Results for “Tony Blauer”

Tim Pipes explains how CrossFit Defense prepares athletes to stay alert, cultivate the warrior mindset and respond to threats.

One-on-one human violence: It’s often up close and personal, overwhelmingly uncomfortable, brutally intense, and devastatingly traumatic. Many prefer to imagine violence doesn’t exist, but make no mistake about it: Evil and violence are real, and complacency and denial are useless when we experience violence by chance or by choice of profession.

I don’t make these statements to frighten, intimidate or discourage… Continue Reading

CrossFit Defense shows Theresa Smith she already has the tools she needs to defend herself.

Like many other CrossFit gyms, Raise the Bar CrossFit in Ontario, Oregon, is in an industrial area.

We want our members to be able to work out in a place where they can be themselves, and industrial areas are home to large warehouse spaces where weights can be dropped and music played loudly at all… Continue Reading

Kevin Ogar, Tony Blauer and others explain how to overcome trepidation to find success in the gym and in life.

It was July 2010, my first week of CrossFit. The affiliate had opened a month prior, and I was the only person in the noon class. After I warmed up, the coach brought out a 20-inch wooden box and told me to jump up on it.

I looked at the rough edges, eyeing the sharp corners, the… Continue Reading

Remembering a 2007 Tony Blauer self-defense video, four people use acting to devalue themselves as targets and avoid physical confrontations.

Glory Dawson had finished her waitressing shift and was headed home when she remembered she needed to deposit a check. Dawson went to an ATM, put her card into the machine and saw four men walking toward her. They surrounded her.

“How much money you got in there?” one of them asked.

“I didn’t… Continue Reading

On Episode 343 of CrossFit Radio, host Justin Judkins interviewed Tony Blauer, the expert behind the CrossFit Defense courses. This episode was webcast on Aug. 20, 2014.

2:00 Tony Blauer travels around the world teaching self-defense tactics to CrossFit athletes as well as law-enforcement officers and members of the military. The CrossFit Defense program includes both an Athlete’s Course and a Trainer’s Course, and Blauer explained how vital skills and… Continue Reading

Tony Blauer’s goal at the CrossFit Defense Trainer and Athlete courses is to give people the tools to keep themselves safe.

“There is no skill more relevant than to be able to protect yourself or your family,” Blauer says. “That is it.”

At the Trainer Course, students learn how to teach CrossFit Defense to others.

“I want to teach it to others, hopefully get more confident in real-life situations. Rather than just being in a box and being… Continue Reading

The bad guy always wants one of three things: property, body or life.

“Bad guys don’t want to get caught, they don’t want to get hurt, they don’t want shit to take too long,” says Tony Blauer, who owns Blauer Tactical Systems and leads the CrossFit Defense courses.

In a carjacking scenario, it’s no different.

“The simplest thing to do is make that car inoperable,” Blauer explains. “I want to devalue… Continue Reading

If you’ve got a gun to your back, it might seem like you have few choices that don’t involve prayer and luck.

But Tony Blauer explains it’s all about cooperating with your assailant—at first.

To demonstrate, Blauer, who owns Blauer Tactical Systems and leads the CrossFit Defense courses, plays the victim while CrossFit Media’s Tyson Oldroyd is directly behind him with a fake gun aimed at Blauer’s back. At that… Continue Reading

Whether people know it or not, many have already seen tattooist Josh Wrede’s work on a few very prominent human billboards: multi-year CrossFit Games competitors and Level 1 Seminar Staff members Matt Chan and Chris Spealler.

Chan and Spealler aren’t the only athletes the Colorado-based Wrede has inked, and high-intensity CrossFit workouts often reveal his art on hard-working bodies around the country. Wrede specializes in large tattoos… Continue Reading

If a bad guy sticks a gun in your face, makes the mistake of not killing you and then further makes the mistake of talking, it’s your lucky day.

“If a guy stuck a gun in your face, would he expect you to put your hands up in fear? Yeah,” explains Tony Blauer, who owns Blauer Tactical Systems and leads the CrossFit Defense courses.

