The Story of Alan Baker
Following the Path Less Traveled.
A lifelong journey through the disciplines of the warrior, the scholar, and the teacher.
What began as a fascination with martial arts became a continuing pursuit of knowledge, capability, personal growth, and service to others. Each chapter added another lesson—and another responsibility to pass that lesson forward.
How to Read This Story
Three Disciplines. One Path.
Alan Baker’s journey cannot be understood through martial arts alone. Three disciplines have continually shaped the way he studies, serves, and teaches—and each one appears throughout the chapters that follow.
The Warrior
The discipline to train, test, endure, and protect. The warrior meets difficulty directly and develops the capability to act when action matters.
The Scholar
The humility to remain a student. The scholar searches across systems, questions assumptions, and looks for the principles connecting one field to another.
The Teacher
The responsibility to pass useful knowledge forward. The teacher turns experience into clear lessons that help other people become more capable.
The path has never been a straight line. It has been a continuous exchange between experience, understanding, and service.
Chapter One
1981–Late 1980s
The First Step Onto the Path
The Beginning
Discipline Becomes a Direction
As a child, Alan was full of energy and was diagnosed with ADHD. Rather than turning immediately to medication, his mother introduced him to martial arts as a positive outlet.
Just shy of turning eleven, around 1981, Alan began training at a local Isshin-Ryu Karate dojo. Martial arts quickly became more than an activity. It became the beginning of a lifelong search for discipline, skill, knowledge, and personal transformation.
The Adventure Years
Training Beyond the Dojo
As his interests expanded, one of Alan’s mentors introduced him to mountaineering, orienteering, climbing, rigging, rappelling, SCUBA diving, and wilderness survival.
These disciplines widened his understanding of capability. Preparation, risk management, adaptability, problem-solving, and calm under pressure became part of the same education that had started on the training floor.
Chapter Two
1989
When the Path Was Almost Taken Away
The Collision
In 1989, Alan was involved in a devastating head-on collision with a large construction vehicle. The accident caused catastrophic facial injuries, serious damage to his hands, and a traumatic brain injury.
Doctors told him he would never return to the ring and warned him to avoid further head trauma. For someone whose life had become centered around martial arts, it felt as if the foundation had been ripped away.
The warrior spirit is not found only in the fight. It is found in the decision to rise again.
The Lesson
Capability is tested most deeply when the path forward is no longer the one you expected to walk.
Chapter Three
Early 1990s–2000s
Student Becomes Teacher
Teaching & Expansion
A Student With a Classroom
In the early 1990s, Alan secured a full-time teaching position at a Kung Fu studio in Chattanooga. There, he continued his development under Grandmaster Dana Miller and Master Paul Olivas through the U.S. Chuan Fa Association.
The curriculum exposed him to Chinese martial arts, internal practices, traditional healing methods, grappling, Jeet Kune Do, Filipino Kali, and Wing Chun. Teaching required more than performing techniques—it required learning how to organize knowledge and make it useful to someone else.
1993 and Beyond
The Grappling Revolution
After UFC 1 introduced a wider audience to a new era of martial arts, Alan began a deeper study of grappling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, submission wrestling, and catch wrestling.
That search led him to Professor Pedro Sauer and Coach Erik Paulson. What began as another field of study became a central part of Alan’s practice, teaching, and understanding of how people learn under pressure.
The Atlanta Years
Many Systems. Deeper Principles.
Relocating to Atlanta opened the door to sustained training with Sifu Francis Fong and Sifu/Guro Dan Inosanto, along with continued study under Coach Erik Paulson and Muay Thai training through Ajarn Chai Sirisute.
Alan later studied Progressive Fighting Systems and Rapid Assault Tactics with Sifu Paul Vunak, eventually earning full instructor status. Across these relationships, the emphasis moved beyond collecting techniques toward recognizing principles—timing, structure, pressure, adaptability, and functional self-protection.
Chapter Four
2002–2014
Building Schools and Systems
Building an Academy
From Teaching Classes to Building an Institution
In 2002, Alan founded the Atlanta Martial Arts Center. The school brought multiple disciplines together under one roof, including Jeet Kune Do, Filipino Kali, Wing Chun, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Combat Submission Wrestling, Muay Thai, and Shaolin Kung Fu.
The work demanded more than instruction. It required curriculum, instructor development, community leadership, and a structure that could help students continue growing over time. By 2010, Alan had also become Association Director for Coach Erik Paulson’s Combat Submission Wrestling Association.
2010 and Beyond
Capability Enters the Professional Field
Around 2010, Alan was introduced to the Executive Protection Institute and Vehicle Dynamics Institute. He earned certification as an Armed Personal Protection Specialist and began designing training for protection agents.
That work led to Protection Response Tactics® and Vehicle Centric Defensive Tactics—programs built around the realities of executive protection, security, and client safety. Baker Tactical Training & Design Group extended the work to security teams, law enforcement, protection professionals, and tactical organizations across the United States.
2014
A Professional System Reaches the Civilian World
In 2014, Alan responded to growing civilian demand for practical defensive tactics by founding the Civilian Tactical Training Association, now known through the C-Tac® program.
C-Tac was designed to help everyday citizens, instructors, and professionals develop real-world self-protection skills through organized curriculum and instructor training. It translated lessons from decades of martial arts and professional protection work into a system built for broader service.
Chapter Five
2020–2025
The Work Expands
2021–2024
New Relationships. Wider Fields of Service.
2021+
Speaking & Coaching
Alan’s relationship with former Navy SEAL Lt. Jason Redman led to defensive-tactics development, involvement with Overcome & Survive, and participation in the Roger Up personal-development event. The work opened new paths into speaking, coaching, leadership, and high performance.
2022–2023
Professional Platforms
Through Edgar and Patricia Gonzalez, Alan became Defensive Tactics Instructor at Tactical 21. In 2023, his work expanded again through the development of a comprehensive defensive-tactics program for Warrior Poet Society.
2024
A.L.I.V.E.
Alan collaborated with Michael Julian to develop defensive-tactics and firearm-disarmament material for A.L.I.V.E. instructor development, combining two bodies of experience to help instructors prepare others for high-risk situations.
2025 · Instructor Recognition
Decades of Study Recognized
In 2025, Alan was promoted to Full Instructor in Filipino Martial Arts, Lee Jun Fan Gung Fu, and Jeet Kune Do under Tuhon/Sifu Dan Inosanto.
He was also promoted to Full Instructor in Combat Submission Wrestling under Master Erik Paulson—another milestone in a journey defined less by arrival than by continued study, service, and instructor development.
Chapter Six
Today
The Mission Continues
Warrior · Scholar · Teacher
One Journey, Still in Motion
Today, Alan continues to teach, write, speak, coach, and develop programs for students, instructors, protection professionals, and leaders.
The disciplines introduced at the beginning of this story remain connected. The warrior provides the discipline to train and act. The scholar preserves the humility to question and keep learning. The teacher carries the responsibility to make hard-earned knowledge useful to others.
Alan’s mission is to pass forward the skills, lessons, and mindset developed through decades of study—helping good people become more capable, disciplined, prepared, and resilient.
That work now comes together through The Capable Academy—an educational environment created to organize, preserve, and pass forward the systems, principles, and lessons developed across Alan’s life.
Your Next Chapter
The Path Continues From Here
The value of a story is not only in what happened. It is in what becomes possible next. Choose the path that best fits where you are today.
