Mndset for Policing.

Getting and staying in shape is your responsibility. Your body is not like a piece of equipment that the department issues. You must have the discipline and the understanding of exactly what your profession is about and what is expected of you. If your firearm or any weapon is ever taken from you or you lose any physical confrontation, it could be your last. Others can afford to win and lose some, but as a police officer, you can never lose a confrontation. If you cannot defend yourself, then you are unfit for duty. It is that simple. Getting and staying in shape takes work, time, and commitment. Best of all, it can be enjoyable and creative.

Before I pinned on the badge, I was a long-time martial artist. This training set the foundation for the discipline needed to remain in shape for the rest of my life. I trained daily. To me, the key to keeping from getting bored was to make the challenge a personal one. To stay in shape and better myself, I would compete against myself. 

When I entered the police academy, I discovered that the course with the most hours was defensive tactics. There, many different martial arts came together to create the total officer defense training. It was just an extension of what I was already doing. 

After a few years of patrol and plainclothes work, I got the call. There was an opening on the SWAT team. Only the best of the best make the team. Again, pushing myself to make the cut was a personal responsibility. I would run 5 miles after my shift every other day. It was South Florida, and I chose to run after my 3 pm to 11 pm shift. That meant that after work, I would dress down, put on my shoulder holster, and run the mean streets of the neighborhoods I patrolled. 

While on the team, we spent at least one hour each training day devoted to running and calisthenics. Team members were permitted to do small amounts of physical training on duty. It was an exciting time. I had to be in shape. Once, I had to climb a tree to better view a developing scene. Suddenly, Mr. Murphy from Murphy’s Law arrived, and I was stuck in that tree for about four hours. Being in shape and flexible were the keys to surviving that mess.

While assigned to the county narcotics unit, my partner and I would play racquetball while waiting for our pagers to go off. We would leave, do a dope deal, and return to finish our game. Arrest would come later unless it were a buy/bust. If we were working a wire (wiretap), we had a video game that required you to run in place to kill time. We would race each other and never leave the room, always near the recorders. Staying in shape became part of the job. 

A few years later, when I was assigned to the Police Academy as the supervisor and instructor coordinator, I again took advantage of the opportunity. I would run daily with the various classes and participate in the defensive tactics classes. 

The vital motivation during my law enforcement career is that the bad guy works out daily, at home or in jail. They play by the rules that there are no rules and can only be one winner. Any legal, moral, or ethical mindset does not bind them. In addition, most of the confrontations a police officer will experience are the officer’s reaction to the bad guy’s action. Unless you take the responsibility to train, train, and train some more, your response will always be slower than the action of the bad guy.  

Winning any confrontation is always about having the tools and resources needed and knowing how and when to use them. If you are in law enforcement, you should be in a training mindset, and you must know confrontations happen, never when you expect them. They arrive in the rain when you have an upset stomach or when you just lost a piece of your ass in the captain’s office. If you are in law enforcement, you must realize that it is your responsibility, not the department’s, to keep yourself in shape. Please do it for yourself, your family, and your fellow officers.