Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection

Flying straight up the cost from Los Angeles I crossed over into Canadian airspace and landed in Vancouver International Airport on May 24th. It's always a beautiful sight seeing the distant purple snow-capped mountains and nearby lush green forests that surround the airport. It lets me know instantly at a glance that I’m in an entirely different "world." It's quite a contrast to the dry southern Spain-like environment that I call home not far from the Mexican border. I flew into British Columbia, our neighbors to the north, to teach my Reality-Based Personal Protection KNIFE CAMP and to visit with my longtime friend Garth Hoffman; one of the best police defensive tactics instructors in all the region (this is not just my opinion, but everyone who has the opportunity to work with him in the police community). Garth insisted that I crash at his place for the six days that I was there, and I did.

By invitation of Nick Serna, the Reality-Based Personal Protection Director of Canada, I taught the three courses that make up KNIFE CAMP: Knife Survival, Knife Expert, and Tactical Knife (a course that is RESTRICTED to Canadian police, corrections, probation, and the military). The courses were taught at Nick's school called REDZONE REALITY-BASED located in Port Coquitlam; a suburb of Vancouver. The students who enrolled in the courses wanted to know how to defend themselves against knife attacks as well as learn how to use edged weapons for their own protection. In each of the courses was the usual mix of martial arts students, martial arts instructors, and one man who signed up for Knife Survival and Knife Expert had who had never had a day of self-defense training in his life. This was his first exposure to learning how to deal with violence, and he did wonderfully.  The professionals showing up to the weekend course came from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Delta Police Department, British Columbia Sheriff's Department, and the Probation Department. I also had a professional bouncer attend, by the name of Benito, who brought his daughter along. Benito had been stabbed two times in the past dealing with violent subjects.  

 

Nick Serna is one of the few Reality-Based instructors in the world to have an authentic Reality-Based school. He has a big training room that is painted flat black with blacked out windows and special effects lighting that can simulate various low-light environments, props for realistic scenarios, and the equipment necessary to run realistic scenarios: Airsoft guns, stage blood, Tony Blauer HIGH GEAR suits, and safe improvised weapons (plastic bottles that look like broken bottles, hard sponges painted up like bricks, foam pool noodles, and other items). No doubt Nick's two trips to my main school in Solingen, Germany gave him the inspiration.

I've been teaching in Canada for 20 years now, and I enjoy my visits immensely each time I go up there. I started off two decades ago teaching only Canadian law enforcement and military students when I used to run a tactical training organization on the side, while simultaneously working as a full-time police officer. It was during this period, the early 1990s, that I met Garth Hoffman who was working for the Sheriff’s Department at the time. He came aboard my organization a couple of years later to teach various defensive tactics courses and tactics courses. Ever since then we've been good friends, and have helped each other develop professionally. As an instructor for his current agency Garth gets the priviledge to attend a fair amount of high-speed courses every year, both in Canada and the United States, hooking up with the likes of Tony Blauer, Tim Larkin, David Grossman, and many others. Over the years Garth and I have exchanged a lot of techniques between us, we have hours on end conversations about making training more realistic, and we are constantly showing each other the newest products on the market. Garth was one of the first police defensive tactics instructors in Canada to introduce the Reality-Based Impact Head, and on this trip I gave him the latest model. This product is the most realistic striking target for simulating a human head. Likewise, on this trip Garth introduced me to a new product called the bluebaton.ca which is the best functioning collapsible training baton I have ever seen or have handled. 

 

I had purposefully scheduled a couple of extra free days to get some video projects done. As you know, over the last year I have been putting up instructional videos up on You Tube, and they are gaining quite a following. The series that teaches people the Reality-Based Personal Protection system is called Jim Wagner my self-defense instructor, but I have a few other video series as well; clips on my law enforcement and military history, product reviews, and testimonials. Although I have probably 20 videos already in line waiting for editing I took the time to tape a few more instructional videos in British Columbia. Garth Hoffman assisted me with these video projects, which we taped up a Whistler Mountain, Victoria, Vancouver, and Surrey. Part of my work was my ongoing research into human conflict, and for that we went to the Royal BC Museum in Victoria; an hour and a half ferry ride each way.

Probably one of the most rewarding aspects of the course was knowing that I had helped save the lives of two of my past students who had come back to finish up their knife training with me. While at lunch each one told me about an incident that had happen to them. One man, I'll call him "George" to keep his identity confidential, was a loss prevention agent a year and a half ago working for a major retailer. He had detained a man for shoplifting and had to place a pair of handcuffs on the thief to maintain officer safety until the police arrived. As the hooks were about to go on, suddenly the man went for a knife he had concealed in his pocket in order to stab George. George reacted swiftly and swept the man off of his feet before being cut or stabbed and the attacker's head hit the floor. George quickly cuffed him and waited for the police. The man went unconscious upon impact and stayed in a comma for about a month and a half until he died as a result of his injuries. The police investigated the use-of-force incident and no charges were filed against my student. During the investigation the detectives had George supply them a list of his self-defense instructors and my name was on that short list. I was never contacted or required to testify. Needless to say, George was very sad that a man had died by his own hands, but he said to me, "The guy was going to try and kill me. I just reacted immediately and swept him before he could stab or cut me. It all happened in one second. It was so fast. I had no other choice. The attack was so fast, just like you had showed us in class." 

 

The second former student, Mike Kendall, was a park ranger at the time of his incident about two years ago. He told me that a man came at him with a knife trying to stab him in a public park. As the man was lunging at him like a charging bull armed with a knife Mike said that he actually heard my voice yelling at him, "Get off line! Tactical 'L!'" and Mike did just that barely avoiding the knife that went past him. Failing in his attack, and most likely drug induced, the attacker veered off and targeted a second park ranger. What Mike heard in his brain was what I call a Jump Start Command. I am a firm believer in correcting students' mistakes as they are happening instead of lecturing them after a micro scenario or full scenario is over. If my student can’t think of the correct action to take during a scenario I yell it out to them and most of the time they do what I tell them on the spot. Because of my own experience and training I know that my students will "hear my voice" if faced with a similar situation, for I have heard the "voice" of my own instructors at a crucial time during a conflict or dangerous situation.  

 

My trip to Canada was rewarding. I had the opportunity to train motivated students in my Knife Camp and work with Nick Serna, hang out with my buddy Garth Hoffman, and work on three different You Tube video projects. I look forward to the next time I am up there.

 

Be A Hard Target.