The Perpetual White Belt: Training With Tactical 21
After training with Tactical 21, Alan Baker reflected on remaining a student, responsible marksmanship, and using the C-TAC Combat Blueprint to identify gaps in training.
C-Tac®
The Gap Between Knowing and Doing: How Capability Is Built
Sifu Journal · Capability & Learning The Gap Between Knowing and Doing: How Capability Is Built Information matters. But how do we turn what we learn into something we can …
When the Fundamentals Have to Change
A monthly range session forced Alan Baker to reconsider a familiar handgun grip. The result offers a larger lesson about adaptation, coaching, and the continuing path toward mastery.
When Less Becomes More: Learning to Become an Intuitive Driver
After years of training with Joe Autera, Alan Baker finally began to understand what it means to feel your way through a driving problem. This reflection from Pocono Raceway explores intuition, simplicity, protective driving, and the lifelong work of becoming more capable.
Ahead of Time: Why Early Recognition Matters in Self-Protection
Situational awareness is more than a slogan. C-TAC teaches students to prepare, train their eyes to see, recognize developing pressure, and make better decisions while they are still ahead of time.
Two Continuums, Better Decisions: Understanding Force and Threat Escalation in C-TAC
C-TAC students study two essential continuums: the range of responses available to them and the escalating behavior of a threat. Training both helps students recognize change, avoid falling behind in time, and make better decisions under pressure.
The Keysi Fighting Method Pensador Is Not a Single Shield Position
The Pensador is one of Keysi Fighting Method’s most recognizable ideas, but it is not a single guard or shielding position. Sifu Alan Baker examines how its protective structures articulate, transition, strike, manipulate, and remain functional under pressure.
Build the Room You Spent Your Life Looking For
Serious education begins when experienced people can admit uncertainty, question assumptions, and pursue what they do not yet know. Alan Baker explores intellectual humility, thought tools, and the responsibility to build environments where knowledge and wisdom can evolve.
Stress Is a Programmer: Why Scenario Training Must Be Designed, Not Improvised
Stress does more than test performance. It can reinforce whatever responses have already been trained. Alan Baker explains why effective scenario training must be built through intelligent drilling, structured progression, and ingrained safety.
The Perpetual White Belt: What Combatives at the Lake Reinforced About Mastery
After a three-and-a-half-week teaching tour, Combatives at the Lake reinforced two enduring lessons: remain a perpetual student, and keep refining knowledge until what remains is simple, clear, and useful.
