Defend University Grows to Three Campuses

 Defend University has expanded to campuses located in Phoenix, New York and Dublin, Ireland.

The virtual university is a research and development group that explores self-defense and defensive tactics techniques and strategies.  Almost 80,000 visitors per month come to the site at www.defendu.com.

Visitors represent the areas of law enforcement, military, security, personal protection, martial arts, education, health care and women's groups.  Visitors mainly come from North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland,  and South Africa  as well as other international locations like France, Germany,  Japan, Indonesia, Israel, India, Russia and Sweden.  Almost 2,000 members subscribe to the monthly newsletter.

The addition of the New York and Dublin campuses broadens the reach of the group as it works to discover and highlight effective self-defense and defensive tactics programs, methods, strategies, instructors and techniques.  The motto of Defend University is "Victory Through Intelligence and Strength" with the mission of discovering, developing and disseminating information on truly effective methods of self-defense for the citizen, the police officer, and the soldier.  The emphasis of the group is on exploring methods which are not style specific and offer the best chances for success by the user whether in the performance of professional duties or as a private citizen concerned with personal protection.  The symbol of Defend University is a griffin, a mythical beast with the fore end of an eagle and a hind end of a lion.  In medieval times, the griffin was said to possess the qualities of intelligence and strength.

Steve Kardian is the director of the New York campus, Ray Butcher is the director of the Dublin campus and Brad Parker heads up the program out of Phoenix.

Stephen Kardian is a Sergeant in the Mount Pleasant Police Dept in Westchester County, New York. He is a 24- year police veteran. He is a senior defensive tactics instructor at the Westchester Police Academy as well as a certified New York State/FBI defensive tactics instructor. Steve is also holds State certification as a general topics instructor, Taser instructor, chemical weapons and pepper spray instructor, use of force instructor, baton instructor and a radar/laser instructor. 
Steve has been teaching police officers since 1980 when he was hired by the Connecticut municipal Police Academy in Meriden, Conn., to teach part time police officers from across the State. Since then he has taught International, Federal, State, County and local law enforcement officers on the east and west coast of the United States.

Steve is the founder of the Less Than Lethal program which teaches tactics and ground control for law enforcement. He is currently working on a committee with the Office of Public Safety, Division of Criminal Justice, for the State of New York to evaluate and submit changes in the way recruits and Defensive Tactics Instructors across the State of New York are trained and taught.

Ray Butcher has more than 20 years experience in martial arts (13 years Aikido, 8 years Karate and 3 years Judo) with international experience training in Japan, Australia, France, Germany and the UK.

He is an instructor for Aikido, Control & Restraint and self-defence in Dublin, Ireland. He teaches Aikido at Swords Aikido Club in Dublin and travels to other locations to teach Control & Restraint and self-defence classes to military, police and civilians.

His Swords Aikido Club is a member of Dublin Aikikai Aikido (D.A.A.) which is recognized by the International Aikido Organization Hombu Dojo Tokyo Japan. Ray is one of the main Aikido Instructors in D.A.A. and is a member and a recognized instructor of the Irish Martial Arts Committee ( I.M.A.C.), the Martial Arts National Governing Body of Ireland.

Brad Parker is the founder of Defend University.  Defend U. is also the home of the Women's Self-Defense Institute, a community service group dedicated to the education and training of females utilizing the Rape Escape rape prevention program using full contact responses to rape scenarios.

Parker has more than 19 years of martial arts experience and 14 years of law enforcement experience.  He is a member of the American Society for Law Enforcement Training  and has trained members of various Federal, State, County and Municipal law enforcement agencies and military units as well as security officers, personal protection agents, loss prevention officers and citizens. 

He has authored defensive tactics articles for law enforcement magazines and produces the Self-Defense Network cable television show.