Out Thug the Thug

Recently, I seem to have found myself with a good deal of time on my hands (never usually a good thing for me) and a few things have happened that have gotten me thinking about just how and why we physically train in law enforcement.  I want to be clear at the onset, however, that this is NOT about the recent occurrences that have transpired in Missouri.  The issues, to me, are far deeper and more systemic than what happened there and I will not be touching on them.  

If this is the first time for you reading one of my posts, I should probably begin with a little background bout myself.  In my career, I’ve worked for a local department assigned to undercover assignments then on to criminal investigations in one of the most violent cities in the U.S. and after that, abandoned all semblance of dignity and joined the federal ranks (still can’t use the “credentials” word though; it’ll always be a shield and department I.D.).  Suffice to say I’ve been around the block a few times and seen my share of dirt.  One of the worst things  that I’ve seen, however, is the prevailing attitude of most police department management regarding defensive tactics.  Through two separate academies, I had to sit and participate in the accepted, approved curriculum which consisted only of modern MMA techniques.  One day I asked an instructor why this particular style was used and the answer, while expected, was no less disappointing. The entire thing was designed so the officer could learn a few “techniques” that were “easy” and wouldn’t need continued practice to use on the street.  It was not only disappointing but flabbergasting.  

Now follow me on this; with every non-patronage law enforcement department that I’ve ever heard of, the applicant has to, at minimum, pass a written test, a panel or face to face interview, a background check, THEN attend an academy that includes more written tests, physical fitness, firearms, ethics, and the list goes on.  After you pass all these criteria and receive a commission which empowers you under authority of law to enforce the peace up to and including the use of physical violence and deadly force, the department THEN decides that the officer isn’t capable of learning and maintaining a certain physical and, more importantly, mental standard to perform their job or are just too lazy to do so?  I honestly don’t know if that speaks worse about the officer or the department they work for.  To add insult to injury, we have all seen the posters in the locker rooms about how you should be training with mantras going back to the academy like “violence rules the day.” The whole point of the DT training curriculum seems to be centered around “out thug the thug”  (a term I first heard a few years ago during an Ethical Protector training seminar that I think speaks directly to the issue and I can’t think of a better way to describe it) when faced with a physical confrontation and holding out until help arrives.  Well, help or the blue wall may have been an option 20 years ago but how many of you on patrol that aren’t field training officers can remember the last time you had another officer in the car with you during an initial stop or encounter?  Furthermore, the whole attitude you end up using  colors your perspective during the stop for a few simple reasons.  One, the training received is wholly inadequate because MMA is a SPORT and not an actual fighting or defense art.  I know there are many people out there right now who's blood pressure just went 1000/1000 over that last statement and are swearing that they wish I was in the room right now so they could show me just how wrong I am and you are right now, in part, proving my point if just a few words can cause that kind of reaction.  I’ve been in confrontations with so called MMA fighters and, frankly, they are usually easy to deal with.  That’s not to say you let your guard down or can’t be dangerous, but when you are facing a person with a limited skill set due only to the fact that the “art” they use offers only a few techniques with no underlying principles, pretty much anything they do can be fairly easily countered if your principles (read tactics) are sound and grounded.  

The other day, I was talking with another officer about training and he said something along the lines of “you should always be training at 110%!” Well my reaction to that statement is this; what does is matter if you are training at 110% or !% if your tactics are shit Tackelberry? If you are doing something wrong at 110%, it’s still wrong! I think part of this also goes straight into the MMA mindset which, frankly, appeals to the lowest level of our psyche and considering what our chosen profession is, isn’t a good thing and can and will eventually lead to a bad outcome in the long run.  Throughout my career during basic, advanced, and recertification DT, I’ve seen officers needlessly injured during training solely because they allowed themselves to get ramped up and go too far in the application.  All of it seems to stem around not only the mindset that the training creates, but, more fundamentally, the training only speaks to techniques; i.e. slot A to slot B to desired effect an so on.  This is a flawed construct at it’s very core. How many of you when effecting an arrest on a noncompliant subject can honestly say that those things work? Every situation, no matter how similar, is going to go down differently and you pray every time that it doesn’t go sideways.  Techniques are only one small part of the equation and completely ignores the broader perspective which is the underlying principle of what you are doing.  If you have an understanding of the principle of whatever the technique you are trying to effect, then, most of the time, it doesn’t even look like you are doing any kind of martial art.  

So how do you come to understand the principle of what you are doing? TRAIN! I don’t care what the style is; Bujinkan, Aikido, Krav, whatever it is, if you are only doing kata for kata sake without understanding what the principle behind it, then you are wasting your time trying to look cool and do yourself a disservice.  Now I know many of you reading this do take the time to train outside of work to keep your skills up, but recently I’ve come to ask myself is that enough?  What about the officers who got hired without any prior fight training?  We will probably never change our respective departments attitudes on DT simply because it’s a cost equation metric to them; but as Ethical Protectors, shouldn’t we extend a hand to those fellow officers who have no prior grounding or training in tactics that can help/protect both themselves and those they are having to arrest?  Personally, I think the answer is a resounding yes.  If you do decide to take this on, understand that you will probably get blowback from your department (I’m speaking from personal experience on this) but make sure that it’s outside of work and you can explain everything within the use of force framework. If you can do that, you may just save a life and isn’t that one of the primary points of what we do? 

