Deeds of Arms:
https://www.shootingclasses.com/johnvalentine/
Short Professional Bio
John Valentine is a military veteran, combatives instructor, firearms instructor, martial artist, and the instructor behind Deeds of Arms. His work integrates empty-hand fighting, grappling, edged-weapons skills, concealed firearms, and scenario-based problem solving into a practical approach to personal defense.
Valentine is a black belt in both Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Modern Army Combatives. His Modern Army Combatives black belt was earned under Matt Larsen, widely known as the father of the Modern Army Combatives Program, and Valentine served for several years as Larsen’s assistant instructor while training special-mission and intelligence personnel.
His military background includes more than a decade of service and deployments supporting Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. In military and private-sector roles, he has helped provide integrated training to American and allied military personnel, law-enforcement officers, and armed citizens.
Valentine’s documented instructor credentials include Rangemaster Master Firearms Instructor—graduating with Top Gun honors—Army Combatives instructor certification under Matt Larsen, Modern Samurai Project red-dot-sight instructor certification, Red Zone Empty Hand Knife Defense instructor certification, and UTM law-enforcement instructor certification.
He has instructed through Green Ops, Hill Country Combatives, and Sheepdog Response, in addition to teaching under the Deeds of Arms banner. He is also an experienced submission-grappling competitor and international medalist, with experience in mixed martial arts, boxing, and competitive shooting.
Within the Primary & Secondary network, Valentine appeared on P&S ModCast 411 — Airing of Grievances 2024. His inclusion reflects the broader P&S emphasis on connecting firearms proficiency to the full continuum of defensive skills, judgment, and realistic problem solving.
Key Areas of Expertise & Notable Contributions
- Deeds of Arms
- Modern Army Combatives
- Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
- Rangemaster Master Firearms Instructor
- Top Gun graduate
- Matt Larsen
- military combatives instruction
- defensive pistol combatives
- knife combatives
- empty-hand defense
- weapon access and retention
- concealed-carry skills
- red-dot pistol instruction
- scenario-based training
- UTM training
- military and law-enforcement instruction
- Green Ops
- Hill Country Combatives
- Sheepdog Response
- Combatives Association Summit
- Primary & Secondary
- P&S ModCast 411
Long-Form Professional Profile
An Integrated Combatives Instructor
John Valentine’s professional identity sits at the intersection of several disciplines that are too often trained separately: firearms, wrestling and grappling, striking, edged weapons, and tactical decision-making. His approach treats personal defense as a connected problem rather than a collection of isolated techniques.
A defensive encounter may begin at conversational distance, in a clinch, during an attempted weapon grab, or before a firearm can safely be accessed. Valentine’s background gives him a framework for addressing that entire progression—from awareness and positioning through physical control, weapon access, and, when justified, armed response.
Military Service and Instructor Development
Valentine served for more than a decade in the military and deployed in support of both Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Public instructor biographies credit him with providing integrated training solutions for national and multinational military services, as well as training service members, law-enforcement personnel, and private citizens through the commercial training sector.
A defining part of his development was his work with Matt Larsen. Valentine earned a Modern Army Combatives black belt under Larsen and served as his assistant instructor for several years while working with special-mission and intelligence units. That experience placed him close to an instructional system designed not merely around martial-arts technique, but around producing adaptable fighting capability for people operating under demanding conditions.
Martial Arts and Competitive Experience
Valentine has more than a decade of martial-arts experience and holds black belts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Modern Army Combatives. He is an international submission-grappling medalist and has additional experience in mixed martial arts and boxing.
Competitive experience is valuable in this context because it imposes resistance, uncertainty, fatigue, and immediate feedback. Although competition is not identical to a defensive encounter, it gives an instructor repeated experience solving physical problems against capable opponents who are actively trying to prevent success.
Firearms and Weapons-Based Training
Valentine complements his combatives background with extensive formal firearms training. He is a Rangemaster Master Firearms Instructor and earned Top Gun honors in the program. His other documented credentials include instructor certification in red-dot pistol use through Modern Samurai Project, Red Zone Empty Hand Knife Defense, Army Combatives under Matt Larsen, and UTM law-enforcement training.
His course offerings through Deeds of Arms include defensive pistol combatives and knife combatives. These subjects focus on the difficult boundary where physical contact and weapons overlap: creating an opportunity to access a tool, preventing an opponent from accessing or controlling it, and making sound decisions in close-range encounters.
Teaching Across Communities
Valentine has worked as a primary or assistant instructor for Green Ops, Hill Country Combatives, and Sheepdog Response. Across those organizations, his audiences have included military personnel, law enforcement, and ordinary armed citizens.
That range matters. Military, police, and civilian students operate under different missions, legal authorities, equipment assumptions, and levels of acceptable risk. Effective instruction must preserve useful principles while adapting the application to the student’s actual environment.
Deeds of Arms
Through Deeds of Arms, Valentine teaches a curriculum grounded in the integration of physical and armed skills. Rather than presenting a handgun, knife, or empty-hand technique as a complete answer by itself, the material addresses how those capabilities interact under pressure.
The result is a practical model of defensive preparation: build reliable fundamentals, test them against resistance, understand transitions between skill sets, and train decision-making alongside physical execution.
Primary & Secondary Connection
Valentine joined Matt Landfair and other members of the professional training community for P&S ModCast 411 — Airing of Grievances 2024. His participation places him within the broader Primary & Secondary network of practitioners and instructors contributing experience-based discussion on training, standards, and professional practice.
His background is especially relevant to the P&S community because it reinforces a recurring principle: firearms skill is important, but it exists inside a larger defensive system. The practitioner may also need awareness, communication, movement, physical control, weapon retention, sound judgment, and the ability to adapt when a planned response is no longer available.