Police Officers and Martial Arts
With the rise of the UFC as a household name and even being shown on ESPN; everyone is now training or at the very least have some understanding of lethal techniques. In many cases some of the same people training are some of the same people that a veteran officer would encounter on a regular basis on official duty. Some of the very same people that the officers are tasked to catch are sometimes better trained in physical combat that the officers themselves. Time and time again you see stories on the news about criminals controlling several officers with some basic martial arts techniques. Let's look at some reasons why Police Officers should train martial arts.
Better Stress Management
The confidence that comes along with martial arts training is well documented. Imagine walking into a crowded room and knowing that you could defend yourself effectively against anyone in the entire place. The confidence that goes along with that certainly would help you manage stress in a different way when encountered. The movements, breathing, meditation and technical combat skills are all ways to have better stress management on the job.
Duty Belt Management
Police Officers have a job that we all need to respect. They protect us daily without many people saying thank you or understanding what they actually do. They do this with people and the media constantly scrutinizing their movements and basically everything they do. What happens is that sometimes an untrained officer or an officer who was not able to handle the stress of confrontation may go directly to the tools on his/her duty belt. We feel that in certain circumstances, some martial arts training would have helped to bring clarity to certain situations and definitely allow the officer to have better control of the tasks at hand. Martial Arts in the form of Advanced Police Conflict Resolution Tactics is one of those rare things that can help our police officers do great things. I recently watch a video of a Florida Police Officer named Ruben Alvarez, who happens to be a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, handle a situation using only his physical tools and his advanced training to subdue an assailant. It was a really good example of what martial arts can do for an officer in a conflict resolution scenario.
Constantly Aware
Martial Arts requires a constant level of awareness similar to the Police Officer in their daily lives. This is good mental training for the officer to test the boundaries of their mental toughness and physical skill. Awareness can mean the difference between getting injured and preventing a situation before is happens.
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Content was drafted by Javill Byron, who advocates and serves as a friend of many police officers on a daily basis. Javill Byron has been know to train with, teach and learn from police officers to understand the severity of their jobs to have a better appreciation for what they do. Supplemental content can be found at javillbyron.com, javillbyron.net and javillbyron.org
