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So You want to be a Bodyguard?
Then let me start by helping out. The politically correct phrase these days is not "bodyguard" but personal protection specialist, executive protection specialist or close protection operative, depending on your place of training and other preferences.
There can be no better time than this, if you want to excel in this charismatic business. Almost all the elite soldiers that crowded the trade just a few years back, has gone to Afghanistan or Iraq, providing personal protection for major corporations or the governments in the same countries.
The ones that are not working there, used to, and are trying to recuperate. Actually, YOU might have a chance down there as well. The security companies prefer former Elite soldiers, but some of them are so short on staff, that they'll take whoever can handle a gun safely and stay alive in these hostile areas.
If you fancy getting some training first, take care. The many so-called schools will promise you the world just to get your money. Don't rely on one training form alone. Take two or more courses from two to three different schools.
Read a lot and don't just stick to the hand-outs and bodyguard manuals the schools provide. Read up on terrorism, criminology, psychology, Risk/threat analysis, ballistics, social etiquette, advanced driving, first aid/medicine and improvised explosive devices.
You have to be physically fit. Both fast and strong. When not reading, get some serious training from a martial arts school. Preferably a school with a hands-on approach. Krav Maga, Thai boxing and Wing Tsun are popular with many personal protection specialists.
Weapons handling- and recognition is also important. Get some practice on a shooting range. Combat shooting should be the preferred training method.
After you've graduated from a Personal protection school, take some classes in business administration and sales. What good is all the above knowledge, if you cannot get a contract or maintain a good sound business? Remember that a positive attitude is the key to all success! No one ever succeeded by saying: I can't! - The same goes for this profession - a "can do" approach will get the job done, and the clients know this.
This is also true when it comes to staying alive in general. If you should fail the first objective of a personal protection specialist: to avoid a confrontation with an adversary, fight to win! - don't stop to think about it, just fight fiercely.
Before you go ahead and start your glorious career you'd better clear things with your family. They'll see you a lot lesser than they ever did. Even the training is probably far away and so hard that you'll have no energy left to call home.
But it's an exiting job. One day you may be driving around with a CEO, making sure that none of he's former employees attack him. The day after you'll have to go to Aruba while protecting some actor and after a week of sun you are back in your home city protecting a battered woman testifying against her psychotic ex-spouse. Or you could join the crew in the Middle East protecting corporate executives against mujahedeen or Taliban.
There are so many possibilities. That is IF you can stay focused and keep training/learning while looking for contracts. You can spend an easy $ 2500 on bodyguard training, $ 500 on first aid and IED courses and another $ 500 on firearms training. It's an expensive career to start in, so you have to be TOP MOTIVATED.
Oh, by the way; when you have done all of the above, mail me your resume!
Henrik Bramsborg is the managing director of Bramsborg Security & safety, a security company based in Denmark. Henrik is a stalking - and surveillance detection specialist and the author of several Danish books on security. Henrik is also an experienced instructor in personal protection, having trained NATO S-FOR forces, police officers, correctional facility officers and private bodyguards. He holds a management degree and is furthermore a certified motivation instructor.
Bramsborg Security & Safety, http://www.bramsborg.com, have been quoted or profiled in several Danish media as the "Danish stalking experts".
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