BLITZ magazine interviews Jim Wagner
Last month when I was teaching my Level 1 courses in Solingen, Germany I received an email from Ben Stone, managing editor of Australia’s #1 martial arts magazine BLITZ magazine, asking me if I would participate on an Internet interview. I agreed and he said, “Oh, by the way, we would like to have you on the cover of our next issue.”
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Of course, I was honored because BLITZ magazine is not only the top martial arts magazine in Australia, but with its stories and eye-catching layouts, it is one of the best publications I have seen worldwide.
A few years ago the publisher of Black Belt magazine, Cheryl Angelheart, met Ben Stone at a publishing convention. Since then they have created some mutual cooperation between the two companies, and in my case Black Belt magazine provided BLITZ magazine with their cover photo and feature photo taken by Rick Hustead, an American and one of the best in the business.
Ben Stone knew that I was going to Australia to teach my Level 1 courses from July 11 to 15 and my Level 2 courses from July 18 to 22 organized by my Australian Director Matt Jones in Adelaide.
Below is the unedited interview between BLITZ magazine and me:
BLITZ: Briefly (in a few paragraphs), can you outline for us how you started in the field of self-defence initially, and how you progressed to where you are today? What were the major turning points you experienced along the way?
Wagner: I became involved with the martial arts as a teenager for the same reason most people do – to learn how to protect myself. I did learn many self-defense techniques, but I was also sold a subculture as well beginning with the art of Tae Kwon Do. Next it was Karate Roybu-Kai and then Kenpo. Dan Inosanto took me under his wing before he was famous and I lived, ate, and breathed Bruce Lee’s system Jeet Kune Do. Dan and Richard Bustillo encouraged us to learn as many martial arts as possible, which I did – almost everything thing under the sun and two decades before the term “mixed martial arts” was coined. However, it was not until I became a corrections officer working in a jail and then a police officer that I realized that the traditional martial arts and sport-based martial arts did not adequately prepare me for the brutality exhibited in criminals and a much wider range of attacks just covered in my past training.
Beginning in 1991 I became a police and military defensive tactics instructor. Because of my realistic approach to self-defense and the integration of the use-of-force at all levels of the tactical spectrum I soon had the world’s elite having me fly to them for training: Counterterrorist team GSG9, the Israeli police and military, Brazilian GATE, Argentinean GOE, Helsinki Police Department, the Royal Dutch Police, the United States Army, and many more. In 1998 I started writing articles about my concepts and my term “reality-based” as it related to self-defense started catching on and started a whole movement in the martial arts community. On January 21, 2003 I decided to teach a civilian version of my system, which I named Reality-Based Personal Protection, and in just in five short years it has gone global.
Most martial arts instructors have never been in a life and death fight, and even fewer with weapons involved. My career has given me a foundation that few instructors will ever achieve: U.S. Army combat unit, corrections officer, police officer, SWAT officer, diplomatic bodyguard, Air Marshal, and once again a soldier training the world’s most active and prolific military. This is what are bringing skilled martial artists and beginners alike to my table.
BLITZ: The tag-line on your website, “It doesn’t take years to learn real self-defense. It takes days”, will no doubt ruffle plenty of feathers among martial artists who have spent years learning self-defense. You too have spent decades learning self-defense and refining your methods. So, how does your system overcome this need for time? What makes it easy to learn, and retain?
Wagner: “It doesn’t take years to learn real self-defense, it takes days.” Teaching people techniques is easy. I can teach an eight year old to ball up his fist and smash someone in the face. I can take a 18 year old non-violent girl and in an hour I can make her an expert at pulling the trigger of gun hitting center mass accurately. Techniques used by real-world fighters (police, military, prison guards, bodyguards, doormen, etc.) are simple. If you are talking about complex and risky moves that no army or police agency would teach, then yes, that takes years because it is not real self-defense. If a person cannot master any given self-defense technique in five minutes I tell them to throw it away. That said, teaching people to perform their techniques in a life-and-death situation is the difficult part, and comes only through realistic scenario training or actual experiences.
BLITZ: It’s common for people to do a one-off self-defence course over one or two days, or one lesson per week for six weeks, etc., but then a few months down the track the training is useless because they’ve forgotten what they’ve learned. In fact, the training was never enough to ingrain the physical skills into their muscle-memory. Is there any way to overcome that disintegration of skills, other than with regular, continual training?
Wagner: The United States government sent me to counterterrorism for five weeks, and that was six years ago. Some courses I took during that time were only an hour long, and yet those skills are just as fresh for me now as they were then. Even methods I have forgotten are easily recalled. Thirty years ago the military taught me how pull a trigger and slug someone in the face. It has not changed much since that day. The point is this, once you learn a good technique you practice it. More important you apply them in realistic scenarios and real situations. Nobody can teach me anything new about sending my foot into someone’s pelvic, but if you set up a scenario where I have an opportunity to learn timing and when I can throw it legally that is a million times more valuable then constantly relearning the basics.
