T.R.A.P. Seminar–What it is and why

I know the title isn’t entirely self-evident as to what it entails, so I wanted to blog a bit about this course, define it, and explain what it is and why we’re putting it on.

What is T.R.A.P.?

T.R.A.P. is an acronym we came up with that stands for Threat assessment, Risk mitigation, Awareness, and Prevention. These all tie in to the purpose of the course, which is essentially giving you the tools needed to prevent yourself from becoming a victim in an increasingly dangerous world.

Why are we putting it on?

There are an increasing number of people who are putting out crash-courses with the intent of teaching varying techniques to individuals—mainly women, but the principles apply to all—ranging from counterattacks, wrist locks, chokes, parrying, and weapons disarming (to name a few), in the hopes that if the individual were to find themselves in a dangerous situation, they could have the skills to turn the tides and get out of it. While I do not disagree at all with the idea of being trained and having plans in place to utilize whatever means you may have at your disposal to defend yourself (and we will go over exposing those means in class), the idea that you can put on an hours-long course in a single day and teach someone the skills to disarm or defeat an attacker that is, in many cases, 100 pounds heavier than their victim is not only ridiculous, but I think it’s also predisposing people for failure by setting unrealistic expectations. It’s dishonest, it’s delusional, and it’s doing much more harm than good.

To be clear, our message is NOT to ignore training—being adequately trained is one of the best things you can do to protect yourself, and nobody is ultimately responsible for your safety other than YOU…BUT if you aren’t willing to commit the hours, months, YEARS it takes to achieve a level of proficiency to defeat what will likely be a much larger assailant who had the element of surprise on their side, you can NOT reasonably expect to think you stand a reasonable chance of winning that fight.

So, with that said, if we wanted to maximize your return on investment of time committed for the purpose of securing your safety and well-being, we would rather focus on drastically improving your ability to prevent a situation from occurring, and mitigate your risk as much as reasonably possible so as to not become a target in the first place.

I hope this blog has cleared up a bit of the ‘what?’ and ‘why?’ behind the seminar. We live in a world where everyone is an expert and everyone’s opinion seems to count as equal, and we disagree with that notion—good intent does not guarantee good content in ANY industry, and for as long as I’ve seen that be the case in the strength and conditioning world, it’s the same when it comes to safety and security as well. Let us, as experts, offer our combined years of experience ranging from the military special operations community, police, diplomatic security and executive protection to give you some real-world, no bullshit training that will effectively increase your chances of safety and survival.

Please RSVP to the class on April 14th at 10:30am to reserve your spot—spots are limited to 50, first-come, first-serve. Priority goes to members—if you are not a member or family of a member and wish to attend, please email me at phil@crossfitdubuque.com.

Check out the FB event page here for more information and further updates.