Martial Arts Champion & Veteran Gives Drivers Self-Defense Training

Champion martial arts veteran, Dr. Fred Waters, wants to give drivers a fighting chance.

He may be the Bruce Lee of trucking.

Dr. Fred Waters (66) is a nine times Martial Arts Hall of Famer and a World Championship winning Tae Kwon Do expert. And he said he learned it all while driving trucks for the Army. 

It started with a gang fight– Dr. Waters remembers he was just a teenager when a group of gang members attacked his older brother, and he tried to help him. Out of revenge, the entire gang later jumped him outside of a cemetery. One member brandished a butcher knife.

“I remember that knife looked five feet long in the moonlight.” He had seen the Green Hornet and Bruce Lee movies– He imitated a karate move, and the gang stepped back for a show. “I saw an opening, and I ran.”

But Dr. Waters has been fighting back ever since: He trained military personnel in the Gulf Wars to disarm in close quarter combat. “My Goals are to train military troops in hand-to-hand combat and how to disarm an attacker with a weapon, shotgun, AK-47m M-16’s, 9mm’s, knives, and clubs.”

And now he’s teaching truck drivers to defend themselves. “Truckers need a fighting chance.” 21% of drivers experience crime on the road and 42% say it was violent, according to a study by CDLLife.

Dr. Waters has had guns pulled on him on the road. “I train military personnel for lethal defense, but I train drivers for self-defense… like how to block a weapon.”

But he says the most important thing that drivers can do for self-defense is to take care of their health. He encourages drivers to eat right and stay fit so that they can be ready if something happens. 

“It’s about prevention.”