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BLITZ: A lot of people are skeptical about the possibility of becoming an instructor by simply doing a short course, then being given license to teach, often on the other side of the world from the original instructor. How do you maintain quality control and ensure your instructors are teaching your material at the standard required?
Wagner: To become a police baton instructor it takes only two days of training. To become a police defensive tactics instructor in the United States takes a week long course, sometimes two. Does that make the officer or constable a “master?” It depends on the person. In the martial arts a traditional-based instructor is considered “a master,” a “black belt.” He knows a lot of techniques, choreographed patterns, katas, and a lot of cultural aspects, but does he know what to do against a real criminal knife attack, how to handle a mentally disturbed person, or how to protect himself in a terrorist small arms attack in an international airport? On the other hand an instructor for the police or military is simply someone who has been taught a set of skills, has demonstrated that he knows how to pass on those skills. Some police and military instructors may have more real-world experience than others, but they both know how to pass on life saving information. This is how the Reality-Based Personal Protection instructor program is structured.
BLITZ: How do you vet instructors to ensure they are of a suitable personality before training them, and/or certifying them as an instructor?
Wagner: To become a Reality-Based Personal Protection system you must merely demonstrate that you understand the material and perform it satisfactory, the same way any military or police unit does. Many people become instructors for many reasons in this system: for their resume, to teach their friends and family only, to get personal instruction from me personally because I don’t teach student courses, and to teach commercially. The reality is that few instructors can succeed commercially teaching self-defense. Only really good instructors survive in the business.
BLITZ: Australia has a lot less gun crime than the USA, hence ‘how to survive a sniper attack’ would be way down the list of priorities for most people when it comes to learning self-defence. Also, our laws when it comes to self-defence and use-of-force are somewhat different to America’s. With these differences in mind, how do you alter the curriculum to reflect this when teaching here?
Wagner: In my system I have a course called Terrorism Survival. In one segment of this training I teach how to survive a sniper attack. Sniper attacks are rare in Australia, and believe it or not, they are even rare in the United States. Yet it is a possibility that it may happen, be it an Al Qaeda terrorist or a man who unleashes his wrath on society with his hunting rifle. It must be learned, yet only 40 minutes is devoted to the instructions. It is far better to know the information and not need it than to need it and not know what to do. Again, the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection system covers everything from the ego fight in a pub to a full fledged terrorist attack. Of course the Terrorism Survival course also covers other terrorist acts including bombings, and Australian tourists have not been so fortunate in escaping this type of attack. Knowing what to look for in the pre-conflict phase can save lives.
BLITZ: Most self-defence instructors consider that the major part of successfully defending oneself as a civilian, and even in many security roles, involves avoiding the fight to begin with. Do you deal with pre-fight negotiation and psychology, etc. in your training system, and can you give some examples of how that is done?
Wagner: The majority of martial arts instructors teach avoiding a fight by deescalating it or leaving the area. This is good advice, and should be followed. However, most systems are locked into dealing with what we call ego fights. These are your pub fights or arguments that get violent. Yet, neither side has any intention of seriously hurting the other in most cases. They are not trying to kill each other. Both sides want to walk away with their pride intact. We must all prepare for ego fights, and avoid them if possible, but my system concentrates primarily on criminal and terrorist attacks. Just pick up any newspaper and all of these attacks are committed against the victim with some sort of weapon; usually a knife, a gun, or impact weapon. Most systems are not teaching their students how to survive the life and death fights; the ones that count the most. To understand life and death conflict one must know the criminal mind, how mentally disturbed people function, what various drugs do to the body, and how to detect a criminal or terrorist surveillance. Having been in law enforcement for 20 years now, and coming eye ball to eye ball with terrorists I have the experience to teach people the warning signs. Most martial arts instructor have dealt with big bullies, not true brutality. Most systems have lost touch with their roots, namely the “war arts.” That of course is the literal translation of “martial arts.”
BLITZ: Briefly, describe the experience Australians can expect if they undertake your upcoming course — what will they do, what will they learn?
Wagner: My first seminar in Australia was last year in Adelaide hosted by my Australian director Matt Jones. My students ranged from federal law enforcement agents, local police constables, martial arts instructors, and some beginners. Every one of these people told me that they now see the martial arts in a whole new perspective. Anyone coming to my courses will literally get what the world’s elite are taught, but in a format that can be adapted to any circumstance, or if you like, any “reality.” This is the only civilian system teaching pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict. You have to study all three to have a truly “complete” system. The bottom line is that I’ll teach you how to “be a hard target.” Violence worldwide is on the increase, not the decrease.
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Police Writers interviews Jim Wagner
On April 2nd at 9:00 pm I was the guest of Lieutenant Raymond E. Foster (Retired Los Angeles Police Department) now with Hi Tech Criminal Justice Online out of San Dimas, California. Lieutenant Foster has done some written reviews on my American printed books for Police Writers and asked me if I was interested on being on their blog radio program. Of course, I agreed and we had a good conversation.
The radio program is one hour long, and I speak for approximately 40 minutes. You can hear the show in its entirety by clicking on:
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