New Courses Make Debut In Germany
Jim Wagner
The question: What’s new in Reality-Based?
The answer: A lot.
This month I had the opportunity to teach a brand new course in Germany called Urban Survival at my European self-defense school in Solingen, Germany on May 14th. This course was in the making for six months, even before the earthquake that rocked northern Japan that sent a tsunami sweeping over the land, and then a nuclear disaster to top it off. My course was designed to help people survive in just such situations.
Most people in the Western world do not prepare for natural or man-made disasters, and then are caught by surprise when they happen. However, the Japanese and the Israelis, in my opinion, are the exceptions for their societies who always seem ready.
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I live in Southern California where earthquakes can happen, and do. As much as the news media warns citizens about having enough food, water, and supplies on hand few people I know are truly ready for a killer quake. Even after I give ample warning many of my friends and family do not heed the warning. It’s the typical attitude many have when it comes to self-defense, “It’s not going to happen to me.” That’s my “reality,” but your reality may be a future flood, tornado, volcano, hurricane, terrorist attack, or any number of disasters. If you lost your home, and your entire city was in chaos for a few days or a few weeks, could you and your family survive without any assistance? Do you have enough medical supplies, food, drinking water, or even a something as simple as a tent to sleep in?
In my Urban Survival course my students not only learned what could happen, but most of the course was hands-on projects starting with Light Search & Rescue. After a building is devastated, be it by an earthquake or a bomb blast, students learned how to assess the situation, organize a rescue team, how to systematically search the building, and then how to extract victims from the hot zone.
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| What’s great about the Boker Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection Training Facility in Solingen, The Blade City as it is known by throughout the centuries, is that our large training room can be made to look like a disaster area. I had simulated collapsed columns and chunks of concrete on the floors, hanging wires to simulate dangerous live electrical wires, water on the floor in one section, human body parts (plastic of course), and debris dust hanging in the air like New York City experienced after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011. Our “dust” was created from a professional fog machine making the search even more realistic.
My students found the victim, applied their new skills in using a lever and cribbing to get the victim free from heavy rubble, rendered first aid, worked together to evacuate the victim and marked the exterior wall with the proper information on their way out. Not only is this for their own documentation, but should other teams come across the same door they will know that a search had taken place and what actions were taken inside.
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After the elaborate scenario students learned how to make a temporary shelter, how to make fire from various materials found in an urban environment, how to find water once it is no longer flowing into the city, and how to procure food once it all runs out. Now, before you animal rights people jump all over us for our cat photograph, where student Joachim Roux proudly holds up his catch, the cat is merely a stuffed animal. KITTY WAS NOT REAL! We took a stuffed animal and set it down on the grass in order to show how to use a throwing stick to down “small game;” a technique used for thousands of years. Then our former Australian Special Air Service commando, nicknamed “The Blacksmith” demonstrated how to skin the animal Aussie style. It’s quite an interesting method actually, and far different from the traditional method taught in wilderness survival schools. You make a small slit on the back of the animal’s pelt, stick your fingers in the small hold and then pull in opposite directions until the carcass slips out of the two halves of the skin. Next an incision is made on the belly, making sure not to pierce the bladder, and with a firm grip on the back legs the animal is spun violently sending out the guts. Once they are all hanging from the neck the entire head is cut, along with the feet, and now you have a cleaned animal ready to cook.
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Now, I am certainly not advocating eating dogs and cats, but if you and your family are starving to death, your neighborhood domestic animals may not be very safe. The bigger the animal, the bigger the temptation. Of course, the good news is that the average person can live approximately three weeks before they become ineffective, and hopefully the disaster stabilizes before them.
Urban Survival also covered Shelter-In-Place procedures for intruders, home living without utilities because they were knocked out, and even against chemical attacks if it is a major metropolitan area.
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At the time of the writing of this news article Libya is in the throes of a brutal civil war and “urban survival” is a very real reality to thousands of Libyans not directly involved in the war. Food, water, and electricity have been cut off to many “rebel cities.” In fact, every day in European news I would see the stories reporting the mass exodus of Libyans getting on smalls boats and heading out to sea just to get away from the desperate situation in hopes that a European boat will pick them up and give them refuge. Six months ago no Libyan thought that they would have to survive off the land, or off the concrete jungle.
