Who is Cliff Stewart?
By Master Instructor Masaad Ayoob

It’s a question I don’t have to ask. I’ve known Cliff for more than 15 years – as student and instructor, friend and peer.

The guy has more black belts than a men’s clothing store, and in many of the disciplines he has studied he is a master instructor: a trainer of other instructors.

When you’re rich and famous, you need two kinds of CPAs: one is the guy that will help you keep as much as possible of the money you have earned; the other is a Close Protection Agent like Cliff, to keep you alive to enjoy it. A veteran of over 25 years in the Executive Protection field, Cliff Stewart has provided elite bodyguard services to the rich and famous, including Wesley Snipes, Larry Flynt, Mr. T., Joan Collins, Muhammad Ali, Stevie Wonder, James Garner, members of royal families and foreign diplomats. He is the one who trains the teachers of Law Enforcement, Federal Agencies and Martial Arts Organizations. It’s no wonder in Hollywood he’s called the “Bodyguard to the Stars.”

Cliff Stewart knows his stuff. I’ve worked with many of his contemporaries who have studied under such masters as Dan Inosanto, and at the same time Cliff was there. The martial arts world can be a jealous place, with more than its share of prima donnas. Yet, from Graciela Casillas to Paul Vunak, each of Cliff’s contemporaries I’ve spoken with gives Stewart the highest praise. It’s a rare man who can be that well liked and that highly respected at the same time in such an ego-charged environment. It says a lot for the grace and professionalism of Casillas and Vunak, but it says even more about Cliff Stewart.

The Stewart legend lives not just in the dojo of Los Angeles, but in it’s streets as well. A few years ago Cliff was out in the wee hours picking up some necessities for his newborn son, and was set upon by three street muggers who suffered what I’ve come to call “a sudden and acute failure of the victim selection process.” One swung at Cliff with an iron pipe. The fight was on…and it was over in seconds. When the police got there, they found three men on the ground, all either unconscious or in too much pain to move or speak. All had suffered major broken bones or internal injuries …and, significantly, no one was outwardly marked or had shed a drop of blood. The only one bleeding was Stewart, slightly injured by a glancing blow of the pipe he had deflected from it’s original skull-crushing path before he began returning force. It took the officers a while to figure out that “the last man standing” was the intended victim, not the perpetrator. But once that was sorted out, no one appreciated the justice of the outcome more than the responding officers…

I’ve also seen the gentle side of Cliff Stewart. When watching him with the woman he loves or delicately cradling his baby son, you see a very large teddy bear. But watch him in the training environment or in the field and you realize the bear is really a grizzly in disguise. Cliff keeps the grizzly behind a very strong barred door, but it’s always right at the door, a fraction of a second away from a conscious decision to release it when nothing less powerful can protect the innocent.

Cliff Stewart possesses an awesome degree of knowledge and destructive power. The point he drives into his W.A.R. students is that possessing power doesn’t mean that you have to use it. Often, he makes clear, the greatest expression of that power is to dominate a threatening situation to the point that you don’t need to unleash it. Avoidance, he points out, is the ultimate victory.
It’s one thing to hear these things said about a wimp whom you know couldn’t bear to face conflict. It becomes more credible when you hear it from a man who is a veteran of conflict and has left a trail of strong, violent men prostrate and unconscious behind him. Such a man is Cliff Stewart.

I manage crisis and teach crisis management for a living. I know the difference between the professionals and the phonies. Cliff Stewart is a professional. When he talks, I listen. So do other professionals. And so should you.