From Paul's site:
Paul Sharp is a police officer with 16 years of experience. His current assignments are patrol, SWAT and training. His past assignments have included resident officer, undercover narcotics detective and neighborhood response officer.
Paul has graduated from numerous firearms and tactics courses and is an Illinois State firearms instructor, defensive knife instructor, defensive tactics instructor and is the lead pistol instructor for his agency.
Paul has been recognized as an instructor in the Filipino Martial Arts and Jeet Kune Do concepts as well as Mixed Martial Arts and holds a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Having competed at a professional level in Mixed Martial Arts and Boxing, Paul is uniquely positioned to coach others from knowledge and experience. Paul has also been recognized as an instructor in DR Middlebrooks Fist-Fire shooting system as well as mid-west regional director for SBGi.
Paul has been featured in several national and international magazines for his part in developing a systematic approach to integrating and instructing Mixed Martial Arts and combative sports for those working in a weapons based environment.
In reality, his bio barely scratches the surface when it comes to the experience he wields and the influence Paul's work has had on the self-defense community.
MDOC is a two-day class, consisting of two 8 hour days, the primary focus of which is to allow the student to learn new skills when it comes to dealing with violent assault, staying upright and conscious, accessing a weapon while in the clinch, attached striking and a whole lot more.
Paul's ability to convey the principles of his material in an easily accessible manner is really outstanding and his teaching style is relaxed and informal. Be prepared to pay really good attention, it will be well worth your time to do so.
Having been through both the Shivworks ECQC class and Cecil Burch's IAJJ, this class really helped further refine a number of things for me. I had several light bulb moments as I came to the realization of an approach not only working, but completely changing the way I thought I about fighting. Paul Sharp has a heavy background in boxing, which definitely shows, but there's a lot more to it than that. In particular, I'm a huge fan of the things he teaches about fighting in the clinch. And just as importantly, how to get INTO the clinch without dying on the way.
The knifework that he teaches is just as eye-opening as his unarmed approach.
One of the things I like the most about it is that it's absolutely bullshit-free. No flowery or fancy stuff, the methodology largely centers around putting the pointy end into the other guy and then repeating said application vigorously. To some folks, this may sound overly simplistic, but it's nigh impossible to argue that it doesn't work.
The class itself is focused on giving you the opportunity to do a ton of reps of the various drills. This is extremely welcome as during ECQC, there just isn't really time to get in a ton of repetitions of the various drills. You'd have to do a week-long class to get even close to the same amount of drilling that we did during MDOC.
And most of the drills can be easily replicated as long as you have a training partner. And there's even several drills that can be easily worked solo, particularly when it comes to footwork.
That all being said, even if you have not been to either ECQC or IAJJ, I would still highly recommend this class. A lot of the material that we went over would have been immensely helpful during ECQC evolutions. So to some extent, I feel the same about this class as I did about IAJJ. Both classes are enormously helpful in refining your game post-ECQC, OR building a foundation that will make a huge difference for your ability to survive a violent assault and will let you relax a little when you go through your first ECQC evo.
I think one of my favorite things about this class was how accessible the material was. Paul is very much on top of what's going on in the class and is always there with a helpful bit of instruction on how to improve your work. I mentioned the lightbulb moments before and I stand by that. You'd run through a drill, then Paul would point out a couple of things he'd noticed, and your next run through would feel enormously better than the first one. Simply put, the value of an attentive and experienced instructor cannot be overstated. And Paul is both of those things.
I also want to give kudos to the hosting facility and its owner, Nathan Wagar of Crazy Monkey New Mexico. A seasoned instructor in his own right, I had the privilege of partnering with Nathan for many of the drills. His input and help was really fantastic and I can't thank him enough both for providing the facility and for his help during the class. If you're in NM and want to get some no-nonsense instruction in practical self-defense, go see Nathan.
Nathan also made a few videos about the course, which you can see here:
Lastly, if you want a few laughs, here's a vid of yours truly running through a "boxing blast" drill. The goal with this drill is to get attached to your attacker and access a weapon. Yeah, I'm fat. It's a work in progress... *cough*
All in all, I cannot recommend this class enough. Paul is an excellent instructor with an amazingly deep well of experience to draw from. The material is accessible, logical, and as free of bullshit as it is possible to get. For any future attendees, be prepared to get banged up a little as there will be some competitive and non-consensual drills. Generally speaking though, the intensity of the class is readily scaled to accommodate physical ability and experience. But you're going to need to do as much work as you can.
If it comes up in your area, go do this class. If it comes up outside of your area, go do this class. If you want to become better at surviving violent assault, go do this class. Get the drift? Can you smell what the Rock is cookin'?
Do work!
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