Professional Zones

Admin Joined : 16 Aug 2007 Posts : 232

Hi all,

Something that cropped up on the old dot.com forum and I thought was an interesting point for discussion.

It is a common statement that experience gained in a professional context acts as validation of statements or actions when talking about self protection and self defence.

i.e. working as a doorman, police officer, armed forces member lends more weight to your comments regarding aggression and violence.

Moreover, some argue that this professional status lends weight to specifically commenting on self protection and self defence.

The questions I suppose are (and this may change cos it's still embryonic form my perspective)

- Does security/police/armed forces professional experience make you more able to deal with aggression/violence as a "civilian"?

- Are the professional responses of a doorman, police officer, armed forces etc valid, preferred or desirable in a "civilian" context?

- Do you need to have had experience within these professions in order to be able to comment on strategy and actions designed to protect yourself and others?

- How do the strategies in the professional context hold up in a civilian context?

I'm a clean slate on this one personally. I see the obvious points for both sides but I'd like to hear other opinions.

Please note, this is NOT an excuse for anyone to have a pop at doormen, LEO's, armed forces personnel or to try and validate themselves by denigrating those who put themselves in harms way. Let's be honest about what professional experience in those arenas gives you in a civilian context for good and for bad.

thanks
Chris

Joined : 17 Aug 2007 Posts : 46

I'll jump in first Chris, due to my LEO background. Cops are good at dealing with confrontation when they're getting paid for it, but there are instances of domestic violence in police families, which means to me that they aren't all that good at dealing with their own problems.

I'm sure the same goes for doorstaff and anyone else who is involved in confrontation.

Secondly, being the 'impartial' party in a confrentation goes nowhere in helping you in your own self defence - cops tend to be 'on scene' second and so do not experience the true emotions involved. That in itself means that they are nort that good for teaching civilian self defence - they dont know the problem, so how can they fix it.

I speak from a previous LEO background, but I now teach in the real world.

Coops

Admin Joined : 16 Aug 2007 Posts : 232

Thanks Coops,

My own views haven't really hardened beyond the fact that greater exposure to aggression and violence assists in providing the tools to successfully handle those circumstances.

On the other hand, I am aware that outside of the "uniform" a number of friends have told me that they feel exactly the same about violence and aggression as everyone else. Almost like the professional context takes them outside of themselves that they adopt a different persona in order to work.

I'm also interested in how effectively the marketing of certain products reflects real life where every release seems to be accompanied with mandatory examples of hundreds of street-fights, years of military service or decades as a doorman/LEO. I wonder how validating this experience actually is in real terms?

Joined : 17 Aug 2007 Posts : 46

Hmm. My background has helped me in my teaching/training, but only so far as I use my mistakes to illustrate issues in Self Protection. I can't do anything about the fact that I was a bobby for 30 years but I certainly accept that we tend to be aired to more violence than someone who hasn't been in a confrontational job - that in itself seems to have some creedence with people who are seeking to learn.

As I said, I use my mistakes and errors in an anecdotal way, to explain things like ranges, effective striking and the important issue of legalities and finding yourself on the wrong side of the law due to ways that you dealt with an incident. That last issue seems to be very important when I talk about it - most of the people I train with have never been involved in an altercation which came to the eyes of the law and it is one of their greatest fears.

So I'll continue to demonstrate how crap I am when I teach, as they seem to enjoy it Smile

Coops

Admin Joined : 16 Aug 2007 Posts : 232

Joined : 17 Aug 2007 Posts : 46

Admin Joined : 16 Aug 2007 Posts : 232