Chance Garton and Slick Dissident: The Art of Verbal Judo [King Hero Interview]
Slick Dissident and I return to the subject of Verbal Judo on Beth Martens' King Hero Podcast. It's full of great additional insights into this fascinating martial art of mastering communications.
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In this episode
Core themes
Verbal judo as giving way to an attack
Chance described verbal judo as the art of letting an insult fly past like a thrown spear instead of taking it in the face. He explained the strip phrase idea from George Thompson's book, where a speaker says something like "I appreciate that" before the "but" that carries the real request. Chance said Thompson set this against verbal karate, where words become blows that escalate conflict and burn bridges. He said a key principle was to give way first and then redirect the energy of the attack.
Empathy, paraphrasing, and staying in contact
Chance described empathy as awareness of how another person feels without taking on those feelings, and he said repeating a person's exact words back to them calmed the exchange and surfaced their real grievance. He called this a technique that is also simply intuitive. Beth said coaches use the same reflection, and she shared a parenting anecdote about calming a tantrum by echoing the child's feeling. Chance added that staying in contact is a core judo principle, and that the line between authentic care and manipulation is intent.
Gabe's research into Dr. George Thompson
Gabe said he returned to the verbal judo book after a martial arts and padded assailant training career, then watched old seminar footage of Dr. George Thompson. He said Thompson used the phrase black magic about a person's name, and he described a teddy bear parable. Gabe offered his own belief that Thompson's likeness was echoed in a cartoon villain, and he shared number and cipher readings tied to Kent State. Chance said the old videos disappeared from the internet shortly after Gabe raised them, and he remarked that he could not explain why.
Questions, compliance, and the con artist
Chance described how fact finding questions can feel poor to an agitated person, while open and opinion seeking questions help defuse tension. He said the same opinion questions could generate compliance, and he pointed to polling and voting as examples. Chance retold a hostage story from Thompson's book, noting it may or may not be true. He then summarized the con artist's method as raising expectations and using them to cheat people, and he added that praise before criticism can work but may make later praise seem hollow.
Inner masters, creativity, and the truth movement
Chance described the master and slave dynamic as something people can enact on themselves, for example in a job they feel forced to keep. He said left brain control over the right brain created that inner enslavement, and that a daily creative practice had helped him loosen it. Gabe added a remark about routine and kung fu. When Beth asked about the truth movement, Chance said he no longer identified his channel with it, and he criticized prison planet narratives as a ready-made ground that people step onto.
Quotes
“When we have this rejection of the other's energy, that's actually what causes the most influence on us. It's changing our behavior in a way. We're taking it in, taking it on. When we accept that it's there, we say to ourselves, it is what it is.”
“Empathy absorbs tension. So whatever ways you can bring empathy, which is being aware of how the other person feels or what it's like to be in their shoes. You don't have to take on their feelings. You just need to know what it is.”
“If you go in, especially where the unconscious is the subject, and you go in trying to tell them stuff about their own experience, first of all, it's completely false. You cannot know, you're guessing, you're projecting, you're maintaining actually separateness from them.”
“The simplest way to put it is a con artist will use words to raise your expectations and then use those expectations to cheat you.”
“What is creating the experience of feeling forced to do things that you don't want to do is the fact that you are forcing yourself to do the things you don't want to do. It is really that simple.”
“You start etching out a space in your life for that side of yourself that's been repressed to live and begin to grow and thrive. It will start to have more agency in your day to day.”
“The word Kung Fu translates to practice. And so many of us are Kung Fu artists and we just didn't know it. So whatever your routine is, that brings you back to the root is your Kung Fu.”
“Half the time, people don't hear what they say. And then hearing those words back, it's like, oh, that's what I said.”
Beth Martens is a legal empowerment advocate and author focused on personal freedom, resistance to health mandates, and archetype-based purpose coaching through her House of Free Will Ministry.
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