From Perspective to Clarity

This last winter in Chicago we were introduced to a new phrase, at least for me, that of “Polar Vortex.” It’s a truly horrid experience in which you get to learn first hand just how cold minus 35 degrees (f) is.  One day I awoke in a foul mood looking forward to another day of freezing.  Grumbling the whole way, I stopped at my local coffee shop as is my custom on the way to work and was only thinking about myself, my own troubles, and woe is me.  A few parking spaces away, a woman and her child got out of their car about the same time I exited my own.  The child, a girl of about 10, stood up and raised her head to the sun and let loose a smile from ear to ear.  The thing that made my breath catch in my throat was that when she raised her head, her cap fell off and revealed a bald head and nearly translucent skin.  As I watched, the little girl continued her smile while dancing around her mother on the way into the store oblivious to the cold; just happy to be able to dance in the sunshine.  It took me a few moments to collect myself and dry my eyes from the reminder that my problems aren’t that bad.  I’ve thought about that little girl a few times since then too but not so much as in the last few weeks.  The reason is kind of simple; I just had brain surgery three days ago and was released from the hospital today.  It started, or at least seemed, innocuously and discovered almost by accident.   Looking back, perhaps a good deal of what I had put down to as old injuries, aches and pains may not have been that at all but instead a tumor growing in my head; the doctor says probably not but we will never know.  The only thing I do know is that now I’m waiting for biopsy results and looking up terms like Gilomas and levels I-IV tumor classifications. The strange thing is that, when I got the news, my emotional reaction was that of calm.   I haven’t shed a tear yet nor do I intend to.  I do have to say, however, that certain things have come into focus for lack of a better term.  It’s almost like standing outside yourself and looking not only in, but outward as well on not only on my own state, but that of the world as well. 

I could bore you to tears with terms like “Wabi Sabi” and other esoteric nonsense but I’ll try to be brief and concise. One thing I am, however, certain of and it’s this; EVERYTHIING is a gift! Every sunrise, every hour, every minute and in those moments are the secrets that we all are looking for; magic.  We all look for it and seem to want to believe that it exists in the type of form sold to us by way of Hogwarts, Ministries of Magic and the like and  nothing could be further from the truth.  Magic exists in its true form in a way that we all practice it without even knowing at the time and in its simplest form; that of trying to be decent to each other.  How many of you reading this at some point in your life can look back on something that happened that changed your perspective if even of a minute to actually see the world around you?  For me, one of those days was that little girl taking her own moment of joy in the sun.  What was yours?  The hardest part is in trying to stay open to those moments when they present themselves. 

Anyone who has ever suffered my prior writings knows the importance I place on personal perspective.  Well now it seems that my own paradigm has shifted a little in that for me perspective seems to be only a paving stone on the road to clarity.  We’ve all had moments of clarity throughout our lives but I have a tendency to think that we view those times as fleeting and actually try to get past them as quickly as we can; oftentimes out of necessity.  For me, those moments often came when I found myself in a life an death situation.  During some of those times, I just KNEW without any logical way of explaining it, that today was not the day no matter how dangerous the situation and, probably, that was what granted me the clarity to see and navigate the situation (other times it was sheer dumb luck).  As I wait for the biopsy results it’s kind of the same way. The tumor may come back benign, low grade, or as a nightmare three month out the door worst case scenario but here’s the thing; it doesn’t matter.  Let the results come back worst case, let them tell me that treatment isn’t even worth it, let them tell me they are just taking me to deaths door and leaving me on the stoop, thats fine because then what happens is I kick in the door, drag the SOB out for a beating and walk home.  I’ve told a few people that and they “compliment” me on my “attitude” (frankly annoying) because it isn’t and I don’t know how to explain it in any kind of way that doesn’t sound like hubris which it isn’t either.  The only people who seem to get it have been in situations like what I’ve mentioned (certain immediate life and death kinds of things).  The only thing I know is what I know and it is my sincere hope that if you don’t understand my last statement, you never do because to get there, you have to walk a road of very sharp stones.    

In the martial art I train in, I’m surrounded by a bunch of cool folks all of whom work not just to defend themselves, but how to protect others as well including those who attack us if possible; Ethical Protectors if you will and in the last few years of training I found myself undergoing a sea change in philosophy in that I found that applications for the art almost more effective outside the physical application than in. Yes, there are times when you can’t avoid conflict but more often than not I think, it’s used far too frequently and more like a crutch or easy way out. In the dojo, we often talk about “shaping the space” by which you lead the attacker to the required destination allowing them to either disengage or no longer be able to fight.  In the beginning, I took that to mean the whole thing came from only one side of the equation and it took a few years for it to sink in (what can I say, I’m a slow learner).  Now however, it seems to me that the process requires not only the leading aspect but that you also MUST remain open to the aspect of the unknown, the creative spark that can come from anyplace and if you aren’t open to that possibly, no amount of personal will is going to help you navigate the road and this situation has granted me the clarity to see that more for what it is.  One of the things I realize is that even this is a gift I’ve been given for what ever reason; my only hope is that in some small way I can use it to possibly help others even if I never learn of it; maybe even by this post. 

Everything we have is a gift of some sort; both the good and the bad.  We have only to remain open to the creative spark that fuels both sides of our lives allow that magic of the world in and out which is way harder to practice than sounds but possible.   So in closing, look for more along these lines anyplace you can and see how it works for you because not today, tomorrow, or for a long time, but someday I will slip this mortal coil and on that day I will touch the face of god and ride the veil between the universe and structure of mans dreams but I’ll still be around; watching and listening.  When I do, the only thing I want to hear from any of you is either laughter or the sound of feet dancing in the cold winter sun….