C.U.M.A. SURVIVAL BLOG EPISODE 1:
SURVIVAL IS MY MINDSET
I tell everyone that “survival is my mindset, because I am not ready to die yet”. Think about it, survival is the opposite of dying. In the martial arts world, instructors teach their students how to survive an attack every day but ignore other elements of survival. In my opinion, that is a huge mistake.
The greatest warriors on the planet Earth are the members of the world’s military. They are trained in situational awareness, how to fight, escape and evasion and self-reliance. If a plane or vehicle crashes, they are taught basic (sometimes advanced) survival, medical and self-rescue skills. They can read maps, build shelters, fire, and signal for rescue.
So, if we are teaching our students how to become “warriors”, we should also be teaching them at the minimum, basic real world survival skills.
Examples: What to do in a car crash if the driver is unconscious, CPR training, how to stop the bleed, what to do in a fire, what to do in an active shooter situation, what to have in and where to keep bug-out-bags, firearms training, what to do if you are on vacation, and find yourself in a disaster situation or protest/riot zone and separated from your family.
I see many instructors teach how to handle a knife attack, but not how to stop the bleed if a person gets stabbed. I see many gun disarms, but a lack of training on how to clear a weapon and get it back into the fight once it is in the defender’s possession. These are teaching responsibilities that an instructor has to their students, especially when teaching “street survival”.
A instructors, we should be teaching how to survive the probable and not the possible. I have been teaching bug out classes for roughly 15 years or so and have a lot of fun with it. We start with the bug in (staying put) then the bug out. We generally head out to the woods and “play survival. We test our skills for a day or two then go home. Why the woods? It is easier to build shelter, fire and have a group of twenty people plus test a variety skills without grabbing too much public attention.
As a writer, I was invited by the International Kajukenbo Association to pen a series of articles on “survival”. I am proud to be a part of the association and am honored by such a request. Whether it be on urban, wilderness or combat, the mindset is always the same, I am not ready to die yet.
I look forward to submitting articles and interacting with other leaders in the association. Hopefully we can all get together soon and share important, lifesaving ideas and tactics during these troubled times in our world.
WAYSUN JOHNNY TSAI
Chicago native (Sijo / Founder) Waysun Johnny Tsai is the founder of the C.U.M.A Survival School and C.U.M.A Combatives. He is freelance writer, published book author
Chicago native (Sijo / Founder) Waysun Johnny Tsai is the founder of the C.U.M.A Survival School and C.U.M.A Combatives. He is freelance writer, published book author and a DVD personality. Sijo is also an established knife designer for several well-known companies. Holding two internationally recognized eighth degree black sashes (black belts), he has over 39 combined years of teaching experience in practical street defense, urban / wilderness survival and Combatives to civilians, law enforcement and military agencies. Through all of his training channels, Tsai has reached more than 500,000 people worldwide.
To learn more about the author please visit waysunjohnnytsai.com
THE CHALLENGE IS NOT A SONG AND DANCE: Trespass, Deterrent, and the Hour We Went Rogue
A challenge is a line drawn across a behavior that has already cost something. It names the cost. It withdraws ease. It puts weight back on the person who spent what was not theirs to spend. If the line does not sting, it is not a challenge. It is a suggestion. Suggestions do not deter trespass. They decorate it.
THE FIRST BIRD: A Lesson in Cadence, Agency, and Leadership Before the Light Arrives
Right before the sun rises you will often hear the first lonely bird start to chirp for a solid thirty minutes before anyone else wakes up. A lonely melody in the darkness, only to be received when the light arrives. As if that lonely chirp summoned it.
FLESH INTO IRON, WILL INTO WEATHERED STONE: The Fight Between Ego and Desire and Service and Stewardship
Look at the floor of any school long enough and you will see two arts being practiced in the same hour.
One art is advertised. Stance. Form. Contact. Breath. The body learning to arrive where the mind sent it.
The other art is older and less photographed. It is the argument running under the technique, the argument between the part of a person that wants to be seen and the part of a person that is willing to be used. Ego and desire on one side of the line. Service and stewardship on the other.
IF WE ARE NOT OPEN TO PARTNERSHIPS, WE REMAIN CLOSED TO POSSIBILITIES
A pencil is not interesting until it meets a surface. Held in the air it is only potential with a painted collar. Pressed to the page it becomes a point. Letters leave the wood. Content does not hover above the work like weather. Content is what flies off the moment two resistances agree to touch, graphite and paper, speaker and listener, a form and the eye that will not flatter it. The picture is not a celebration of words. The picture is a physics lesson. Nothing assembles until contact is allowed.
THE CADDY, THE STOOGE, AND THE FOCUSED IDIOT
Look at the photograph long enough and it stops being comedy. Three men on grass cut for people who can afford to miss. One of them is holding the bag. One of them is standing as if the course already agreed with him. One of them is mid-stride with a club and a face that has not yet decided whether this is work or play.
CHANGE AND TRUTH ARE TOUGH PILLS TO SWALLOW: How a bitter pill becomes a working supplement
Change and truth arrive the same way medicine used to arrive — not as a flavor, not as a brand, not as a story you tell at dinner. They arrive as a pill. Dry. Unadorned. Difficult to get past the throat.
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