You know, their posture shift, somebody might be staring at you. You know, you got to be prepared to move or strike if the situation escalates and, you know, they get closer. You know, that 21ft is not that far. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. They cover that in the blink of an eye. Yes. It's crazy how fast. I mean, a good athlete, somebody younger. Yes. You know, I've seen long legs cover three feet a step. And it's like, oh, oh, and they're on me. Yeah, exactly. I mean, trying to just run with somebody that's got longer legs. I mean, one of my old

training partners, Big Greg, I mean, I forgot how tall he was, but he was, you know, averaged around 275, 285. That was my best mile time that I was just running from him. I was just trying to stay ahead of him and his longer legs, man, for a big deal, he was, you know, I don't know how many steps, but behind me most of the way. I don't know if I lost him. I can't. It's been a number of years that I did that mile with my knees and stuff, but that was my best one, just trying to run from him. But, man, those footsteps were right behind me, you know, and it. It just sneaks up on you. And distance is just so scary. I mean, how fast everything changes. That's why you got to be aware as much as you can without looking like Josh did at the purse store, like a personal bodyguard. All right, I admit that one. I probably screwed up. Let's move on. Let's move on. Well, hey, failure is good and going, you know, so, hey, here's a video of you out. You know, like, that would be great to see. No, we

actually see it. It changes it. You're like, oh, man, what a jackass. I was right. And you can see that. Yeah, in video would be great. Maybe we can do a membership for that. We'll follow you around. Let's. Let's. Let's talk about that one before we put that one out there. I don't leave the house. You know that. I don't leave the house. I know. Yellow chem combat zone, you know, six to nine feet, strike or defend. And you're in the reactionary gap here. If you're behind that. We constantly talk about that. Hesitating. Yeah. Oh, man. You know, it's getting close here, and if you're behind the eight ball, so to speak, you're in trouble. You know you're in trouble. They hit you first. That can be all they need because you're behind. Yeah, you know, it's. It's a tough, tough position to be in when you are. Do I need to hit this person? Yeah, sometimes old, you know, safe than sorry and all that stuff comes into play here that you've got to feel justified. But, man, if you're behind, that

sucks for you. Yeah. And then I gotta start thinking with my legs more, especially in that six to nine feet. If I do have that opportunity, if I am aware I can do the kickoff, which I don't do. Like, I always want to go to hands for some dumbass reason. Well, you know, we talked about that. I don't know if we talked about it on the show last week, but. But you know, when you do a front kick at the wrong time and you end up on your butt, so that's tough. They're great. Like any tool, it's great when you deploy it at the right time, but yeah, when you deploy it at the wrong time, it's stinks. Yeah, I saw it with the teenagers last night. I mean, and it was going slow and you still fall on your butt and it's like, it's that gamble. But when you can keep them at that distance with your foot, it's great. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. I mean, gamble slash, you know, you've got to train it. It's like everything else I was telling the class last night. You know, maybe just work on guillotine choke

for a month or six months, you know, and yeah, get really good at it. You know, that's how I teach. I'm constantly, you know, refining or doing the same lesson over and over again, you know, for a week in different age groups, different classes, different skill levels sometimes, but just doing it over and over again, you know, you refine your stuff and you know, you got to work that front kick. You got to work it, work it, work it. If it's just here and there. Yeah, you're probably. It is probably a gamble because you didn't train it enough and now you deployed that, you know, tool at the. Wrong time and then that has consequences, Right. You make a decision, doesn't work. You got to move on to the next one and hopefully you get to somewhere. Right. So you got to train every single day, really. I mean, you really have to train all the time to get super proficient at this stuff. It's wild. Yeah. If you want to up, you know, the whole thing. Up your odds. You want to up your odds. You

know, you better be training on a consistent basis. You know, it's something I kind of talk about in classes. Like you want to get to black belt, man, you've got to train, train, train more and more and more. And that's, you know, depending on how good you want to be. But to get really proficient and get to that black belt level. Yeah, it's not a, I would say a part time hobby kind of thing. You know, we're talking about your life, you know, one benefit you know, hey, at least you're. You're getting exercise. You always need more exercise, so at least you're doing that. When you're. When you're training with us and. Or any other martial arts school, at least you're doing something. You're getting safer. Safer. And there's so many things out there that can get you and being proficient. Yeah. And then I think the next one that we're going to jump into is that contact distance. Yeah. Red. You know, zero to three, you know, zero to five. I mean, that stuff happens really fast. Yeah. It's

