Damian Ross of The Self Defense Company calls their system “The deadliest martial arts / self defense program in the world.” I have used the program for over a year and I believe without a doubt that up to this point that statement is unequivocally true. I’ve been in martial arts for 20 years and have always looked for things that I thought would be real (I work in real life). When I started looking for “styles” of fighting that would work in a street fight, I came across “Jeet Kune Do” from there. Over a year ago, when I first noticed the Self Defense Company, I, like anyone else, didn’t know what to expect. I spent about a month or two looking at reviews and Googling “Self Defense Company Scams” and reading customer complaints and looking at people who spoke badly on forums before buying the product. I couldn’t find any clever arguments or whatever convinced me not to try. So I ended up buying it all at once. I was very excited when I finally got it in the mail. I’m the type of person who gets really excited when I get something new, but after a week or two if what it is sucks, I feel like a complete jerk and get really mad and actually call and demand a refund. money. “Nobody gets one for me!” Yeah well that’s what I tell myself to make myself feel better. But let me tell you, after more than a year of using the system, I really think it’s great.
If you’ve ever watched Penn and Teller’s BullSh # $ show, you know how vicious they can be. Well, they actually ended up doing a show on different types of martial arts and karate. They visited various dojos to see how ineffective they really were. At the end of the shows, they broke up every type of fighting style with a new one, except for Damian Ross’s training system. So where are Penn and Teller the big fans of the self-defense company? Absolutely not! In reality, they said that Mr. Ross should not be teaching this program to ordinary citizens, only to the Army Special Forces and the police officers who attend his class!
So how does the program work? The Self Defense Training System (SDTS) is made up of twelve different modules. Each module comes with a training manual and two DVDs. A DVD is a demo DVD that has an opponent attacking the instructor who performs the different moves on that opponent. The first DVD of each module basically gives you the scenarios in which you would use the different movements. The second DVD of each module is a training DVD that shows you how to practice the movements yourself. Each training manual tells you which movements to practice and how to do each movement.
What are my favorite modules? I know this sounds really cheesy, but please tell me. I am giving my real opinion here. They are all amazing. You are probably thinking to yourself. “Well that wasn’t a very critical review at all.” But I feel that way because it’s actually a system and you have to work and progress your way up the proverbial ladder, so to speak. You start with the basics, but as you work your way up to cool things like weapons and throws, it starts to get natural. It’s actually based on the empty-handed training that you start with at the beginning of the training. They say on the DVDs that Samurai used to train this way.
How does this show stand out from the rest?Well, first of all, Penn and Teller on their show believe that civilians shouldn’t be able to take this course and only elite special forces, army soldiers, or police should be able to. This is actually a huge selling point for me. I mean, Penn and Teller are famous for enjoying trying to make people look retarded, but they will never do it at the expense of looking foolish. By that I mean they weren’t about to call the STDS% $ shit because if they did they would have made themselves look stupid in the process of doing it. Actually, they had no problem making fun of all the other martial arts out there. And you could tell that they enjoyed doing it too. But honestly, I think STDS is the best self defense system out there, and they are, too, up to this point.
