Tiga Tactics

There are many, many good combatives instructors out there, and everyone has their own approach. We understand we are not law enforcement nor military contractors, but we believe this makes us more accessible and relatable to the average person. We are also not macho or tough guys.

In fact, we are nerds and honor students with college degrees (one of us even has a doctorate degree) who love martial arts and love to see people gain confidence and fitness while learning to protect themselves and their loved ones.

In choosing who to learn from, check their background. What is our background? Read below. We are confident you will be hard pressed to find a whole cadre of teachers with the following experience, let alone just two:

Dr. Conrad Bui
• 5th Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and American Freestyle Karate
• Instructor/Coach in Muay Thai
• Guro (Full Instructor) in Nubreed Kali
• Guru (Full Instructor) in Pentjak Silat Serak
• Sigung (Master Level) in Kuntao Silat deThouars
• Sigung (Master Level) in Ying Lung Hsing
• Sifu (Full Instructor) in Jeet Kune Do Concepts
• Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
• Former bar bouncer
• Published writer/photographer in Black Belt Magazine, Recoil Magazine, and Recoil Offgrid Magazine
• Doctor of Chiropractic

Patrick Vuong
• 2nd Degree Black Belt in Lai Chung Chuan Fa
• 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate
• Authorized Instructor in Pekiti-Tirsia Kali
• Certified Pistol Instructor
• Instructor of Aegis Personal Protection Systems’ Women's Self-Defense since 2008
• Founder and Head Instructor of the CSUF Martial Arts Fitness Class
• Current student of Pentjak Silat Serak, Muay Thai, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
• Editor and published writer/photographer in Black Belt Magazine, Recoil Magazine, Recoil Offgrid Magazine, Breach Bang Clear, and Survival Dispatch Magazine.
• Tactical firearms training under various elite instructors, including law enforcement and former members of the U.S. Special Operations Forces

Tiga Tactics Combatives™ pulls the very best from ancient arts as well as modern day research and training. Nothing new with that, but many teachers (past and present) trained in only one or two systems and then dabbled (or even just watched videos and read books) in other systems, extracting what they “thought” was useful from those arts.

We think it is irresponsible to just dabble in a system (any system) and believe to have enough knowledge to extract what is “believed” to be functional.

It would be like a white belt teaching you what is effective in that particular system, yet that is what many teachers have done — they may excel at one or two systems, dabbled in five others and profess to tell you what is legit in their “dabbled” arts.

We spent not just years, but decades of training in each of our arts — distilling just the most effective concepts to create Tiga Tactics Combatives™. When we say we took a certain technique or training method from an art, you can be certain that the technique or training method was thoroughly researched to black belt level and in certain arts, to master levels.

We did it all; we trained, we competed, we ranked up, we mastered, we bounced, and we researched street violence to bring you Tiga Tactics Combatives™.

Here are the sources for Tiga Tactic’s Combatives™ curriculum and what we extracted, filtered, and refined to bring to you something that is new, unique, and totally Tiga Tactics:

Tae Kwon Do/ American Free-Style Karate/ Point Sparring:
• The concept of hitting-without-getting-hit from point sparring.
• A fight is a physical activity; be fit if you want to fight.

Jeet Kune Do Concepts:
• “Using no style as style” — we consider ourselves martial artists without borders.
• Pressure test — like Bruce Lee said, “If you want to learn to swim, jump into the water.”
• Constant learning and unlearning — We started with a mountain of martial arts experience (where as some started with a mole hill) and CUT out so much fluff that Tiga Tactics Combatives™ drew blood.
• Being an “open-minded skeptic” allowed us to see things more clearly and honestly.
• Research — martial arts is a science and therefore can be studied as such with hypothesis, labs, and (perhaps most importantly) tests.

Nubreed Kali
• Stick — attack and defense concepts and techniques
• Knife — attack and defense concepts and techniques

Pentjak Silat Serak
• Fights happen in close range
• Triangle principles — for awareness, footwork, combat tactics, and techniques
• Elbow strikes
• Flinch response shown in the forms

Kuntao Silat de Thouars
• Solid base — from old-school Kung Fu training or you may end up on your ass
• Explosiveness — power striking is what gets the job done
• Constant training and physical development are a necessity, especially if you want to keep your tools sharp and age well

Ying Lung Hsing (made up of Tai Chi, Ba Gua, and Hsing Yi):
• Tai Chi principle of “Go slow to go fast” — as they say in the military, “slow is smooth and smooth is FAST.”
• Slow training for warm-up and proper body mechanics
• Put the entire body into each strike — engage the core and use inertia
• “Fighting requires speed but first the internal demands slowness. Violence requires power, but first the internal requires softness.”

