SIMPLE – FASTER – CAPABLE
While 2025 starts my 30th year anniversary of traveling and teaching, I have been toiling away as a teacher since 1989. I more or less inherited a” JKD school” in north Texas in 1989 when the instructor (and a big mentor of mine) had huge gaps of disappearing, sometimes a week, then weeks, then a month, than months. In and out. And we had some good attendance all along and in 1989, as I was a big cog in the school’s operation (which was in a rented room in a Golds Gym). I slid in and took it all over.
At that point, starting with Parker Kenpo, I had 17 years in various martial arts, military and police training and I just…I just took over the school, while also remaining deep into all the subjects of the Inosanto family, Jeet Kune Do, Kali, Shoot, Thai and Silat, all through that undependable, vanishing mentor, and with Paul Vunak and Terry Gibson. Also, in FMA with Remy Presas-Modern Arnis and Ernesto Presas- Arnis De Mano. I too was addicted to you might say, other subjects as a traveling seminar attendee.
My corporation – The Scientific Fighting Congress (the SFC) paperwork was filed 33 years ago. I chose that term because I was a big fan of Bruce Lee’s free thinking and he liked “scientific fighting.” Seeking something different, I added the word “Congress,” rather than all the common MA names people seem to pick. Other than politics, congress also means – “a formal meeting of delegates for discussion and action.” I wanted to be a congress of many martial arts, systems and people.
Our folks never hear the term SFC much anmore, but it still is the big umbrella name. Most folks just hear Force Necessary, which are the courses within the SFC. But years ago, in thinking of subtitles and so forth – one motto arose I hold very, very dearly and I think is vital. But first comes your mission. When your mission is defined as survival-winning in a hand, stick, knife, gun world of crime and war like mine. I don’t care about your games that much, unless parts can relate to reality. One motto I developed is:
S is for simple.
F is for faster.
C is for capable.
I watch EVERTHING systems and people do. I look at the technique, the tactic, the set, the movement. And I ask, can that thing be done simpler, faster and what capabilities are needed to do so? Rookie or veteran capabilities? Why should I do THAT thing, often peppered or full of unessential, unnecessary steps, when I can construct something simpler, faster that I, and most folks are capable of doing. After all we are “Force Necessary, NOT Force UNnecessary” (another motto) If it looks fancy? Extra? If you are trying to impress me, you are not. Don’t do it. Checkers not chess.
I picked up the importance of the word capable from the U.S. Marines. In the 1990s and 2000s I taught a lot of Marines in Pendleton, 29 Palms, Guam and Quantico.
Sometimes hundreds of them on a football field. Many were MEUSOC forward operators, on ships close to hot spots. If an event happened far away and special forces could not get there fast, they quickly sent in these MEU-SOC Marines – which stands for “Marine Expeditionary Units Special Operations Capable.” Note the “C” stands for capable. So, the word capable fell in to my training vocabularly. It means, “having the ability, power, or qualities to be able to do something.”
Yes, the S, The F. The C. Ordinarily, I don’t like playing the acronym game, but it’s proven to help you remember things. Don’t like the number-list games either when everything must fit into 5 or 10 things list because you then start squeezing and un-squeezing topics to fit in a set number. Life is not 3, 5 or 10 things. Life is full of short-lists and long lists, jagged edges on a page.
Reduce the abstract. I want to lead-collect a congress of free thinkers, of innovators, not replicators.
Simpler, faster, capable.
