Is Jim Wagner is a fraud?
By Jim Wagner
It appears that the more popular the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection system becomes the more competitors attack it. Although unethical, it is what desperate people do when they are up against an equal, better, or superior product. If the Reality-Based system was not a threat, or they were secure in their own business plan and operations, they would not bother with devoting even a minute to slander and libel.
The public attacks are in the form of blogs, forums, website announcements, word-of-mouth, and on occasion a nasty phone call to a publisher or manufacturer that does business with me. Most of the attacks are against me personally, and not against the actual techniques or training methods of the system itself. After all, it is pretty hard to convince others that the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection system is a waste of time when the world’s elite units themselves have invited me to train their personnel: German counterterrorist team GSG9, Brazilian G.A.T.E., Argentinean G.O.E., National Finnish Police Academy, Federal German Police Academy, German Special Forces, United States Marshal Service SOG, National Dutch Police Academy, National Israeli Police Academy, United States Coast Guard, United States Air Force Security Forces, FBI, United States Navy PMO, and the California Department of Corrections, just to name a few. If that were not enough, professionals from a wide variety of security companies, bodyguards, and overseas contractors seek my instructions. Then there are those many who I personally instructor certify each year coming to me from every martial arts system imaginable, and even civilians with no prior training who just want to learn a complete personal protection system for a reasonable price without having to invest a lot of time.
Most of the unscrupulous attacks are directed at trying to discredit my martial arts, corrections, police, or military background. The accusations range from the twisting of the truth to outright lies. I have even been accused of being an “Al Qaeda instructor.” Many websites have posted fictitious “facts” about me hoping that this will dissuade people from attending my courses or buying my many DVDs and books.
When I was in the police academy years ago, one of the required courses was how to detect counterfeit money. The instructor did not begin by handing me counterfeit money. No, he had me look at authentic money first and then study all of the details on the real tender notes. By first knowing intimately the real thing it makes it easier to spot the phony money. Likewise, if you want to know the truth about me, just read my biography I have posted on this website. I have included many dates, names, and locations that can be researched and verified. I was also the first self-defense instructor in the world with a police, corrections, and military background to actually post my self-defense related training certificates, letters of recommendation, commendations, and event photographs on the Internet and I encouraged others to do the same. Yet, despite this overwhelming proof I have supplied concerning my background, this is still not enough for these supposed “watchdog” websites or my competitors, which by the way, few even hold to their own standards.
Upon careful examination of this situation anyone would conclude that it is not really about my verifiable background anyway. The attacks are designed, and in some cases well coordinated, to make people believe I have lied about my background in order to be a more “marketable product.” After all, if you can discredit the founder of the reality-based movement, then the collateral damage would be the discrediting of the entire system. Had the accusations been true, then perhaps that may have been the final result. Fortunately, it is not true, and the system thrives. Even if I, Jim Wagner, were to be removed from the picture today my original techniques and training methods are spreading like a wildfire around the globe. Some of these original ideas, which are well documented and dated in magazines and DVDs, include the use of air guns, stage blood, scripts, stage training environment, stage make-up, sound effects, the Jim Wagner Knife Disarm Rule that has revolutionized knife disarms, take ground gun disarms, movement under small arms fire, protecting another in a hand grenade or IED attack, the introduction of self-triage self first aid, the Jim Wagner Four Square Mount Removal, the introduction of victim rescue, and many more. Even so, it is my directors, instructors, and students that deserve credit for making my system popular, not me. I can only teach. I can’t make people like, or spread, my system. It is doing it on its own.
Sadly, in recent years many prominent martial arts instructors and systems have turned to “reputation cannibalism.” They tear down other competitive instructors and systems in order to try to elevate themselves. It seems to be a trend across the board. The sarcasm, lack of manners, and lack of respect for others, so rampant in our modern society, is clearly seen on many of the martial arts websites. I myself do not condone this type of behavior, nor do you see it from my directors in the dozen or so countries we are located in. There is plenty of business out there for everyone. I do not need to bad mouth others in hopes of getting their customers. In fact, for anyone who has ever come to any of my seminars I sternly lecture my students not to fall into the “group think mentality,” and to seek instructions from any of the top names in the martial arts community or the tactical community for my professional students. “In the multitude of counselors is wisdom.”
If you are not convinced about the effectiveness of my system by the sheer number of professional organizations who have come to me, or you fail to believe or to verify my background yourself, then nothing else I say will convince you otherwise and you are entitled to your opinion. For those of you who support the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection system I reiterate – Be A Hard Target.
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