I read an article today about some bogus combatives instructors. The author spoke about an individuals lack of mil/Le training as the basis for determining whether he was bogus or not. The truth is really not as simple as a resume.
This is a clip the founder of SCARS, a program of combatives that was is use by Naval Special Warfare prior to the currently used grappling based systems. This guy IS a combat vet with two tours in Vietnam. The assumption in many peoples eyes though is that “he has operational experience”, ergo his methodology is automatically accepted regardless of the merits of the content. This ought never be.
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Nothing should be beyond the realm of questioning and nothing should be beyond the realm of acceptance. The determination should be driven by the content itself.
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5 years ago when I started producing content on social media there was maybe 5 guys doing combatives. Since then the tactical community has shifted from the “shooter experience course” to the “John Wick experience course”. With this influx of interest naturally arises an influx of ‘instructors’ to fill the void. The problem is that now on YouTube, every gun guy, every survivalist, every lawnmower repairman has become an expert in combatives. It’s the nature of capitalism and supply and demand.
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The nice thing about capitalism though is that it has a tendency to weed out illegitimacy. But not without painful lessons to the buyer. So I have always encouraged those around me to be content driven. If it’s good, go for it. If it’s BS, let it go, regardless of the resume, flash, pomp and cinematography involved which are all designed to cater to your emotion and not your intellect.
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The fact is that neither Mil/Le background or lack thereof is ever a good determination of authenticity. Both LINE and SCARS were developed by Mil guys. However, SOCP which replaced them was developed by an engineer and martial artist. There’s no shortcuts to deciphering BS, no resume or credential is going to remove the responsibility of the buyer to research and examine the content.