Watching a Kung Fu movie recently caused me to recall the training in self defense we received in the Broward County Police Academy in Fort Lauderdale. Back when the text was carved on stone tablets. It was a combination of mixed martial arts, and come-along holds popular at the time. Remember Dave Dampier and I throwing each other around. And I particularly remember the last day of class.
"First rule," our coach, Payne N Misery, said, "is don't try any of this stuff unless you practice it diligently. My advice, unless you seriously want to study martial arts, is to pick up one or two favorite moves and practice them. For example kicking some puke's knee backwards, or dislocating his shoulder using a bar hammerlock."
This ain't the movies," he continued, "and you ain't Bruce Lee."
How right he was. In the movies the Kung Fu'ers kick and punch the hell outta each other and come right back for more. In real life, land a good ol' country boy sucker punch and the show's over.
And if this stuff is so great, why don't the dudes in the UFC mixed martial arts battles do any of these movie gyrations. Cause they'll get your butt broken unless you use them against someone who doesn't know how to fight.
Howsumever, after Payne had made his cautionary statement, he picked two recruits to try to get one man out of a car. The driver, a Ft Lauderdale cop, just offered resistance, no offensive moves. He held the wheel with both hands and the two recruits couldn't move him.
The instructor laughed and said, "Now, after all these weeks of text book self-defense training, I'm gonna show you what really works."
He moved to the car. "See the mustache on the driver, get a good hold on it and pull. He'll follow right behind it. And, a quick finger to the eye will get those hands loose from the steering wheel. And, a ear is a perfect handle. So's a finger in the mouth, like a fish hook pulling it sideways. These things work. But forget where you heard it."
These moves, and a few others, kept most of us out of the hospital. There were other cops who didn't need them. We'll look at a couple next time.
Oldcop is correct-a-mundo as usual. Never was in one fight where any of those techniques helped much. What helped most was 95% of the time it was 2-3 pissed off deputies against one stupid drunk. Once you got them down, it was usually all over but the cussin'. Most of the time we never had to fight much anyway because the shitbag knew they would get their ass kicked but good for making us get dirty and ripping a good pair of trousers. Getting your head sewn up at the ER with no pain meds usually fixed repeat occurances.
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