an immediate threat. You know, if you're hesitating and you don't have the skill there, it's over. It's even worse than being in yellow. I know you're. They're on you, and this is. Any hesitation, and it's the place where. Like, the panic will set in, and then you'll revert to your lowest level of training here. And I see it all the time. You used to tell me that all the time. You'll. Eventually, you'll see it, Josh. And I'm starting to see that when it does get really high stress on anybody, really, they do revert to that last thing that they know how to do. Right. And our black belts have gotten to a point where they can just kind of naturally do something, which is really cool to watch. They've at least got tools in the toolbox. Some of them select. But when you watch lower belts. Right. We're all still just trying to find that one thing. And we. We see him panic. You just. And then you got to go to something. That's why the training is so important, is to be able to go to

something. Yeah. You can't think about it. You know, you'll see a, you know, a lower level belt. You know, they're kind of thinking about the technique. There. There is no thinking. You've done it enough. And things that pop in your head like that, like, oh, nice. Like we were doing Bill's drill. I don't know if we talked about it, because I guess maybe. Yeah, that was Thursday. What was he calling that drill? Quantum Leap. You know, that's. That's great. You know, you just open the eyes. Boom. And you're in some sort of situation of what? And, you know, it's a little bit out of context sometimes, but it's good. I mean, we're doing that drilling yesterday at noon. Peaceful warrior. Just, you know, clinch knife. Attacker can go to knife, but, you know, you do one with the guy's Eyes closed, and you just present the knife right in their face and say, go. And there's a knife in your face. It's. It's go time. You know, that's. That's red zone. That's. Whoa. I ended up here. How'd you get

here? I don't know. You quantum leaped into it. But there's a knife in your face, and you need to go. You better do something. Yeah, it's. It's crazy how fast those things can go. So, yeah, it's. It's training. We were saying, hostage, gun to your head, on your knees. You know, we can teach somebody the basic technique. We can teach you the redirection. People can learn that, no problem. But everything after that redirection, when that gunman is behind you or at your side, was the context that we were doing that hostage in. We weren't. It wasn't the front situation, which I think is, you know, is easier, so to speak, as far as, you know, having a gun to your head and being kneeling on the ground behind it. You know, so many things can happen, and you have to have all those tools in your toolbox to get out of there. You have to have ground skills. You have to have fight awareness. You have to, you know, have had enough time with weapon redirection that you're not forgetting about the

weapon redirection. And. And as we saw last week, you know, people were hugging the gun into their body and bringing that line of fire onto their body because they just didn't have enough training time with redirecting the line of fire. And, yeah, you forget about it. Now you got two things. You know, that person's on you and fighting and resisting, and you have to keep. You have to keep the gun. Keep the gun off of you. You know, they. It's a. You've got to train. You've got to have all those other skills and assets that you can use. And when you don't, you know, you don't have that tool. As I say, now you're going to Home Depot to rent one. If you get to Home Depot at that point, yeah, like, you may not have the ride over. You know what I mean? Like, I don't have that tool, so I gotta get it. So, you know, those are, you know, know those zones that you want to be thinking about, guys, when you're out and about, it's blue, and it's not being paranoid, but just being aware is going to

keep you safer. It's going to keep you and your family safer. You know, Something we've been talking a lot about here is family protection, because that adds a whole. Another skill set and awareness. Being able to move around and protect your family. That's a tough, tough situation. It's hard enough to defend yourself, never mind others. So, you know, if you can just be aware and get yourself out of there, that's, you know, a way better thing. All right, did we talk. Did I say that story when I was traveling to the Grand Canyon? Did we talk about that last week? I. I don't think so. I think it was in a class. It's a good, quick story. I think I was in eighth grade, and we're driving from California visiting a knot, and we're gonna go to the Grand Canyon for a couple days. And we were at some, you know, roadside diner, and a couple bikers came in, and they immediately were giving the waitress a hard time, the other waitress a hard time. And I just remember being, you know, eighth grade,

being like, whoa, okay, this is like a scene out of a movie. And my dad just got either. I thought we skipped out on the bill because my dad, like, go, like, we're pretty much done. But he's like, finish up. Let's go. And he. We were out of there to the effect that I thought we skipped out on the bill. I'm like, man, are we not paying the bill? He's like, let's go, let's go. But, you know, I'm also looking at these, you know, guys giving the waitress a hard time and going, oh, man. Man, just out. Get out of the. Get out of there. You know, one of the other seminars we want to, you know, we're talking about doing next for the gym is, you know, that decision making where we ran one. I think it was maybe the last one we did. We had a restaurant with kind of the similar scenario, and everybody. I think there's, you know, probably 15 people in that seminar. Maybe everybody went and got seated at that restaurant, except for one of my guys. One guy said, I don't think I'm gonna dine here.

