Terms of Service

1. Agreeing to these terms

These terms are between you and Machado Method Tactical Training Systems, trading as Machado Method Tactical (“we”, “us”, “our”).

By using this website, sending us a request, or buying a seat, you agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use the site and do not book.

If you are booking on behalf of an agency, you are telling us that you have the authority to do that, and the agency is bound by these terms too.

2. What we sell

We are a curriculum company. We certify law enforcement instructors to teach our defensive tactics curriculum inside their own agency.

Level 1 Instructor Certification runs 3 days, 8 hours a day, in person, at a host academy. It covers stand-up technique, ground control, containment, restraint, gear protection and handcuff application. It ends with an Individual Certificate of Completion.

We travel to the host academy. We do not run a public training venue.

Course dates, venues and content can change. If we change something that matters, we will tell everyone who booked.

3. Who can book

You must be 18 or older to buy a seat or to use this site.

Courses are sold to sworn officers, to academy staff, and to the agencies that employ them. We can decline or cancel a booking, and we will refund a seat we decline.

The host academy may have its own entry rules, such as ID or agency credentials. Those are theirs, not ours, and we cannot waive them.

4. What the certificate is

You get an Individual Certificate of Completion from us. It says you completed our course.

It is not a state license. It is not a POST or TCOLE credit unless your own state board has approved this course, and you should confirm that with your board before you book. We do not promise that any board, agency or employer will accept it.

Certification also does not make you an employee, an agent or a franchisee of ours, and it does not license you to sell our curriculum. Teaching it inside your own agency is what the certificate covers.

5. Booking and payment

A Level 1 seat is $1,000 per person. The price on the page at the time you book is the price you pay.

Payment is taken at checkout by our payment company. Your seat is held once payment clears. Prices do not include travel, lodging or meals, and they do not include any tax that applies to you.

This is a one-time payment. There is no subscription, no auto-renewal and no recurring charge.

If a payment fails or is reversed, we can release the seat.

6. Refunds, transfers and cancellation

We look at refund requests one at a time. There is no automatic refund, and there is no blanket no-refund rule either. Plans change and duty rosters change, and we would rather hear about it than hold your money over it.

Email [email protected] before the course starts. Tell us the name on the booking and what changed. You get an answer in writing.

If another officer from your agency needs to take the seat instead, ask us the same way. It is usually the simplest fix for everyone.

If we cancel a course, you choose: a seat on the next course, or a full refund of what you paid us. We do not cover travel or lodging you booked yourself, so book those with that in mind.

7. Training is physical

This is contact training. You will grapple, take falls and apply control techniques on other people, and they will apply them on you. Injury is possible in any physical training and we cannot rule it out.

You are responsible for being fit enough to take part. Tell the instructor about any injury, condition or medication that could matter before training starts, and stop if something hurts.

You take part at your own risk. Instructors can remove anyone from the mat for unsafe behaviour, with no refund.

The host academy may require you to sign its own waiver on the day. That is between you and them.

8. Using this site properly

Do not do any of the following on or to this site.

• Break the law, or help somebody else break it.
• Try to get into any part of the site, the portal or an account that is not yours.
• Scrape, copy or harvest the site with a bot.
• Send a form false details, or somebody else’s details.
• Upload anything that damages or overloads the site.

We can suspend or block access to anyone who does. We can also report it.

9. Training portal access

If we give you a login for the training portal, it is for you alone. Keep it private, do not share it, and tell us straight away if you think somebody else has it.

What you can see in the portal depends on what you certified in. We can change or remove access if a certification lapses or if these terms are broken.

10. Our curriculum and this site

The curriculum, the course material, the videos, the manuals, the photographs, the text on this site, the logo and the name all belong to us or to the people who licensed them to us.

Certification lets you teach the curriculum inside your own agency. It does not let you sell it, publish it, license it, put it in another course, or hold yourself out as the source of it.

Do not film or record a course without our written permission. Do not copy the manuals for anyone outside your agency.

We can withdraw a certification if this section is broken.

11. What you send us

If you send us feedback, a review, a photograph or a video, you keep it. You also give us permission to use it in our own material, with your name or your agency named, unless you tell us not to.

Only send us something you have the right to send. If a photo has other officers in it, get their agreement first.

We can decline or remove anything you send.

12. Links to other places

This site links out to other websites, such as a map to a venue and the training portal. We do not control those and we are not responsible for them. Their terms and their privacy policies are their own.

13. What we do not promise

We provide the site and the training as they are. We do not promise the site will always be available, or free of errors.

Training builds skill. It does not guarantee an outcome in the field, and nothing we teach guarantees the safety of any officer in any encounter. No result on this site is a promise of your result.

Nothing here is legal advice about use of force. Your agency policy and your state law govern that, and they come first.

14. Limits on what we owe

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss. That includes lost income, lost time, travel costs and lost opportunity.

Where we are liable, the most we owe you in total is the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim.

Some states do not allow every limit above. Where that is true, the limit applies as far as that state allows and no further, and nothing here removes a right you cannot give up.

15. Covering us

If somebody brings a claim against us because you broke these terms, misused the curriculum, or broke the law, you agree to cover our reasonable costs of dealing with it.

16. Ending access

You can stop using the site at any time. We can suspend or end your access to the site, the portal or a course if these terms are broken, if payment fails, or if behaviour puts other people at risk.

The sections that should outlive the deal do: what we own, the limits on what we owe, covering us, and governing law.

17. Governing law and venue

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to conflict of law rules.

Any dispute goes to the state or federal courts in Dallas County, Texas, and both sides agree those courts can hear it.

18. Sorting out a dispute

Email us first at [email protected]. Tell us what happened and what you want. Most problems end there.

Give us 30 days to sort it out before anyone files anything. If it is still unresolved after that, either side can go to the courts named above.

There is no forced arbitration in these terms, and you do not give up the right to bring a claim as part of a group.

19. Changes to these terms

We can update these terms. The date at the top of the page is the date of the last change, and the version on this page when you book is the one that applies to that booking.

Keep using the site after a change and you accept the new version.

20. How to reach us

Machado Method Tactical Training Systems, trading as Machado Method Tactical.

Email: [email protected]

You can also send us the request form on this site.