Reality-Based in Sweden
Jim Wagner
Only two weeks after had I returned from Holland and Germany I was back again in Europe, only this time I bringing the Reality-Based Personal Protection system into Scandinavia, but not after a five hour layover in London. On April 28th I landed in Copenhagen airport where Peter Falk, the Reality-Based Director of Sweden, and the Regional Director for the Nordic countries, was waiting for me. I flew into Denmark’s capitol because it was the closest international airport to the training site. Talk about convenience, all Peter and I did was go down the escalator inside the airport and it deposited us right in the middle of the train station. We then boarded a train bound for Malmö, Sweden only 20 minutes away. A bridge containing rail tracks and a highway above expands the Baltic Sea connecting Sweden to Denmark. The modern sleek train, travelling at 120 kilometres per hour, was smooth and very clean. A few stops later we were in the coastal city of Malmö. Before leaving the station I had to exchange my euros for the Swedish Krona.
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That evening I threw my bags into my room, discussed our plans for our first Level 1 seminar, took a shower and called it a night. The plane ride had been a long one. The next morning, Saturday the 29th, Peter was the perfect host and we walked to the train station only a few blocks away. Along the way Peter pointed out to me the United Nations Naval Academy, some ancient Swedish fortifications, and the old center of Malmo. At the train stations we had to pay a visit to the money exchange once again, because we both needed Danish Krone; although Sweden and Denmark are both in the European Union, neither country has switched to the euro.
Peter showed me how to purchase a train ticket from the vending machine and we were off to the city of Copenhagen to spend a day there. The 20-minute train ride was a good opportunity to discuss our marketing strategy and Swedish “martial arts politics.” When we arrived the train took us one stop passed the airport station and into the heart of Copenhagen. This was my first trip to the city and I was immediately impressed with the city’s elegance, accessibility of everything of importance by foot, and the buzz of people walking everywhere enjoying the weekend.
Of course I had to see Denmark’s most famous monument The Little Mermaid that overlooks the harbor. There she was right on the edge of the water the actual size of a human, or in her case, mermaid. The day was quite beautiful, and visibility was excellent. Across the bay was the navy yard, the new opera house, and boats navigating the harbor.
After The Little Mermaid we walked over to the Nationalmuseet (www.natmus.dk). Whenever I am in a world capitol I make it a point to visit that country’s national museum to continue my research on ancient and modern warfare. The Nationalmuseet was packed with historical items that I will use in my future DVDs and books. I took dozens of digital photos from everything from ancient Egyptian and Grecian weapons to Danish Middle Ages and Renaissance (1050 – 1660) war materials. It was a truly fantastic museum, one of the best I have ever visited. The only disappointment was that the Viking exhibition was closed and was to reopen until 2008. Although we saw some authentic Viking items, it was just a tease. Of course, Peter and I vowed to make another trip there in 2008.
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After the brief, but informative, tour through the museum Peter and I strolled over to the Parliament building, the seat of the Danish government. Recently the Muslim world has promised that “Denmark will burn with fire” and that their “streets will run free with their blood” because of the recent cartoons that were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005 depicting the Islamic Prophet Mohammed in 12 editorial cartoons. Danish Muslim organizations held public protests in response and spread knowledge of Jyllands-Posten's publication. As the controversy grew, some or all of the cartoons were reprinted in newspapers in more than fifty other countries, which led to violent protests, particularly in the Muslim world.
The foreign ministries of eleven Islamic countries demanded action from the Danish government, and several Arab countries eventually closed their embassies in Denmark in protest after the government initially refused to intervene or apologize place worldwide. On February 4, 2006, the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria were set ablaze, although no one was hurt. In Beirut, the Danish Embassy was set on fire, leaving one protester dead. Altogether, at least 139 people were killed in protests, mainly in Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Several death threats against those responsible for the cartoons have been made, resulting in the cartoonists going into hiding. In Swedish newspapers on Friday, May 5th, there was a story about the Taliban sending 12 suicide bombers to Denmark in order to take revenge for the cartoons.
While Peter and I were at the Danish Parliament building we were surprised at the seemingly lack of security around key government points, and saw several “soft targets” that should have been made “hard targets” by now amid the very real threats. Of course, some of our observations were useful in teaching the Terrorism Survival course in Malmo later in the week.
