Guardian Angels South Africa

Street Survival Training is a crucial addition to traditional Guardian Angels training.  In South Africa, with its extreme levels of violence this has kept our members safe, even if they have no previous martial arts training and has helped us to tame our streets, giving them back to the citizens who live there.

Apart from training in the Rules and Regulations, Code of conduct, First Aid, Radio Procedures, Criminal Law, Communication, Patrol work, Philosophy and History of the International Alliance of Guardian Angels, our members are intensively trained in the following disciplines.

Phase 1 - Basics

Module 1: Physical Threat Recognition skills

Part 1: Body Language indicating imminent attack

Part 2: Concealment of weapons

Part 3: Anatomy of an attack

Part 4: The Broken Windows Theory of Crime Prevention

Part 5: Discretion

Module 2: Reactionary Gap

Part 1: Creating a Reactionary Gap

Part 2: Maintaining a Gap

Part 3: Recovering the Gap when compromised

Module 3: Teamwork & Patrol Formations

Part 1: Patrol formations

Part 2: Perimeter

Part 3: Verbal Dominance

Part 4: Gestures

Part 5: Ballooning

Part 6: Focus and the OODA loop

Module 4: Takedowns

Part 1: Criminal law

Part 2: Sleeper Hold

Part 3: Striking points

Part 4: Takedowns from the Rear

Part 5: Takedowns from the Side

Part 6: Takedowns from the Front

(a demonstration of an arrest takedown from the front)

Part 7: Takedowns from Above

Part 8: Search & Post-Control procedures

Part 9: Gear control

Phase 2 – Graduation Level

Module 1: Basic Applications

Part 1: Stances

Part 2: Strikes

Part 3: Blocks

Part 4: Kicks

Part 5: Throws

Part 6: Breakfalls & Rolls

Part 7: Combat Application Drills

Part 8: Conditioning Exercises

Module 2: Basic Combat Anatomy

Part 1: Basic Anatomical Weapons

Part 2: Basic Anatomical Targets

Part 3: Exercises

Module 3: Jointlocks

Part 1: The Principles of Jointlocks

(a demonstration of a shoulderlock compliance technique)

Part 2: Locking the Shoulder

Part 3: Locking the Elbow

Part 4: Locking the Wrists

Part 5: Locking the Knees

Part 6: Locking the Ankles

Module 4: Survival Fighting

Part 1: Stances re-visited

(a multi-hitting training drill)

Part 2: Survival Fighting Drills

(here is a short extract from our 'Survival Fighting Drills")

Module 5: Establishing Neural Pathways

Part 1: Physio-Mental Exercises

Module 6: Guided Chaos Attribute1 Looseness

Part 1: Looseness Explained

Part 2: Drills 

Module 6: Guided Chaos Attribute 2 Body Unity

Part 1: Body Unity Explained

Part 2: Drills

Module 6: Guided Chaos Attribute 3 Balance

Part 1: Balance Explained

Part 2: Drills 

Module 6: Guided Chaos Attribute 4 Sensitivity

Part 1: Sensitivity Explained

Part 2: Dropping Explained

Part 3: Drills

 

 

 

 

 

 

(yielding the body to avoid strikes from more powerful opponents)

Module 7: Bringing it all together

Part 1: The Body as a Shield

Part 2: The Body as a Weapon

Module 8: Economy of motion

Part 1: Economy of Motion Explained

Part 2: Drills

Module 9: Ground Fighting and Weapons defence

(a demonstration of a knife-removal drill)

Part 1: REAL Ground fighting

Part 2: Knife Defence

Part 3: Gun Defence

Module 10: Grabs and Locks

Part 1: Grabs and Locks explained

Part 2: Resisting Grabs and Locks

Part 3: Tool Destruction

Part 4: Grip exercises

Module 11: Pursuit management

Part 1: Patrol Survival Skills

Part 2: Preparing the Mind

Part 3: The keys to Survival

Part 4: Colour Codes of Awareness

Part 5: Escaping

Part 6: Foot Pursuit

Part 7: Hostage Procedures

Part 8: Cover

Part 9: Ambushes

Part 10: Tactical Survival

Part 11: High-risk Situations

Part 12: Pursuit Management

Part 13: Thinning the Herd

Part 14: Creating Obstacles for Pursuers

Part 15: Obstacle Crossing

 

An 'I-Support' member graduates on completion of phase 2 after passing a written, verbal, physical and tactical exam, and is then promoted to full 'Safety' status.  This allows him to patrol in any city, anywhere in the world where there are Guardian Angels, and to be seen as an equal by all.

