Police BJJ Training with Bob

In this episode of the Inside the Wave podcast, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Bob Duffy, a longtime friend and a significant figure in both the jiu-jitsu and law enforcement communities. Bob is not only a gym owner but also a seasoned law enforcement officer (LEO) and a dedicated trainer for other officers. Our conversation delved deep into his journey, the integration of martial arts into law enforcement training, and the challenges faced by officers today.

This episode provided a comprehensive look at the intersection of jiu-jitsu and law enforcement, highlighting both the challenges and opportunities for improving officer training.

Bob Duffy's insights underscored the importance of ongoing, realistic training and the potential for martial arts to play a crucial role in law enforcement wellness and effectiveness.

Stay connected with Bob and explore his impactful work here:

• Bob’s Instagram
• C4CPJJ Wisconsin
• Crossover BJJ
• C4C Operator (focused on police training)

 

Episode Transcript

(00:12):
Welcome to the Inside the Wave podcast, episode six. I'm joined
today with longtime jiu-jitsu community
friend, Bob Duffy. That's right. Gym owner,
law enforcement officer, LEO. trainer

(00:33):
Hi, I feel like we've known each other for like 17 years,
16 years, we've known of each other and we've we've grown closer over the
last few years, I would say for sure. So,
yeah, I guess I've got a pretty long like martial arts
history. And then that's overlapped with
my my career within law enforcement. So

(00:56):
I started doing martial arts as a kid, like like many people of my generation
started doing judo, karate, taekwondo. That was all that
was around at the time, you know, and did
taekwondo for a long time until probably the late 90s
when my instructor started traveling out to Torrance. Training
Gracie jiu-jitsu and bringing it back. So this was like 98 99 was

(01:18):
my first exposure to jiu-jitsu And
then from there, you know, I got I got the itch, you know So
I started doing that more more than anything And
eventually licked up with Adrian Serrano here local living
living legend like living pine over over a hundred MMA fights.
Yep. And so in the early 2000s, I started training

(01:40):
with him, did some MMA fights, which I thought was a great idea at
the time, which now I look back on, you know, what the hell was I thinking? It's
good for your brain. Yeah, it was wonderful. So I did that all
through kind of the early 2000s. I, you know, started coaching
with him and things like that up until about 2010. And then I really
just kind of transitioned over to jiu-jitsu and

(02:03):
just ran with it from there. And 2013, myself
and a couple buddies, Ryan, Dan, Jorge, kind
of started up Crossover Jiu-Jitsu here in Milwaukee. That's
still going strong. We got three locations now, Tosa,
Maguanago and Waukesha. But

(02:25):
then aside from that, I've got, I've got like a lot of irons in the fire, right?
On top of that, I obviously work at a local sheriff's office.
I've been doing that for, all said and done, about 20 years.
I worked for Milwaukee County House of Corrections for about four years, and
then the sheriff's office I'm at now, I've been about 16 years.
Currently, I'm a sergeant within our corrections division, and then I oversee

(02:52):
Where does like sergeant line up in the in the
Yeah, so every agency is a little different. But at
our agency, basically, within our corrections division, we have officers
and then sergeants. And then it goes right into our superintendents

(03:12):
So all, all set about 20 years. Um,
I'd say for a good majority of that, at least 10 plus years,
I've been heavily involved in like the training end of things. Um,
training, not just like our corrections division, but also our
patrol guys, our SWAT guys, kind of the full gambit.
Um, and I've been lucky to do that because of my experience with like martial

(03:34):
arts and jiu-jitsu and stuff. Um, I've kind of got a
little bit of, you know, a deeper knowledge of that stuff that I've been able to bring
to the table. So. And then, in
addition to that, obviously I work, I'm an adjunct
instructor for Chad Lyman's company, C4PJJ, Police
Jiu-Jitsu. I've been doing that for a number of years now. And

