Blog and Essays

Niche

Posted by Eric Davis 23 March 2020 1048hrs

What is the intention, role or driving mission of Evolution Security?

Sometimes we ask a question among ourselves, “Why are we doing this, why are we so committed to this direction, philosophy or modality?”  Well that is a very valid question and one that in many cases will have a different answer.   One might say our mission is training or providing training to others.  Well this is true, even though I would deem us local and regional influence rather than national notoriety like many of our mentors.  One day we hope to and will likely be a national extension but that was never our intention.  The truth be told, I went to my brother Aaron Davis and my good friend Brian Schilt and presented an idea that I’ve had in my head for several years.  The idea was… I believed that we had something to offer people both close to us and soon perhaps at a larger scale, nationally.  I also believed that we had the competency with certain talents to get the message out through our podcast; Folks could receive amalgamated information and guidance from the leaders (our mentors) in the self-protection industry; those that have done the work, furthermore most of them were called on to use their experience when life was at stake.  That was the idea, at the very least to quote Mike Rowe, “That’s the way I heard it” in my head. 

In reading Karl Rehn and John Daub’s book Strategies and Standards for Defensive Handgun Training, they espouse a very important concept and one that should be trumpeted.  I will stop there for a second and state if you are serious about getting better in your shooting you MUST get that book.  In paraphrasing from the book, with only 1% of gun owners actually training to become more capable, we need people seeking training and learning to be safer both protection wise and gun handling wise.  Moreover, we also do not want them to become a liability.  They also postulate that there are not enough instructors available to influence the 100 million gun owners in the US and I submit that those of us with experience to offer… well we need to get off of our four point of contact and lend a hand to the heavy lifters.   One other catalyst to us starting EvoSec was when I was interviewed for a popular firearms and self-defense podcast, I came to realize that I have enough experience of my own, a heavy resume of professional training under the industry leaders and add to it being a martial arts instructor for close to 30 years.  We have a body of knowledge where we can offer guidance and direct instruction to our clients and piers.  

What is our partial answer to the former mentioned conundrum of the 1% problem, still borrowing from Karl and John’s book?

Well, I believe our main mission is to help others with a filtered and to borrow a term from our instructor Craig Douglas, a reductionist approach.  I will even call it a deconstructionism approach. Not just with specific training modalities, but also with whom to gain these modalities, to cut through the chaff.  And even though we love great gear, we are not intending to be gear centric, although we will make recommendations on gear so that folks do not fall into the next flashy and gimmicky piece of gear. We will make limited recommendations, and only on gear that we use and believe in.

Another epiphany occurred to me when having a discussion with a colleague and dear friend.  Up until recently he had never really listened to podcasts, now he is a voracious listener of not just our show but many others.  He said to me and paraphrasing “Your guy’s niche is most certainly training philosophy and the encouragement of people to train in what is most important.” We aim to fulfill that characterization as best we can, and we trust we have thus far.  He also stated that hearing our accountability segment is one of his favorite parts of the show.  He said that it motivates him to do better himself.  We get a lot of feedback along those lines from others which validates our intention with that segment.  I see him improving himself.  I see more of our audience members, friends and family doing the same thing.  I guess we are starting to see results.   Our intention when we started this Evolution Security venture first and foremost was a launching pad for us simply to get better.  Better at what?  Better at the things that are most important to living a safe and enriched life.  This includes but is not limited to, health, getting smarter, fitness, speaking better, writing better and self-protection.  The self includes ones family and our fellow man.    

Until next time, stay safe out there. 

Eric Davis

EvoSec

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