Jim Wagner
Mitglied
- Beiträge
- 1
“We want a knife that will not only be the ultimate self-defense knife for martial artists and civilians, but one that the police and military will want as well” Dietmar Pohl said to me extending his beer glass towards me over the round table waiting for me to tap my glass against his. I answered, “I have the design here, and I know Boker is going to love it.” I then reached for my briefcase that sat leaning up against one of the legs of the polished wooden chair.
Dietmar was the chief knife designer for the world famous German knife company Boker Baumwerk. He had flown from Frankfurt, Germany to the United Kingdom in February 2005 to attend my Reality-Based Knife Survival course, and to take a look at my ideas for the first time over a pizza dinner in Lee on the outskirts of London.
I carefully pulled the papers from my folder and pushed them across the table after the dishes had been taken away by the waitress. After an agonizing long minute staring at my design Dietmar shook his head up and down in acknowledgement saying, “Yes, yes, this different, very different. Now that I have taken your Knife Survival course I understand what features a self-defense knife must have.”
We discussed some of my concepts I had incorporated into the knife at length, and after all questions had been answered I placed a credit card in the clear plastic pocket of the black booklet that contained the dinner check. The waitress came up and said, “Thank you, I’ll be right back.” Then Dietmar said to me, “I will present this to Mr. Felix, the vice-president of Boker.”
I had first met Dietmar in 1999 when I was training Germany’s elite national counterterrorist team Grentzschutzgruppe Neun, more commonly known in the Special Operations community worldwide as “GSG9.” One of my students at the time of this training, and who had been assigned to me as my liaison by the unit commander, was a tough paratrooper from Combat Unit 3 named Hans-Peter.
After I had received rave reviews from the Defensive Tactics instructors about my Knife Survival course, Hans-Peter told me that Combat Unit 2, GSG9’s maritime interdiction unit, and Boker were working together on designing a new combat dive knife. Hans-Peter asked me if I was interested in driving to the factory with him that was located in Solingen and taking a look at the preliminary drawings in order to give my opinion before the final plans were approved. Not only would I get my first ride on the famous German autobahn highway in a supped up undercover cop car Mercedes-Benz, but I’d get the first look at a tactical knife that had yet to exist.
Has-Peter drove me to the factory on Schuetzenstrasse and introduced me to Dietmar in an artsy high-tech glass and steel conference room. After having several minutes to carefully examine the mechanical drawings of the Orca, the name of the new tactical dive knife, and giving some minor suggestions, I was asked politely to bear with them for a few minutes while the rest of the meeting was conducted in the German language. I obliged.
After the meeting had ended Dietmar took the time to give me a full tour of the Boker factory, which I found to be very educational. Upon leaving the factory Dietmar presented me with a gift. It was a slim Boker knife that I could use in my undercover work. At that time I was a sergeant assigned to the Dignitary Protection Unit of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in Southern California.
I had traveled to Germany two more times after my first meeting with Dietmar to train various German units, including GSG9 again nearby the factory, but I did not remain in contact with Dietmar or Boker, other than to supply Dietmar with some photographs he requested of American SWAT teams training with knives. He was working on his first book at the time. It wasn’t until December of 2004 that I would hear from Dietmar again.
Several months later I came across Dietmar’s business card that he had given me and added his work email address to my new Reality-Based Personal Protection mailing list and he wrote me back a day later asking me how things were going and that he was interested in attending my Knife Survival seminar in London scheduled for February 2005.
I called him up to talk with him on the phone and posed the question to me, “Jim, have you ever thought about designing a tactical knife?” I eagerly replied, “As a matter of fact, I had.” I wasn’t just saying that to tell Dietmar what I knew he wanted to hear, but I had often thought of the elements that I would like in a knife for self-defense purposes over the years. Putting my ideas down on paper was a mere technicality.
I let a few days pass before I pulled out a blank sheet of paper from my computer printer. I then sketched my ideal tactical knife, and within half an hour I had my preliminary ideas on a hard copy. I drew it at a 1:1 ratio, and even cut out a “paper doll” version to see if it would fit in my hand properly even though it was only two dimensional.
I had no trouble free handing a mechanical drawing because I had taken mechanical drafting courses throughout middle school and high school, and it came easy to me. Also, after being honorably discharged from the United States Army I had worked as an Art Director for a couple of advertising agencies for a couple of years and I new how to draw well and give good presentations.