(03:55):
then I also started a project, we call it the 1078 Brazilian
Jiu-Jitsu Project. It's a really unique project. It's
more focused on like law enforcement wellness and actually like teaching
guys defensive tactics per se. Um,
but it's really, uh, it's, it's linked up with, uh, SPG straight
blast gym to really, uh, provide officers with regular

(04:18):
ongoing access to Brazilian jiu-jitsu training, which
we now know has tremendous, you know, mental health
and physical benefits. There's been a number of studies and things done like that
on that, as far as like stress management, PTSD and whatnot. So.
Um, and you're an official instructor with
the state as well. Correct. Yeah. Right. So, so you're not just like

(04:40):
a officer that does jiu-jitsu and,
you know, shows your colleagues on the side. So
some techniques, right? Like you're a defense and arrested arrest
tactics instructor with the state. Yeah. Right.
So they, they recently kind of, uh, merged, um,
uh, these together. There used to be POSC instructors, which

(05:03):
is Principles of Subject Control. And then there was DAT instructors, Defense
and Arrest Tactics. They're pretty much the same. They recently merged
them under the umbrella term of Defensive Tactics Instructor. And
there's a lot of terms that kind of get used to say the same thing in
different places. You know, here in Wisconsin, we use the term Defensive Tactics.

(05:25):
So let's talk about what exactly defensive tactics
is and isn't. So what what does
it consist of? What doesn't it consist of? So like, it doesn't consist of like, firearms
So there's, there's often an overlap and that's kind of one of
the unique things where, and one of the things that we're trying to really

(05:46):
move towards is integrating skill sets because, uh,
defensive tactics itself usually consists of things like empty
hand control tactics, potentially some strikes, um,
things like that. Um, even getting into like
weapon retention and whatnot, but then once the firearms come out,
that's where kind of firearms training picks up. Um, but the reality

(06:08):
is in real situations, these, you know, skills
overlap, right. Um, and they, you know, you have to be able to transition between
them. So we're trying to make it so that training, uh, is
more representative of that. So instead of just trying training in
like these silos of, we do defensive tactics over here
and then firearms is over here, you know, kind of really starting

(06:30):
to bring them closer together. Cause that's, that's how it really happens
in real life, you know? So. We've got to be able to kind of transition between
focusing on keeping you safe, but
it's focusing on keeping the assailant, I
always just say the bad guy, we probably can't say the bad guy. But I always say

(06:53):
like, keeping them safe, right. But it goes just
from, you know, anything from, you know, defending yourself to
extracting people from vehicles or handcuffing, or
even just controlling until, you know, your teammate can arrive
Yeah, so it's one of the challenges of training

(07:14):
is like law enforcement work is
so dynamic and so varied.
It's it's every every situation has
its own nuances and and requires
a different response and potentially a different, you know, skill set, whether
that's just communication skills, whether that's crisis intervention skills,

(07:37):
whether that's defensive tactics skills. So it's like, it's really tough
to, um, you know, uh, just
narrow in and say like, this is how we
do, uh, do it this one way. Right. Because, uh,
these, these situations are really dynamic that officers are
involved in. So, They've got to be versatile and

(07:59):
they got to be adaptive. That's one of the big things that we're really trying to
create is adaptive officers because Those
situations are so varied. It's hard. It's hard to do things just one
Yeah, I believe it and props to you guys and
a lot of people don't think about this but You know, jiu-jitsu
and every other grappling martial art, right? If you're doing jiu-jitsu or

(08:21):
judo or wrestling, they're really, they're really all the
same. It's really just your rule set that's changing between each of
them, right? Like you can, you know, some techniques are going to work
better in certain martial arts, right? But
that's because the rules and the scoring system and the
pace of the match and how you finish the match, right? Dictates like what move
works best in this martial art. And a lot of people don't

(08:43):
realize it, but you guys have a lot of, well, I'll
just call them rules or guidelines between like how you
need to approach things, what you can't do, what you can't do, when
you can do something and when you can't do something. And people don't
realize that like you're playing by a rule book, but

