A to Z Training Concept

A to Z Training Concept
By Jim Wagner

Unlike traditional-based or sport-based martial arts, one of the most important components of the reality-based martial arts is the concept of “A to Z training.” What this means is that all conflict drills and exercises have three stages:  1. a realistic starting point  2. technique performance  3. a reasonable finishing point. This concept can best be illustrated with an actual incident that occurred in Canada several years ago, and just recently in Finland, and I am sure there are countless unreported occurrences.

A uniformed Canadian police constable was on patrol, and he was an avid martial artist. A criminal came up to him and pointed a live pistol in the constable’s face. Before the suspect could pull the trigger the officer flawlessly did a gun disarm and safely pulled the weapon from the suspect’s hand. Tragically, however, without even thinking, the constable handed the loaded pistol back to the suspect a few moments later. Without a word being uttered, the suspect gladly took the weapon back. When the constable realized what he had done, obviously the wrong thing to do, he immediately tried again to retake the weapon. Not as fortunate the second time around, the suspect pulled the trigger and sent a bullet smashing into the constable’s shoulder. Fortunately, the constable had the Will to Survive and kept fighting, despite his injury, and he managed to once again pry the pistol from the suspect’s hand and follow up with an arrest.

A Closer Look

So, why did the constable in this true story give the pistol back to the suspect after a successful gun disarm? That’s right, you guessed it. The constable did this move repeatedly during training, and ended up falling back on his training in a real incident. He properly conditioned himself to disarm someone pointing a weapon at him, but unfortunately, he also conditioned himself to hand it back to his training partner immediately after the technique was performed. His muscle-memory (repetition that commits a movement to be a conditioned response) inadvertently conditioned him to give a dangerous weapon back to a suspect.

I was just recently in Finland training the top Defensive Tactics instructors of all five precincts of the Helsinki Police Department, and they informed me of a similar incident that happened to a police officer in Finland. This officer was also a Defensive Tactics instructor who should have known better. He successfully disarmed a suspect, then handed the weapon back to him. This particular incident is used as an example of not what to do at the Poliisikoulu (National Police Academy) in Tampere to prevent other officers from doing the same.
  If this can happen to experienced police officers, how much more can it happen to civilian martial arts practitioners?

How to Train

Whenever you practice any conflict technique you should always perform it from start to finish – from A to Z. For example, again using gun disarms as our teaching aid, nobody is going to just materialize in front of you pointing a gun. There will be some sort of activity prior to the assault, such as the suspect walking up to you then raising the weapon. The action may be followed by verbal communication like, “Stick your hands up, and don’t move!” During this Conflict Phase a gun disarm is executed based upon proper timing and chances of success. However, rather than stopping the technique there during training, and handing the weapon back to the “suspect” (your training partner), which was the mistake of both police officers during their training, you must complete the action to a “reasonable” conclusion. In a real situation you would not intentionally hand the weapon back to the suspect. In any real situation you are going to take self-preserving action: running away, shooting the suspect with the disarmed weapon, using the pistol as an impact weapon, or discarding the weapon in a safe direction. In training you must not develop bad habits. You must think about what the final moves should be to end up in a safe position. In the case of gun disarms you will disarm the subject, but you will run it all the way to a reasonable conclusion: get to the other side of the room if an escape is the chosen option, or force the suspect down at gun point or by force if a citizen’s arrest is what is required. In the case of today’s revised Finnish police training, they have changed things considerably to avoid past mistakes. Now instead of giving the weapon back to the trainer each time a gun disarm is performed, the trainee will complete the gun disarm, get to a point of safety, and maintain possession of the pistol. Then, instead of giving the pistol back to the trainer, the trainee now assumes the new role of the “suspect” (the trainer). Thus, the gun is never given back to the “bad guy,” and no bad habit conditioning is reinforced.

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