Police and striking arts

[JerryLove]

Individual experience is anticdotal. Jumping spinning kicks have connected in bar fights and killed people but are not a good tactic.

 

What use, exactly, would make a strikin art preferrable to a grappling art in general police work? Where would you rather hit your opponent than control him in poilce work? Where whould punching and kicking be preferrable to both grappling and geting yo tour weapon?

 

Don't just make a vague appeal to "I've worked law enforcement" becuase I can think to 20 officers who disagree with you... explain *why*.

[JerryLove]

Scenario 1: (already brought up, but to expand on the concept) The officer is suddenly attacked at close range. Joint locks, grappling and submissions are fine, but the first concern, and the natural reaction, is to block and strike.

This argument is a straw-man fallacy. All grappling arts teach defenses to strikes.

Another point here, even grapplers learn to strike. If you can't fight, you probably won't be able to use joint locks and grappling.

Of course they do, and srikers learn basic grappling/counter grappling (even boxers get some level of this).

Scenario 2: a simple contact goes wrong, the officer finds himself suddenly facing multiple, aggressive subjects, and one attacks. He has no time to deploy a weapon, and the last thing he wants to do is get tied up with only one bad guy. Solution- footwork and striking.

 

Doesn't work. If he's striking that means he's been attacked. If he's been attacked by multiple opponents it's reasonably certain he's been grabbed or someone else is after his weapon. he needs to make distance and pull a weapon, and the only major thing stopping him would be people grabbing/tackling/contesting for the weapon. These are basic grappling skills.

Scenario 4: Dog attack. Joint locks are simply not an option. Striking, while not optimal either, is far preferable and may disuade the animal. Of course, when he's on the officer, there will be some form of grappling used- probably with the intent to get the dog off so he can kick the crap out of it to buy time to get his sidearm and shoot it.

 

you put up something you can loose (your off arm) and use it as a lever to keep the animal away (grappling) while you pull your weapon and fire repeatedly.

If I was a cop, I'd learn a good striking art that also incorporates stand up grappling and joint locks, and I'd suppliment it with grappling.

 

The primary focus of HtH training at the FBI acadamy is grappling and weapon retention. Ditto the US.Marshal service, and every training academy I am familir with in the US. This is not to say that striking does not existin in training; but rather that they two big focuses are weapon retention/use, and subdual (and not through knocking them unconsious).

 

So if we really want an appeal to authoity; let's go look up what the actual police academies with internal training methods teach.

[ninjanurse]

I fail to understand why your responses to others have to be so aggressive and rude. Cordial conversation is preferable in these forums. No response is the best reponse here. My apologies for perceived offenses.

 

[JerryLove]

I'm not the one with the inferred "You don't know what you are talking about because you have nor been in uniform", nor am I the person who just made a post entirely about how rude the other poster is (though I suppose I am now).

 

I've expressed an opinion, and attempted to provide proper support for it. You've expressed an opinion and I've asked that you also provide proper support.

 

I don't believe any of the examples given by the other poster would have a (for example) boxer faring better than a Jujitsu practitioner. I don't believe that the various law enfrcement agencies teach "striking arts" (though they most certainly teach about hitting). I don't believe I have been rude, and that was certainly not my intent.

 

As to why a martial artist might be aggressive... I suppose that's self-evident.

[ZR440]

There's a lot of different agencies in this country and I'm sure they have their own policies to what the minimum requirements are. As to why one might choose a striking defense over a grappling defense really shouldn't matter because it's basic defense, right?

[SBN Doug]

Everyone try to keep in mind we conversing in a medium that is very conducive to misinterpretation of a person's statement. Take everything with a grain of salt, and try not to take things personally.

 

This is a good topic so far, so please keep it going in a positive direction.

 

Thanks.

[Icetuete]

as to the question why policemen train in striking art (i dont know whether it is true or not though) in the training every police officer runs through (at least here in germany), they learn certain techniques to disarm opponents, render them unable to move or in a position to use hand-cuffs on them. dont know inhowfar these techniques are related to a certain martial art or system but since they know these "grappling" techniques it is rather obvious that they do an art that makes a good addition, like striking arts.

 

but since i aint got any law enforcement expirience i can't really judge. just my thoughts.

[delta1]

Scenario 1- you pretty much agred with me, though you chose to argue the point ( ). So I'll just agree with you and let that one go by.

Scenario 2: Doesn't work. If he's striking that means he's been attacked. If he's been attacked by multiple opponents it's reasonably certain he's been grabbed or someone else is after his weapon. he needs to make distance and pull a weapon, and the only major thing stopping him would be people grabbing/tackling/contesting for the weapon. These are basic grappling skills.

 

Begs the question. You base your argument on the assumption that your script is the only way for this scenario to play out. Nothing is reasonably certain in a fight, and this (as all the scenarios I mentioned) was taken from a real encounter. This one happened to involve my brother and a group of drunks. My brother is a pureist, and will tell you that the only art worth studying is American Kenpo (I argue a lot with him too!). He successfully defended himself with strikes, and was able to take the lot into custody without a single joint lock or throw. And this isn't the only time he's done this.

 

Scenario 3 was not addressed.

 

Scenario 4: though you apparently took exception to it, you really only expanded on my basic argument, giving a specific example of what I said in general terms.

 

As for police academies, their primary focus is to teach the minimum skills necessary in the limmited time they have. They focus mostly on cuffing, compliance and control techniques, which are joint locks and grappling. But they are not full grappling or aiki courses- intro level stuff at best. Further training is left to the individual officers and to their respective departments.

 

No one here is saying that joint locks and grappling aren't important to a police officer. I'd guess that most would agree that they are important, and should be learned first to some extent. We are simply answering the initial posters question as to why striking arts would be useful to a police officer.

[Sens55]

Different agencies study different styles, but most that I am familiar (most of my family and many of my friends are police officers) primarily focus on joint manipulation techniques. They do learn strikes because they may need to use them for things like a knife disarm before engaging in a joint move, i.e. a crescent kick to knock it aside so they can close. They also learn some grappling techniques. However, in spite of Mr. Love's expertise, they attempt to avoid out and out grappling, since it brings the perp closer to their side arm and going to ground can be potentially dangerous for the officer, since it's unlikely he'll have any help other than his/her fellow officers. That's not to say they don't learn how to go to ground. They try to learn a blend. A little striking, a little grappling and a whole lot of submission and joint manipulation. At least that's what is learn in the academies here in the mid-U.S.

[Sens55]

Delta,

 

You're right on in my book. This is not a mutually exclusive argument. PD's study different things. A lot of it actually has to do with what is available in the area. A larger city can afford to have their own internal training. Others contract it. Some leave it completely to the officers. If we actually took a true survey I'd bet we'd find that we'd have almost every art imaginable is studied by some PD somewhere (this is only specualtion, though).