The STAR Method was designed to address concerns that current Police combative’s training system’s miss. The current state of Police combative’s training is not conducive for Officer Safety and it is our hope to give Officer’s the tools to let them go home at the end of their shift safely while at the same time staying with proper use of force policies protecting themselves and the departments from liability issues. This course is designed to compliment Officer’s at all skills levels and will instill confidence in their abilities. This course is easily learned and retainable even with minimal training.
Philosophy -
Our goal is to deliver maximum effect with minimum output of energy. It is important to know that we are talking about a fight or struggle. Officer’s that are attacked need to realize that traditional Police “defensive tactics” may not work the same in a violent encounter like they did in training during static drills. Our system is designed to work effectively in a combative encounter, not just with a subject that is non compliant.
Methodology -
How we train. Training methodology is important. Where most “defensive tactics” systems fail is how they train the techniques into the Officers. Statics drills have their place, but to really learn the techniques they have to be learned with the application of stress and through scenario drills. Stress inoculation is very important. Stress conditions the body for a response. Your body is going to react during a stressful event. Our goal is to use that reaction to the Officers benefit.
Day One
Course Outline -
I. The Elbow Shield (1 hour)
A. The Science and Anatomy of Shielding
B. Shield vs Parrying and other defenses
C. Proper Application of the Elbow Shield Against Violent Assaults
II. Timing and Closing the Gap (1 hour)
A. Proper Timing During Entries and Use of Drills
B. Reasoning For Changing Levels
C. Position Awareness
-Inside The Arms High
-Inside The Arms Low
-Outside the Arms
III. Breaking Down The Structure (Off Balancing) (1 hour)
A. Breaking Down At The Legs
B. Using the Head To Break Balance
C. Hip Disruptions
IV. Arm Controls and Takedowns (2 hours)
A. Overhook Takedowns
B. Underhook Takedowns
C. Straight Arm Control Takedowns
D.Position Awareness Drills
E. Intangibles
- Double Locking
- Positional Asphyxiation
- Excited Delerium
V. Troubleshooting (2 hours)
A. Overhook to Elbow Wrap
B Improper Leverage During Underhook
C. Possible Escapes To Straight Armbar
- Bend Forward
- Bend Back
- Bend Up
- Simple Counters to escapes
VI. Assault Profiles (1 hr)
A. Untrained Attacker
B. Semi-Trained Attacker
- Drawing Them in
C. Trained Fighters
-Breaking Down Before Entry Strategies
-Disengaging and Drawing Your Weapon
Day Two
VII. Standing Cuffing Procedures (2 hours)
A. Elbow vs Wrist
B. Controlled Cuffing
C. Resisting Arrest
-When to hang on and when to disengage
VIII. Attacks From The Interview (1 hour)
A. The Listening Position
B. The Hands Up Position
C. Transitioning to Elbow Shield
IX. Counter Grappling Tactics (1 hours 30 minutes)
A. Front Grabs
B. Rear and Side Grabs
C. Counter Compression
D. Disengaging to Draw Your Weapon
X. Patrol and Jail Scenarios(1 hour)
A. Awareness (How,Where,When,What,and Why?)
B. Frisking Situations
C.How to know when they are going for a weapon
D. Knowing your enviromment
XI. Ground Escapes (2 hours)
A. Understanding the Strategy.
B Know Your Targets
C. Guard Reversals and Escapes
D Side Escapes
E. Mounted Escapes
F. Drawing your weapon
The S.T.A.R. (Stonewall Tactical Armlocks & Restraints) Method started back in 2001. It originally started as an 8 hour restraint and control course. However, we quickly realized that normally when you say "Restraint and Control" people mistakenly think it's a cuffing course which nothing could be further from the truth. Over time officers liked our approach so much they asked us to add other things into it. We added situational scenarios as well as retention and ground survival to the course as well. It now serves as a 16 hour Defensive Tactics Instructor Program that focuses on criminals who become violent and combative as opposed to simply resistant. So who would need it? Any officer that may be attacked in a short or confined space. This could be at a patrol stop between cars or even in a jail setting. It could also help S.W.A.T. teams after entering a home possibly caught off guard in a hallway.
Now one of the big reasons we thin this course is better than what others may offer is simply we feel that other programs require too much follow-up training time to be effective. With the learning methods we use in this course what the officers learn in this class is easily retainable. Most could theoretically use it the day after class will almost no follow up training at all. This saves the department down time and lost man hours on the street. I've been in the classes before I see the problems with them. You get some guy up there teaching a couter assault portion and shows 5 different defenses to 5 different punches. Real assaults are random. If you follow a course like that frankly your officer isn't going to know what they got hit with until after they've been assaulted. Doesn't make alot of sense does it? If it isn't that then you get some guy teaching control techniques but it's just a bunch of wrist locks. Wrist locks are a fine motor skill that require alot of practice to be effective. Even more than that if you look at the psysiology of what happens during a real conflict to the body it makes even less sense. The first thing that happens during an adrenaline dump is that the body loses its ability to perform fine motor functions. So why are they teaching this stuff to police? Well, I don't know either. Click on the link below to look at some of the other blunders taught in DT classes.
