Michael Janich has been studying and teaching self-defense and the martial arts for more than 40 years. He has earned instructor’s credentials in American Self-Protection (ASP – an eclectic art that includes elements of judo, aikido, boxing, fencing and French Savate), the Filipino art of Serrada Eskrima, and Silat Concepts and has also trained extensively in a wide variety of other martial arts and self-defense systems. Janich is also one of the foremost modern authorities on handgun point shooting and is one of the few contemporary instructors to have been personally trained by the late close-combat legend Colonel Rex Applegate.
Janich served nine years in the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, including a three-year tour at the National Security Agency. He is a two-time graduate with honors of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California (Vietnamese and Chinese-Mandarin) and a recipient of the Commandant’s Award for outstanding linguistic achievement. After completing his military service, Janich was recruited by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and served as an Intelligence Officer for that agency’s Stony Beach Program in Hong Kong and the Philippines. He also served as an Investigation Team Leader for the Joint Casualty Resolution Center (JCRC) and Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA) and has led numerous investigations into remote areas of Vietnam and Laos in search of information regarding American prisoners of war and missing in action (POW/MIA).
Janich personally established Paladin Press’ Video Production Department in 1994 and ran all aspects of Paladin’s video production for 10 years. An accomplished videographer and editor, he produced more than 100 instructional videos during his tenure with Paladin and personally recruited some of Paladin’s most popular authors, including Kelly McCann, the late Jim Cirillo, Louis Awerbuck, James Keating, Joseph Simonet, Mark Hatmaker, and Bill Kipp. Janich was also personally selected to work with the late Col. Rex Applegate as the producer of his landmark instructional videos on handgun point shooting.
Janich has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books, including Bullseyes Don’t Shoot Back: The Complete Textbook of Point Shooting for Close Quarters Combat, which he wrote with the late close-combat legend Col. Rex Applegate. He has also been featured in more than 30 instructional videos on defensive edged-weapon use, use of the Filipino balisong knife, the use of throwing weapons and exotic weapons, stick fighting, and combat shooting. In addition to books and videos, Janich has been published in more than 20 national and international magazines and is a columnist and contributing editor to Concealed Carry and Knives Illustrated magazines. His television appearances include Ripley’s Believe It or Not, multiple appearances on the Outdoor Channel’s Shooting Gallery and SPIKE TV’s Don’t be a Victim, and a feature appearance on the Discovery Channel’s Time Warp. He was also the co-host and subject matter expert of the Outdoor Channel’s award-winning The Best Defense television series for its entire 11-year run.
A popular seminar instructor, Janich is perhaps best known as the founder and lead instructor of Martial Blade Concepts (MBC) and Counter-Blade Concepts (CBC), as well as several related armed and unarmed personal-defense systems. He is also a prolific knife designer who has designed production knives for Spyderco, Masters of Defense, BlackHawk Blades, Combat Elite, and Max Knives, and custom knives for several world-renowned makers.
Janich’s accomplishments were formally recognized by the martial arts world when he was featured on the cover of Black Belt magazine in September of 2009 and later inducted into the prestigious Black Belt Hall of Fame as the 2010 Weapons Instructor of the Year.
Currently Janich serves as the Special Projects Coordinator for the Spyderco knife company of Golden, Colorado and, through his company Martial Blade Concepts LLC, continues to offer state-of-the-art personal-defense training worldwide.
