Timothy La Fleur started his martial arts training in the fall of 2003 at Hickey’s Karate Center in Stow, Ohio. By December 2005 he earned his black belt in Karate and in December 2007 he earned his black belt in Jujitsu. He continues to train under Shihans Patrick and Pamela Hickey in Kwanmukan karate and quickly learned that self-defense has its own set of skills, techniques and principals: mainly that when placed in an adrenalized self-defense situation, there are no rules and anything goes.

In May of 2003, he graduated with his undergraduate degree in Psychology from Malone University and learned many basic truths of how and why people do what they do. Then, working as a drug and alcohol intervention specialist, he saw how these substances can induce and magnify violence in many individuals. Through his post graduate work, studying counseling, he continued to develop an understanding of people’s decision making processes and how all aspects of life can influence decisions, especially when it comes to anger and violence.

During the fall of 2005, he started teaching self-defense and has taught people at universities, fitness centers and in the corporate setting. During these experiences, he developed a self-defense program that first deals with the idea of preventing violence from occurring. Participants also learn that simple awareness tactics can help prevent violence while placing a heavy importance on intuition. Throughout the prevention portion of the program, participants will be confronted with new thoughts and ideas that will force them to think about personal safety in new ways. Secondly, during the surviving violence portion, participants will receive hands-on training of how to strike an attacker in self-defense situations, how to release from grabs and holds, and a variety of other physical tools. The Preventing and Surviving Violence program teaches a comprehensive approach to self-defense.