PULSE Magazine | November/December 2018 Issue

From the very beginning this was not Chief Pierson! He discussed his interest and training in multiple martial arts and fitness in the form of power lifting and how they all lend something to both his life philosophy and his self defense thought process. In fact he's a high ranking black belt, 7th Dan, in the Korean style of Hapkido and still competes in that martial art. However, unlike many martial artists he has sought out other disciplines to be more well rounded. He's trained in Boxing, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and the Filipino Martial Art of Arnis which consists of stick fighting and edged weapons. Just a few weeks before his retirement he won the State Powerlifting Title at the Annual Texas Police Games as well as two Bronze Medals in Karate at the same games. Bringing that kind of experience and knowledge to a class on self defense as well the body mechanics and propri- oception needed to articulate how the Spear System can interweave with whatever your own personal style of self defense is, is priceless. To that point, one of the main tenants of Spear is that it is not a martial art. It is adjunct to whatever system or style you want to use what- ever that may be. Chief Pierson was also able to make the class relevant for the environment of EMS for Andre and I. For someone with such an extensive law enforcement background and given that we were the only two EMS providers in a class full of LEOs he very effectively showed us excellent examples of the applications of Spear methodology in relation to the types of situations we in EMS find ourselves everyday. He also gave us some great examples of training evolutions and methods he has utilized for Fire and EMS in Henderson in the past. Though we were extremely fortunate with having Chief Pierson, these are the main reasons we chose Spear as the best program to learn and bring back to train our folks here in ATCEMS and the region.

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