Training however keeps on unabated after graduation.

Guardian Angels have a saying: "Train well, for the day WILL come . . ."

We would like to acknowledge our debt of gratitude for the authors of the book Attackproof, which became the basis for a large part of the training from phase 2.  The following letter was featured in their newsletter #88 (re-printed with permission).

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 GUIDED CHAOS TRAINING TIPS #88
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A Word of Thanks from The Guardian Angels, Capetown, South Africa--"The Most Violent City In the World"

"Dear Mr Perkins, I am the Regional Director: South Africa for the International Alliance of Guardian Angels. We are a volunteer corps that uses martial arts skills to protect our neighbourhoods.

In Cape Town, the most violent city in the world, I have found most martial arts to be ineffective. Sure, it teaches discipline, techniques, strength, speed, reflexes etc. but it is not often put into a street context, and that was a big problem for me, as I convinced people to leave the (relative) safety of their homes to come and patrol with me. Therefore their safety was a huge concern.

About a year ago I purchased Attackproof [the book] and immediately set out to adapt the system for our purposes. Training started a few weeks later (I have only limited martial arts experience, so I followed the book religiously) and I insisted on members working on the drills. Every session was broken down into 3 parts, with principles (we call them attributes) taking up one third, gang attack drills (we call them Survival Fighting) the second third, and lastly that training that is unique to Guardian Angels (such as patrol training etc) taking up the last third.

All the members quickly felt more confident and gradually I started seeing an increase in gracefull movement, with members suddenly starting to even continue training during breaks etc. One of the members, Nemesis (we all use code names), had never had ANY self-defence training before. He is an incredible man of 40 who had a triple by-pass operation in January 2007. Get this, FIVE DAYS after the op he was back on patrol!!! During this patrol we assisted the local police in a robbery (involving fire-arm) arrest.

A few weeks ago Nemesis went to a local pub after work and while in there he was accosted by 5 guys who had been on our case for months. They surrounded him and started hassling him, and in the midst of all this the one man made the mistake of asking him "Do you want to be shot, huh?" BAM, went Nemesis, immediately working through the relevant drill. When number one went down the other four virtually went into shock. This was the last thing they expected. They were five, he was alone, and what looked like easy pickings suddenly turned out to be much more than they expected. When this enraged Angel growled, "Well, is that the best you can do?" They picked up their buddy and went home. If it was not for Attackproof he may (would) have been seriously injured, and in Cape Town you cannot afford to be unprepared. We have over 1400 murders in this city every year, the vast majority of them with knives so our streets are no walk in the park, unless you are out hunting (lol)!

I also just want to emphasize how excellent Attackproof is. We have never had the benefit of seeing the DVD's, not having the required funds to purchase them, so ALL of the training comes out of the book, which has become the foundation on which virtually all of our self-defence training is built.

Attackproof is an excellent book and as a former police officer in Cape Town, I know what violence looks like. We have more murders, rapes and domestic violence than anywhere else on earth, and all the other self-defence books were second-class. I now compare every single book to Attackproof and have yet to see one that comes even close.

Mr Perkins, your work is a masterpiece and it is helping us to tame the streets of this city. Directly due to your work we are able to ensure safety for whole segments of this city and are already working on ensuring safety for visitors in 2010 during the Football World Cup. Congratulations!"

--Charl (Morpheus) Viljoen
International Alliance of Guardian Angels
Regional Director: South Africa National
nr: 083-568-6760
International nr: 011-2783-568-6760
Fax (NTNL): 086 520 6303
Email: southafrica@guardianangels.org
Website: www.guardianangels.org

This book is HIGHLY recommended and can be purchased here.

Click here for more information, including links for training dvd's and some fantastic dowloadable video clips..

The third phase of training is reserved for members hwo have already graduated, but is also for members who have specialized functions (such as Community Relations Officers).

Module 1

CERT (Community Emergency Response Training)

Module 2

Community Upliftment

Module 3

Crime Scene Management for Civilian First Responders

Module 4

Advanced Combat Anatomy