Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection

Recession for Germany, growth for Reality-Based
Jim Wagner

I arrived at the airport in Düsseldorf on November 7th. A week later the German government officially declared that the Republic of Germany was in recession. This is in large part because one out of every seven German workers are tied to the car manufacturing business, and people are just not buying cars worldwide in the wake of the economic meltdown of late. Fortunately, the knife business for Boker has not been affected and neither has the need for self-defense training and the Reality-Based Personal Protection system. My Jim Wagner Reality-Based Blades, made by Boker, are still in demand worldwide, and people still want to learn how to protect themselves and how to teach others the RBPP system.

From November 10 to 14 I taught my Level 1 courses to a whole new group of Reality-Based newcomers that included Defensive Tactics, Ground Survival, Knife Survival, Crime Survival, and Terrorism Survival. This is the same week that Al Qaeda released a communiqué that president elect Barak Obama was a “puppet of his white masters and a traitor to Islam.” Obviously this was a direct challenge to the new president when he takes power. Terrorism may not let up when the new president steps in.

Brigitte Laube was the only female who attended Level 1 seminar this time. She came with her husband Michael Laube. Both have completed Defensive Tactics and Knife Survival. They have three more courses to complete before being certified. This, of course, is one of the advantages of the Reality-Based Personal Protection System – one can take the modules when they can and in the order they wish.

On November 15 was the weekend Knife Survival course. The Berlin Police Sprezial-Einsatz-Kommando (SWAT Team) sent two instructors to the course in order to evaluate the program. After the course the two professionals gave me their official uniform patch and told me that my knife system is exactly what their team needed for officer safety and that they are interested in me coming to Berlin in 2009. I have taught this same course in the past to counterterrorist team GSG9, the German Special Forces, and the instructor staff of the Federal Police Academy in Lübeck.

With 23 people in my course I had quite a good mix of professionals, martial artists, and a fair number of beginners. In the course was a German soldier who is from a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) unit. Those who I had trained in the German Army Special Forces a few years ago recommend to him that he take my course. Needless to say he was one of the best fighters in the class.

Also coming to my course was my new friend Samir Dubali. We were assigned to each other in September when we both participated in Boker’s Survival Camp in Southern Germany. While we were doing land navigation through the fields and mountains, with a lot of time to talk, I convinced him to attend my Reality-Based courses. Because the Christmas season is the busiest time of year for him with his job he could only come to the Knife Survival course. It was great to see him, and he took to the fighting skills I had to offer him like and expert. He told me, “Jim, I’ll be back for the rest of the program. It is exactly like you said it would be.”

From November 17 to 21 I taught my first Level 3 course ever in Europe. I only teach this course once every year, and this time I chose to teach it in the European Reality-Based Personal Protection Headquarters in Solingen, Germany – the Böker Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection Training Facility. 

For a relatively small group, 11 instructors, six countries were represented: me from the United States, Nick Serna from British Columbia, Canada, Nicolas Marucci from Belgium, Harry Gorter from Holland, Mr. “S” (name withheld by request) from Lithuania, and the rest from Germany: Dominik Klose, Carsten Spiekermann, Jens Großheim, Gerd Dörfelt, Joachim Roux. I also had Manuela Schebera attend the Children’s Survival. Manuela is still the only woman in Germany who has been certified in the RBPP system. Alexander Zippel got two courses out of the way, Women’s Survival on Monday and Children’s Survival on Tuesday, and he has volunteered to help with future classes for which we are always in need of role players.

During the weekend Joachim Roux took me to his martial arts school, Aikido-Kreis Köln, that is located in the heart of the ancient city of Cologne. Joachim wanted to show me because one large training room is going to be used as a Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection training room: flat black walls, floor, and ceiling, props, spot lighting, and techniques and training methods that work in today’s modern conflicts. Joachim was also gracious enough to take me to Kölnisches Stadtmuseum (the Cologne City Museum) that was a wonderful museum filled with artifacts from the time when the city was a Roman trading post to ruble when most of the city was destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II. Of course, this museum was perfect for my research on warfare, and I was able to get quite a few good rare photographs. 

Level 3 is designed specifically for the professional self-defense instructor. The purpose of all five courses is to make the instructors even better Reality-Based instructors, and give them the knowledge they need in how to effectively run a Reality-Based Personal Protection business, whether part-time or full-time.

The first day of Level 3 was Women’s Survival. The morning began with the dos and don’ts of teaching women who have never had any self-defense training before. Then, step-by-step, we went over the outline that has been refined by me over the past 20 years. I began teaching this realistic program back in 1987 and even made my first video the same year called Women Against Rape.  

After lunch a group of volunteer women, six of them, came to the Boker Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection Training Facility and allowed the student-instructors to teach them for a couple of hours. Teams were divided up and monitored by me and my Reality-Based Director of all German speaking countries Tobias Leckebusch. After the hands-on teaching experience the women give a verbal evaluation of their instructors in order to help them improve their teaching skills. Those women who helped us were: Stef Lettini, Inken Hütteroth, Joanne Niecikowska, Bärbel Neumann, Franziska Fülle and Marion Iffert.

The following day, Tuesday, was Children’s Survival. This course, according to most, is the hardest course out of all of the fifteen RBPP courses. The challenge is all mental.

Children’s Survival is all about how to teach kids from all age groups; from preschool to high school. It’s also all about communication skills and what children can absorb and not absorb according to their age groups.

Day three, Business and Leadership, is the nuts and bolts about how to start and run your Reality-Based Personal Protection business. Our guest speaker was the president of Boker knife manufacturer Carsten Felix. He spoke to the group about what kind of team you need to assemble to be successful and the mistakes that many companies do that gets them in trouble financially. For the instructors this was a good opportunity to hear and question someone who runs a successful international business that is rife with competitors. I awarded Mr. Felix with an honorary Reality-Based Personal Protection Level 3 Instructor certificate. 

Advertising and Marketing was well received by the instructors, and only one of them (Gerd Dorfelt who runs his own advertising and marketing business called GD Werbekommunikation) had any knowledge of this subject prior to signing up for Level 3. Having a marketing and advertising background I had my instructors working on real-world projects: designing logos, magazine advertisements, web banners, writing mottos, copywriting for products, small ads, full-page ads, and how to get their message to the right audience.

In the Advertising and Marketing course my students also had a chance to hear about the new projects I am currently working on with Black Belt magazine, Budo magazine, Boker, and my own company projects. This was very encouraging for them to see the interest in their new “adopted” system, and it helps support their own businesses both directly and indirectly. 

The final day was Making Training DVDs. This course, using professional equipment, taught instructors how to make their own training DVDs, how to make mini-commercials for their website and YouTube, and how to do television interviews when the need arises. By absolute coincidence two news reporters from a German television stationed showed up to interview me. They want to film my first Level 1 course for 2009. 

On this last day of the seminar the worse snowstorm of the year hit Germany and most of the countries east of it all the way to Russia. By night the entire city and country was covered with a white blanket. Along with the snow came fierce Artic winds. Fortunately for us the entire course was indoors with sufficient heating in my school. For lunch we all walked across the street and ate at the Pizzaria. It was a nice warm meal on a very cold day.  

The next morning, November 22, the snowstorm had eased up long enough for my plane to get out of Düsseldorf, but not until after the aircraft was deiced. Once again I left German with a sense of accomplishment, and knowing that the Reality-Based Personal Protection system is growing in Europe.