I am still awake, and still basking in the afterglow of two great victories, my Washington Redskins pounding of the Eagles (only a week after their upset of arch-rival Dallas, and Pittsburgh winning a nail-biter at Jacksonville. It's rare that my Redskins are any good, and I think they've surprised me this year, probably more than anyone else. My newly adopted "Stillers" are always good, and this year are showing some grit in their tough schedule. It's a great distraction from a busy and stressful work and personal life.
Just heard from Rick Fryer, and he's putting the MMA Weekly Wrapup on hold for a little while for personal reasons. I know you, his many readers are missing it, and I'm just missing the contact with the ever-entertaining Mr. Fryer. He's had a very positive impact on TDA Training, and we anxiously await his return.
I just read a great explanation of the need for, and the difference between civilian (police), and military combatives. More properly, the difference between Police Defensive Tactics (law enforcement) and Combatives (military). From Rants and Raves:
Combatives is a term for what might be called a subset of martial arts training originally designed for the military, though there is now significant development in police and civilian combatives.
The idea of combatives is, to give a military or police recruit useful hand-to-hand and personal weapon skills in as short a period of time as possible...
And here we come to the difference in emphasis between military, police and civilian needs in combatives.
A soldier needs to train to quickly kill, or completely disable, an opponent in the comparatively rare situation where firearms are not in play. Keeping in mind that almost always, a combatant has a knife as backup, or an empty or malfunctioning rifle as a club-like weapon.Police or corrections officers face unarmed struggle when subduing suspects or prisoners on a regular basis, but are obligated to use sub-lethal force whenever possible, and may face a world of trouble if they kill or seriously damage the opponent.
This actually requires a higher level of skill than a soldier may need. The good news is, law enforcement officers may have the opportunity to train over the course of their careers, and often have the luxury of piling on to a suspect/prisoner in numbers. If they don't have the numbers, the restrictions on using firearms, tasers, etc are less.
For civilians, the good news is that what they need to do in a hot situation is escape, not kill or restrain. The bad news is, civilians are generally not in anything like the physical shape military personnel and police maintain.
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