If Ya Stay Ready

Recently I was watching an interview with a football player in the Canadian Football League that had retired at the end of last season to return to the US to pursue some business interests. That did not work out for some reason so he decided to return to the CFL. His return to the Calgary Stampeders took place after training camp and one week before the start of the regular season. He was was asked by the reporter if he was going to have a difficult time preparing physically where he had missed camp. The player referred to a line in a song by rapper Suga Free as his reply. The name of the song is “If Ya Stay Ready”.  Not being a rap fan myself I Goggled Suga Free and found the song. It is not something I will be downloading onto my ipod with my audio books and classical guitar music but the line in the song that the player referred to did catch my attention. It says “If ya stay ready, you ain’t gotta get ready.” Great line and a very profound philosophy for law enforcement professionals.

It reminded me of a discussion we had during some recent mental preparation training I was doing with police recruits. One of the recruits used the sports analogy and talked about preparing for ‘Game Day’. Sports are always good for analogies as most people are familiar with them and have participated in sports at some level.

There are some critical differences however between sports and the world of law enforcement. A few of the differences between an athlete and a law enforcement professional are that every day is game day for law enforcement professionals. The challenge as a law enforcement professional is you never know:

• Who the competition is,
• The skill level, training and experience of the opponent,
• What the field or environmental conditions will be,
• How many people you will be competing against,
• Whether you are competing alone or as a team,
• What the event is going to be, (talking, fighting, shooting, etc)
• Or, how long the event will last.

When the event starts we often do not have time fro game planning or watching game film. We must be ready to compete at the highest level and win at all times. The consequences for losing as a law enforcement officer are huge. As a result we need to heed the words of Suga Free and understand the importance on continuous training and learning.