Meet Henoch "Tito" Otero, our Head Instructor at Progressive Krav Maga, a 20+ year veteran of the NYPD, lifelong martial arts practitioner, and the only fully certified Krav Maga Global instructor in New York City. Read his full bio before checking out our interview discussing his background, different training styles, and what makes Progressive Krav Maga the only school to train with in New York City! Why do you think learning self-defense is something important for people who live in New York City?It goes into my background as a cop and what I've seen on patrol. Men are victims on a regular basis; it's not just women. If it's not one-on-one, it'll be a group of people attacking you. And not only that, you want to protect your loved ones too. The police are always going to arrive to your 911 call, but that's after the fact. Before they get there, you should be able to take care of yourself.What's the difference between Krav Maga and all of the other styles out there?A lot of what people teach is really just for sport. All of these styles at one point had some sort of self-defense application. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was all self-defense at one point and now they made it into a sport. So now when you go to these schools, they're actually showing you how to play a chess match on the ground while staying on the ground. They never really show you how to get back on your feet and start fighting. Boxing is the same; it's a sport. It doesn't really help you in the street.Krav Maga is a self-defense system. It's not a martial art and it's not a sport. The way I teach it, there is a lot of striking added in as well. Since I have a background in striking arts and ground arts, I eliminate the sport aspects and just bring out the fighting concepts. If we're working on the ground, I'll always tell you to get back on your feet. My striking focuses on places that you can't go in sports as well-to the groin, to the back of the neck, to the spine. Those are things you can't do in a sport, but you can do them in real life to defend yourself. With Krav Maga you're also working defense against things like sticks and guns and knives. We work grabs, headlocks, and all of these scenarios that will happen in real life.What do you see as the most important aspect of self-defense?You have to acquire the survival mindset. That's the most important thing out of any technique you would ever learn in any system. I could teach you a hundred different techniques, but if you don't have the will to survive, it doesn't make any difference. You need to go somewhere where you can learn that. In the way that I teach Krav Maga, eventually I like to use a lot of reality-based training where I get into a protective suit and I put students into a bad situation so that they have to fight out of it. No matter what techniques they learn, I'm going to put them in a dangerous situation and they are going to have to have the will to survive. There is no option to give up.Later on, god forbid you get into a situation where you have to defend your loved ones, you're going to need that.There are plenty of Krav Maga schools around New York City. What makes Progressive Krav Maga different?My experience and my 20+ years in the NYPD. I started training martial arts at the age of nine. Later on as an adult I realized that I knew a lot about striking, but nothing about self-defense. I knew how to punch, kick, and take someone to the ground. If they took out a knife or stick or gun, I was in trouble.Not only that, but during my 20 years in law enforcement, I really saw how cheap life is to some people in society. I've seen people get killed for $1.50. That's really sad. So like I said, my experience is in law enforcement, teaching law enforcement, and seeing the crimes that are done to good people in the city. I don't teach bullshit. I teach people how to survive. Because I've been in situations where I've had to fight for my own life, when I talk to someone about the will to survive, I know what that feels like. I'm talking from experience.Everyone thinks that cops just pull out their guns, but in reality 90% of the time I was going in there and getting physical with people using my hands-especially when I was in the SWAT team. We would get called to do cell extrications with prisoners, to handle mentally disturbed people in their apartments, or just plain wackos on drugs who were holding hostages. I dealt with all of that. I saw what I call "the beast." I've seen these people at their worst and I dealt with them on a one-to-one level. I bring that experience to the courses I teach. I'm not a professor at John Jay College, I'm not a lawyer; I didn't learn Krav Maga just to make an income off of it. I learned this to better myself and to better protect my fellow officers and my family. You generally can't go running into a situation guns blazing. What I realized is that this training made me much more confident with my hands and as a person.