Have a good day. And I'm like, all right, do you want to just run the scenario anyways? Because that was the right choice. Yeah. Do you want to just go into that scenario and just, hey, quant. Yeah. Now you're. Quantum leaped into it. Everybody else went in there with. I think we had four instructors, and Big Greg was one of them. I mean, we had people confronting Big Greg, and I think he had a machete at one point. Like, we just. I mean, people like, they were like, why didn't you leave? Your mission was you're at a restaurant with a family member. Be safe, right? Go home safe. Why the heck did you confront this guy? And he had a hatchet, you know, or a machete, I can't remember. And he's got friends at the table. Wow. You know, why didn't you just leave? That's. That's. She meant that's the human condition, right? Yeah, Well, I thought to say I was really hungry and I didn't want to go somewhere else. Yeah. I thought I had enough skill to. Yeah, I can take anybody. That's the biggest

mistake you always make. Like, get out of there first. If you can avoid the fight, do it because nobody's getting hurt. You're not taking risk. Yeah, exactly. So just be aware, guys, train more, suck less. We get up on there, you know, our online training portal. And you can buy our supplements at Suckless Co. Good stuff. And if you want, one month, if you're here in the Douglas County, Castle Rock, Larkspur. I was just talking about Larkspur today. Elizabeth Sedalia, Franktown, you know, Lone Tree. You're looking for good quality Krav Maga. That's all we do. That's what we specialize in, is self defense. And, you know, it's such a bigger game than even Krav Maga, right? Because we have our concealed carry training. We've got so much to offer our Project FIT class. You know, be stronger. You know, want to wear down that big guy. Be stronger, be in better shape so you're better prepared for that fight. All right, guys, next time. What did I say we were up on, Josh? Do you remember? No,

not at all. I remember the goldfish. Oh, yeah. Training time hierarchy is what we're going to talk about next time. All right, guys, Enjoy the day.

Welcome to the John Hallett Podcast

Hey everybody, welcome back to the John Hallett Podcast! Today we're diving deep into combative zones and action zones — the various distances and decision points you face in a real-life self-defense situation. These are critical concepts for anyone serious about their personal protection, especially those training in Krav Maga and other martial arts.

We want to thank our growing community of listeners. If you want to support the podcast and our mission, check out SuckLess.co, our online training portal ClearSky.Training, and of course, our in-person programs at Rocky Mountain Self Defense & Fitness.

Training the Mind and the Body

Self-defense isn’t just a mental game. It’s not enough to understand concepts — you have to train them physically. You have to push yourself, challenge your excuses, and build real-world skills through hard training.

That’s why I still do things like cold plunges. Not because I love it, but because it builds mental resilience. That mindset translates directly to self-defense. The world isn’t getting safer, and we all need to be ready to act, not just think.

Let’s Talk Zones

When we break down combative zones, we’re talking about the physical distance between you and a potential threat. Each zone requires different skills, awareness, and action. Here’s a breakdown:

This is your first line of defense — the decision-making zone. Can you spot a threat before it becomes an attack? You have a few seconds (maybe less) to:

• Recognize threats
• Create distance
• Call 911
• Use command presence or verbal de-escalation

This zone is fluid. Someone athletic can close that gap in under 2 seconds. Train your awareness and threat recognition here.

Things are escalating. You may need to:

• Use tactical movement (create angles or barriers)
• Deploy a front kick to keep someone back
• Consider a weapon draw (only if truly justified)

Training the front kick is essential here. But if you mistime it, you’re vulnerable. Practice with movement. Don’t just hit pads.

This is where people freeze up. You’re now in a fight whether you like it or not.

• You must strike first if the threat is imminent
• Weapons like knives or guns may come out
• This is not the time to reach for pepper spray or a firearm unless you’ve created the space to safely do so

Welcome to the worst-case scenario. You’re being grabbed, taken down, or attacked with deadly intent. Now it’s:

• Elbows, knees, headbutts (if trained)
• Weapon redirection and control
• Relentless attack until the threat is neutralized

Ladies: if someone is close enough to grab you, there is no half-measure. Be overwhelming in your response. Training breeds confidence and control in these critical moments.

Reality-Based Training: Citizen Defender Class

This is exactly what we do in our Citizen Defender class at RMSDF. You can’t just train on a flat range and expect to perform under stress. You need:

• Stress inoculation
• Scenario drills (Quantum Leap drills, for example)
• Close-quarters decision-making

We train everything from pre-fight indicators to 911 protocol and what to say after a defensive incident. These are the real-life details that make the difference.

Don’t Wait. Train Now.

Every day you delay is another day you remain unprepared. Our Clear Sky Training Portal lets you train from anywhere. And if you’re local to Castle Rock, come train in person. You don’t need to be fit. You just need to start.

And for new listeners: we're offering one month free to get started. No excuses. No delays.

Visit RMSDF.com and ClearSky.Training to start your journey. We promise, you can do this. You just have to show up.