What intrigued me most about Dietmar’s request that I design a tactical knife was not just the fact that his company wanted to put a new knife on the market, but that they had a new marketing strategy and wanted me to be a part of it. Boker had decided that they wanted well-known knife fighting experts to design knives, which would give each knife a unique story and its own “personality.”
Dietmar knew that I was not only well known among the German Special Operations community, but that my articles appeared monthly in the civilian martial arts magazine Kampfkunst, not to mention I had several training DVDs with German language voice overs. Dietmar also knew that I had a solid knife instructor background, having taught knife tactics for over a decade to police and military units worldwide, and that my new Reality-Based Personal Protection system founded January 21, 2003 was spreading globally at an amazing rate. Police agencies, military units, and civilians alike were being drawn to this revolutionary self-defense system.
After submitting my ideas to Dietmar in the pizza parlor, and finishing up my one-week seminar in London, I returned to Los Angeles and waited to hear from Boker. If I got it approved, great, but if not at least I gave it my best I thought. A week later I received a call from the president of the company himself – Mr. Felix Senior.
Mr. Felix told me that he was impressed with my ideas for the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Blade and that they planned on going forward with the project if we could reach an agreement on terms. I finished the conversation with him by saying, “Sir, you are more than generous with your offer, and I will make myself available to your staff.” Mr. Felix thanked me also and said, “Dietmar will be calling you in a few days to proceed with the next step. Good bye Mr. Wagner.”
For three months Dietmar and I sent design changes and modifications to each other via email attachments and facsimiles. He had to take my ideas and make them practical, yet while all along keeping the final manufacturing process in mind. Fortunately the knife had to endure only minor compromises.
In July of 2005 Dietmar’s assistant, Tobias, sent me the three dimensional illustrations showing my knife from different angles. The Jim Wagner Reality-Based Blade was starting to take form.
On August 1st I returned Dietmar’s phone call. Dietmar enthusiastically said, “Jim, I will be sending you the prototype of your handle by courier. Take a look at it and see if you need to make any changes to it. The handle is the most difficult part of this project. Oh, and by the way, we have many German Special Forces and German SWAT team members who would like to take your Knife Survival course. Do you think it would be possible for you to come out in October for a week? We will pay for it naturally.” I told Dietmar, “I’m there. I’ll spend a week there after my Paris seminar.”
The rest is history.
Dietmar was the chief knife designer for the world famous German knife company Boker Baumwerk. He had flown from Frankfurt, Germany to the United Kingdom in February 2005 to attend my Reality-Based Knife Survival course, and to take a look at my ideas for the first time over a pizza dinner in Lee on the outskirts of London.
I carefully pulled the papers from my folder and pushed them across the table after the dishes had been taken away by the waitress. After an agonizing long minute staring at my design Dietmar shook his head up and down in acknowledgement saying, “Yes, yes, this different, very different. Now that I have taken your Knife Survival course I understand what features a self-defense knife must have.”
We discussed some of my concepts I had incorporated into the knife at length, and after all questions had been answered I placed a credit card in the clear plastic pocket of the black booklet that contained the dinner check. The waitress came up and said, “Thank you, I’ll be right back.” Then Dietmar said to me, “I will present this to Mr. Felix, the vice-president of Boker.”
I had first met Dietmar in 1999 when I was training Germany’s elite national counterterrorist team Grentzschutzgruppe Neun, more commonly known in the Special Operations community worldwide as “GSG9.” One of my students at the time of this training, and who had been assigned to me as my liaison by the unit commander, was a tough paratrooper from Combat Unit 3 named Hans-Peter.
After I had received rave reviews from the Defensive Tactics instructors about my Knife Survival course, Hans-Peter told me that Combat Unit 2, GSG9’s maritime interdiction unit, and Boker were working together on designing a new combat dive knife. Hans-Peter asked me if I was interested in driving to the factory with him that was located in Solingen and taking a look at the preliminary drawings in order to give my opinion before the final plans were approved. Not only would I get my first ride on the famous German autobahn highway in a supped up undercover cop car Mercedes-Benz, but I’d get the first look at a tactical knife that had yet to exist.
