I met Jeff Clancy in early 2000 at the San Diego Sheriff’s Department Training Academy in a meeting I had with academy officials to explain to them the defensive tactics curriculum they wanted me to teach their instructors. Jeff said to me, while he was sitting next to the wall of the training room as an observer, “It is an honor to meet you. I have been admiring your articles in Black Belt for some time now. I’m looking forward to learning some stuff from you.” Of course, Black Belt magazine had not only made me well known to the martial arts community, but to the law enforcement defensive tactics community as well. This was to turn out to be both a good friendship and professional working relationship between me and Jeff.
Jeff, at the time I met him, had been a federal law enforcement officer for 16 years. During his career he had planned and participated in numerous narcotics interdiction operations with the DEA, both in South America and Central America. Before serving with the DEA had been a deputy sheriff with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, and prior to that he served five years in the United States Marine Corps.
Jeff had already been a martial arts practitioner for 27 years having studied Hapkido, Tae Kwon Do, Jiu-Jitsu, Filipino Kali and Jeet Kune Do. Jeff had worked closely with Paul Vunak, another JKD legend, who was the founder of Progressive Fighting Systems. Always looking for qualified law enforcement and military instructors I recruited Jeff to be a defensive tactics instructor for my company HSS International. He helped me teach some of my most popular courses at the time: Patrol Combatives, S.W.A.T. Combatives, and Correctional Institution Combatives for jails and prisons.
Jeff Clancy was instrumental in having me teach DEA agents and other invited federal agents. On June 15th and 16th, 2000 I assisted HSS International instructor, Ben Alexander, at the DEA Field Office in teaching a Tactical Medic course. I taught the tactical portion of the course, while Firefighter-Paramedic Alexander provided all of the medical training to the students. At this time in history tactical medics in law enforcement was a fairly new concept. It had always existed with the U.S. military, but not in law enforcement. Although I had first started teaching combat first to my students in 1986, it would not be until a few years later, when I was writing for Black Belt magazine and Budo magazine, that I would publicly urge martial arts instructor to include combat first aid as part of their students' training.
In early 2001 Jeff Clancy’s biggest contribution to my Ground Combatives course was two techniques that we worked on together in a small martial arts dojo (a Japanese word for training hall) not too far from his field office. At this time in history most law enforcement officers were saying that someone on your back, while you are face down on the ground as they are pummeling you, or if they had a choke hold on you while sitting or laying on your back, was “a no win situation.” Jeff and I had seen this in scenarios several times when we were teaching Ground Combatives, and we just could not accept that there were no solutions to these two problems. So, one day we locked themselves in the dojo and we reversed engineered the two problems. After a few hours of working on all of the possibilities we discovered the required techniques to counter the attacks. These techniques are taught today in the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection Ground Survival course. The two techniques, which are very familiar to all Reality-Based students and instructors who have taken this course, are the techniques Rear Ground Suppression and Rear Ground Choke Hold. As every Ground Survival student can attest, and you too as you read this, I give half the credit of Jeff Clancy for developing these two life-saving techniques, and now thousands all over the world practice them.
|
