Eyes in the Back of Your Head
Our Qld Head Instructor, Darren, has been an operational police officer for 29yrs and is in charge of Tin Can Bay and Rainbow Beach (just opposite of Fraser Island). He runs the Budoshinkai Rainbow Beach and Tin Can Bay schools. He also teaches BJJ and MMA to a handful of students mainly comprising of police officers who work in the area.
He has always been interested in the practical aspects of his Karate and BJJ training. He is totally aware of the difference between Dojo training and what happens in the real world. Adrenaline, suddenness and kayos of a street situation cannot be replicated in a training environment. Darren says, “The instincts and skills that are instilled in you through your training will give you that definite edge and confidence when all goes bad.” Darren gives an account of a recent incident which shows out training is quite valuable to police officers, but to anyone who might need to get themselves out of trouble. However, it turned a bit ugly for one of Darren’s colleagues and student.
Recently I and two colleagues went to a disturbance at a local hotel which necessitated the removal of what we thought were two people. Whilst myself and Lee were escorting one struggling offender from the bar in wrists locks I saw that my colleague Jason who is a BJJ student had arrested a 2 person for urinating on the footpath I watched as this person started swinging punches at Jason and was then in awe as Jason executed a perfectly timed hip throw which resulted in the offender landing squarely on his back I was so impressed with the throw that I commented on it as I approached Jason who was now kneeling over the person in the process of applying handcuffs.
Unfortunately things went sour from here as Jason was kneeling over the offender another person came running from the bar and crash tackled Jason from behind driving him into the concrete footpath and causing a severe dislocation of his shoulder. After seeing Jason get belted in such a cowardly manner I let go of my offender and landed a front kick into the stomach of the person and then took control of him with a guillotine choke whilst standing up. As I was maneuvering this person to the police vehicle I looked back to see that Lee had been surrounded by three persons throwing punches at him, however some quick thinking from Lee saw him deploy his OC (Capsicum) spray into the face of all three people, whilst it made the offenders more agitated it brought us some time and distracted the offenders enough to separate them and for us to deal with them one at a time.
We wish Jason a speedy recovery so we can see him on the mats once when I am up there in a few months.