Thai Boxing:
• Train both attack and defense
• The Helmet — covering your head and keeping your eyes open and strong
• Drilling in a safe and realistic way develops pattern recognition, timing, distancing, and targeting
• Elbows and knees — thrusting the hips to generate power
• Clinching — controlling, sensitivity, and drills
• Progressive drilling
• Majority of training and sparring is done safely and with control; technical sparring can still make you deadly
• Your attacker is not going to just stand there; deal with their counter attacks and put that into your drills
• Live training to pressure test your techniques
• Focus mitt — targeting and contact
• Thai pads — some targeting and more contact
• Kicking shield — minor targeting and major contact
• Body Opponent Bag — targeting and FULL contacting
• Heavy bag — little targeting and FULL contact
• High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu/Submission Grappling
• Stay all the way out or all the way in
• Figure out their attack and have a logical way to deal with it
• Position before submission — get to a safe location before unloading your offense (our P.R.O.tect System)
• Live training to test your techniques and tactics
• Use technique and leverage, not brute strength
• There is always a way out no matter what position or submission you find yourself in.

Online Videos: Studied the most common attacks on the street
• Suckerpunch, knife stabbing, club attacks and firearms
• Untrained attackers have a predictable way of attacking not commonly taught in the dojo or gym.
• The skill of an average attacker is similar to that of a middle school student, because most people do not train or even think about violence.
• Attackers do not just stop and give up after one counterattack — in other words, they keep on coming in a predictable manner.
• Attacks are often fast, violent, and in close range

Chiropractic
• Weakness of the human anatomy
• Strengths of the human anatomy
• Biomechanics and physiology

Night Club Security / Bouncer
• Situational awareness
• Verbal de-escalation
• Multiple attacker tactics

Aegis Personal Protection Systems Women’s Self-Defense
• Three Pillars of Personal Protection: knowledge, tactics, and training
• Personal safety starts first with smart lifestyle choices

Pekiti-Tirsia Kali
• Edged weapon combatives
• Slash to thrust and thrust to slash
• Slashes maim, thrusts kill
• Stick combatives
• The universal applications can be used with a pen, flashlight, etc.
• Pangamut — Knife techniques can translate to empty-hand strikes
• Triangle footwork — moving to engage and disengage

Lai Chung Chuan Fa
• Southern Shaolin Kung Fu stance work — deep stable stances and assured footing
• Dirty fighting — groin shots and eye gouges
• Traditional weapons like spear, Kwan Do, Butterfly Swords — can be applied to broom strike, cane, and other modern-day objects

Kenpo Karate
• Toughen the body — develop discipline, fitness, endurance, and the ability to endure pain
• Point sparring, semi-contact sparring, and full-contact sparring — Take the “swimming lessons on dry land” and put them to the test in shallow water, the deep end, and the ocean

Tactical Firearms Training
• High-Risk Dignitary Protection training — understanding how ambushes happen and how to prevent and stop them
• Pressure testing physiological responses to fear using physical conditioning and force-on-force training
• Handgun fundamentals and advanced tactics
• AR-15 fundamentals and advanced tactics

Despite our decades of martial arts research and thousands of dollars spent on training, we still felt insecure when it came to street violence. That was frustrating to say the least.

Sure, we could win trophies by kicking someone in the head and we could earn medals by slapping on a submission during an intense Jiu-Jitsu match, but we were still insecure about an actual STREET encounter.

We were honest with ourselves and did not ignore the insecurity and frustrations like many teachers do. How do we know? Because we used to be those teachers who thought all was good with our training. We would think the system we trained in had all the answers.

If that one did not, it was on to the next and the next and the next. We spent our entire life searching for the answers to surviving a violent encounter. Some systems were known as bladed systems, yet we felt insecure about an actual knife attack on the streets. Some systems were known for their footwork and dealing with multiple attackers and yet we felt the uncertainty of dealing with even one attacker. This HONESTY with ourselves, led us to going back to the drawing board.

We first had to figure out how an attack on the street REALLY went down and — big hint — it does not happen like you train it in class, in the dojo, or in the gym. We spent hours researching surveillance footage and figured the four most common attacks were committed by a knife (or edged weapon), a club (or impact weapon), a punch, or a firearm. Each of those attacks were carefully researched, and we stumbled upon the fact that untrained humans had a tendency to attack in very specific ways regardless where they lived — be it in Europe or Uganda, Baltimore or Bangkok.