Has-Peter drove me to the factory on Schuetzenstrasse and introduced me to Dietmar in an artsy high-tech glass and steel conference room. After having several minutes to carefully examine the mechanical drawings of the Orca, the name of the new tactical dive knife, and giving some minor suggestions, I was asked politely to bear with them for a few minutes while the rest of the meeting was conducted in the German language. I obliged.
After the meeting had ended Dietmar took the time to give me a full tour of the Boker factory, which I found to be very educational. Upon leaving the factory Dietmar presented me with a gift. It was a slim Boker knife that I could use in my undercover work. At that time I was a sergeant assigned to the Dignitary Protection Unit of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in Southern California.
I had traveled to Germany two more times after my first meeting with Dietmar to train various German units, including GSG9 again nearby the factory, but I did not remain in contact with Dietmar or Boker, other than to supply Dietmar with some photographs he requested of American SWAT teams training with knives. He was working on his first book at the time. It wasn’t until December of 2004 that I would hear from Dietmar again.
Several months later I came across Dietmar’s business card that he had given me and added his work email address to my new Reality-Based Personal Protection mailing list and he wrote me back a day later asking me how things were going and that he was interested in attending my Knife Survival seminar in London scheduled for February 2005.
I called him up to talk with him on the phone and posed the question to me, “Jim, have you ever thought about designing a tactical knife?” I eagerly replied, “As a matter of fact, I had.” I wasn’t just saying that to tell Dietmar what I knew he wanted to hear, but I had often thought of the elements that I would like in a knife for self-defense purposes over the years. Putting my ideas down on paper was a mere technicality.
I let a few days pass before I pulled out a blank sheet of paper from my computer printer. I then sketched my ideal tactical knife, and within half an hour I had my preliminary ideas on a hard copy. I drew it at a 1:1 ratio, and even cut out a “paper doll” version to see if it would fit in my hand properly even though it was only two dimensional.
I had no trouble free handing a mechanical drawing because I had taken mechanical drafting courses throughout middle school and high school, and it came easy to me. Also, after being honorably discharged from the United States Army I had worked as an Art Director for a couple of advertising agencies for a couple of years and I new how to draw well and give good presentations.
What intrigued me most about Dietmar’s request that I design a tactical knife was not just the fact that his company wanted to put a new knife on the market, but that they had a new marketing strategy and wanted me to be a part of it. Boker had decided that they wanted well-known knife fighting experts to design knives, which would give each knife a unique story and its own “personality.”
Dietmar knew that I was not only well known among the German Special Operations community, but that my articles appeared monthly in the civilian martial arts magazine Kampfkunst, not to mention I had several training DVDs with German language voice overs. Dietmar also knew that I had a solid knife instructor background, having taught knife tactics for over a decade to police and military units worldwide, and that my new Reality-Based Personal Protection system founded January 21, 2003 was spreading globally at an amazing rate. Police agencies, military units, and civilians alike were being drawn to this revolutionary self-defense system.
After submitting my ideas to Dietmar in the pizza parlor, and finishing up my one-week seminar in London, I returned to Los Angeles and waited to hear from Boker. If I got it approved, great, but if not at least I gave it my best I thought. A week later I received a call from the president of the company himself – Mr. Felix Senior.
Mr. Felix told me that he was impressed with my ideas for the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Blade and that they planned on going forward with the project if we could reach an agreement on terms. I finished the conversation with him by saying, “Sir, you are more than generous with your offer, and I will make myself available to your staff.” Mr. Felix thanked me also and said, “Dietmar will be calling you in a few days to proceed with the next step. Good bye Mr. Wagner.”
For three months Dietmar and I sent design changes and modifications to each other via email attachments and facsimiles. He had to take my ideas and make them practical, yet while all along keeping the final manufacturing process in mind. Fortunately the knife had to endure only minor compromises.
In July of 2005 Dietmar’s assistant, Tobias, sent me the three dimensional illustrations showing my knife from different angles. The Jim Wagner Reality-Based Blade was starting to take form.
On August 1st I returned Dietmar’s phone call. Dietmar enthusiastically said, “Jim, I will be sending you the prototype of your handle by courier. Take a look at it and see if you need to make any changes to it. The handle is the most difficult part of this project. Oh, and by the way, we have many German Special Forces and German SWAT team members who would like to take your Knife Survival course. Do you think it would be possible for you to come out in October for a week? We will pay for it naturally.” I told Dietmar, “I’m there. I’ll spend a week there after my Paris seminar.”
The rest is history.
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