OG Combatives
Personal Protection For Mature Men
no. You aren’t 25 anymore. Yes. you can still be dangerous.
6-Week Personal Protection Workshop for Mature Men.
Register for the Fall Cohort today.
In-person at Tribal Edge, Sequim WA.
September 15-October 2026
Instructor: Ben Sanford.
OG Combatives
Personal Protection for Mature Men
Skill over strength. Strategy over speed.
An intimate 6-week training experience for men who want to remain capable, confident, and prepared through midlife and beyond.
6 Weeks • 2x Weekly • Small In-Person Cohort
YOU'RE NOT a kid ANYMORE.
And you don't need to be.
At some point, most men realize the physical equation has changed.
Recovery takes longer. Old injuries matter. Strength and speed aren't as dependable. And getting hurt has consequences that were easier to ignore when we were younger.
For much of our lives, men are encouraged to rely on manpower—strength, speed, toughness, endurance, athleticism, and the ability to take punishment and keep going.
When those capacities begin to change, an uncomfortable question can emerge:
Am I still capable?
Do you wonder if you still have what it takes to defend yourself and your loved ones?
Do you secretly rely on “hoping for the best” in uncomfortable situations?
Are you the “nice guy” who avoids conflict to feel safe?
OG Combatives begins with a different proposition:
Getting older doesn't have to mean becoming helpless.
But it does mean learning to play a different game.
FROM MANPOWER TO MATURE PROWESS
A young man seeks status and wants to be tested. This is ego development.
A mature man has built a life, has nothing to prove- and everything to loose.
Perhaps you are kind, caring, and don’t want trouble. You just want to live in peace.
The question is, can you keep it?
Do you have something if it can be taken from you?
A mature man shouldn't have to fight like a young man.
A young man fights to win. A mature man just wants to get home.
Instead of trying to preserve youthful physical advantages forever, we develop capabilities that can become increasingly sophisticated with experience.
Strength becomes stability.
Speed becomes timing.
Athleticism becomes attunement.
Reaction becomes response.
Toughness becomes intention.
Force becomes efficiency.
Fighting becomes living.
This is Mature Prowess.
It isn't pretending you're invulnerable.
It's recognizing your vulnerability while taking effective action.
You can know that you can be hurt.
You can genuinely want to avoid violence.
You can have nothing to prove.
And still know:
If something truly matters
I can act.
WHAT IS
OG COMBATIVES?
OG (“Old Guy”) Combatives is a small-group personal protection program designed specifically for mature men.
It combines practical martial skills with awareness, sensitivity, movement, timing, leverage, tactics, strategy, conflict management, and progressively challenging partner training.
This isn't about collecting techniques or seeing how much punishment you can tolerate.
It's about learning to perceive problems earlier, make better decisions, and accomplish more with less.
Over six weeks, we'll develop:
Practical Personal Defense
Simple, adaptable skills for protecting yourself and creating opportunities to escape or regain control.
Structure & Efficient Movement
Using alignment, leverage, positioning, and whole-body movement instead of relying primarily on muscular strength.
Sensitivity & Timing
Learning to read movement, pressure, balance, intention, and opportunity.
Awareness & Prevention
Recognizing developing problems, managing distance and position, establishing boundaries, and avoiding unnecessary confrontation.
Tactical Intelligence
Using initiative, environment, asymmetry, tools, timing, and strategy rather than treating violence as a fair contest.
Adaptability Under Pressure
Progressively testing skills against uncertainty and resistance so you learn to solve problems rather than memorize answers.
A 6-WEEK JOURNEY
1. RECLAIM CAPABILITY
We begin with the body you have now.
Develop stability, mobility, intensity, sensativity and foundational protective skills.
Not to prove what you can still do—but to discover what you can do differently.
2. DEVELOP PROWESS
Learn to accomplish more with less through focus, alignment, leverage, timing, range sensitivity, efficient movement, and adaptable problem-solving.
3. DEVELOP TACTICAL INTELLIGENCE
Expand beyond physical technique into awareness, positioning, boundaries, environmental use, initiative, escape, weapons awareness, and decision-making.
4. BECOME THE PROTECTOR
Personal defense is only the beginning.
As capability develops, we explore the larger questions:
When should I disengage?
When should I intervene?
How do I protect another person?
When is physical action justified?
How do I remain decisive without allowing fear, anger, ego, or the need to prove myself to make the decision for me?
The goal isn't domination.
It is capability in service to life.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
OG Combatives is designed for men in midlife and beyond who want a more intelligent approach to martial training and personal protection.
You might be completely new to martial arts.
You might be returning after decades away.
You may be adapting to injury, illness, or changing physical capacity.
Or you may already be an experienced martial artist looking for a practice increasingly based on efficiency, perception, judgment, and skill.
You don't need to be young.
You don't need to be an athlete.
You don't need to prove anything.
You just need to want to remain capable.
SMALL BY DESIGN
OG Combatives is not a large public martial arts class.
Each cohort is intentionally intimate so training can respond to the actual people in the room.
We train seriously without training recklessly.
Because at this stage of life:
Don't train more. Train better.
GETTING OLDER CHANGES THE EQUATION.
Experience can change it in your favor.
You don't have to pretend you're still young.
