Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection

Reality-Based Knives at the Shot Show 2010
Jim Wagner

On January 19th I attended the Shot Show 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is one of the largest weapons conventions in the United States with approximately ten thousand booths. I was there on three different “missions.” The night before, Monday the 18th was one of the worst rain storms in recent California history, and my drive to Las Vegas from Los Angeles was bad. There were three times that I thought I would have to turn around and head back home.

The first mission was to work with Boker in the morning. Boker is the maker of the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Blade series, and they had a display of all of my knives in their law enforcement booth. I had a chance to work with my Reality-Based Director of Germany, Tobias Leckebusch. Then I met with the president of the company Carsten Felix. I presented him with my final designs for the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Tactical Pen and he accepted the drawings. It has been approved and by fall of this year it should be on the market.

After my work with Boker I looked around for vendors and products that could be of use to my military police unit back home. Since I train Army National Guard and regular Army troops I also look for things that I can pass onto my students that can be helpful for them in their missions overseas: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. This was my second “mission” at the Shot Show.

Finally, I spoke with some vendors about things I need to sell to my instructors and students on my online store; products that can be useful for the RBPP system.

The storm also passed over Las Vegas, and a couple of times I got soaked going from the parking lot to my hotel: The Tropicana right on The Strip. The Shot Show convention was held at the Sahara Hotel Convention Center.

I also had the opportunity to meet with knife fighting expert Mike Janich, who is working for the knife manufacturer Spyderco; my very first tactical knife that I ever owned was a Spyderco when I was a patrol officer with the Costa Mesa Police Department in Southern California. Mike is well known with a few books and DVDs he has out with Paladin Press. He was just as happy to meet me, and we talked about the knife industry. I gave him an autographed copy of my book Reality-Based Personal Protection.

The president of Boker, Carsten Felix, told me that I seem to have started a trend in the knife industry. Ever since I joined Boker five years ago other large knife companies have been getting their own knife fighting “gurus” to design knives and to teach knife defense courses.

The photograph in the upper right hand corner of this web page, the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Blade Recurve, was taken by RBPP Nordic Director Peter Falk. He took this photo while hiking in the Swedish mountains a few days walk from all civilization.

More Reality-Based History
Jim Wagner

These days my Reality-Based team is pretty busy: a new USA Headquarters being established in Dallas, Texas, some more DVD projects in the works, and a joint book project with Black Belt magazine. To keep updating and adding material to the website is no less a daunting task. However, we were able to get some more historical videos up on the website in various sections. They are small clips giving some more of my background: my maritime operations training in the Port of Los Angeles, my police academy at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Class 104, rappelling with the United States Marines and Army Special Forces, sniper training with Scout/Sniper School 1st Marine Division, and some great training with the 19th Special Forces Group.

The purpose of putting up more historical material over time is twofold. One, is to let those of you in the Reality-Based Personal Protection system have more details of my background so that you have a better insight of what kind of knowledge went into the martial arts’ first “complete system.” The second reason is because many of my critics on various websites and blogs have called me a "liar" over the years. Comments include:

"Wagner was never an Air Marshal."

"Wagner was never on a SWAT team."

"Wagner never trained with the Special Forces."

"Wagner was never a sergeant."

"Wagner never trained the GSG9."

There have been hundreds of negative comments made over the last several years about me. Of course, my critics cannot attack the system itself or they would have to also insult those who have paid me to train them: GSG9, U.S. Marines, DEA, FBI, Border Patrol, Finnish National Police Academy, Amsterdam Police Department, Brazilian GATE, Israeli Police Academy, California Department of Corrections, German Special Forces, and the list goes on. Why would the world’s elite keep hiring me to teach their personnel if I was a “fraud?” It doesn’t make sense, but by putting up more and more photographs, movie clips, certificates, and letters of appreciations it gives those people deciding whether to come into the system or not enough evidence to decide for themselves what they believe the truth to be. Of course, I have literally hundreds of things yet to post, but my time is limited and websites take a lot of time.

So, below are some of the newest clips on the site, but I’ve group them here so you don’t have to search all over for them.