Half A Decade Has Passed! Half A Decade!

Most of you know my origin story.

But here’s a quick recap:

I got jumped when I was 12 by two guys. What they said to me during that attack terrified me more than the actual beating. It made me dread going to high school. I told my dad, and he said, “Well, then you need to learn how to defend yourself.”

There was only one martial arts school open at the time, and I signed up immediately. I immersed myself in training seven days a week — completely obsessed.

A year later, Bruce Lee hit the big screen… and then he died.

It was 1973 — the start of the golden era of martial arts. Every Bruce Lee fan thought they were his biggest fan. Which is impossible — because I was. 😎

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In 1975, I was sitting on the floor doing splits, flipping through Bruce Lee magazines I’d ordered from Japan when my mom asked me if I was going to go into the family business, become a doctor, or a lawyer.

I looked up, smiled, and said:

“Mom, I’m going to become a famous martial artist like Bruce Lee and create my own self-defense system.”

She patted me on the head and said, “Okay dear… we’ll talk about this when you’re older.”

I kept training like my life depended on it.

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Five years passed since that convo with my mom. I trained every day.

I was teaching for free by the time I was 17. It was an easy way to generate training partners — and this was decades before I learned the Latin expression: Qui docet discit — those who teach, learn.

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Everything changed in 1980. And the story is quite remarkable. But I’m not going to go into all the details here — if you’ve been reading my newsletters for some time, you know many of the pivotal events and stories already.

(FYI: I moved all my old newsletters — hundreds of stories and lessons — to my Substack library. Check it out after you read this!)

I was 20 years old. A complete martial arts fanatic.

My dream of teaching for a living was still there, but I had somehow gotten pulled into the family business.

One day, while beating the shit out of empty boxes from a shipment, my father’s top client interrupted me and asked if I would teach his son some self-defense.

He explained his son was being bullied in school and the admin wasn’t doing anything about it.

And there it was!

Of course I said YES! And that week I gave my first paid private lesson.

The kid I taught lived in an affluent area of Montreal, and within a month, I had over 30 private students! (All his friends wanted private “street fighting” classes — which is how they described it to each other.)

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For the next five years, while working 40 hours a week for my father, I taught 30 hours a week.

*Most of those lessons took place in students’ garages and basements.

70 hours a week plus travel. That was the grind. That was the beginning.

In 1985, I quit the family business and launched my family business.

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In 1993, after 13 years of teaching in Montreal, I closed my martial arts school to dedicate myself fully to training law enforcement and military professionals around the world.

That mission led to me opening the world’s largest private training facility for combatives in Virginia Beach. (See photo below)

By then, I had started to build a mobile training team, which forced me to step back from teaching weekly.

I still worked with my staff, still taught at our camps, and if we had an event at HQ, I’d jump in — but I wasn’t in the trenches day after day, week after week anymore.

That transition started in 2009 and continues to today.

What most people don’t realize — and what I didn’t really understand until five years ago — is that when I stopped teaching 6–7 days a week at the gym and running 40-hour weeklong law enforcement and military classes…

A part of me died.

Sure, I stayed involved with the courses. I’d jump on Zoom every Thursday during our 5-day tactical courses — drop a lesson, answer questions.

It kept me connected.
But it wasn’t the same.

I missed it. Badly.

But I told myself: “This is the next chapter. You’re growing the company now.”

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Enter the Pandemic

Suddenly, every government course was cancelled.

No one was buying High Gear®.

I almost lost everything.

It was the “Summer of Love,” the “Defund the Police” era — remember that mess?

Even though about half the population (nudge nudge, wink wink) knew something was off, it was still a dangerous time. Fear and violence were everywhere.

And I knew I had to do something.

Not just to save the company — but because I knew thousands of people needed connection, not isolation.
And they needed a way different way to look at fear and manage it.

So I sent out a video newsletter and told people: “I’m going to start teaching online. Join me.”

100 people signed up in 24 hours.

Then another 100. And it grew from there.

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What I didn’t expect was the emotional impact.

The serendipity.
The silver lining.
Teaching again… it fired me up.

I felt alive again.

I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. How much I needed it.

Teaching is my canvas — and I had stopped painting.

Another thing that hit me — that made the Garage Gym even more special — was this:

My business started in a garage. And now here I was — decades later — about to save my business inside my garage…

Talk about coming full circle.

But it was bigger than that because almost everyone on the call was in some kind of garage. It was a digital, global garage gym.

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Can You Believe It’s Been Half a Decade?

The Garage Gym gave me my classroom back, it gave me connection, it gave me purpose.

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Milestones

• We’ve since logged nearly 800 live sessions.

• We’ve covered every major topic in real-world self-defense.

• Almost 100 members from the Garage Gym went on to become certified SPEAR instructors — not because they planned to, but because something inside them got activated and inspired - they wanted to be a part of something that made the world a safer — therefore better — place.

This isn’t just a self-defense program.

It’s a community. A tribe built around growth, courage, and becoming safer — mentally, emotionally, physically.

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800 Classes?

Yep. And they’re all in a virtual library waiting for you.

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Imagine If You Had Direct - On-Demand - Access to a Library Dedicated to Self-Defense

Inside this library were collections only focused on:

• Situational awareness

• Fear management

• Verbal de-escalation

• Mano a mano self-defense

• Extreme close-quarter combatives

• Tactical fitness

• Multiple assailants

• Ground fighting

• Low-tech training strategies

• Solo training

• How to become a human weapon

• How to weaponize the startle response

The list goes on.

But instead of wandering through rows of books looking for a title that interests you, it’s me walking you through every topic, coaching you, explaining it.

Black belts and beginners alike binge these sessions like Netflix.

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And a half a decade later, here we are. And even though the world has somewhat woken up and people are back out and about, we never stopped teaching online. Because there are still people like yourself who don’t live anywhere near me and might never get to a course I’m teaching.

If you’ve ever wanted to experience the SPEAR System® — but geography, or timing, have been the obstacle — this is your chance.

In honor of our five year anniversary, I want you to try it for a month.

You can do it live or do what most people do, watch it on your own time. We have two options.

The Five Year Anniversary Special gets you 50% off!

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Join our SPEAR family.

Here’s the link
Use code: TGG50

See you in the garage.

—Coach B

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P.S. If this story fired you up and you’re interested in teaching the SPEAR System®, I’ve got amazing news…we’ve opened the doors and created a non-affiliation option.
👉 Learn more here

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