Martial Artist 3: From Wimp to Warrior

Böker, the renowned German knife manufacturer, sent their top man to attend Jim Wagner’s Knife Survival course in London. During the dinner meeting that followed, Dietmar Pohl asked Jim, “Do you have any new ideas for a tactical folder?” Without hesitation the answer was, “Yes, as a matter of fact I do,” for Jim had been thinking of some ideas for years as to what elements would be needed for the ultimate folding knife for self-defense. That evening in his hotel room he drew those ideas on a sheet of paper, and the rest is history. Not only did the Jim Wagner Reality Based Blade (01BO51) become one Böker’s best selling knives of all time, which opened the door for a very successful series, but Böker also sponsored every one of Jim’s Reality-Based Personal Protection courses in Germany. This partnership led to Jim teaching at the German Special Forces base in Pfullendorf, close ties with the instructor cadre of the Military Police, and preparing SEK (Spezialeinsatzkommandos) teams for the inevitable wave of terrorism that was soon to hit. Böker even managed to have Jim teach the Bulgarian “Secret Service” behind the former Iron Curtain. After all, every agent was issued his knife for duty. Although Jim was once again teaching the world’s elite, and martial arts instructors were coming to him from every known fighting system, he had given up on ever being in uniform again because of his sabotaged past. However, just when Jim had resigned himself to the old cliché those who can, do; those who can’t, teach he discovered the best-kept secret in California - the State Militia. It may have been considered the lowest level within the military, but the more the Obama Administration gutted and weakened the United States Armed Forces the more opportunities were presented to Jim: a leadership role as a noncommissioned officer, Military Police, U.S. Army Combatives instructor, Terrorism Liaison Officer, Security Forces, team leader of the Special Reaction Team for the first time in his base’s history, bodyguard to the state’s top general, and training hundreds of soldiers for three wars: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kosovo. In these pages you join in on all of this. Off duty Jim was a bodyguard to movie stars, the recipient of the top martial arts awards, and it was all contributing to a “complete” system. Read more