“We face what you fear.”

– Anonymous

Contrary to popular belief, most police officers and law enforcement personnel aren’t martial artists. Sure, you will have a few here and there but as a whole, most officers practice no form of subject control outside of the regulations put forth in mandated Student Performance Objectives and whatever standards their agency or department has in their policies. It may seem silly not to be an expert in hand-to-hand combat as a police officer but, sadly, the reality of it paints an entirely different picture all together.

Why don’t police officers practice martial arts? Well, a variety of reasons. I can tell you first hand as a former police officer, you are often exhausted in after a long shift. The last thing you want to do is go get beat up for an hour after that, or the fact you have a duty belt full of defensive tools may be enough incentive to be sedentary with your training, however this is a double edged sword.

Why? Well, we will get into that more in-depth in today’s article and why you should train if you are one of the few brave and honorable men and women who serve and protect everyday.

Mindset

“The sense of personal effectiveness and self confidence created by realistic training is as much a stress reducer as when the muscles go on autopilot.”

– Lt. Col. David Grossman

Most of what law enforcement does on a day to day basis is community policing, working a beat in the same area to build rapport with the areas citizens and so on. This is good in terms of public relations and making sure the people know help is close, however, this has a tendency to lull an officer into a sense of complacency.

Like most things, you get comfortable, and in this line of work, comfort can spell bad trouble in terms of safety and self defense.

Donning a uniform and a duty belt takes some serious commitment, but your duty gear won’t always be enough. It takes one bad call for things to go south. Martial arts can remedy this by constantly putting you in the venomous state of fight or flight, to make one more acclimated to the chaos of a violent encounter.

It’s not just the act of knowing how to fight, but the mental and emotional discipline that comes with serious martial arts study. To state it as simple as possible, they harden your body and mind, they teach you how to center yourself even in the midst of chaos in what is known in Zen Buddhism and Japanese martial arts as “Mushin” or “mind without mind”.

Mushin may seem trivial, the thought of not thinking and analyzing every detail of every moment. However, emptying the mind allows you to live completely in the moment. In living in the moment, you can purely react to whatever is happening in real time and stay centered even in the most dangerous moments. This state of mind only comes with years of long training, experience, and meditation.

Duty Gear

Yes, the duty belt is often chalked full of useful, lifesaving equipment but it can be detrimental as well. If a subject is trying to grab at your belt and you only have a few subject control classes under your belt, it’s essentially a recipe for disaster.

Taking up a martial art bridges the gap. Even if stripped of your belt, you’re still in the fight. Taking a few classes in arts such as Judo, Filipino Martial Arts, Muay Thai or any other form of martial art grounded in combat is an excellent addition to your policing skills.

If you can hurl a combative subject on their back, secure a painful joint lock, or feel comfortable landing a takedown from the clinch while someone is trying to grab at your belt, you are able to be more confident in a majority of violent encounters an officer will face.

It’s important to stress how critical it is to train in your gear and vest, boots and whatever else you may wear on shift. Reality-based training will iron out which techniques work with a belt and vest on with your individual biomechanics. No one is alike, so tailor your training for you and only you.

Force on Force

When I was a officer, most of the scraps we got in were minimal since we thankfully had a mutual aid agreement with the town connected to ours so back up was only a minute or two away.

However, the reality of this luxury isn’t shared with officers in rural communities or larger municipalities. Back up may be ten minutes to even an hour away. It’s the officer’s sole responsibility to be prepared for the worst and playing the what if game isn’t enough.

I can recall a fight call I was dispatched to at a local restaurant. When I arrived, I was dealing with two males fighting over a woman. My presence alone was enough to diffuse one of the men, but the other who was at fault, was extremely intoxicated and wasn’t backing down.

We traded a few blows and ended up on the ground (which is the last place an officer wants to be). Thankfully, we landed in a corner so I only had to be aware what was going on in of 90 degrees of the room. I was able to get the subject in a straight arm bar to hold him there with my free arm to use my radio.

After the man was arrested and booked, I found myself thinking,

“What if the second man didn’t back down? What if we fell to the ground and one of their buddies came up behind me and booted me in the head or smashed my head into the floor? What if I never trained Judo? etc. ”

You have to be aware of these things. You have to find yourself in bad situations for insightful lessons. It’s better to figure these things out in a gym or dojo with your buddies instead of on a call with a maniac who will do anything not to go to jail.

Closing thoughts

This is merely a taste of the tactical considerations regarding policing duties and martial arts. You could fill volumes with the benefits of training for a civilian, let alone its benefits for law enforcement.

Don’t allow yourself to be a victim of procrastination or a sedentary lifestyle. Train how you will fight in battle and you will go home once the shift ends.

“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”

– Thucydides