Through our research, we discovered that attacks did not happen like the old masters and modern-day teachers THOUGHT it did because they simply did not have the means or access to the hours of surveillance footage. In many instances the attacks found in dojos and other combatives courses are WAY off.

If you train the wrong attacks, you come up with the wrong solutions.

It was back to the drawing board once we isolated the most common type of attacks. Our next step was to comb through all the arts we learned and were certified to teach (not just dabbled in) and figure out the most direct and effective solutions against these common attacks with a cooperative partner. And, finally, we had to figure out a training methodology that would allow a student to progress logically all the while maintain a level of realism that would match the street violence we had seen.

You see, in many other classes, courses, and seminars, the teacher shows a technique once or twice. Then you might do it in the air a few times. And finally, you might do it slowly with a partner. Then suddenly they have you jump right into full force-on-force or full-contact training, and the student inevitably LOSES. We did not want that from our students, we want success, not failure. So once again we combed through and filtered the best training methods of our arts (over a DOZEN!) and discovered a logical training progression that used the most effective methods of ancient masters of China to modern-day Mixed Martial Arts.

Because of our unique perspective, unmatched background, thorough research and MOSTLY our insecurities, there is NOTHING like the Tiga Tactics Combatives™ curriculum when it comes to increasing your odds of surviving a violent encounter. Our training is safe, logical, progressive, (dare we say) fun, and most of all effective.

YES of course you have to train! Even we have to continuously train to keep our skills sharp. We would be LYING to you if we said all you have to do is watch our program and by some act of the divine, the muscle memory and knowledge is uploaded into your body, like in The Matrix … “Whoa, I know Kung Fu.”

You will have to train and (luckily) by training you will:
• Get fit: Yes, you will work up a sweat
• Gain the correct muscle memory to improve your odds of surviving violence
• Improve your confidence
• Create stronger bonds with those you train with

That being said, once you finish our curriculum we recommend that you spend at least 30 minutes a week reviewing the material or you will simply not have the skills to use when the need arises.

Our past participants have included soccer moms with no martial arts training or an aggressive bone inside them. After going through our course, it was difficult to distinguish them from more experienced martial artists.

Our program has been scientifically designed to take you by the hand, start you working on the simple basics and progress you in a relaxing and fun manner. If you know your right hand from your left, you will be able to complete our course and improve your odds of surviving a violent encounter.

That will make this course even easier for you, as you will be familiar with many of the SIMPLE techniques we use. Look, we are never going to criticize training in ANY martial arts because any self-defense training beats sitting on the couch watching reruns of The Simpsons (although The Simpsons is a fun alternative, it will not make you fit or more coordinated to survive a violent encounter). From our research there is NO perfect martial arts and no perfect technique.

Worse, we discovered the majority of martial arts (yes, even Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Krav Maga, and Muay Thai) were training street defense all wrong because their founders did not have access to video footage of live attacks to perform a scientific study. Beyond that, many of these systems did not want to cooperate and share the best of their training methods with each other (if something like that even actually happened).

Well, we did the research (and like SCIENCE, if you watched the same footage and performed the same study, you would come up with the same conclusions), we dug through all our systems (mind you we have obtained instructor and master instructor rankings in all the systems we represent) and we pressure tested the techniques. Next, we had to come up with a logical progression of training to make our students SUCCESSFUL. Did you notice that BJJ, Muay Thai, and MMA fighters are so badass? It is NOT the style but the intelligent training these athletes are subjected to. Don’t worry, you don’t have to train that hard to be successful with our program, but we will not discourage you if you feel like going balls-to-the-walls in your training either.

Lastly, you never have to stop any art you are doing, and we encourage you to continue training in whatever art you love. Tiga Tactics Combatives can be a standalone system and, at the same time, it can be used as a supplemental program within any style.

Not at all. The only requirement will be to have four working limbs. In fact, our program uses only gross motor movements (the kind of movement that is BEST for defending your life), making this program very EASY to learn.

Also, the training is progressive so that, as you build the skills, you are also building the muscle memory, the strength, and the endurance necessary to protect yourself.

We recommend everyone get the OK from their licensed healthcare provider before starting any type of physical activity.

There is no doubt that size does matter, but make no mistake, with the Tiga Tactics Combatives™ program even the smallest individual can be dangerous. We will teach you how to weaponize EVERY single pound you possess. With Tiga Tactics Combatives, knowing what to do, how to do it, and when to do it is MANY times more important than shear mass.

Our Chief Training Officer, Dr. Conrad Bui, competes in the featherweight division yet he can (and has) put down guys twice his size.