Control tactics are considered a low-level use of force — they disrupt balance but rarely cause injury. These tactics are widely trained in law enforcement academies. However, some training methodologies do not adequately prepare officers for field application of control tactics, leading to commentary like “that s*it doesn’t work.”
Here are four ways to improve your control-tactics training so cops are ready in the field.
1. Teach Proactive Entries
Some training systems teach control holds and takedowns from a connected position without acknowledging the movements used to make physical contact with the subject. This produces the “wrist chasing” error, in which an officer ineffectually grabs at the subject’s wrist and has to make several attempts before arriving at control of a limb.
Teaching proactive entries will help prevent officers from making this error. A proactive entry is an officer initiated movement that allows the officer to cross space safely and to gain control of specific reference points on the subject’s body. These transitional movements allow for proactive blocking of punches and set up counter-attacks. Officers need to be confident in their skills, and teaching and reviewing proactive entries will improve officer confidence and success in field applications.
2. Teach Students to Use External Attentional Focus
When teaching control tactics, the instructor should emphasize visual and kinesthetic reference points that the student perceives from the opponent and the environment. For example, when teaching an arm bar takedown, the instructor should cue the student to step outside the subject’s foot before pivoting.
By doing this, the instructor is keeping the student in “the zone”, or in an automatic processing state. Research has shown that this focus produces better skill performance than having the student think cognitively about the movement. Thinking cognitively about movement in preparation or during movement can lead to inferior performance. Giving students external reference points can help them stay in a state of automatic processing.
3. Teach Flow Drills
The flow — or automaticity state — is the holy grail of control tactics training. Flow drills are designed to mimic the chaos of combat within specific parameters, usually involving repetitive movement patterns. Training with flow drills can greatly accelerate the student through the stages of motor learning to the automatic stage.
The patterns of movement in the flow drills can emphasize defense, striking, or transitional movements. Once the drill has been learned, students can break out of the pattern of repetitive movement to apply specific techniques. Training this transition from drill to technique boosts adaptability in combat. Some examples of flow drills include wrestling techniques likebicep and shoulder pummeling as well as hubud andlubud techniques from Kali.
4. Train and Test in Closed and Open Environments
Once control tactics are evaluated in a closed or sterile environment to ensure the student understands the fundamental movements, the training must move from the mat to a more realistic training environment that mimics field conditions.
For example, control holds can be used to extract opponents from locations such as vehicles, chairs, and benches. One open, realistic environment with variable resistive movements a trainer can use is a mock-up living room with foam couches and chairs.
Students who bring their skills up to the automatic level will be able to apply control tactics against actively resisting suspects in a variable environment. In a complex reality-based training scenario, students can apply control tactics in concert with other tactics such as building searches.
Conclusion
Control tactics are an important part of all defensive tactics systems. Trainers can improve their instruction by teaching proactive entries, using external reference points to improve skill performance, conducting both closed and open environment training, and using flow drills. For more information on motor learning concepts, check out Motor Learning and Performance by Richard Schmidt and Timothy Lee.
