Lt. Colonel Al Ridenhour USMC
Lt. Colonel Al Ridenhour, USMC is a military commander and combat veteran who discovered that flowery martial arts moves weren't going to be the life-saving skills he needed to back him up where he needed it the most...on the battlefield!
Although he was an instructor in unarmed combat for his unit, Lt. Colonel Al Ridenhour knew he had found the right self-defense system when people half his size from John Perkins' school could strike him at will with "penetrating force," yet remain elusive to his own strikes. Even though he'd traveled the globe with the U.S. Marines and trained with a variety of U.S. military and Asian martial arts instructors, Al's first thought was "if this works for them, it'll work for me." He resolved then and there to become a student of Perkins' unusual, free-flowing and highly adaptive art.
Lt Colonel Ridenhour has been with John Perkins since 1992 and risen to the rank of 6th degree Master. As a veteran of the Persian Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom, Al has put his Guided Chaos training to use everyday to stay alive--and where possible has passed that training on to his troops.
A tremendously compelling and articulate spokesman for the art, he has become extremely sought after for seminars and personal instruction and appeared on numerous radio and television programs.
- Veteran, Persian Gulf War-Operation Desert Storm
- Commanded infantry platoon
- Instructor in unarmed combat for his unit and for the battalion's Scout Sniper platoon
- Served as company commander, Intelligence Officer, Security Manager, Assistant Operations Officer, and the Anti-Terrorism Force Protection Officer for the II Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq
- Worked with U.S. Customs Service and U.S. Border Patrol for the JTF-6 counter drug mission
- Has trained current and former members of US Marines, US Army Special Forces, NYPD, US Air Force OSI and US Air Marshal Service
- Lectured on terrorism at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City
- Training in martial arts since 1985
- Sixth-degree black belt Close Combat Karate TM
- Featured on NBC TV with Chuck Scarborough for in-flight anti-terrorist defensive techniques with bare hands and common objects
- Featured on Channel 12 News Long Island
- Member International Combat Martial Arts Federation (ICMAF)
