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CDT
Author: Sara Fogan
It’s past midnight when you leave the party. The street is dark and quiet except for the muted sounds of laughter and rock music. You don’t see him as you cross the street, but the instant you reach your car, a man darts out from behind a van and grabs your arm. What do you do?
While you could use any number of martial arts techniques to extricate yourself, you need to be careful because in today’s litigious society, even a punch delivered in defense can land you in the middle of a legal quagmire—if not in jail. Your safest bet for liability-free self-defense would be a response drawn from a system that doesn’t rely on bone-crushing blows to achieve its goals yet is more than capable of dealing with a bigger, stronger attacker. You need Thomas J. Patire’s Compliance-Direction- Takedown method, also known as CDT.
ROOTS
Patire is no stranger to the martial arts. He has taught defensive tactics to federal agents since 1982. He holds a seventh-degree black belt in hom-do, a rare military martial art taught in the Philippines. He also has a black belt in aikido and has trained extensively in jujutsu and hwa rang do. Despite the plethora of lethal moves he has mastered, CDT follows an approach that is fundamentally opposite of the typical death-dealing mentality of the armchair warrior.
Patire based his program on research he conducted while teaching for the United States government in 1989.
He discovered that in numerous cases across the country, law-enforcement officers and private citizens who defended themselves with overzealous self-defense techniques could not defend their actions in court. “The reason for this is that approximately 97 percent of all altercations are low-level force and non-deadly,” he says. “The problem of many so-called self-defense systems is that we are taught to finish the person even when he is down and out. That is where the law goes against us.”
Patire then realized that the people who were employed at his State of the Art Security executive-protection company also needed to learn the new defensive skills to avoid a similar legal nightmare. One wrong move could leave them out of the security profession for life and land company officials in court, he feared. With the federal government’s approval, Patire and his instructors began teaching CDT techniques first to his employees and then to security specialists, law-enforcement officers, flight attendants and business executives. After tracking more than 25,000 of them for several years, he discovered that not only did his material work in real situations, but it also led to no arrests or lawsuits.
In 1992 Patire officially introduced the innovative program to several other groups, including the FBI, CIA, DEA, Federal Protective Services and military police. In 1997 he went public. “I designed CDT to keep my guys out of trouble, only to realize that over 900 police and security agencies and in excess of 1,000 martial arts schools would later get involved in learning and teaching it,” he says. “It became a business within a business, which was not my intent—although like anything else, good things have a way of spreading.”
PRACTITIONERS
CDT is now taught at more than 700 training centers in the United States and hundreds more in other countries, Patire says. More than half a million people are certified in the system. And as its popularity continues to skyrocket, more agencies are coming to him to learn it and more martial arts schools are using it to enhance their offerings.
A big part of the appeal of CDT is the way it meshes with the student’s schedule, Patire says. Because of their hectic lifestyles and physical limitations, most people lack the time needed to become a martial arts master, but those same people can easily fit a few CDT classes into their routine.
To meet the needs of the masses, CDT teaches compliance techniques and weapon disarms to adult students, and it conducts specialized programs for women and children. “The one for kids is called Know and Go,” Patire says.
“It is designed not to beat up the bad guy but to outsmart him. And our Family Protection course is the first to treat all members of the family as a cohesive unit. They learn how to safely cover and evacuate a child, how to move in crowded areas, how and why children are targeted for abduction, and what a parent should do if the child is being taken away. We teach physical and nonphysical techniques to parents or guardians so they can constantly be in the safe mode when out and about.”
Most of CDT’s dozen-plus programs can be taught in one- or two-day courses. The exception is the instructor course, which spans five days and requires a tactical or martial arts background and a clean criminal record.
METHODOLOGIES
“CDT is a an easy system to learn because it’s based on natural movements such as clapping your hands, turning a key and waving good-bye,” Patire says. “These movements, combined with the proper application, are a personal protection system for the masses.”
Using those natural moves, training focuses on providing two self-defense options: to control and defuse the attack, or to “stun and run” to safety. Students are implored to never accept a challenge to personal combat because a seasoned attacker looks forward to that type of engagement and is usually quite good at it. Besides, Patire says, good citizens don’t get into fights; they get into surprise altercations.
Despite its apparent similarities to certain martial arts , CDT is unique in that it teaches “soft-handed force” that can be applied by anyone. It does not target any of the body’s vital spots; hence, its techniques cannot be used to maim or kill. It does not include kicks, punches, chokes or armbars, nor will its moves break bones or have any long-term effects. Instead, it focuses on squeezing and pressing strategic areas of the attacker’s body to immobilize or off-balance him. To accomplish that, it relies on the teachings of acupuncture theory, physiology and kinesiology, Patire says.
“In lieu of throwing a punch—which the untrained person will probably execute wrong and end up breaking his own hand—we show you how to use your hands naturally to apply a CDT technique,” he says. “It’s based more on motion than it is on anything else.
That’s why it’s listed as a patent-pending, internationally trademarked system of low-level force. It’s a legal first step because it has taken all the harmful points out. And since 97 percent of the time people push or grab their intended victim without intending to injure or kill him, CDT focuses on those ‘lesser attacks.’ ” Once the defender has nullified one of those less-than-lethal assaults, legally he cannot stomp the assailant until he’s no longer breathing, Patire says. “That is not my opinion; it’s the law. And if you violate the law, you’ve got real problems.”
However, if the defender uses a measured CDT response and the attacker escalates the conflict, or if he calls upon another party or introduces a weapon into the fight, the defender is legally entitled to use his martial arts skills to defend himself, Patire says. “And of course you are allowed to use any level of force to protect a child or someone who cannot protect himself if the assailant breaks through what we call the personal- protection zone.”
CONCLUSIONS
The lawsuit-safe teachings of CDT have unleashed an avalanche of interest in self-defense training around the world, Patire claims. “Our program is getting people to learn a legally conscious method of personal protection.
Once they go through a CDT course, they have questions about higher-level situations, and that is when the instructor should introduce them to the martial arts. It’s a win-win [situation] for the school owner, and it’s a legal option of defense for people looking to protect themselves and their assets.”
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