Up Next on the Podcast Stay tuned for future episodes on:

• Time Hierarchy in Training
• 5 Elements of Self-Defense Law
• Degrees of Assault
• The Truth About Martial Arts Failure Rates
• What to Do After a Self-Defense Incident

Train smart. Train often. And always remember: suck less every day.

https://youtu.be/FLajh83fqkA

Hey, everybody, let's see if we can get this one done without Josh. He is training in Minnesota with Nick doing another level of citizen defender. One might ask, why am I not there? They're doing the last level that Bill and I did, so they're getting it done. Good luck to those guys. I guess Josh already got need in the head in a drill by the one and only. All right, Minnesota Martial Arts. Now I'm gonna black on blank on his name. That is terrible. Oh, well, Greg Nelson. I had Todd Fosse, that's the instructor for ids, so mixed up those names. So I was gonna bring on Leo, my French bulldog, but he decided to work in the office with my wife. He's more popular today. He usually joins me in the afternoon, but he must be boycotting me. He is much better looking than Josh, but, you know, some people might argue. So today we're talking about training power zones. These are really important, guys. I'll bring up the slide from our Clear Sky Dot training. Oh, where is it? There it is. Website where you can train with us online. That's great for our students. You know, get on there, get in it. There's a ton of stuff, including testing for each belt level that is required here at Rocky Mountain Self Defense and Fitness, our home base here in Castle Rock, Colorado. So look, guys, I remember being a white belt and kind of my instructor calling me the wild and crazy one, the one and only Master Miller from Nantucket Taekwondo. He was always telling me to slow down. I had just came off high school football, and I just knew one thing like, go hard, go 100%. And that leads to injuries and a whole ton of other things that can happen in that 100% all out. And I'm constantly telling beginners, slow it down, slow it down. And you know what I see? Looks like I was going slow and. And you're all going. Or we are all going way faster than we think. You know, standing off to the sidelines, you start to see it. And you know, one thing I tell people, I've watched you hit the bag at 100%. You're pretty darn close to that in that drill or whatever we might have been doing. So to quickly summarize, zone one is zero to 20. Zone two is 20 to 40% speed and power. So zone three, 40 to 60. Zone four, controlled speed and power. And zone five, 80 to 100. And we're leaving that to testing. You know, once in a while type of training where you can get hurt, but we need to do that. Sometimes test our mental toughness and put us under that real world stress. But the likelihood of getting hurt, injured on those always goes up. So we don't want to spend much time in zone five at all. Now look, zone one, it's on the slide a bit here, but I'm looking on my bigger screen because of my old eyes. Slow is smooth. You know, if you learn slow, you can get this stuff down. You know, focus on precision, timing, the mechanics. You're really going way slower than you think you should. There's really no power behind everything you do, you know, we'll call it slow touch sparring. When we're doing sparring at this level, it's just slow. It's just landing the light touch. Just. You're not even going to knock over that glass of water. I always kind of joke around and say, you know, unless you have a sippy cup at the dinner table, you know, you should be able to reach out and touch somebody without smashing them. You know, you want to build clean habits and good muscle memory here. You want to learn more on quote unquote muscle memory? Check out Andrew Huberman's podcast. That's fantastic. Neuro guy. I forget his whole repertoire. But we were not going to get into Andrew Huberman. So, you know, the philosophy here is slow is smooth and smooth is fast. One of my first levels, I can't remember the first or second. And I had a guy that I was training with in the hotel after, and he said to me after the test, wow, I kind of thought you were really slow and wonky, some things of that effect. And, and I said, you know, why'd you think that? Oh, when we were training, you just did. Everything was really slow. Like I'm just trying to get it down so when I do go fast, the wheels aren't falling off. You're building good habits. It pays off in the long run. You know, zone two, where, you know, we're moving up a little bit, 20 to 40%. But it is still pretty darn slow here, guys. 20 to 40%. Not that fast at all. Want our reactions to become natural in these. Sorry to click the slide. For those of you guys on YouTube, you can check these slides out without even visiting our portal or signing up for a low cost membership on there. All this stuff takes time and until I hit Powerball, I'm trying to make some money. All right, let's see. Focus, flow control, consistent technique. Being able to do it time after time without your, let's say uppercut, you know, breaking 90 degrees being too far away from the person. We're doing this in self defense. You know, you're building those good habits that I'm using this tool. It's slow enough to recognize. I have an uppercut, elbow, I have whatever technique, a knee strike. Hey, they're a little bit further away. I need to go to a kick or they're further away. I need to go to an advancing kick pick to keep my tools on this guy and to stay engaged, right? Power is really low to moderate. It's not gonna cause bruising. Most people aren't going to say ouch when you hit him at 20%. You know, you get up to 40, you know, depending on somebody, but it starts to get you accustomed to getting hit. We even say with our kick shields, you're getting used to getting hit. So this is not a big shot shock in an actual fight. And a lot of people fool themselves and think they're going to be fine. And then there's utter shock on their face when they actually get hit. Even remote, even at 50%, never mind somebody hitting you at full speed. So we want to kind of get used to getting hit and sparring and all that type of stuff at this 20 to 40 zone, get comfortable with it. You know, it doesn't happen overnight. We want to be able to groove in the movements. You know, safe repetition builds confidence. You know, you're not. Your partner's not freaking out and doing weird things on you because you're just going so fast and out of control and they're just trying to stay the heck away from you. We want to spend most of our training time in zone one and two. That's 60%. You know, if you kind of do the math on those, we're in there. It's a good, good zones to be in. My favorite two zones, constantly saying, if you don't see the fight slow, you're not seeing it fast. You're just fooling yourself. You're just windmilling in, you're just spazzing out. You know, hey, when in doubt, be aggressive, spaz out. You know, by all means, windmill in. But man, I don't want to have to resort to those type of things. Zone 3 is at 40 to 60%. Smooth is fast, right? Focus on realism without recklessness. Again, nobody wants to be your partner when you're crazy. Speed's moderate. Our power is controlled and clean. You're able to stop that punch. You're going slow enough that you can stop the strike. You know, your partner maybe moves a little bit under Unexpectedly, you're still able to control that. And that's a thing that takes time. It's repetition, like everything else. Repetition, purpose, add pressure while still staying sharp. You know, we're going to spend about 20% of our training time on this. And one note on all of these. You know, they're great to do on a heavy bag. You know, when you're kicking a kick shield, you can practice these things, shadow boxing without a partner and kind of feel your own speeds and try to figure that out. And, you know, when in doubt, video yourself. Be your own coach. You know, watch yourself, try, like full