(09:05):
So like there is a legal rule book right in court, but like
you don't have to follow that. So it's a funny thing. A lot of times I hear people
sometimes say like, you know, on the street, there's no rules. That's nonsense. And
it's something I don't remember who I originally heard saying that. But it's so
true is like, Law enforcement officers have probably more rules to

(09:26):
And that's one of the biggest challenges. So law enforcement officers
have a ton of constraints on them. And
that starts all the way from the Constitution on down, through
state statutes, agency policies, through their training. There
are constraints placed on the officer. But the subject doesn't

(09:47):
necessarily have those constraints. There's a ton of like
legal parameters that officers have to stay within and whatnot.
So it's challenging because officers are heavily constrained in
a lot of situations. And you got to remember that
oftentimes they are having to make like
high stake decisions in like

(10:11):
And we're literally it could, you know, in scenarios that you
can't train in real life for, right? One
of the benefits of jiu jitsu is you can I mean, you can do jiu jitsu as hard
as we want each other and we'll both walk away super safe. Yeah.
Right. But like, you know, when we start going to striking, we can't
spar full on all the time, because you'll probably

(10:33):
knock me out. And then like, you take
that to the next level of police officers, like you can't have police officers going full
blown at each other, because there are times that where you guys need to make decisions that,
Well, and that's I think that's one of the things that makes training so so challenging
is so like when you look at training somebody for

(10:56):
like MMA or for jiu-jitsu, right? Like, we,
we kind of can gauge what the environment's going
to be like, we have an understanding, right? It's pretty, it's low variable, right?
We understand what the rule set is. There's there's parameters there
that that are are pretty well defined, right?

(11:16):
For sure. Like, if we're rolling, I don't have to worry about Bob ever punching. Right,
But I would say- Or another person jumping in. Right, exactly. So
for law enforcement work though, it is like the
most dynamic, right? The environment is
ever-changing. Like grass,
concrete, crowds, one-on-one. Inside, outside, it's

(11:40):
cold out, it's hot out. Time of day,
there's noise. I mean, this is, it's so dynamic and
you don't get to choose what that environment's gonna be like, right? And
then the subject behavior is unpredictable, right?
You don't know what their mindset is necessarily. You
don't know if there's weapons involved necessarily. You don't know what

(12:02):
their motivation is. So, I mean, these are, it's extremely
like hard, environment
and situations to like prepare for, right? Like
it's just ever changing. So that's where when it
comes to training officers, it's challenging,

(12:26):
but I think that's where we really kind of fall back on building
adaptable officers, right? Like making them active problem
solving, active core problem solvers. Core
competencies, right? Exactly. And we do that by, and this
has varied over the years. So a lot of defensive tactics programs
are really like technique heavy, right? Like learn these techniques, memorize

(12:49):
these techniques, but we know that that doesn't translate over to skill, right?
So what we've really focused on, especially with like
C4C and whatnot is, giving
a deeper understanding of why things work. We start
with some concepts that are kind of, you know, pretty
versatile. And then we will give techniques as examples that

(13:11):
like reinforce those concepts. But it's not, it's a
classic adage like, you know, This is a way, not the way,
right? And at the end of the day, what we're really trying to do
is make it so that officers can have
a versatile tool set and solve problems like
and use good, appropriate force at

(13:36):
So let me tell you and you I think you know because we talked about this
as I was getting started You know getting involved with you and Chad and
C4C, but as in a jiu-jitsu instructor We
have a lot of people that come into our academies that are that are officers that
are like, hey I want to learn some jiu-jitsu. I'm an officer and I heard
this is good for my work and I would have people come

(13:56):
into my academy and I'm like, hey, you know, I can show you jitsu, but I
I don't take it word for word of like,
hey, what I teach you in a classroom is gonna work for you out
in your environments. So I originally got involved with
you guys because I wanted to better help
the people that were coming into my academy. I wanted to learn

