Our top training priority is always to avoid violence.

If violence cannot be avoided, the goal is to be the one who walks away intact.

We are committed to the prevention of violence and development of the individual through mindful, realistic training with other students of self-protection.

SCVS is a non-profit training club and was founded in 2020 by two longtime students of Combatives, Patrick Maydell of Austria and John Haynes of the USA. Both had previous martial arts experience before beginning Combatives training.

Prior to the founding of the club John and Patrick trained together for seven years, with a variety of coaches and training partners in a variety of places: in parks, back yards, training halls, schools–they would train anywhere as long as honest, realistic training was taking place with dedicated fellow students.

Over time, they were joined by others who added to the development of the training via ongoing research into realistic, workable solutions to the problem of avoiding violence as the primary goal, or surviving violence if avoidance is not possible.

Though we are not officially affiliated with them, we are greatly influenced by top professionals in the Combatives / Reality Based Self Defense milieu: Lee Morrison of Urban Combatives, Michiel Mulder of Urban Combatives Netherlands, Kelly McCann, Tony Blauer of the SPEAR System, Geoff Thompson, Rory Miller of Chrion Training, Tim Larkin of Target Focussed Training, Varg Freeborn, and Marc MacYoung of No Nonsense Self Defense. We do not claim to be as well-known or experienced as these instructors. But we strive to follow their example into ongoing and continuously evolving mental and physical development as it relates to self-protection from violence.