Hi Kit,
On the one hand I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when folks who are serious about their training develop systems, quite independently, that utilize the same principles. What I do find surprising is some of the stuff that does get taught out there, for example, the Lindell Handgun Retention System... it's simple to the point of idiocy. Sure you can teach it to a group of motor morons in four hours but it has almost nothing to do with how a real retention system would take place.

The LA guys had a civilian advisory panel for several years in which they had various teachers from the local martial arts community come in and teach what they thought would be useful for law enforcement. Dan Inosanto, Joo Bong Lee, the Gracies, Gene LeBell, etc all got input. They finally stopped because they had far more material than they could use. They put the techniques that best seemed suited to each other and created their system. The last time I had a run through on it, it was very close to my own program which i had worked out with my two police students on our own. I felt quite gratified that we had come up with almost the same thing all by our lonesomes when the top folks in the country had put in their two cents and came up with much the same thing.