Moderator: Van Canna
The fist is a good tool to have at your disposal, but most of us are only kidding ourselves that we will have the luxury to “selectively” use our weapons in the time segments allotted to us in a real fight vying for immediate psychological and physical control!
One group struck heavy bags at a minimum of 800 strikes with their fists, the second group struck heavy bags at a minimum of 800 strikes with open hands and the third group just did the final stress simulation.
The final simulation consisted of having an officer enter a smoke filled room, where the smoke has an odor and taste, strobe lights are on, the terrain is obstructed and wind is created by the use of high speed fans. All senses are overloaded.
Suddenly gunshots go off (on tape) and a figure comes running at the officer waving hands and screaming. The figure runs into the officer unless the officer moves away. This scenarios purpose is to stress out the officer enough to cause an involuntary discharge of the officer's firearm.
Each group had 50 participants. From the fist group there were 18 involuntary discharges. Nine of those officers had their finger off trigger prior to discharge. From the non-fist group there were 3 involuntary discharges, with 2 finger off trigger prior to discharge. From the control group 1 finger off trigger prior to discharge.
"Post Experiment interviews strongly indicated that a high percentage of participants who had involuntary discharges had studied martial arts emphasizing fisted strikes. Boxers were foremost in this category," said Messina.
Based partially on these experiments Modern Warrior DT Institute has taken all fisted strikes out of their Police Defensive Tactics curriculum and replaced them with palm strikes and other open handed alternatives when counter striking becomes necessary.
Conclusion
Using fisted strikes as the primary hand technique of police defensive tactics training is a perfect example of how sport martial arts influence police training. Many DT Instructors have a boxing or karate background, they teach what they like to do.
Defensive tactics has to be based on what law enforcement officers will encounter in the field, not what an instructor encountered in the ring. The primary strike should make sense for police work. The primary hand technique for law enforcement should be the palm strike.
Since jiyu kobo was no longer being taught, students who went in for
fighting competition (which was becoming increasingly popular at the time
and which attracted new students to the winning dojo or style quite nicely)
were showing lack of control and technique in fighting.
There were too many
injuries due to lack of training in distancing, focus, balance, etc. -- not
by powerful techniques but by plain sloppy fighting. A method had to be
developed outside of strict Bunkai to teach more control in attack/defense
techniques. The finalized set of kumites fulfilled this function.
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