The first day of the seminar, Defensive Tactics, was well accepted by my Swedish students and one student from Finland – Sami Eskelin. Peter Falk had posted an announcement on a couple of Finnish martial arts web sites as part of his marketing campaign and one of my former students Tomi Eklund came across the information. Tomi works for one of the largest security companies in the world – SECURITAS. He is a branch manager out of Helsinki. Tomi had taken my first Finnish civilian Reality-Based course out of Helsinki two years ago. It was not a Level 1 course, but a two-ay introduction course. Prior to that I had taught the Helsinki Police Department Defensive Tactics instructors and then the following year the Defensive Tactics and firearms instructors of the Poliisikoulu (National Police Academy) in Tampere, Finland. Tomi told Sami that he should attend the seminar in Sweden, and Sami did just that and signed up for the week.
Sami was perfect for the class because he is about 210 pounds and all muscle. He was everybody’s “worse case scenario.” Sami was a former Finnish army lieutenant on a commando unit near the Russian border, 8 years as a doorman, and now 6 years in the security business. For the past three years he has been teaching mixed martial arts. At the end of the Defensive Tactics day in his course evaluation he wrote, “Jim Wagner is simply great! This is the most realistic course I have ever been in.” On a scale from 1 to 10, ten being best, Sami rated his first day of training as a “10.”
On day two, May 2nd, was Ground Survival. Anna Hallander, the only female in the course stated, “We learned things that don’t even exist in any other martial arts system.” Anna is a martial arts instructor, a first degree black belt, at the Malmo Ju-Jitsu Club and also trains three nights a week herself in a Western boxing course at another school.
Anna Hallander is not only the first female Relality-Based Personal Protection instructor in Finland, but also the first one in all of the Nordic countries combined: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. Of course, I could not have had a better female instructor in my Swedish seminar. She follows in the foot steps of Elizebeth Greenman (USA), Joanna Clark (UK), Joanna Husson (France), and Sharon Hutchinson (Ireland) who are all women you wouldn’t want to mess with. Anna plans on taking the Level 2 seminar and then eventually teaching the Women’s Survival course throughout Sweden.
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Andre Angantyr was also in the Ground Survival course on Tuesday, and received his instructor certification from me at the end of the week. He owns his own retail store that sells security, hunting, and police & military tactical supplies (http://www.camobutiken.se) on the outskirts of Malmo. He’s been studying Ju-Jitsu for 15 years, and has recently decided to go the Reality-Based direction. He also wants to start carrying my DVDs, books, and the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Blade made by Boker of Germany. When commenting on the week seminar that he completed Andre said, “This is the easy way to learn self-defense and Jim is easy to understand.”
Day three was Knife Survival, and it was intense. Everyone seem to put their “all” into it. The Swedish students had an opportunity to work with a NO LIE BLADE (marking training knife) for the first time as well as get their first splash of stage blood on them when doing the Jim Wagner Knife Disarm Rule training in an alley behind the Ju-Jitusu Clubb. Fortunately for us the weather warmed up considerably that day – up to 19 degrees celcius. In fact, the weather was so perfect that a few of us went to lunch at a nearby Thai restaurant and ate outdoors to soak up the rays of the sun. We then finished the lunch with some mild coffee and talked shop. Although the sun felt good after experiencing a couple of days of gray cold rainy weather, it was hard to go back to class and start training again… but we did.
After the course had ended Peter and I drove to Andre’s store; a 30 minute drive north into the country. The farms and trees were a nice mellow view after a day of conflict training. The shop was well stocked with tactical gear: knives, military and police clothing, tactical lights, and military books. I bought two books myself while I was there. One book was on Swedish combat first aid and the second book was titled Nordic United Nations Tactical Manual Volume Two. After the long drive back to Malmo, Peter and I ordered a pizza, grabbed a couple of cokes, sat down in front of the T.V., watched the battle scene of Lord of the Rings Two Towers, and just relaxed for the rest of the evening. Both of us had been teaching and jumping into conflict drills with our students all day long and we were exhausted.
Thursday was our Crime Survival course, and Peter Falk had already done his homework in researching the legal system before I came to Sweden. His job was to not only to translate the Use-of-Force Ladder into Swedish, but to make sure that it was legally accurate. Of course, learning the use-of-force continuum was something new to most of the Swedish students. The ones who had been in the Swedish military or working for security companies confirmed that the Reality-Based graph was both easy to understand and reflected what they already knew.
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Andre Angantyr was also in the Ground Survival course on Tuesday, and received his instructor certification from me at the end of the week. He owns his own retail store that sells security, hunting, and police & military tactical supplies (http://www.camobutiken.se) on the outskirts of Malmo. He’s been studying Ju-Jitsu for 15 years, and has recently decided to go the Reality-Based direction. He also wants to start carrying my DVDs, books, and the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Blade made by Boker of Germany. When commenting on the week seminar that he completed Andre said, “This is the easy way to learn self-defense and Jim is easy to understand.”
