FAQs

COBRA was developed from real life Law Enforcement training and field experience. COBRA Self Defense was created in 2002 by Chris Sutton. He literally created the system in his squad car between calls while simultaneously working as a full time Law Enforcement Officer and martial arts school owner. COBRA Self Defense and Krav Maga are viewed by many as the top of the list, which is why this question comes up so often. Either one can serve you well provided the instructors are highly trained and qualified, but there are some differences. It’s helpful to understand that the words, “krav maga” translates to “contact combat” in Hebrew. So, any contact combat system can be described as Krav Maga. Generally speaking, Krav Maga evolved from the 1950s as a system developed for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). There are distinctions between COBRA and Krav but for the average person, it boils down to this: Police officers physically engage criminals on a daily basis. This means what works and what doesn’t work gets filtered through in real time. Law Enforcement agencies continually enhance their skills and training based on what is most effective in real world situations against criminals of all types. COBRA Self Defense continually upgrades and enhances its curriculum by attending and participating in Law Enforcement field training events and on-duty patrol activities. In contrast, a military soldier may never have a physical engagement, so the majority of what is learned is in the classroom, not the field of battle or the streets.

The average person spends very little time in their life reviewing self-defense or martial arts programs. You may buy in to a program that has no basis in real world self-defense because “you don’t know what you don’t know”.
Here are 3 red flags that a program may not be reality based.
1. They do pre-rehearsed self-defense demos. For instance, they’ll have a woman being attacked and as she kicks and punches the attackers, they drop like flies all around her.
COBRA Self-Defense never does pre-rehearsed demos. We will pull someone from the audience who we may have never met to help illustrate the reality of the point we’re trying to make.
2. They demonstrate a child kicking and punching an adult male until he drops, defeated. This will never happen.
Kids can’t fight their way out of the grasp of a determined adult criminal the way most people think.
3. The demonstrating attacker holds his or her punch out and stands still while the defense is being executed.
In the martial arts, this is called “One Step Sparring” and it is often passed off as self-defense. It is not.

The COBRA system is truly one of a kind. COBRA uses a variety of teaching formats to help students learn self-defense fast.
Our law enforcement skill sets are the same as taught in the Police Academy, so you know that they are tried and true.

If you were going to jump out of an airplane, would you want the free parachute or the top of the line?
While we would never discourage you from learning, generally you get what you pay for. As certified COBRA Self Defense instructors, we are professionals. This is what we do and have done since 2002.

COBRA Self Defense is NOT a martial art. The martial arts tend to approach training with the goal of teaching a long-term, complex system.
On the other hand, COBRA prepares students to be able to handle multiple types of real-world criminal encounters. It’s not a sport, game, competition, or traditional martial art.
While that can be valuable training, it leaves little time and focus on realistic self-defense.
COBRA Self-Defense is 100% realistic Law Enforcement-based self-defense. There is no bowing, belts, or ritual. Just learning.

Because training saves lives. The two descriptions most posted in Google and Facebook reviews are, “Life Changing” and “Eye Opening.”

People actually say this to us more times than you can imagine. See the question above and/or attend one of our classes to see why this belief is dangerously flawed.

The 3 most valuable firearm skills are the ability to access, deploy, and retain your weapon. Weapon retention is the most important of the 3. Most people do not train for this.
Even a highly trained professional, like a policeman, who works with a gun every day, is at risk of losing their weapon to a criminal.
Killing paper at the range is easy, being in a live shooting situation is completely different and we demonstrate this in your first COBRA class.

No. you do not have to be fit or have any previous experience. COBRA Self-Defense only requires that you have a desire to learn.

Yes. We do this all the time. It’s called a Power Demo and we can customize it for your group. This will give everyone a clearer idea of what COBRA Self Defense offers.
This is a real class and demonstration that provides tremendous value. It’s an informative and comprehensive overview of COBRA Self Defense.
This can be customized for children, teens, adults, groups, organizations, and corporations, large and small.

Imagine a criminal is holding you at gunpoint, attempted to abduct your child or broke into your home while you slept. What would you pay for him to go away? That is the value of COBRA.
What could you do to make the criminal go away? That is the payoff of COBRA.
Depending on the class you’re interested in, our programs range from $20 – $125 per group class.
Our Self Defense Academies are typically $299 – $399 for 20 hours over 10 weeks.
Special group programs, like our Real Estate Safety Class, average $500 – $1,500 per event, depending on the specific arrangements.
Private lessons are available at competitive rates.

That depends on where you train. If you enroll in a martial arts school, your goals and objectives are not that of a real-world self-defense program. That’s because martial arts schools have lots of traditional requirements, sport skills, techniques, and forms that are not self-defense oriented.
In contrast, COBRA only teaches self-defense, so you can streamline your training in an hour of COBRA, a 10-week academy, or any of our formats. This is a more effective and efficient way to train.