speed and then go, all right, let me cut that down in half and really try to relate that. It's a tough thing to do. It's a tough thing to even watch and kind of tell, but you just have to do it. It's a tougher things for coaches. You know, figuring out people and, you know, their different speeds and knowing, you know, hey, that guy is actually extremely fast. I think of coach Ben. He's extreme explosive and fast, more so than the average person. So watching different people, it's always a challenge for coaches to, you know, help that person along their journey. This 60 to 80, I guess that's where I'm at. Timing under pressure. Zone four is where we're at. Sorry, I need Josh. Timing under pressure, speed. You know, you're going fast here. Power's high, but with restraint, you know, you're still able to pull it off even if you're hitting them pretty hard. You were. You were dialing it back. That happens to me, you know, quite a bit at this speed that, you know, something happens whether, you know, you get away from yourself a little bit. You know, a lot of times a person moves, you're still able to pull the brakes. Even though you probably hit that person at 50%. But you were, you know, you dialed the back 25%. It's a tough thing to do and recognize in fighting. You know, I want to find my cracks in my technique. You know, the wheel, you know, things start, you know, coming off, coming unhinged. The wheels are coming off the car at this, and you really start to recognize, I should be spending some more time in zone one or two, possibly to kind of fix those errors that were happening under that type of speed and stress, you know, 15% of the time. Zone five. All right, 80 to 100. That's a stress test. What are you doing? It's probably in an advanced test is where we're going to see this. And I actually Just updated these slides here on some of this. I guess I added it on mine, but not on yours because we've got takeaways coming up next. But, you know, you're going max speed and max power, you know, simulates a real fight stress. But we're rarely doing this right because of that high risk of injury, you know, a concussion, all that type of stuff, or training this fast. We don't want to do it that much, but we have to do it sometimes. I'll use the NFL and go, when are these guys hitting full speed? They're. They're hitting full speed, you know, in preseason. But once they get in season, it's game day, right? It's game day. And for us at Rocky Mountain, it's throw down the gauntlet in that advanced testing zone. When somebody's mentally, mentally and physically ready to do this, it's going to defeat under belts, even though they might feel that they're ready. This is a good deal of training that you're getting up and going in that 80 to 100% stress level for people. You know, what's, you know, ground fighting, stand up fighting, you know, bull in the ring type of thing where you're doing self defense. That's really tough to be going hard because, you know, you're being a bad guy, you're attacking the person. You're not quite doing things that you would normally do, but you know, you got to defend yourself on those. So a bit of it is got to be you as the actual fighter, but you're training somebody that's trying to go really full tilt. So we're not spending a lot of time in these. It's not part of your daily or monthly training routine there. This is where you've got to train more. You know, I say it all the time, but that's what it comes down to. A whole lot of the times that we just need to go slow. We don't need to defeat somebody, especially as coaches, by going way too fast. It. We want to be able to, you know, give them the car keys when they're ready for the car keys and not before. So I think this about wraps it up, especially without Josh. You know, it's kind of a quick one here. I'll look through a couple of my other notes. I guess I didn't hit your takeaways or a little bit further down if you're watching on YouTube. I added a couple things. You know, number one, takeaway, we train smart, we train safe, we train for real life, but nobody needs to Be injured unnecessarily because that is gonna happen when you're going fast. You know, injuries do happen. It's part of contact sports. Actually, a real beginner in our citizen defender class just said, you know, you guys are always hurt. Well, like sometimes, yeah, you're banged up. I played contact sports since I was in the fifth grade. Yeah, my knees currently looking to be evaluated by the doctor and see what's going on. But there was nothing in class that happened. It's just, you know, wear and tear. That's things that happen. And, you know, she was a little concerned about getting hurt, but I'm like, you know, we're slowly ramping you up. You know, any good school you're, you know, she was referring to watching the advanced people. I'm like, you're comparing somebody that's been in my gym 5 years plus is what she was comparing some students. I mean, some of them had even longer than that. As a beginner, you're going to start off slow and easy. You know, that's zone one and two. Nobody needs to get hurt and you need to be ready for that higher level training. Even though. Right. We all think we're ready for that higher level training after, you know, our first intro class, especially the guys. Takeaway 2. How we train is how we fight. Right. You've got to be realistic, but you also have to be safe. And different aspects of this is just huge. You know, the habits you build in training, your timing, your composure, your discipline. I was actually just saying somebody today, like, settle down. You're getting like really aggressive, trying to push your daughter around. And you know, her daughter's, you know, teenager. I think she's probably 17, 18. You're, you're just trying to go too hard. Just relax. You're getting, you can see, I can see that you're muscling the technique, like relax, you know, under pressure. We want to be relaxed. Let's see, where do I leave off on that? Your timing, your composure, your discipline are exactly what will, what you will rely on when it counts. Train sloppy, fight sloppy. Right. You just kind of look like crap. You're windmilling in and we all degrade. One of my favorite things, you know, to watch as Olympic weightlifting for this because you can see the person degrade as their weight goes up, you know, under that stress, under that load. And if you lift crappy and you have crappy technique, man, does it look totally horrible when you're trying to get up to your max level or close, you know, an 80% max and 90% max. And your technique is sloppy. It is terrible. The best trained person is coming undone with stress and fatigue. So if you train that way and your punch is crappy, you know, in class, it's going to be worse under stress. You know, don't fool yourself. Train with purpose and you'll respond with power and control. All right, guys, we're going to wrap it up here. Want to keep that one under 30 minutes and we're at like 17, so. Doing great without Josh, but not really. He misses insights on this one. But we will catch you guys next time. Let's check out. I can let you guys check it out. We've got two of the same slides for you guys. We're going to be talking about our core training categories next, and you know how we prioritize what we're doing here at Rocky Mountain Self Defense and Fitness and our online training portal, Clear Sky Training. If you want to support us in this podcast, you can do that on Clear Sky Training. There's a link over to our shop or you can sign up for a membership. You can also check out our supplements, because I was sick of supplements that sucked. So we partnered with a great brand that does our packaging and has great supplements. They provide supplements for a lot of companies out there that are doing the same thing. It's just wrapped in a different package. It's a radio. Really great stuff, guys. Suckless co. All right, check it out, guys. I will see you guys next time.

