About Us
My name is John Ottenberg.

I’ve been involved in martial arts and self defense for more than 35 years and have taught for almost 20 of them. I’ve had combat experience in the Israeli army, I had the opportunity to be part of an experimental unit that was made up primarily of immigrants to the country. We operated mostly in urban warfare type situations. The concepts I teach here are battle tested, some by me personally and some by others. The honest truth about what we teach, I wish I had known then what I know and understand now, I would have said, “Oh shit I’m going to die”, a whole lot less. I returned home from Israel in 1984, in the latter part of 1985 I met a man that would turn everything I knew of self defense on it’s head.

This man was Tino Tuiolosega, also known in the martial arts world as Mr. Self Defense and the founder and Grandmaster of Lima Lama.

I was a private student out of his home for almost 5 years, where all we learned was how to fight. . I’ve spent many years since analyzing and digesting what he gave us and coming up with a system of movement that will work for anyone, without spending years to get there. Where we as teachers come from will
WOW some of you, you think because we’ve done these things that the system must be the best or what we teach has more validity. I’m not training you to join SWAT or some other elite unit, I’m just giving you movements that are easy to learn and effective to the point.