(14:17):
the rules that they need to play by. I wanted to learn more about what's
going on in like in your heads while you're doing stuff. So
like you said, a lot of jiu-jitsu instructors, they wanna teach you the techniques
and that's not going to benefit them
Yeah. And that's where I think. So jiu jitsu
is a broad term. And I think that sometimes people get really, you

(14:40):
know, fixated on jiu jitsu, meaning like this
type of jiu jitsu, right? I look at jiu jitsu as like, a
broad category, like I would, I would say, a car Yeah,
like there's many types of cars. And certain cars
are better designed for certain purposes, right? Like a
NASCAR has a very specific purpose. I would equate

(15:02):
that to like IBJJF jiu jitsu turns left real
well. It is the it is the that's Like, that's the sportive
element of that, right? And then you've
got, you know, these little crazy off-road cars, right?
Like, that's probably like the, that's
probably like jiu-jitsu for MMA, right? Something like that. But

(15:23):
then you have cars that are specifically designed for police, right? And,
you know, we use police cars for police work. It's the same thing with jiu-jitsu.
Like, we have to use police jiu-jitsu. It's not,
and this is where I think people get confused sometimes. They're like, we're not advocating for,
you know, sports style jiu-jitsu to be used in law enforcement. Yeah, it's
the same but different. Right, you're looking at it through a different lens

(15:46):
and we're trying to accomplish different objectives. And it's one of those things like,
How would you what would you define jiu jitsu as like, how would you define
Like what would people roll on the ground with pajamas on
ground karate? It's so hard. It's so different. It's
so different for everyone. I tell every student that comes in, like, I
don't know what jiu jitsu is going to be for you. But I know what it is for me, right?

(16:09):
And some people do jiu-jitsu for self-defense. Some people do
jiu-jitsu to be the sheepdog, to like protect other people.
Some people do it for police officers. Some people do it for MMA. Some people just
do it for fun. And those are like, they're all different
And I kind of look, I try to find what that common thread is. Right. And, and
kind of the definition I've, I've come to like, and this might be

(16:32):
way off basis, but basically it's like, Jiu-jitsu is a set
of tactics, strategies, and techniques designed
to control a resisting person in
order to accomplish set objectives. Now
those objectives will vary, right? Like if I'm doing a

(16:52):
tournament, my objectives are very different than if I
And depends what tournament it is. Right? It
could be like submission only or it could be IBGF. Like those
And those situations will steer like
our tactics, strategies, and techniques, right? So it's
the same thing. So in law enforcement work, my objectives are

(17:15):
very different. And so, you know, an adage you'll
hear a lot is like, situation will dictate tactics, right? And I think that holds
true where you know, whatever objectives we're trying to work towards,
if we're working towards law enforcement objectives, our tactics,
strategies and techniques will be different often,
not always, but often there's going to be a difference between if we

(17:36):
were doing an MMA fight or whatnot. Now, there
will be some overlap, right? There are some things that
can transition over, you know, like, so when you have somebody come into your academy
and they're just taking standard Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes, some
of that stuff will translate over to law enforcement work, right? But
not all of it. And that's where I think, you know, having,

(17:59):
you know, community academies that get involved with like C4C
or, you know, there's a bunch of other good companies out there,
but like, I think it helps them be
able to put that lens on a little bit and go like, Hey, like
if we're working towards a law enforcement objective, we
might want to tweak this. We might want to focus on something else. You

(18:22):
know, we might not want to do this. We might want to do this. So, um,
I think it's important to be able to put that lens on and that's,
Yeah, I would say the biggest things that you know, I've noticed
outside at least coming from an instructor and a jiu-jitsu person standpoint,
trying to help law enforcement is one understanding the rules
that you guys need to play by, like the techniques, the concepts, those

(18:47):
don't change too much. outside of like, hey, there could
be multiple people and that person might, you know, they might have
a, a weapon, which I don't have to worry about in the jiu-jitsu room.
Right. But then there's like, there's the cuffing, there's the control. So like there's a large
amount of what we teach in jiu-jitsu that with the right, like you said,
lens on it, it's like seasoning, right? Yeah. Like it goes directly