🎥 NEW VIDEO & Podcast: The 5 Stages of Violent Crime – What You NEED to Know to Stay Safe

📍 From RMSDF & ClearSky Training | Hosted by John Hallett & Coach Josh

Every violent encounter follows a pattern—and if you don't know the stages, you're already behind.

👀 Learn how to recognize danger before it becomes an attack.

🥋 Hear real training stories, law-of-self-defense insights, and why most people are training the wrong way.

⚠️ Discover why situational awareness, mindset, and movement matter more than technique alone.

In this video, we break down:

1. Intent – The invisible beginning of every attack
2. Interview – How predators test their targets
3. Positioning – Why space matters more than strength
4. Attack – What you MUST be ready to do under pressure
5. Escape/Exploit – How to end it and stay out of court

🛡 This is reality-based training—not sport. It’s not about trophies. It’s about going home safe.

🎯 Watch. Learn. Train. Repeat.

📲 Want to train in person? RMSDF.com

🌐 Train anywhere with us at ClearSky.Training

🧢 Support the podcast & grab gear: SuckLess.co

👇 Drop a comment if you've ever experienced any of these stages—or if this video opened your eyes.

#KravMaga #SelfDefenseTraining #RMSDF #ClearSkyTraining #SelfDefenseMindset #SituationalAwareness #PeacefulWarrior

Core Training Categories - ClearSky Training System | John Hallett Podcast #84

Stop Trusting Your Gut - It's Fat & Is Lying To You - Kids In Team Sports Vs Martial Arts

It’s The Right Move @ The Right Moment.