Protecting Others
Another brand new course that I introduced and taught in Germany last week was Protecting Others. There are plenty of schools around the world training people to be professional bodyguards, but nothing out there for the average person who may have to one day protect his family, coworkers, associates, or even strangers. My course is designed to teach civilians how to protect others from most likely attacks: school shootings, office massacres, armed robbery, cyber crimes, riots, and other evils. However, after each technique was taught I also taught what professional bodyguards need to know. Therefore, everyone gets the most advanced training possible in this course.
Like all Reality-Based Personal Protection courses we ran through lots of real-world scenarios to make the information stick, and to test the students’ new skills.
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Pocket Stick & Tactical Pen
Exactly one year ago I taught the Pocket Stick & Tactical Pen course, and it just so happened to land on the same time for this time around in Solingen, Germany. However, I had made some major revisions to the program and I received a lot of good feedback on the course. This course was filled to capacity with students from Germany, Switzerland, and Holland, and with such a wide variety of backgrounds. In this course I had police officers, military personnel, professional bodyguards, martial arts instructors, and lots of people with no previous self-defense training. This is great because more and more people non-martial artists are coming to the RBPP system. One of the new changes to the curriculum is the addition of the tactical light. I teach this subject in my Level 2 Handgun Survival course, but in this course the emphasis is on situations where the tactical light may be your only tool for self-defense. Police Defensive Tactics instructor Gerard Willemsen of the Amsterdam Police Department drove down to take the one-day course, and took me out to dinner at the end of the day to go over some training he wants me to do in October and in 2012. We had a nice time, nice visit, and it was a good last event before heading home the next morning.
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Knife Survival
Knife Survival is one of the most popular courses that I teach, and on May 14th I had a very motivated group of people wanting to learn how to defend themselves against modern criminal and terrorist knife attacks. In fact, this course tends to be a "gateway course." Once students attends Knife Survival they usually sign up for courses in Level 1. When they see how easy and effective Knife Survival is they want to continue on with their training to include learning how to punch, kick, do gun disarms, and the whole range of the Reality-Based Personal Protection system.
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Finally On Facebook
Jim Wagner
For the past couple of years many of my students have been saying to me, “You need to be on Facebook,” and like many people I had been putting it off. But, I finally found the time to look into and now I have my own account and am asking all Reality-Based Personal Protection students and instructors to be my “friend” so that we can stay in better contact. Of course, it is under my name “Jim Wagner.”
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A Faster And Longer Travelling Bullet For Snipers
Jim Wagner
Georg Manz, a longtime Reality-Based Personal Protection
instructor, signed up for the new Urban Survival course that I taught on May
13, 2011 at the Boker Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection Training
Facility in Solingen, Germany. Georg is not only a self-defense disciple, but
he is an inventor who has invented several high technology scope mounts for
sniper rifles. He works side-by-side with various police and military units
helping to perfect their weapons and performance, and each time Georg and I
meet he brings me up-to-date on the latest innovations in snipercraft. This
trip was no different. Georg sat down with me to educate me on the new Jaguar
Target Bullet, which is quite extraordinary.
The Jaguar Sport is a .308 (Geschoss 7.62 mm / 0.300) bullet
that has rings in it just like an artillery shell. These rings have less
friction going through the barrel and thus the bullet moves faster. More than
just a faster velocity the Jaguar Sport also travels further than the conventional
.308 round currently used. With a higher velocity and a farther distance
barrels can be made shorter to give the same reach that snipers are used to.
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Reloading Data For The Jaguar Target Bullet
Georg Manz
Cartridge: .308
Winchester / 7.62 x 51 mm NATO
Bullet: Jaguar
Sport148.8 grains (9.64 g)
Load: 46.7
grains (3.03 g) Vihatavuori N140
Primer: Large
Rifle
OAL: 69.3 mm
It is hard to get all of the powder into the case and still
keep the OAL to 69.3 mm. Some
people are using extra long tubes to fill the powder into the case.
The OAL of 69.3 mm is designed to keep all three rings of
the bullet in the neck of the case. The OAL can be extended by keeping only two
rings in the neck of the case. Therefore the expand of the resizing die has to
be removed in order to give the bullet a tighter fit in the case. The maximum
length depends on the type of rifle and the remaining space in the magazine.
Make sure that the cartridge is not to long for your rifle,
and never allow the bullet to touch the grooves inside the barrel. The pressure
will exceed the maximum and it can damage your rifle and may even cause injury
or death.
For more information visit Jaguar-Geschosse.
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