The martial arts will never be the same
Jim Wagner
The courses that I am teaching are literally going to change the future of the martial arts. My Level 1 courses have already sent shock waves through the martial arts community, and now it is being hit with a tsunami – the Level 2 courses. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the photos below, because you won’t see this type of training anywhere else in the world at this time except Reality-Based Personal Protection.
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Several new instructors have just been certified by me in my Level 2 courses, and it’s only the second time I have taught my new curriculum. The courses were taught in Los Angeles, California in the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection Training Facility from July 9th to the 13th. The courses taught, in their proper order, were Conflict Conditioning, Scenario Training, Control & Defense, Improvised Weapons, and ending with Handgun Survival on Friday.
Conflict Conditioning is a unique course that prepares a person both physically and mentally for conflict. It takes exercises and drills from around the world and puts them into a nice package. Students experienced French Foreign Legion punishment drills, U.S. Marine Corps Jumping Stars, German GSG9 circles, Israeli Boiler Pressure endurance fights, the snake, SAS sit-ups, and a load of other exotic things that can be added to any personal or group training.
Scenario Training is light years ahead of its time. To start with, students get a chance at going full-contact (moderate contact) with each other in protective equipment. They learn endurance drills that are similar to the ones found in military basic training and police academies. For those a bit timid and not quite willing to go into the fray, I give them the option of going light or observing. As long as they are accurately learning the material, and able to teach it, I am alright with that. Some people in my courses are nursing old injuries, and aggravating it is not going to do them any good.
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In the Scenario Training course, after the contact, we went right into how to make one’s training environment more realistic. Since my facility is already like a theatrical stage, as it should be, meaning the walls, ceiling, and floors are painted flat black with nothing in the training room, it was easy for my students to get right into Reality-Based concepts. My school serves as an example to others nation and worldwide. Future instructors in this course learned how to make fake bricks and chunks of concrete, they made fake cement columns out of cardboard boxes, stage lighting, how to work a fog machine, and even about odors for various scenarios.
The real highlight in the Scenario Training course for many was their period of instructions on Hollywood stage make-up. I took my students step-by-step on how to apply latex wounds, artificial mustaches and beards layers at a time, how to make the teeth look rotten (such as one might see on a vagabond or a methamphetamine user), and I even went over changing the shapes of one’s features.
My student from China, Ken Lee, was made to look like a bombing victim. He had a huge laceration down the side of his right temple dripping with stage blood, small abrasions on his face, and imbedded glass in the face due to the bomb blast. After I had applied the make-up on Ken during the demonstration I wanted to take some photos of him. One of the students just happened to walk outside just as I was getting my camera inside the facility, and came back into saying, “Jim, there is an ambulance parked in front of the school.” The ambulance was there for the restaurant nearby. However, I took advantage of the situation and had a couple of the other students drag Ken near the ambulance to make it look like they were about to load him into it. It made for a perfect picture. Of course, we all joked that it would be funny to leave Ken lying next to the ambulance all bloody and battered, and when the ambulance crew finished their meal they would see him and freak out. As tempting as it was, we stayed mature and laughed at just the thought of it.
On Wednesday, July 11th, I taught my new course Control & Defense. This course goes over all the choke holds and body holds one is most likely to encounter in a real fight. We also went over how to make a citizen’s arrest and how to avoid accidentally killing your prisoner with Restraint Positional Asphyxiation.
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One of the problems with traditional or sport-based martial arts is that a student his taught to “look after number one,” yourself, and rarely is anything taught about protecting others or even how to evacuate them out of a hostile area once they are injured and go down. In Control & Defense I taught my students step-by-step how to do a wide variety of victim rescues; the same ones used by firefighters, police, SWAT team members, and military combat medics. For many this was not an easy task. They learned that rescuing people can be quite difficult under some conditions. To make the training even more realistic, such as simulating a structure fire or the smoke after a suicide bombing, I had a fog machine pumping out smoke.
Improvised Weapons was the next course in line of the Level 2 curriculum. Students were taught how to use almost any object as a weapon. They not only learned the motto of the United States MCMAP (Marine Corps Military Martial Arts Program) instructors, but the lived it – one mind, any weapon. In this very intense course students, and future instructors, learned how to use impact weapons (such as hammers, sticks, bottles, etc.), staff weapons (brooms, mops, rebar, etc.), flexible weapons (belts, chains, garrotes, etc.), and throwing weapons (liquids, powders, and solids).
Friday the 13th ended with the Handgun Survival course. Each student, after a briefing on gun and range safety, was issued their own air gun that fires a 6mm plastic bullet – a good simulation of a firearm, along with a pair of goggles for eye protection. In this course students learned how to handle the weapon, all the common shooting positions, movement, and tactics.
Although each student had a few small welts all over their bodies, they were experts at getting to cover and returning fire after seizing the bad guy’s gun. Although this course does not qualify someone to teach live-fire courses, it definitely prepares a person to use air guns in Reality-Based scenarios. For those who were instructor certified in this course it will make them very safety conscience instructors when dealing with these training tools. That was the purpose of the course, to make Reality-Based courses safe, and as most of you know, we rely heavily upon air guns.
Those receiving a Level 2 Instructor certificate were David Perrington from the State of Georgia, Serge Cazalet from France, Cesar Terrones from the State of California, Michael Gallardo from the State of California, Mark Foster from Sweden, and Ken Lee from China.
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Second Level 3 course in History
Jim Wagner
Last year was the first time that I ran my Level 3 courses. In fact, it was exactly a year ago last July. This July I ran the Level 3 course again, from July 16th to July 20th in my Los Angeles facility, and it was a success. As you can see, I’ve only been running this course once a year and it is only open to those who have completed Level 1 or Level 2. In other words, it’s only available to certified instructors.
The five courses are specifically designed for professional instructors – those who teach Reality-Based part-time or full-time. Only a handful of instructors ever move onto Level 3, mainly because I only offer it once a year, and secondly because I have only offered it in Los Angeles, California. So, for those coming from overseas it is quite an expense, but well worth it for those who make a living at instructing. Those who were certified this July were: David Perrington from the State of Georgia, Alex Haddox from the State of California, Serge Cazalet from France, Mark Foster from Sweden, and Ken Lee from China. A U.S. Marine Captain about to be deployed to Iraq took two of the Level 3 courses following his Level 2 certification.
The Level 3 courses consist of Women’s Survival (how to teach it), Children’s Survival (how to teach it), Business & Leadership, Advertising & Marketing, and Training DVD Production.
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