The Situation Sets the Strategy

“We train to stay calm in chaos. To end the fight before it starts. But when the line is crossed—we strike with purpose, precision, and power.”

Self Defense 101 & Principles of Krav Maga

Suck-less

Train in Person: Join us at Rocky Mountain Self Defense & Fitness in Castle Rock, CO. www.RMSDF.com​

Online Training Portal: Enhance your skills anytime, anywhere with our online courses at www.clearsky.training.​

Gear & Supplements: Equip yourself with high-quality gear and supplements from www.suckless.co.​

Online Store: Discover a wide range of self-defense equipment and apparel at Shop.rmsdf.com and shop.clearsky.training.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. We are talking a bit about the RM SDF move here and just your footwork and fundamentals in Krav Maga, just had, you know, two second degree black belts. Just, you know, we're doing some basic 101 stuff today, and it's not also basic when you get down into it.

There's just so much more, you know, and how much you want to focus and really get good and get a masterful understanding of what you're doing, because there's just so many degrees of learning, and you got to just focus on that. Guys, we see people, um, with toes on the ground, you know, no good contact, and it takes some time, you know, how much bandwidth do you want to put into your fight stance, into your self defense?

Hey, you're going to be better, is what I told one of the coaches. You know, students come in once or twice a week, and, you know, maybe they're spending just that. That's the only time they're focused. Maybe, you know, here and there, they think about something. Maybe on the drive home, whatever, they're driving to class, and maybe they're thinking about it, and then you get the people that are thinking about it all the time.

How much bandwidth are you capable of or want to devote to your self defense training and, you know, to second, uh, degree black belts today? Just really getting deepest into just your fight stance and the timing of that punch coming from that krav maga non ready position. Right. I wasn't ready to defend myself, and I need to go from a neutral stance.

Those of you guys don't know it, essentially just staying in their toes, kind of in around the same line, and you're bursting into that fight stance, sending a weapon, possibly addressing a stick defense, a knife attack, and you're doing a 360 or a redirection against that stance and the timing of that punch and where your foot is when that punch lands, you can really get deep into the weeds and get a deeper understanding of it, you know?

How much bandwidth do you want to put into it? Some people want to put in a whole ton. Some people just want to just be a little bit better. Hey, as long as you're doing something, in my opinion, at least you're better. You know, you're spending 2 hours a week focused on your self defense.

That's better than zero, um, that most people do out there. You know, if you're doing any martial art, I give you credit for doing it. Do something, man. Just get a little bit better. Be able to protect yourself and your family, it blows my mind on men that, you know, especially, um, women need to defend themselves.

But I'm a guy, so I'm speaking from my standpoint that, man, you gotta be able to defend your family. And there's such a misconception out there, you know, I gotta fight in 8th grade. You think you can defend yourself at 40? You're kidding yourself. You got to do something.

And that's where, you know, my passion for self defense and krav maga and where it started, you know, go home. I want to be well rounded. Um, I feel, you know, different Krav maga schools offer different things. You know, what we do here at RMSDF is encompass. You know, the firearm, self defense, you know, whether it's on the ground, standing up, you know, weapon defenses, there's a lot of competition stuff, that's great.

But if you're not with that weapon all of the time, you know, uh, all of the time, a majority of the training time, it's just words. You're just talking. Yeah, this is what I would do against the knife. But if you're not doing it on a weekly basis or on a regular basis, I think weekly, um.

You're fooling yourself, guys. It's, yeah, I'm sorry, but you are. Um, it's ridiculous. Um, it drives me as, as much crazy as just people out there in politics and, you know, getting tribal. I mean, just tell me why, um, you want to vote for somebody, you know, give me a good reason.

I see just so much out there that people just get caught up in and tribal on krav maga being the best self defense system. No, it's anything, guys, we can borrow from anything. Just a name. Just like the republican party. The Democratic Party. Oh, man, some of them have just become names.

And it's driving me crazy because I think, uh, there's a lot of people going down the wrong road. You know, big corporations are beating us all up. No matter what party you are, you know, we've got to just look out for the common good. But, man, that stuff drives me crazy.

Um, probably more crazy than, you know, people defending themselves and getting tribal about their martial art. It's got to be well rounded, guys. And that's what drew me into Krav Maga, and that's, you know, our brand of Krav maga. You know, some, some schools get too caught up in the workout of it, and, you know, that's great.

I love to be in good shape because I got to tell you, it has saved me more times insparring and going to instructor training is just being in good shape is going to get you a, uh, out of a lot of trouble because you're conditioned, you're stronger or strong as you could be.

So, you know, focus on that stuff. What else were we talking about? Oh, yeah, our move. So a lot of people, um, let them, uh, you know, their minds wander. We have decided at RMSDF, my wife Jenny and I, to sell our building and go to a smaller location.

