Through The Looking Glass

Day two of training. The practical applications of defensive tactics. Such as it is.

I wonder who decided on this manual of things that we must show proficiency in?

It all looks very pretty and professional. If we were ever challenged in court, they could point to the book and say "These are the skills our officers are trained in." It's alot like the stuff they used to train soldiers with, except for the moves that are most likely to kill somebody.

As a matter of fact, I found an old hand to hand combat training manual one time from WWII. And it showed almost all of the moves that we train on even today. Except for, as I mentioned, those moves most likely to kill or maim. The snapping of the neck and driving the nose bones up into the brain sort that the general public tends to frown on. I can understand it. Those sort of things make most people a bit queasy.

But I'll have to tell you that in my (almost) eight years with the department and the dozens of times that I have had to put my hands on an inmate intent on mayhem, I have never once to my recollection ever used a single one of these techniques.

Because when the chips are down and you are fighting for your safety or the safety of someone else, you just do what you need to do. Unless you are some martial arts expert or a trained assassin or something, you never think to use techniques like these. You don't think about center of gravity and proper body mechanics and pressure points. All your world narrows down to is the need to thump this fool and make him stop acting stupid so I can get my butt out of this mess and go about my business.

And usually while I am in the middle of a donnybrook I'm yelling "You miserable so and so! Now I'm going to have to do hours of paperwork! And that really pisses me off!"

Occasionally, just yelling that makes them stop alot sooner. Especially if I yell it loud enough and they think I'm really pissed off. Alot of times at that point they just lay down on the floor and cover their heads and say "I'm sorry! Really! I quit!"

Maybe they should spend less time teaching body mechanics and more time teaching yelling.

Oh dear. For Kite Flying Day I didn't do any of that. It was way too freaking cold outside for such nonsense. And tomorrow is Toothache Day. I'm not much looking forward to that either, I must say.