You don't have to be the strongest or fastest man in the room.
And you don't need to seek out fights to know you're capable.
But you should understand your vulnerabilities.
You should know your options.
And when something truly matters, you should trust your ability to act.
OG COMBATIVES
Personal Protection for Mature Men
Skill over strength. Strategy over speed.
From manpower to mature prowess.
Your Instructor
Ben is a local to the Olympic Peninsula and seeks a peaceful life with his wife Victoria.
For over two decades, Ben has taught protectors an ecology of practices, from martial arts, including Sikal- a blend of Southeast Asian combat arts- to the way of the Scout, passed down by Tom Brown Jr.
Ben, now in his 50s, has a lifelong passion for training. He has also experienced both injury and illness, which have informed his approach to intelligent training for “old guys”.
Benjamin Sanford
FAQ's
Do I need previous martial arts experience?
No. OG Combatives is designed to work for both beginners and experienced practitioners.
Beginners develop a practical foundation without needing to learn an entire traditional martial arts system first.
Experienced martial artists can explore how their existing skills change when the emphasis shifts toward efficiency, sensitivity, awareness, tactics, and longevity.
How old do I need to be?
There is no rigid age cutoff.
OG Combatives is primarily designed for men in midlife and beyond—roughly 45+—but age isn't really the defining factor.
The program may also be appropriate for younger men adapting to injury, illness, reduced physical capacity, or simply looking for a more strategic approach to personal protection.
Do I need to be in good physical condition?
No exceptional fitness level is required.
You should be capable of participating safely in moderate physical activity, but the objective is not to see who can work the hardest.
Training emphasizes efficient movement, skill, perception, and intelligent problem-solving rather than conditioning for its own sake.
What if I have old injuries or physical limitations?
That's one of the reasons this program exists.
Mature bodies come with histories.
Training can often be adapted around previous injuries, mobility limitations, and differences in physical capacity.
You'll still need to make responsible decisions about your own participation and consult an appropriate healthcare professional when necessary.
The goal is not to ignore limitations.
It's to learn how to operate intelligently within them.
Is this a fitness program?
No.
You will move, work, and probably improve aspects of your physical capacity, but physical conditioning isn't the primary objective.
OG Combatives is training in personal protection and mature prowess.
Is this a martial arts class?
Not exactly.
OG Combatives draws heavily from martial arts, but it is a focused personal-protection program rather than an attempt to teach an entire martial art in eight weeks.
The emphasis is on high-value principles and transferable skills that can improve your ability to recognize, avoid, manage, and survive physical conflict.
For men who want a deeper ongoing practice, OG Martial Arts provides a continuing training pathway after the program.
What will we actually practice?
Training may include movement and positioning, striking, defensive actions, grabbing and clinch situations, balance disruption, escapes, sensitivity exercises, environmental problems, weapons awareness, verbal boundaries, tactical decision-making, and scenario-based exercises.
Rather than memorizing long sequences of techniques, you'll learn principles that can be adapted to changing circumstances.
Will there be sparring?
There will be progressive resistance and pressure in the form of games and drills.
But the purpose isn't to reproduce a competitive fight or see who can dominate whom.
Pressure is introduced strategically so you can test perception, decision-making, composure, and skill against increasingly unpredictable problems.
Is the training safe?
No meaningful martial training can be completely risk-free.
However, preventing injury and working with our constraints is part of the philosophy of OG Combatives—not an afterthought.
Intensity and complexity are progressively introduced, and training emphasizes control, appropriate resistance, good partners, and intelligent adaptation.
We are training to become harder to hurt, not getting hurt trying to prove we're tough.
Is this about learning to beat younger, stronger men?
No.
Trying to out-athlete a younger athlete misses the point.
OG Combatives teaches you to recognize differences in strength, speed, size, numbers, weapons, environment, and circumstance—and then change the problem.
Personal protection isn't a fair contest.
The objective is not to prove you're the better fighter.
The objective is to protect life and get home.
Why include conflict management and the Protector framework?
Because physical fighting is only one small part of personal protection.
Awareness, boundaries, communication, positioning, disengagement, judgment, and knowing when to act can matter far more than any individual fighting technique.
Capability also carries responsibility.
The deeper question isn't simply:
Can I fight?
It is:
What am I protecting, and what does this situation actually require of me?
What happens after the six weeks?
You can simply complete OG Combatives and take what you've learned with you.
For men who want to continue, there are several pathways.
OG Combatives provides ongoing small-group martial practice.
Private 1:1 Training allows for individualized development and deeper work.
Seasonal Intensives provide opportunities to explore particular skills and themes through focused weekend training.
OG Combatives gives you the foundation.
What you build upon it is up to you.
Why a small cohort?
Because good embodied instruction requires attention.
A smaller group allows training to be adjusted for different bodies, experience levels, limitations, and learning needs while creating a trusted group of training partners.
This is intended to be a serious, personal training experience—not simply another large class.
What does “OG” mean?
It means Old Guy.
We're allowed to have a sense of humor about getting older.
But there's another meaning hiding in it too.
An OG is someone seasoned. Experienced. Someone who's been around long enough to know that knowing what you're doing often matters more than looking impressive while doing it.
That's exactly the point.
Getting older is inevitable. Becoming more skillful is a choice.