Damian Ross of The Self Defense Company calls his 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 have been in martial arts for about 20 years and have always looked for things that I thought would be real (real life work). When I started looking for fighting “styles” that would work in a street fight, I came across “Jeet Kune Do” from there. Over a year ago when I first noticed Self Defense Company, like everyone else I 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 talking bad about them on forums before I bought the product. I couldn’t find any clever arguments or whatever that would convince me not to give them a try. So I ended up buying it all at once. I was very excited when I finally received 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 whatever sucks, I feel like a complete idiot and get really upset and actually call and demand my money back. “No one gets one for me!” Yeah, well, that’s what I tell myself to make myself feel better. But let me tell you, after over a year of using the system, I really think it’s great.
If you’ve ever seen Penn and Teller’s BullSh#$ show, you know how ruthless they can be. Well actually they ended up doing a show about different types of martial arts and Karate. They visited various dojos to see how ineffective they really were. By the end of the shows, they transformed every kind of fighting style into a new one, except for the Damian Ross training system. So where are Penn and Teller, big fans of the Self Defense Company? Absolutely not! In fact, they said that Mr. Ross should not teach this program to ordinary citizens, only to the Army Special Forces and Police 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 attack the instructor who performs the different moves on that opponent. The second DVD in each module is a training DVD that shows you how to practice the movements yourself. Each training manual tells you which moves to practice and how to do each move.
What are my favorite modules? I know this sounds corny, but please be honest with me. I’m giving my real opinion here. They are all great. You are probably thinking to yourself. “Well, that wasn’t a very critical review at all.” But I feel this way because it’s really a system and you have to work and progress to climb the proverbial ladder per say. You start with the basics, but as you progress to cool stuff like weapons and throws, it starts to come naturally. It is actually based on your 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 others?Well first of all Penn and Teller in their show believe that civilians should not be able to take this course and only elite special forces, army soldiers or police should be able to do it. This is actually a big selling point for me. I mean, Penn and Teller are famous for enjoying trying to make people look retarded, but they’ll never do it at the expense of looking dumb. By that I mean they weren’t willing to call STDS bullsh%$ because if they had, they would have made themselves look stupid in the process of doing so. Actually, they had no problem making fun of all other martial arts. And you could tell they really enjoyed doing it too. But honestly, I think STDS is the best self-defense system out there, and so are they, at this point.