Beyond Your Limits

EP 41: A Combatives Expert Marine Veteran on Protecting Yourself and Others, with Marcquez Henderson

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Marcques Henderson is a renowned public speaker and retired Marine Corps officer who completed multiple combat deployments during his 23-year career. During his service, he traversed 4 continents, working with and learning from various multinational militaries. An active practitioner of jiu-jitsu, kajunkenbo and kali, he has over 21 years of experience instructing martial arts. He also has seven years of experience working in the nightclub industry. The Temple University student-athlete has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in International Business and Legal Studies. He is certified by the National Organization for Victim Assistance as a Level I Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Victim Advocate. He is further certified as a High-Intensity Tactical Training Instructor, Non-Lethal Weapons Instructor, and Trainer in Tony Blauer’s SPEAR: Personal Defense Readiness system.

Marcques HENDERSON Part 1 Podcast Show Notes – | www.AzariahMay.org | - “Fear rarely works to our advantage.” It usually leads to poor decisions and inferior outcomes. | - I saw things as a child that no young person should have to experience. I have always been concerned about protecting the defenseless. |- I started boxing as a young teen, and have been active in the fighting styles for my whole life. I was one of the first Marines into the USMC’s “MCMAP” hand-to-hand combatives program. | - I became an advocate in our UVA program for Marines who have suffered sexual violence. These include many more men than some people would assume. Some of the men have been targeted by civilians in the community, including gangs, who want to make an example of a military guy. | - The Azariah May Academy, named after my kids, is a full-spectrum personal protection school, encompassing economic, psychological, and other focus areas in addition to basic “self-defense” techniques. | - We say Personal Protection rather than “self-defense,” because the former conveys the sense that keeping yourself and others safe is a proactive, comprehensive lifestyle. It’s better to prevent violence than to have to react to it. | - At Azariah May, we don’t just teach fighting techniques. We can’t capitalize on someone else’s pain. We want to help people understand how they’ve contributed to their past violent experiences and prevent them in the future. | - Violence has become mainstream. It used to be limited to untrained “bad guys” using it against innocent victims, and trained protectors using it to stop bad guys, but with the explosion of “mixed martial arts” schools anyone – including bad guys – can become trained to high levels. | - Teen dating violence has become a huge problem. Boys today don’t all know how to behave. | - Social media makes many people feel more brave and disrespectful than they really should be.