A Mind for the Fight

An Evolutionary Mindset and Systems-Focused Approach Towards a Unified Skillset for Self-Defense, Street Survival, and Combat Sports Excellence

By: James West, Justin McCauley

Narrated by: Ian Scotto

A Mind for the Fight provides you with the necessary tools to facilitate a critical evolution in your survival mindset. Retired Green Beret, renowned martial artist, and infamous street fighter Jim "Smokey" West offers a comprehensive guide to developing the mental game necessary to turn your defense into offense when a violent street assault finds you. Moreover, this audiobook presents the foundation, framework, and technical fight principles of American Extension Fighting, a philosophy of martial arts that takes a nonlinear, systems-focused approach toward a unified skill set for the 21st century. Gaps exist in everyone's skill set; AEF's goal is to fill those gaps and to do so with a guilt-free assessment of individual system variances and system failures, fostering continual improvement—improvement that will ensure you survive and thrive when confronted with chaotic, real-world violence. A Mind for the Fight offers you a road map to excellence in both combat sports and street survival, enabling you to work through fear, eradicate the threat, and come out on the other side.

©2020 James V. West (P)2022 James V. West

TEN LESSONS FROM A CERTIFIED MASTER BADASS

James 'Smokey' West is a 'tough as nails' kind of man; definitely not a phony Hollywood movie tough guy.
Mr. West is a former Army Special Forces soldier and instructor who's probably seen more real life brutal nastiness than most of us would care to imagine. This book focuses mainly on a particular style of martial arts West developed over decades of training and teaching. Mr. West calls his style American Extension Fighting.
That being said; this book is not just for black belts or MMA types. This book is for anyone who might be interested in how to lessen their risk of being victimized on the street. Mr. West introduces us to ten concepts of his martial arts style that are really useful tools of common sense when being out in public. After an introduction and backstory, Mr. West discusses these ten concepts by relating them to ten real life fights he was actively engaged in. The highlight of the book was how Mr. West explains what he did right, and what he may have done wrong in each of these ten scenarios. Without going into more detail, suffice to say that James West has sustained some scars; both physically and mentally.
Since this is a review of the audiobook version of A Mind For The Fight, I must say that Ian Scotto's reading/performance was outstanding. Definitely will be giving this a second listening.