For Instructors and School Owners
Will your students' training work when they're actually surprised?
If you've been teaching a long time, you already know the moment I'm talking about. It's the one your system doesn't have a name for — the half-second before technique exists, when surprise hijacks executive function and the body does something older and faster than anything you've drilled.
Nobody's questioning your skill. The question is quieter than that. Are your people ready for the part of the fight that happens before the fight?
The day I got it wrong
In 1993 I was at NAVSPECWARCOM in Coronado talking about HIGH GEAR®. After the scenario demo, one of the cadre asked if I taught gun disarms. I set it up, and the SEAL playing the bad guy dropped elevation and went for my groin. Things got frisky fast. I hollowed out, twisted his wrist, drove pressure toward his elbow, and rolled him into an armbar. Slick disarm, still in the armbar.
The cadre was impressed enough to start talking about booking a course. And I felt like shit.
I'd just watched the first UFC in Denver, and all I'd been doing was submission, submission, submission. My fixation overrode my situational awareness. I didn't see any other options. Had that been real — a warehouse, six opponents — lying on my back arm-barring one guy is how I get beaten by his teammates.
That's not a judgment of grappling. It's neuroscience. It happened to me, with my résumé, in front of the SEALs. Be careful what you practice — you might get really good at the wrong thing.
What I noticed in the 1980s
When the attack was scripted, people could perform. When the partner was compliant, people could make the technique look clean. But when the moment was sudden, close, emotional, and ugly, the menu disappeared. It didn't matter what style they trained. It mattered whether they could manage fear and get from the flinch to their first move.
That's not an insult to your art. It's biology. And it's the one lesson almost no curriculum teaches on day one.
What this is, and what it isn't
SPEAR isn't a replacement for your style. It's the missing link in front of it. We teach how the body moves before your training kicks in — the startle-flinch, fear management, the moment of surprise — then hand the moment back to your system, safer and faster. Your students still do your art. They just get to it.
SPEAR is a bridge to your next move.
What it looks like in a real school
Andy Privett is a fifth-degree black belt in jiu-jitsu, a former PE teacher, and has run his own clubs in the UK for about twenty years — roughly 400 students, taught by instructors he raised from his own kids' classes. He came to SPEAR after years of working with violent kids in secure units and noticing that what he saw at work and what he taught on the mat didn't match.
"I wasn't looking for a replacement for my martial art. I was looking for a complement."
"Make your mind go blank, let your body respond, and then your jiu-jitsu will catch up."
"I've never not had someone join when I talk to them directly."
The path
Get certified.
SPEAR System® Level 1 is a pre-course online on-ramp, two live-online days with me, the manual and coaching progressions, a month of Tactical Garage Gym, and the credential to teach the foundational material. $1,000. Next dates: October 3–4, 2026 (AEST); November 14–15, 2026 (PST).
Own the gear.
HIGH GEAR® was engineered so training partners can behave like real adversaries in a real confrontation. It's a suit that lets you know when you screwed up.
Run responsible scenario training.
Evidence-Based Scenario Trainer gives trainers a repeatable methodology for building that phase intelligently — progression and HIGH GEAR® equipment that increase realism without simply practicing pulling and missing.
Bring Be Your Own Bodyguard® to your community.
If you take the affiliate route, the Be Your Own Bodyguard® instructor training comes with it — normally about a thousand dollars, no charge to affiliates, and not available to ambassadors. We hand you the finished keynote and presentation and we teach you how to teach it, so you can walk in and be the rock star in the room. We run registration on our secure server and help market the event. You keep 80% of the gate.
A note on ego
This takes a certain kind of instructor. Rank makes it harder, not easier. The people who thrive here are secure enough to look at their own curriculum honestly — because they care more about the student going home than about being right.
If that speaks to you, let's talk.
Coach Blauer
Founder, SPEAR System® & KNOW FEAR®