Monday, Monday

It must be Monday, because there’s quarterbacks everywhere. But the ones that are really starting to get under my skin are the ones who have concluded that the two Atlanta officers involved in the latest shooting controversy are inadequately trained. Their evidence? The simple fact that they lost a physical fight with a single suspect. That’s it. All they know is two cops got their asses kicked by one suspect, and that by default signifies inadequate training.

Then it would logically follow that if police combatives training were adequate, two cops would never lose an empty hand fight against a sole suspect, right? I mean, if losing the fight cements as fact that training was inadequate, then we would have to also conclude that adequate training guarantees victory.

The problem is that while training certainly gives an advantage, it is rarely (if ever) the sole factor in determining the outcome of combat. Think about it. If the single determining factor in winning fights was training, then we could also safely assume that every loser of a professional MMA fight was not as well trained as his opponent. After all, nobody ever lost a fight because they got tired, or slipped and lost their balance for a moment, or because their opponent simply got lucky, right? And it certainly couldn’t be because your opponent is simply bigger and/or stronger than you are…the size and strength of your opponent don’t matter as long as you’re adequately trained. Right? (Hint: No, that’s not right. That’s why they have weight divisions in pro fighting.)

Must have exactly the same amount of training.

A quick story…

Back in my college days, I spent a short while training in Isshin-ryu karate. For my blue belt test (the second test you take), I had to spar with my sensei during the final phase of the exam. It was our dojo policy that medium contact to the body was permitted, but contact to the head was not. You could feint to the head to demonstrate that you could see and attack the target, but exercise enough control to avoid contact. As my sensei and I fought, I saw an opportunity to throw a controlled punch to his head, and I attacked. Despite my intention to pull the punch short, something odd about how he blocked deflected my fist into the side of his head, and I hit him. He proceeded to swat me around the mat like a cat toy, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. But the fact remained that I had hit him. Had I thrown with serious force and intent to do damage, I could have put him down.

Not me. Fortunately, cell phone cameras did not exist back then.

Was I better trained than he was? Absolutely not. He was a 4th degree black belt, and had been practicing for 20 years. I was maybe two months into the art at the time. The level of training mattered not one whit. I got lucky, and he got unlucky. That was it. And that has been a lesson which I have carried with me through my various experiences as a soldier, cop, and as a continuing martial artist.

There is always someone bigger than you. Stronger than you. Meaner than you. Luckier than you. And yes, even better trained than you. And none of them have a sign hanging around their neck warning you in advance. To paraphrase my friend Michael Bane…violence is a chaos system, and as such there is no guaranteed outcome, no matter what you do to prepare for it.

So maybe those cops were inadequately trained. Maybe. But if you can understand that factors other than training can affect the outcome, then you can likewise understand that you can’t determine the level of training solely by observing the outcome.

Now go run some stadium steps until you’re ready to be a proper quarterback.