My Top Four Picks For Live Self Defense Training

I have narrowed down my top 4 from a much, much longer list!

My goal is to attend all four in my lifetime and attain a basic level of mastery in all four of the disciplines.

They are listed in no particular order, so do not jump to any conclusions about the order in which they are presented here.

I am not even assigning a number to each of my choices because I think all four are unique and are first class self defense schools.

Gracie Combatives

Come on who wouldn't want to experience live self defense training with this legendary family and their world renowned Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.

Gracie Combatives is not full blown Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.

It is the 36 techniques that the Gracies have identified as being the foundation for dealing with a combat or a no holds barred fight.

Different branches of military and law enforcement have adopted and trained in this system.

Of all the self defense schools I have chosen to look at this one most represents a sport based system versus the other three on my list.

However the passion, charisma and most importantly the real world no holds barred experience of the Gracie family is the reason this is on my list.

It is important to note that you can get access to Gracie Combatives via the online self defense training here ... www.gracieuniversity.com or through their at home dvd products.

But come on! Learning Gracie Combatives at their actual school would be an experience of a lifetime. This is why it graces my top four list.

Click Here To Check Out Gracie Academy And Their Self Defense Training

Learn Krav Maga In Israel

There would be no better place to learn Krav Maga than direct from the sources in Israel.

Touring and self defense training in Israel would be an absolutely mind blowing and surreal experience.

Eyal Yanilov, Chief Instructor of the International Krav-Maga Federation (IKMF), leads the training.

Eyal Yanilov studied Krav Maga under the personal tutelage of its founder, Imi Sde-Or (Lichtenfeld).

You can't get any better than that. You have the highest ranking instructor of Krav Maga and you are learning it in its birthplace of Israel .

The training takes place in several different locations.

In the past it included Wingate Institute which is Israel 's national training center for physical education. On top of Masada (a mountain fortress), near the Dead Sea , and along the Mediterranean coast at the Netanya beach which also includes training on the sand and in the water or in a heated pool in the winter.

Now I'm not so sure what their winters are like in Israel but according to the website the December-January programs usually experience temperatures typically around 12-20 Cº (54-68 Fº).

My Northern Canadian blood would definitely love winters that were that warm!

So when I plan this trip I think I will take advantage of the different climates. Right now it is July 7th and the current temperature outside is 14 Cº! (It has been an unusually cool spring and early sumer though!)

My biggest battle here will be to convince my wife that this will make a great vacation for the two of us without the kids.

Hopefully this won't be too hard a battle given that the Krav Maga training is coupled with tours and there is ample amounts of free time.

The civilian training takes place over ten days and the actual Krav Maga training is about 5 hours a day.

I like the fact that the self defense training is not locking you up indoors in maybe one or two schools for all ten days. Instead you get to experience learning Krav Maga in a multitude of different environments.

Click Here To Learn More About Learning Krav Maga In Israel

Jim Wagner Reality Based Personal Protection

Jim Wagner Reality Based Personal Protection is on my top 4 list of self defense training options for a couple of reasons.

Number one is purely for the holistic self defense training experience.

I do not think that anybody out there covers as much information as Jim Wagner does in his self defense training.

His Reality Based Personal Protection can be taken in modules via live training and is offerred by accredited self defense schools. I want to experience the instruction directly from Jim Wagner himself.

The reality based program that he has available for civilians has three levels of training. Depending on what level you are completing the whole level can take anywhere from 2-5 days.

The beauty of his modular approach is that if your time table does not accomodate completion of the whole level, you can complete whatever modules you want and come back to finish up whatever modules you missed the next time that level is being trained.

The wide array of self defense training topics that he covers are too many to list here. I will just mention a few and you can visit his website to dig deeper if you want to.

His program goes into the pre conflict and post conflict issues that you will have to deal with in a scenario that requires self defense.

Not only are things like striking and ground fighting covered. But things like kidnapping survival, crime survival, terrorism survival, surviving a knife attack, improvised weapons and childrens survival are all covered.

What each module covers is best left up to Jim Wagner and his website.

So Click Here To Visit Jim Wagner Reality Based Personal Protection

Now that you have checked out the website you can get a taste of what Jim Wagner is like by viewing the first five minutes of a movie he was part of.......

It was Morgan Spurlock's "Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?"

Jim Wagner was called in to teach Morgan Spurlock terrorism survival.

You can view the video below .......

Target Focus Training Last but definitely not least is another one of my favourites.

Target Focus Training or TFT.

If you have never heard of it I am not surprised. I had never heard of it until I started looking into and researching all the different self defense training and courses available. Lets just put it this way. If I had to only pick two self defense courses to become proficient in, Target Focus Training would be one of them. I still haven't decided which of the other three would be the second one.

I would probably drive myself insane trying to figure out which other one to include in the top two but the one that I would definitely include would be TFT. Target Focus Training is unbelievable. I fell in love with it almost immediately. I was skeptical at first but after viewing several dvd's and their online training program I determined that this was the right fit for me.

Hands down I believe it is one of the best self defense courses on the market. TFT deals specifically and only with one realm of self defense.

That realm is violence. Actual life or death violence. TFT shows you how to destroy another human body and break it down into a non functioning pile of human flesh and bone. This may sound a bit corny until you have actually tried and let the system sift around in your brain for a while. The focus is not on....."If he does this move, you do this as a counter."

It is not a magic death touch, wave a magic wand system. They do not focus on having you memorize a series of predetermined strikes, moves and throws that need to be executed in perfect fashion to be effective. The only thing that TFT focuses on is getting results. To top it all off the quality of instruction offerred on the dvd's and online training is absolutely the best that I have come across. If TFT founder Tim Larkin and his master instructors can pull it off that good on video I cannot wait to attend an actual live training!

Take A Look At Their Website, Products & Live Training By Clicking Here

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