There's alot of different courses out there but can all your officers benefit from them? There's alot of tactics out there today. I see alot of departments even adopting MMA type curriculums. That is a bad idea for several reasons. In MMA you learn to pace yourself but you can't do that on the street. My main concern however is that type of training requires atheleticism and once again requires constant training. I saw one program that I won't name that teaches the philopsophy of "clinch to control". This once again is a bad idea. First of all, not everyone of your officers can make that work. Sure now me I'm just over 6'0 and 200+ lbs. I have a 6th degree black belt in Jujutsu and I'm a former heavyweight champion. I can clinch a guy without any problem and so can alot of the officers. However a female officer 5'4 isn't going to clinch with a drunk 6'4 and control him. This just isn't going to happen. This disengagement taught in that program can be even less effective as you will see in a video further down. On top of that once again as a strategy it doesn't make sense. Clinching is a neutral position. Why would I fight to get to a neutral position when I could just take the person down and put them in cuffs and be done? The answer to the problem is that these programs need to be conceptual not tactic-based. An example I'll give you is the takedowns you see me doing in the video above. All those takedowns are based on a single concept taught in the program. Now for example, a female officer can apply these concepts and be just as successful as I am in that video. Will it look the same as the way I did it? No, but it doesn't have to. Tactics require specific physical attributes to be successful and concepts don't they are adaptive to the user the way a program SHOULD be. In the class your officers will get alot of time actually applying the concepts taught in the course with people of all shapes and sizes in dynamic ways under stress. This aids heavily in retention because the officer is able to associate with things about their job they are familiar with. Since we make them swap partners at regular intervals they work with people of different heights as well as other disparities. At the end of the course the officer will already know how to apply this knowledge on the street. Since they've practiced with different people they will know how things adapt and work for them. So let's say an officer pulls a guy over and feels the need to ask them to step out of the car. When that person gets out of the car the officer will most likely be able to look at them and already know how they would take them down and cuff them if an assault should take place because they've probably already worked with someone in the class that matches that size and build. Pretty good thing to know ahead of time huh? Yes, the mental part of that is taught as well.
All levels of force are taught in this program but once again it is generally geared towards higer level of force situations.
Though as of late it seems to be getting a little better alot of departments seem like they don't consider unarmed courses a priority. This is truly a bad call. Many want to move towards TASER and OC Spray because iboth are compliance tools that offer a lower level of force that could stop an altercation from happening thereby avoiding injury to the assailant or the officer. It sounds good in theory but the problem is that it isn't always good in application. Much like a gun these tools will only work if they are alreeady out before the attack. Hardening criminals at times can actually build up a tolerance to OC spray and if it's the kind that shoots the stream you could even miss your target. TASER has become a much bigger bone of contention. Alot of departments rely way too heavily on Thomas A Swift's Electronic Rifle. Most of the time it works fine but it can be very inconsistant. The prongs can get caught on clothes or various things can interfere with the current. Worst of all some just don't feel it the same way cartridge in or out either one. A test was recently done which actually proved if someone were angry enough and had the willpower they could actually fight through a TASER and basically make it pointless. Don't believe me? Check out a couple videos featured in our article TASER, Don't Fool Yourself:
In talking about the above video on the right what if backup hadn't arrived? This officer had no unarmed tactics that she could use. She could've been seriously injured or killed when the TASER didn't have it's desired effect. Now TASER is a good tool and works most of the time I'd rather have it than not have it. My point is simply I'm not going to trust my life to jumper cables and neither should any officer in your department. You've got to have backup in case your weapon fails. Some promote baton heavily which is fine as long as the criminal is at the other end of it but if they are inside the arc of the swing your officer is going to have a rough time if that's all he has to rely on. You know I once asked an officer what he'd do if he got in a fight and was losing. He actually said he'd just pull his gun out and shoot the guy. Really? I don't think so. Alot of officers of course will laugh at this but the sad thing is alot actually believe it. The gun is made to be fired away not close up. Let's put that to the test:
The fact is those videos are acutally pretty old. They didn't even have the high level retention holsters back then that they have today. Depending on your holster that gap might even be wider. Remember that MMA type course teaching clinch to control I mentioned earlier? That course and many gun courses teach the same thing. Step into it and shove the chest to disengage then draw your weapon. This is just insufficient and frankly does not work well in real application. What actually happens is alot off the time they are so worried about disengaging that they back up when they push and the criminal is able to close the distance easily in spite of it. Even if they do get the gun out they could miss or it could still jam. Am I wrong? Let's see:
He kept trying to push off but it just wasn't happening was it. Youtube is full of those videos I could post them all day but one is enough. Once again either lack of unarmed training or the incorrect training had a hand in this debacle. Maybe he had training but it never took into account possible physical disparties the way our course does. In closing of course weapons training is important. This last part of the info was only to stress how important unarmed training is as well to back up that training if it fails. Departments need unarmed courses and we think our course is the right fit. We see alot of liability issues these days with all the protests and such. These cases of brutality can be traced back directly to lack of proper training. When an officer is faced with a problem and their training fails they revert back to what they know which is where the trouble starts. With our concept-based teaching and the way our program is structured your officers won't feel lost when these problems arise. This means less injury to your officers and to the people who may cause trouble. Not all courses out there are the same we have something special to offer you so give us a chance to prove it and we'll be up to the challenge.