Day three was Knife Survival, and it was intense. Everyone seem to put their “all” into it. The Swedish students had an opportunity to work with a NO LIE BLADE (marking training knife) for the first time as well as get their first splash of stage blood on them when doing the Jim Wagner Knife Disarm Rule training in an alley behind the Ju-Jitusu Clubb. Fortunately for us the weather warmed up considerably that day – up to 19 degrees celcius. In fact, the weather was so perfect that a few of us went to lunch at a nearby Thai restaurant and ate outdoors to soak up the rays of the sun. We then finished the lunch with some mild coffee and talked shop. Although the sun felt good after experiencing a couple of days of gray cold rainy weather, it was hard to go back to class and start training again… but we did.
After the course had ended Peter and I drove to Andre’s store; a 30 minute drive north into the country. The farms and trees were a nice mellow view after a day of conflict training. The shop was well stocked with tactical gear: knives, military and police clothing, tactical lights, and military books. I bought two books myself while I was there. One book was on Swedish combat first aid and the second book was titled Nordic United Nations Tactical Manual Volume Two. After the long drive back to Malmo, Peter and I ordered a pizza, grabbed a couple of cokes, sat down in front of the T.V., watched the battle scene of Lord of the Rings Two Towers, and just relaxed for the rest of the evening. Both of us had been teaching and jumping into conflict drills with our students all day long and we were exhausted.
Thursday was our Crime Survival course, and Peter Falk had already done his homework in researching the legal system before I came to Sweden. His job was to not only to translate the Use-of-Force Ladder into Swedish, but to make sure that it was legally accurate. Of course, learning the use-of-force continuum was something new to most of the Swedish students. The ones who had been in the Swedish military or working for security companies confirmed that the Reality-Based graph was both easy to understand and reflected what they already knew.
During the criminal surveillance portion of the Crime Survival course we conducted our training amongst the public in Malmö. We moved in and out of residential and retail business centers. Fortunately for us the weather was warm and sunny and many citizens were out. This made it easy for me when I was pointed out various people and having my students guess if they were hard targets or soft targets and making them explain why to me.
Thursday evening was a night that all of the students decided to get together and socialize. We all met at 7 pm at the Fagan’s Irish Pub in the center of Malmö. Sure enough it looked like an authentic Irish Pub. Peter picked the place, and it reminded him of the pub we went to in Carrickmacross, Ireland when he went through his Level 2 training hosted by Adrian Markey. We all stayed there until 11:30 pm eating, drinking, and just unwinding from a hard day of training.
Our last day of training concluded on Friday, and it was an eight hour training day of Terrorism Survival. Sweden does not have a problem with terrorism at this time, but all of the students in the course expressed their fears that things are going to intensify as more and more Muslims immigrate to Sweden. Probably what sparked this open opinion not normally expressed by Europeans in the past was the shocking news that swept through the country while I was there. One newspaper called Metro (Fredag 28 April 2006) had a huge headline that read, MUSLIMER VILL HA EGNA LAGAR I SVERIGE (Muslims want their own laws in Sweden). The article stated that Swedish Muslims wanted to implement shireea law, and should not be bound by Swedish laws.
During the week there were five major shows on the television discussing Muslim issues, including shireea law, and everyday in the news were stories about Hamas. In the newspaper Sydsvenskan (Fredag 5 maj 2006) the headline read, HAMASMINISTER KOMMER TIL MALMO – TROTS ALLT (Hamas minister comes to Malmo – despite all). Atef Adwan arrived in Malmo just as I was leaving the city. The French government refused to give the minister a visa to enter the European Union, but Sweden granted permission and Adwan was allowed to address an audience. Of course, many in Sweden did not welcomethe visit.
During this very day, several miles away in central Stockholm a pedestrian found a live hand grenade on a busy street. The police had to evacuate several nearby apartments.
Once the seminar ended Peter and I did the customary photos with the students and new Reality-Based instructors and wished everyone a safe trip back home. Probably one of the biggest successes of the seminar was when Markus Lindberg of Fighter Magazine www.fightermag.se, headquartered out of Goteborg, spent time watching me teach Crime Survival, taking photos, interviewing students, then interviewing me for an hour after the course. Markus told me that a story about the seminar and the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection system will come out in the fall.
Peter Falk and I plan on doing another Level 1 seminar in Malmo before the year’s end. We will be advertising again in Fighter Magazine, so we are just waiting to get a printing schedule before we announce the date. If you are interested in attending the next Swedish seminar that will be held November 13 -17 in Malmö, you can write to us at info@jimwagnerrealitybased.com or to Peter Falk in Sweden peter@mjjk.com
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