(19:08):
over, but then there's a lot of stuff that, you know, jiu-jitsu guys
just don't think about. Right. Right. Like, I don't need to think in jiu-jitsu ever
But when it comes time to do that, so I always kind
of try to like boil things down to the main ingredients, right? So
it's like, okay, when it does come time to take somebody out of the vehicle, like,

(19:30):
there are things that we practice in jiu-jitsu that
that translate over. Right. Like we control
distance. We are able to do, you know, good
two on one controls, all that stuff. It's just maybe season
differently or, you know, it's kind of a little
bit of a different context or whatnot. But that's where I think, you

(19:52):
know, training in a regular jiu-jitsu academy, even
if it's not specifically law enforcement, like classes or
whatnot, there still holds a lot of value in that, right? You
know, because we do things in jiu-jitsu every single day, that
can transfer over, it might have to be like, tweaked
a little bit, or it's going to be a different context. But like, we

(20:14):
control resisting people in jiu jitsu academies every day. And that that
at the end of the day is what officers so often have to do
on the street, you know, so you know, I think I
Yeah. Now, I'm a firm believer that law
enforcement one, they're very under

(20:37):
trained, but in two different fashions, under
trained in, they don't get enough training, sure, like
just pure quantity over time. But they
also don't go very, like, also deep into the training, because
without quantity over time, you can't go very deep into it,
you can really only stay shallow. What are some of the biggest, I

(20:59):
guess, deficits, challenges that you see with training
and law enforcement today? I mean, it can be anything from like, hey, there's just
not there's not money for it. There's just not time for it. You know, maybe
people just don't understand the true need for it. What do you see
So the laundry list out super complex. It's
a complex problem. Yeah, it really is. You

(21:21):
know, one of the things I always try to emphasize is, The
expectations and the responsibilities that are placed on officers
are so high. Yet the training they receive
So how much training? Yeah. And
let's go specifically the, the defense,

(21:44):
the close tactics that we're talking about, not firearms training and stuff like that. You
can include that maybe, but how much training typically
do you see on average departments giving or
allowing their law
Okay, so I'll give you a little rundown here. So let's

(22:06):
just talk about sworn law enforcement in Wisconsin. And
there are What I would classify as non-sworn law enforcement, like
a lot of correction officers are actually non-sworn, but they still are
kind of in that, you know, that realm. So,
we're talking about sworn law enforcement, right? To
be a sworn law enforcement officer in the state of Wisconsin, you have to complete a

(22:27):
720-hour police academy, all right? Now,
that seems like a lot. you in order to become a
licensed barber, right? Shout out to barber social teacher.
Yeah, right. You have to go
through like 1000 plus hours of training, right?
So it takes more hours to become a licensed barber in the state of Wisconsin than it
does to become a police officer that scissors, right? scissors are

(22:51):
I mean, have you ever had a bad haircut? I mean, not by TJ, not by TJ. But,
but So, you're looking at 720 hours. There
are some exceptions to that, like Milwaukee Police Academy is a little bit longer, State
And is that 720 hours? Is that like every year, every three years,
That's one time in their whole career. They front load a bunch of

(23:11):
training, 720 hours, and you can become
a sworn officer. But here's the thing about that. is that
includes everything that's not just defensive tactics, that's
not just firearms, like firearms, defensive tactics are
a portion 18 weeks of that 720 hours, right.
But there's also like, like legal stuff, they

(23:33):
have to learn first aid stuff, like what are the laws
that like, I need to cite when I pull someone over? Yep. vehicle contacts,
like training, like first aid training, everything
is within that 720 hours. So it is a ton of material jammed
into 720 hours. So it's really just tip of the

(23:54):
So what about after that, like continuing education, like, hey, that's
year one, like, what's, hey, you're in the job, what's it look like?
That's where it gets wild, man. So it varies. And
the best one you've seen versus like your mediocre
For an officer in the state of Wisconsin to maintain their

