Fighting.net Quiet Mind, Dangerous Body, Compassionate Soul™

Joe Walker began his martial arts training in 1984 at the young age of 11 years old.  His mother had enrolled him in a Korean Tae Kwon Do academy in Kalamazoo, Michigan after he had been having a hard time with bullies for most of his early childhood.  He continued to study on and off at various schools and clubs through most of the 80’s.

In 1990, Joe received his 1st dan black belt in Tae Kwon Do from Grandmaster Monte Beghtol of the Western Michigan Tae Kwon Do Association.  Joe would continue to train with various instructors and academies in the Korean Martial Arts until 1993.  During this time, Joe also competed frequently in Sport Karate within the Michigan Karate Circuit (now the Michigan Sport Karate Circuit).  Joe was also one of the star pupils of his Tae Kwon Do instructors, Arch Guiles and Doug Stamate.  But after Arch moved to California in 1990, Joe began to slowly lose interest in continuing his training in Tae Kwon Do and eventually stopped training all together in 1993.

It was around this time that the UFC, or Ultimate Fighting Championship, had become a big spectacle in the media and brought Submission Grappling to the forefront of the martial arts world.  Joe began training in Judo in 1995 at a Kung-Fu school in Wyoming, Michigan and continued there for a few months.  He immediately fell in love with grappling and would regularly tell his friends, “I feel like I’ve learned more about real fighting in 6-months of Judo than I have in 10-years of Tae Kwon Do.”  Joe continued training in Judo for about a year before leaving again.  It would be 6 years before Joe would return to martial arts training.

In 2000, Joe was hired by the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office in West Olive, Michigan as a corrections deputy.  Because of his martial arts background, Joe immediately began to assess the training needs of his peers in the area of defensive tactics and offered his services as a martial arts instructor to the sheriff.  In 2001, Joe became their sole defensive tactics instructor and was instantly charged with training over 150 sworn officers in the road patrol, corrections, and reserve divisions of the department.

Over the next several years, Joe received instructor training in many law enforcement use of force areas such as edged weapon defense, ground defense and escape, pepper spray, and Taser M26/X26, as well as becoming a police academy use of force staff instructor for Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan and a corrections academy defensive tactics instructor for Kirtland Community College’s Regional Corrections Academy.  Joe also went back to his Judo training in 2002 with Michigan Judo legend Sensei Stan Sochanek, a former 6x Michigan State Judo Champion and Judo coach to several national champion Judokas.  Joe continued training on and off with Sensei Stan until 2007.

In 2008, Joe was encouraged by his wife Angel to sort through everything he had ever learned over the years and teach his own interpretation of the martial arts.  As a teenager, Joe had read about the late great Bruce Lee and how he had done something similar.  Not wanting to become another “McDojo” or another “Black Belt Mill”, Joe dared to be different and began to carve out a path for himself similar to that of his childhood hero.  Thus, RADE TACTICS was born.

Joe and his wife Angel began teaching women’s self-defense in late 2008 under the name of RADE TACTICS Martial Arts & Women’s Self-Defense.  RADE TACTICS stood for “Real Aggressive Defense & Escape Tactics.”  This continued into early 2009 until Joe decided to begin teaching regular martial arts classes under the name of RADE TACTICS Modern Combatives & Self-Defense.

In October 2009, Joe attended a Jeet Kune Do seminar that was hosted by Sifu Carl Karlysle in Grand Blanc, Michigan.  Always wanting to train in “Bruce Lee’s Martial Art” since he was a young teenager, Joe brought himself, his wife and a young student with him to the seminar that was presented by Sifu Marcus Charles of Chicago, Illinois, a Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do Grappling Association Full-Instructor and Progressive Fighting Systems Full-Instructor (now Senior Full-Instructor).

Joe immediately began training under the tutelage and direction of Sifu Marcus and in March 2010 he received his Phase 1 – Beginner Instructor’s Certification in the late Sifu Larry Hartsell’s Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do Grappling Association.  Joe also attended the 2010 Midwest Regional PFS Seminar in Marietta, Ohio hosted by PFS Full-Instructor Joe Bigley and presented by PFS Senior Training Officer Tom Cruse.  Joe received his PFS Apprentice Instructor Certification from Sifu Tom and was recruited by him into the Descendants of the Masters shortly after this meeting.  Joe also regularly visits Sifu Marcus’ home gym of FLO-MMA in Palatine, IL and trains with Sifu Marcus and the rest of FLO’s world-class coaches and champions.

Joe feels that he owes much credit for becoming a Descendant of the Masters to all of his previous teachers, but especially to Sifu Tom Cruse and Sifu Marcus Charles who are taking him on a new journey and a new path into his martial arts training.