Make Reality-Based Great Again
by Jim Wagner
On Saturday, January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump became the 45th President of the United States of America, and once again we had a peaceful transfer of power even though the party that handed over their power, the Democrats, were diametrically opposed to the views and positions of the new president. We having been doing this “political miracle” for 219 years, ever since the inauguration of John Adams on March 4, 1797 when he replaced George Washington.
President Trump, before he was elected, ran on the campaign promise “Make America Great Again,” and I have to agree with him that this is a good idea. My own personal goal for 2017 is to “Make Reality-Based Personal Protection Great Again.” Although the day after his inauguration marks the 14th year of the RBPP system, the last eight years have not always been easy, especially in the United States where the growth of the economy never rose above 2.8 percent, and millions of Americans were out of work. Unfortunately, during these past 8 years I’ve also seen a lot of martial arts schools go out of business. I even wrote an article for Black Belt magazine at the beginning of the recession warning martial arts instructors that if they don’t teach their students how to defend against the increasing wave of crime and terrorism that they wouldn’t survive the recession, unless, of course, children were the bulk of their students.
With our new president in office I believe that the American economy is going to improve, and it already has in the past couple of weeks, and as such many Americans will want a self-defense system that prepares them for the “what if?” “What if I am the victim of a criminal?” “What if I find myself in the middle of a terrorist attack?” Now many people will have extra money to invest on their own lives. I’m talking safety. There will still be criminals, active shooters, and terrorists even as the economy improves.
When the American economy is good usually Europe is not fare behind. Therefore, I see a growing market in Europe as well for my RBPP system. I are gearing up for this new demand. To get you up to date I will list some of the major changes to the system.
RBPP International Director
I have appointed Christophe Besse to the newly created position of Reality-Based Personal Protection International Director. A few years ago I announced that Christophe was my protégé, and the reason I did that was because he knows the RBPP system inside and out, plus he teaches exactly the way I like. Christophe has been dedicated ever since he first started studying under me in London, and then became the RBPP Director of France in 2005. Ever since then the system has been expanding in France under his leadership.
Christophe can teach all RBPP civilian courses, and he is one of the few men in the world that I have given the authority to certify instructors. This means that if I am not able to teach a course to a Director, or to a Tactical Tutor, Christophe can.
Christophe will also be helping me develop the RBPP International Association that keeps RBPP instructors informed and updated, and he will also be working closely with Directors, Coordinators, and Tactical Tutor to maintain “quality control.”
Reality-Based Personal Protection instructors
I want RBPP instructors to be the best in the world. After all, people’s lives may be at stake (the students that they will be teaching). Therefore all RBPP instructors from this day forward will be trained privately by me or Christophe Besse, they will stay exclusive to the RBPP system as the self-defense system they teach for profit or non-profit, they will teach all courses exactly the way they were taught or lose their license, and they will keep all their credentials current if they wish to continue to teach under my name. This means that all RBPP instructors endorsed by me will be constantly mentored and updated.
CLICK HERE for more information on the different instructor positions possible, as well as the RBPP Coordinator position.
Happy 14th Birthday Reality-Based Personal Protection
January 21, 2017 marked the 14th anniversary of the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection system.
Pick up any martial arts magazine in the world that was printed before 1999 and they were all about the traditional martial arts: Karate, Kung-Fu, Tae Kwon Do, et cetera. Once in a while there would be a police or military self-defense, and occasionally there would even be an instructor who wrote about how to survive a vicious criminal attack. When Chief Editor Bob Young of Black Belt magazine, America’s number one martial arts magazine, hired me in 1998 I promised him, “I’m going to change the martial arts world,” and I did. In my monthly column HIGH RISK, which ran for 11 straight years, I introduced the martial arts community to police and military techniques and training methods, along with my own original methods. In 2000 Alfredo Tucci of Budo magazine gave me a platform in Europe. I was the first self-defense instructor to talk about fighting terrorism before the horrendous attacks of 9/11. After all, I had been training counterterrorist teams since 1993. Through various martial arts publications showed people how to incorporate stage blood into their training, the importance of practicing combat first aid, situational awareness for pre-conflict training, and using paint guns (and then Airsoft guns when they came out) for realistic crime and terrorism scenarios. I was the first civilian martial arts instructor to introduce strict safety protocols, such as using hard shell helmets, knee and elbow pads, and safety goggles for contact training; especially when using training weapons. In the past 18 years, while in the public eye, I’ve contributed a lot of information, techniques and training methods to my passion – the martial arts.
Since first offering Reality-Based Personal Protection to the public in 2003 I’ve also had the opportunity to train dozens of elite police and military units worldwide, along with energetic private security companies, bodyguard schools, thousands of martial artists from every fighting system imaginable, and many beginners who chose RBPP as their self-defense system of choice.
On a regular basis a common email that I receive from many self-defense instructors that I’ve taught is, “Your system is the best self-defense system I have ever seen,” and many of these instructors have been teaching for over 20 years.
Since I first started studying the martial arts, for exactly 40 years now, I’ve seen many trends and fads in the martial arts come and go. For example, when I was a young man traditional martial arts schools were 80% adults and 20% children. Now they are 90% children and 10% adults. In the “old days” the closed fist was considered the best way to strike someone and knock them out. Then many “experts” started saying, “No, use open hand strikes.” Then a decade passed and it was back to fists when I introduced police Defensive Tactics and military Combatives to the martial arts community. Now, many are swinging back to swearing that open hand strikes are “more effective,” even though the majority of untrained men all across the world used closed fist strikes when defending themselves in real situations, whereas most women use open hand strikes: clawing, pulling, and slapping. When it comes to fighting techniques I say, “Go with your instincts. Go with the way you were hard wired.” Speaking of trends, when the Ultimate Fighting Champions (UFC) became popular in the mid 1990s many flocked to the Mixed Martial Arts, and ground fighting was the rage. Several years ago I taught my students that ground fighting is important, but only long enough to get back on your feet. Now young men are moving on to other things.
I have resisted all of the trends and fads in the martial arts over the decades, and I keep teaching what I know works in the streets and on the battlefield based upon my career as a jailer working with prisoners, as a cop who has arrested many criminals, a SWAT officer, a diplomatic bodyguard, a counterterrorist for the United States government, and ending my professional career as a Military Police and Security Forces (SECFOR) soldier in charge of a major military base in Southern California on the Reserve side of the house. I officially retired from the military in March as a Master Sergeant. I even wrote a book about my experiences titled STATE MILITIA, which is sold on Amazon. Since retiring from the military I have been painstakingly updating the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection system, and for the start of this New Year I have unveil the new changes.
Training courses for 2017
For the past few months all of my time has been devoted to reorganizing the Reality-Based Personal Protection to be better than ever. As such I was delayed in posting any courses until the new structure was completed. Now that the direction is sure I have posted the first few courses of 2017, and more will follow. I have posted a few courses that I will be teaching in May, with more being planned now, as well as those courses that will be offered by my RBPP Coordinators, Directors, and instructors worldwide.
CLICK HERE for more information on upcoming courses.
BE A HARD TARGET
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