Why you should always be a white belt- AKA Tactical Fitness Austin's Third Party Protection Course EIR

About six months ago I made a joking rashguard for jiu jitsu that said white belt for Eva. I was poking fun at myself (which is basically the majority of all my shirt designs) that due to traveling and constant going I was never going to be in a place long enough to belt up and that was life..


About a year ago I took a room clearing course with AR tactics in Charlotte and had a sweeping realization (pun totally intended) that I was not going to learn everything I needed to know about clearing a house in a couple hour period… 


I know, big surprise, hell I am not likely to learn to be proficient in it inside of a couple months. 


So those last two points? I swear I am going to not so smoothly Segway into this next part, but hopefully I can tie it all together in a neat little bundle later, so strap in


Last weekend I took a third party protection course with tactical fitness Austin. Bernardo chernitsky (I told him I was going to try the pronunciation out anyway, how did I do?) was our esteemed leader and I gotta say based on his background of like Israeli special forces thingys, I was pretty skeptical I was going to get much civilian relational things out of it…


I had been looking for a course that would go over protecting a third party for a while. I have like hella kids to watch in public and I get questions all the time about the what ifs when out and about and needing to protect them babies… I had also been following tactical fitness Austin for quite some time.  I liked some of the drills and such the owner Rob had posted and so when that class popped up I thought, you know, I was in Austin like 20 years ago and don’t really remember it outside of some good Thai food I had #collegebuzzedyears 


Soooo ride or die or at the very least make new friends.


One thing I want to note that was awesome about this course were the people I met #newfriends. We were a group of about fifteen and when we had an opening introduction I loved how many men and one other gal, Ashley stated that they were there for the sole reason of wanting to be able to responsibly take care and protect their wives/girlfriends and children. You could tell they had put in the work before and were wanting to soak up more. They also had developed a community of friends. They all train together and were very welcoming to an outsider.


I love fundamentals. You are never too good for foundations and when someone takes the time to explain the basic? listen, because you will probably hear something you still haven’t heard before…


One thing I had done but honestly never knew why I did it, probably just copied those around me, was after shooting a target, tracing the target down with my gun. Bernardo explained the fundamentals of this by explaining you were following the body to make sure the threat was fully eliminated, then making sure you are in the habit of looking around you for other threats. I was probably just doing this before because I saw John Wick do it.. 

I know now the why


My fears of this being an extreme militant tactibro course were quickly laid to rest because Bernardo very much made this relevant to my civilian world as a mom where my third parties are my kiddos. Or now, possibly my tinder date…


Bernardo laid good foundations for specific ways of manuervering a third party out of harms way as well as laid a foundation of the combat time line ie safety plan.


Combat- what to do when he’ll breaks loose
Tactical position- understanding cover and your lines sight
Containment- controlling the crowd effectively for leaving safely and
Evacuation- getting the hell out of there


We ran several simple and easy to hammer home drills empty hand and then with live fire, we went over how to manuever around your person, we then moved into my favorite, scenario work with sim guns. Also got to run a little KCC knife defense in my evolution so that was super fun.


Bernardo ran a safe course and I got to say the only injuries I received that day were to my ego when I did the same exact thing while dialing fake 911 this time as I did when I was at ECQC.. thought I had learned my lesson prior.. guess not… to be fair I was holding a doll at this point and didn’t know exactly what to do with my hands.. that needs some work..


And a bug flew in my nose and stung me… I was waiting for it to swell up like hitch and then wondered if anyone had an epi pen since we were like in Area 51 only like in Texas… I survived.




I loved how in the end Bernardo asked for us to state ways that he could improve this course, that is the mark of an excellent teacher, one always seeking to fine tune his classes and become better.


So two things, one: if you are a good instructor you must have the constant desire to achieve more knowledge and place yourself in a position to be student consistently. 


Attend new courses, seek out those that are doing new things. I have trained under several bad assess in their field and then a few months later was a fellow student with them in a different course taught by a different instructor. Those are the people I want to learn from. The non stagnant ones, the ones always seeking out a better way.


And two: If you are constantly learning you are never not going to stop being a white belt. (Told you I would tie this in) 


You will constantly find new skills that you want to add and learn and master. You will be attending something and realize crap that’s one more thing I need to add onto my list of things I already want to learn and need to know


You will have to figure out which ones you want to prioritize, the ones you find exciting and the ones that are practical and you will then find yourself being a white belt again, learning a new skill and that’s beautiful


#whitebelt4eva


Tactcial fitness Austin put on an incredible course and Bernardo proved to be an fantastic teacher, one of which I will definitly be back to take part two of the third party protection. 


This was an extremely relevant course to the civilian world and i got exactly what I was hoping to get out of it. If you are concerned with what to do during an active shooter when you have another present this is an amazing start.


 Check them out on IG and get involved, they have an awesome community down there in Austin.