Like I said in my first announcement, I've been wanting to get back to my roots on Nantucket island where I started teaching. And in a small place, you don't need a big thing. You know, a lot of martial arts, uh, school owners can, you know, get caught up in bigger is better and, you know, look at 24 hours fitness.

They're giant and they're crowded. And how much attention do you get in there? Well, you're really not paying for any. You're just paying to come in and use the equipment. We are really trying to get back to where we were or where I started from, and it's small, no nonsense.

We've decided to, um, sell the building and invest that in a 1031, um, exchange and do an investment property. We are not buying the building that we're moving to on Malibu. That's what a lot of people have thought. We're not buying that building where, um, you know, you might say, defer diversifying.

Um, we're just doing something different, um, and know, working on not killing yourself. You know, the bigger your gym, the more members you have, the more, the more, the more. And it's not, ah, necessarily profitable and it's not necessarily the best experience for your members. You know, big gyms are hard to handle.

You need a lot of, you know, you need staff, you need square footage and that square footage in Castle Rock is expensive. So, you know, some gymshe, uh, you know, I get into, you know, are they doing it full time? You know, if they're not great, you know, you got another side of income.

So, hey, your gyms just kind of fun, a little bit of side income, you know, that's great. But people doing it full time, you know, it's super competitive. I think a lot of gyms out there, um, despite in Castle Rock and across the country, get caught up and man, they all beat each other up over price.

I got to tell you, our prices are on our website. You know, you can check them out right there. Other gyms, you guys go ahead and check it out. Um, stop competing, um, price, they just lowball, low ball because and just, it degrades the whole thing. Um, we uh, don't have to do that anymore.

That's, you know, part of our move that we don't have to be this uh, ultra competitive because we need so many members in a larger gym. That's just the way it is. Know, uh, either that you get a big ginormous space in Castle Rock and all your members are paying five or $600 a month.

Um, that's how that math would work. Otherwise your gym, you know, if there, it's a $100 that's, you know, way below average. You know, you're looking at more like, you know, the 150 to the 180s is kind of the national average of what I see in research and data that comes in from uh, our gym software and other gym software's of what people are charging uh, from their databases.

So that I guess hopefully answers a lot of questions. We are going to be, it's uh, I put on the website, I think it's 282 Malibu street, uh, unit a four. We are going to be moving to the back building because our building and the build out of their second floor offices, not my office, as you can see, a little bit different setup behind me.

I've moved into our loft which uh, hasn't been used in a long time. So just utilizing that space and giving my wife, uh, when she is working from home, our home office, so we're not kind of conflicting and uh, I can hang out, listen to Joe Rogan and uh, not bother her or whatever else I'm doing, uh, when we are working at home.

So I've moved up into the loft and you know, that was a thing with that other building. We had a lot, we had a giant kind of private training room that we used once in a while. Square ah, footage is expensive in Castle Rock. So, you know, we decided that it was time, uh, to sell that and simplify, simplify.

That is the reason, um, and try not to work so much when you need so many members. You need to put in a lot of effort into that gym. Not that we're going to be taking away, um, effort. And what we're offering all of you, we really want to keep honing in and just specializing with.

I'd rather teach a small group of people and really get to know them. That's the type of gym I started at. And you know, RMSDF, uh, has been pretty big over the years and even me not knowing people in different classes. So that is what we're looking for. I guess so.

Um, I think it's time to wrap this sucker up. If you'd like to be a guest on the show, if you're one of our members, you're out there, let, um, me know. Always looking for that type of stuff. One of the hardest things of this podcast.

All right, and as always, you guys can support this podcast by shopping at the RMSDF store. Shop dot r m s d f for all the rocky mountain gear. If you're looking for the clear sky training, check out shop. Clear goodness. Uh, I can't talk today. Shop clearsky training.

You can also train online. I highly encourage all you members to get on there. We're putting lots of videos and you can train at home and just review. And again, the bandwidth. How much bandwidth do you want to put in it? You can put in more and just watch that video or watch the videos.

I can't talk today, guys. I got to wrap it up. Clear sky dot training. And if you guys need supplements, really help me out here. We have suck less co everything from bcaas to protein. It will help, you know, supplement what you do. So a lot of good stuff there that'll really help support the podcast.

We have, you know, gotten rid of the partnerships and done it ourselves. And, uh, no longer doing, uh, well, you can still get any of the other stuff, prestige labs, really good stuff. But we've decided, you know, to kind of cut out the middleman, so to speak, and do our own supplements.

So check it out, guys. We got some good incentives if you guys are a member and want to start a subscription. So check it out. Suckless co. All right, guys, train more, suck less. Get out there and do something. Have a good rest of your day. Thanks for listening.