China Bikini Bodyguard – Twenty women, dressed in bikinis wanting to become female bodyguards, were kicked, dunked, near-drowned and forced to carry a heavy log between them during a tough boot camp run by professional bodyguards on Sunday. Tianjiao Special Guard Consultant Ltd., a Chinese security company, started their brutal training regimen for their future female bodyguards in China’s Hainan Province.

This is the first open group of female bodyguards in China, and those that survive the harsh month-long training will be entered into a longer, 10-month program, wherein they would learn a variety of skills to effectively guard their clients.

Anti-terrorism training, martial arts skills, reconnaissance and business etiquette must all be developed in order for the ladies to become bodyguards.

The twenty aspiring women bodyguards all have an education of some sort, with many of them graduating from college. Being a bodyguard presents a different economic opportunity, however.

Instead of making the average annual salary in China of about $1,500, these women can make far more. Some bodyguards get paid up to $100 a day to protect their rich clientele.

Quite a few decades ago, men of the world believed that a woman’s place is in the kitchen. This notion still holds truth to this day for the women in the Islamic world who are not known to be equal to men.

Women’s emancipation has come in an unorthodox away for the country of Libya. No matter how hard it is to believe, there is one leader who selected his executive protection personnel to consist exclusively of women. Muammar Gaddafi Bodyguards are a group of all female, gun toting posse of virgins who take a vow of chastity as soon as they become bodyguards. Some people believe that Gaddafi is a mad man; however there is actually reason to his madness when it comes to his bodyguards.

In 1979 as a dedication to his mother, and the promise he made to her to improve the women’s status in the Muslim world, Gaddafi established an all women elite military academy where one hundred women, handpicked by Gaddafi himself are allowed to attend. These female bodyguards are trained for three years in areas from martial arts, firing artillery, and rocket launchers, to hand to hand combat and communications.

It is worth noting the loyalty that these women exhibit towards Gaddafi, and the fact that they vow to protect him with their own lives. The prime example is the story of Aisha, known as Gaddafi’s favorite female bodyguard, who sacrificed her life by throwing herself on top of Ghadafi to protect him when his motorcade was ambushed by Islamic militants.

Even though when working for Gaddafi one knowingly puts her life in immediate danger, there is prestige associated with this job. It is worth noting that Muammar Gaddafi female bodyguards escort him everywhere he goes (day or night) and they are required to wear lipstick, jewelry, and high heels. Gaddafi’s bodyguards follow a training routine similar to the Spartan’s over 4000 years ago; in the 21st century we are witnessing a revolution when it comes to executive protection and Gaddafi’s female bodyguards are an example of how a bodyguard’s profession is not just for men.

Female Bodyguards are in Need

In April of 2010, the Bodyguard Careers team along with Icon Services participated in a story for NBC’s today show. The segment aired on NBC’s Today Show June 24, 2010 and we thought it turned out very well.

If this video brought you to Bodyguard Careers for the first time, welcome!  We have spent years compiling and writing some of the best information you can find about this business.  To get started, here are a few links:

• Bodyguard Training Schools – Our Ebook on which school to choose
• Bodyguard Business Profile – Create a profile for yourself on Bodyguard Careers
• Bodyguard Services Directory – Public Directory of Bodyguards. List yourself here to get jobs! (more…)

You may have noticed over the past few days that it has been exceptionally difficult recently to access Bodyguard Careers.  You’re not alone; many visitors and Bodyguard Careers staff have had the same experience as well.

First of all, the bad news: Due to an unfortunate series of events, the site had intermittent connectivity problems from Saturday through Tuesday of this week.  I was traveling during much of this time (in Iowa of all places, without a computer or Internet) and as a result, I wasn’t able to get the site back up in a timely manner.

We got so much traffic to the site in such a short period of time on Saturday that it nearly killed the server that hosted Bodyguard Careers.  When we chose originally chose our host for this site, we never imagined that we would get so much traffic and that crashing would be a possibility.

Unfortunately, we had to learn the hard way that this was a certain reality, and that we needed to move the site to a more stable hosting infrastructure.  Once this realization set in, two more days were spent making this transition to a new host, and all of the quirks that go along with such a major site change.  Fortunately, as of the time I write this, we feel that the site should be on much stronger footing.

The experience was embarrassing for both myself and Hucky because having a down website in the year 2009 seems highly unprofessional. It also prevented many new visitors from making it to our site who wanted to see what it was all about.  During the downtime of the site, we experienced a sense of helplessness that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Now, for the good news. With the explanation of what happened out of the way, I think it’s worth mentioning why the server crashed in the first place.  It actually crashed for good reason.  Starting on Saturday, the national broadcast on Fox News had a story profiling Female Bodyguards and how there has recently become a surging demand for female bodyguards.    In that story, our very own Hucky Austin was a featured interviewee!  Even better, in his by-line, it showed the URL for our site underneath his name… a compelling call to action for people to come visit our site.

And they came and they visited!  Within an hour we had a 20x increase in traffic over a normal Saturday.  Within two hours, we were setting all time weekend traffic records.  Then the third hour came, and the site came crashing down.

Unfortunately, while we were trying to get the site back up, the story kept running.  In fact, it ran the entire weekend and was seen by millions of Fox News visitors… all while the site was down.

We were able to get the site back up temporarily on Sunday afternoon, and we actually had a very successful day on Monday… until the site went back down again.  On Tuesday, it was up/down/up/down/up/down/up all day.

Finally on Wednesday everything seems to be running stable.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this won’t ever happen again.

Thanks for sticking with us – we love our readers and your loyalty has really helped us stay focused on this labor of love.  We couldn’t do it without you!

Look for Hucky on your national and local news outlets… I have a feeling this isn’t the last you will be hearing of him.  Hopefully the site won’t break next time.

- Jeff

I was privileged this weekend to participate in a piece that Fox News ran on the surging demand for female bodyguards. Over the last 10 years there has been a huge increase in requests for female executive protection specialists. Even though, the overall number for female executive protection specialists is less than 3% I see an incredible potential for growth for any female considering this industry.