Winning Mind Training

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Unintended Consequences

If you have ever heard ken Murray speak or read his excellent book Training at the Speed of Life (available at www.warriorspiritbooks.com) you are familiar with the phrase “Unintended Consequences of well intentioned training.” This term refers to training that is intended to prepare officers for the street and program the officers for success, but may actually be setting them up for failure.

Over the next two week’s I will talk about a couple of examples of training that I believe falls into this category based on both my experience and discussions with officers that have been through this training.

Boxing

Now I am not opposed to teaching boxing fundamentals such striking, power development, movement, etc. I am however, strongly opposed to boxing programs where officers are put into a ring and actually box. The intent behind this type of training is to expose officers to combat; to put them in an environment where they will experience interpersonal human aggression, where they will experience being in a fight and actually getting hit. I agree these are important elements in training however, lets examine the concerns I have with boxing.

When officers are in the ring they are actually learning to spar with an opponent. In my opinion this is a very dangerous mind set to take out to the street. We must ask ourselves “Do I want my officers standing in the street exchanging blows with a subject to see who is the better boxer? Or do I want them to take immediate control using force that is reasonable and necessary?”
If we do not want them sparring in the street, why do we have them spar in training? They need to get in fights in training with a subject, not sparring matches with another officer. Rather than have them spar put one of them in protective gear and have them play the role of the subject. Over the course of training the ‘subjects’ can display a variety of behaviors the officer will face on the street including assaulting the officer. The officer then can use the reasonable and necessary force (based on the totality of ccircumstances) to defeat the attack and control the subject. This creates a completely different mindset in the officer and allows us to program them for success rather than for failure. In fact, I am a fan of recruits fighting early and often in training as long as it is done properly with an understanding of the programming (we will discuss programming at length in this blog).

I have had a number of trainers over the years take offense to my stance on boxing and challenge me as to me why I believe boxing trains officers to fail. The main reason is because in almost every boxing match there is a winner and a loser. In a few matches the boxers exchange blow for blow in the fight and there is no clear winner. The result is a draw (tie). A tie on the street is not what we are after. In the win – loss scenario half the officers in training walk or stagger out of the ring as losers. Some are carried out of the ring as they actually get knocked out in the fight. When that happens you have sent 50% of the officers away from training and their last fight was one where they lost. For some they not only lost, they got knocked  out. We have just created a huge training scar in that officers subconscious mind. Do you want the officer carrying that training scar assigned to back you up in a fight?
We must understand how the mind gets programmed and objectively consider the consequences of our training. What’s Important Now is to continually ask ourselves if our officers experiencing unintended consequences of well intentioned training?
Brian Willis

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