Matt Larsen, a career Army Ranger and Black Belt Hall of Fame member who is best known as a hand-to-hand combat expert and the father of the U.S. Army’s Modern Army Combatives Program He served in the U.S. Marines and the 75th Ranger Regiment during the course of a 22-year career in the military.

Since retiring from the Army in 2005, Larsen has worked as a private security contractor in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa; trained US Marines in personal security detachments for deployment to Iraq; served as commandant of the US Army Combatives School which he founded; designed a Combatives systems for the Canadian Special Operations Regiment; and, consulted on the design of Combatives training systems for the US Air Force, the British Royal Marines and the British Infantry.

Larsen is the author of both the 2002 and 2009 versions of Field Manuals for Combatives, as well as editing the U.S. Army Survival Handbook and the U.S. Military Pocket Survival Guide plus Evasion and Recovery. He also co-authored Sniper, US Single Shot Warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan. His latest book, Modern Army Combatives, Battle-Proven techniques and Training Methods is out.