School of hard knocks

>> Richard Dimitri's Senshido school aims to put warriors on the streets

by SIOBHÀN O'CONNOR

Richard Dimitri can't even sit through an interview without popping out of his seat for an impromptu demonstration of the suckerpunch or what to do when a knife is held at your throat. "There are three things an attacker does not want," he explains. "He doesn't want to get caught, hurt or have attention drawn to him. These are three things you can strategically use against him." His tips feel more like training for war than casual pointers--not a far cry from what Dimitri has in mind.

"The warrior mentality is something I've always had, something everyone has, whether it's developed or not," he says. For Dimitri, the mentality burgeoned at the ripe age of six, when he saw his first Bruce Lee movie, Enter the Dragon, and enrolled in a karate class. Fast-forward through a couple of rough decades and black-belts and Dimitri had developed Senshido, a form of self-protection that mixes martial arts, hand-to-hand combat, kick-boxing and more.

"I'd been working as a bouncer, getting in lots of fights, and realized I'd never pulled a move I learned in karate," says Dimitri. "I realized people don't attack each other in real life the way they do in a dojo." After studying the reality-based combat teachings of Sammy Franco, Marc MacYoung, Peyton Quinn and Geoff Thompson--the "pioneers of the industry"--Dimitri opened his downtown school in 1994. "I did a lot of stupid things growing up and put myself in high-risk environments and situations. I found out the hard way what works and what doesn't in violent situations."

Borne out of Bruce Lee's jeet kun do--an eclectic combat system that fuses Eastern and Western styles--Dimitri says his courses go beyond what he calls the "regular self-defence B.S." With a focus on adaptability and trend analysis, he is always changing his curriculum. "Bruce Lee once said that to memorize a technique solidifies it, but fighting is fluid. You can't develop a program and then pat yourself on the back and say, 'Great! We got it!' I come up with new drills monthly by following what's been going on in Montreal and other cities like New York, L.A., Detroit and Chicago."

Spreading the word

One of the teachers at the school is professional stunt woman Helen Stranzl. "In film the risk is calculated. In real controntations, it never unfolds quite like that," says Stranzl, who's moonlighted as a body-double for Angelina Jolie, Mira Sorvino and Playboy playmate Lisa Boyle. Because she was a student long before becoming a teacher, Stranzl is concerned about what women are being taught in other self-defence courses.

"I hate to say it, but if women applied a lot of what they learned, they'd get killed," she says. Stranzl and Dimitri have contacted several women's shelters and rape-crisis centres in Montreal in attempt to push the gospel of Senshido, but cite "red tape" as their biggest hurdle so far. Says Stranzl: "Several of these groups are subsidized by the government and can only offer standard government self-defence courses. These courses need to be examined." Dimitri adds that the absence of a governing/supervisory body for self-defence education is a growing concern.

While Dimitri agrees that there is a lot to be learned from the standard martial arts, he maintains serious reservations as to their street-effectivity. "Self-protection is not a martial art--it involves psychological training, environmental awareness, fear management and so on." It's when martial arts are billed as tools for everyday self-defence that irks him the most. "If you take someone who practices capoeira and put them in an elevator against two guys with knives, they can't cartwheel out of the situation. It's not practical. Studying martial arts for 20 years does not make you an authority on self-defence any more than watching General Hospital for 20 years makes you a doctor."

Determined to reach as many people as possible, Dimitri has written a film, currently in pre-production, that will showcase the Senshido style as well as his student, WCW wrestler "Vampiro" Hodgkinson. He says the Insane Clown Posse and the Misfits are on-board to do the soundtrack, and is confident that the film, Three Days Till Forever, will spread the Senshido word.

When asked where he thinks this is all headed, he pauses to think. "My goal is not to rid the world of the predators," he exacts, "but to rid the world of the victims." :



For more info about upcoming seminars and classes, see www.senshido.com or call 879-5621