Luckily, that nonviolent posture also is ideal for grabbing the gun. At that point… Continue Reading

Tony Blauer had him picked out: he was the guy with the tank top and lots of tattoos.

At the seminar in Australia, Blauer, who owns Blauer Tactical Systems and leads the CrossFit Defense courses, chose him as a volunteer to demonstrate how speech choices can defuse a potentially violent situation.

He told the guy, “I’m gonna stare at you, and when it gets uncomfortable, just say, ‘Hey, what are you… Continue Reading

As a child, Tony Blauer was afraid of getting beat up. He was also inordinately attracted to fight scenes in movies.

So at the age of 12, he signed up for Taekwondo. He trained seven days a week, and he was “obsessive,” says Blauer, now 53. From the ages of 20 to 25, he did 30 to 40 private lessons a week. Eventually he opened his own school. But it wasn’t until one of his students lost a fight that Blauer realized… Continue Reading

The concept of awareness is to be able to enjoy your family and friends without worrying about “some nut comin’ in and bad shit happening,” says Tony Blauer of CrossFit Defense.

The goal is to improve perception speed and decrease reaction time.

In any restaurant, for example, Blauer says he chooses a spot where he can see the exits and most of the room.

If a confrontation were to occur, he notes that such items… Continue Reading

In a fight, one of the worst positions you can be in is a headlock. With the assailant in control, the head and face are exposed for punches, palm strikes or gouging.

Tony Blauer of CrossFit Defense makes that clear as he demonstrates with CrossFit Games competitor Dan Bailey and two-time CrossFit Games champion Rich Froning Jr.

With Bailey putting Blauer in a headlock, the expert highlights “pre-contact cues” that… Continue Reading

CrossFit subject-matter experts George Ryan and Tony Blauer explain how fear-management and positive action are the keys to any crisis situation.

A feeling of helplessness tormented most Americans in the wake of the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. In the face of so much horror and injustice, some argued for more gun control, while others called for a heavier gun presence in our schools. Many brought… Continue Reading

CrossFit Defense fuses fitness with effective self-defense, teaching physical and psychological strategies for surviving an attack or a tough workout. Hilary Achauer reports.

Many years ago, before kids and CrossFit, I was an amateur boxer. I competed from about 2001 to 2004, and during that time one of the most frequent comments I got was, “Wow, I bet if someone tried to attack you on the street, you’d… Continue Reading

If you understand the cycle of behavior, you are going to change how you approach workouts, people, conflict and confrontation, says Tony Blauer of Blauer Tactical Systems.

“The first place that you are hit in a real confrontation is your emotional system,” he says in Part 1. “Everybody says, ‘I had a bad feeling, right?”

You must identify fear and then learn how to push through it, Blauer adds.

“Everybody knows what… Continue Reading

Air squats, sprinting and knees-to-elbows are all movements that have created a relationship between your hip and hip flexor, says Tony Blauer of Blauer Tactical Systems.

When you find yourself in a fight, you’re merely mimicking movements performed in workouts. First, you’ll likely get into the hollow-body position and then grab hold of the assailant.

“It’s like if I did slam ball and knees-to-elbow at the same… Continue Reading

Your arm is like a personal crowbar, says Tony Blauer of Blauer Tactical Systems. The trick is to be sure to remain in a nonviolent posture with those arms up when the bad guy approaches.

It’s the Trojan Horse metaphor, Blauer explains.

“I don’t want to betray the element of surprise,” he says.

Blauer’s S.P.E.A.R. System advocates using the palm, fingers, forearm and elbow as your own personal weapon, regardless of how large or… Continue Reading

The first drill in Tony Blauer’s CrossFit Defense Course is called Outside 90. It involves using your forearm to create distance between you and your attacker.

“Without my glutes, without my abs, without my lats, without my back, without a stance, without momentum, this is pretty fuckin’ strong,” Blauer says, referencing his forearm. “And how many reps did you have to do to understand and experience that? One.”

One of the biggest mistakes in… Continue Reading