(24:20):
State minimum. They have to do 24 hours of recertification training
every year. Now here's the thing about that. 24 hours.
The only two topics that are required okay,
is they have to do firearms training annually, all right, and
they have to do vehicle training biannually,

(24:42):
okay. There is no requirement that
wrap your head around that. So they got to learn how to drive and they got to learn how to
fire their they make not learn how to fire their firearm, make sure that
But there are some agencies in the state of Wisconsin where after an
officer has gone through the academy, they won't have defensive tactics training

(25:05):
maybe ever again. Like, that's mind boggling,
right? I mean, my opinion is that that's unacceptable. Now, most agencies,
agencies have a lot of autonomy, right? So they can train
officers more and they can decide what they're going to, you know,
train within that 24 hours or whatnot, right? Most
agencies try to give their officers four to eight

(25:29):
Is there any physical element like, hey, you need to do 10 pull ups,
run a 10 minute mile to
Yes. Okay. So there are PT standards to get into the academy. PT
standards to graduate the academy, but then after that it's
up to each agency And that's where like I say each agency
kind of can do their own thing Some agencies have

(25:52):
higher standards where they will maintain some sort of PT standards.
They will require Hey each year, we're gonna do this many defensive tactics
training hours I would say that I mean if
an agency is given an officer eight hours twelve
hours of defensive tactics training a year that's pretty
exceptional. Like most agencies aren't doing

(26:16):
anything more than that. Um, you know, maybe eight
hours of a year, maybe 12. Yeah. Um, but I mean that thing
about in your academy, like how long does it take somebody
to get eight hours of training? You know, you got two weeks, you
Yeah. So, um, that's where it becomes really

(26:38):
Yeah. So this is where it's pretty wild. And I don't I think that when
it comes to like. improving training for law enforcement, the
scope of things is so enormous. I don't think people, it's,
I wish this was a simple fix. This would fall into that category. And,
you know, I think Pedro Sowers, the first guy I ever heard say this was like, it's
simple, but not easy. Right. I think everybody agrees. Officers

(27:03):
should have high level, regular access to training. Right.
I don't think anybody would disagree with that. And to be honest, I don't think any agency
would disagree with that. You know, contrary to a lot of belief, most
agencies I've ever dealt with are really forward thinking. They
want, they want officers to be like proficient and
capable, but it becomes a matter of implementation. Right.

(27:24):
Um, so how many police agencies do you think
ballpark number are in the United States? Oh
God. I know Matt. Nobody said there was going to be math today. Right. I
Agencies. Yeah. 500,000? Not
that many. So I'm trying to think like how many you would not do. I'm
trying to think like how many cities are there but then like

(27:48):
it's not just cities because then there's there's counties there share.
There's like there's federal agencies. There's a state patrol. Okay,
So approximately ballpark about 18,000. Oh, that's it.
Okay, but now here's the thing. So all those 18,000 agencies operate
pretty independently, like they all have their own policies, they

(28:08):
all have their own command structure, like, and then within
that, guess, give me a give me a let's let's let's play another round
of this. How many how many sworn law enforcement officers do you think

(28:34):
Yeah. But now so think about that. Yeah. So
when it comes to like, improving law enforcement training
to the masses. Yeah. I mean, you're talking about just
a grand scale 800,000. Yeah, all different
officers, all different places in their career. And,
and to a degree, maybe different job responsibilities and

(28:57):
each agency kind of does things their own way. There's no like
universal, like nationwide standard here in Wisconsin. We're
pretty lucky. Um, we have, uh, a
state curriculum at the academy level and then agencies can
Agencies have the, what's the, uh, there's terminology,

(29:24):
So there's basic recruit level training.
That's like the DAT curriculum or the defensive tactics curriculum. But
then within that, and this is laid out by Wisconsin Law
Enforcement Standards Board, agencies are allowed and
permitted to exceed that basic recruit level training
as they basically deem Yeah. Right. But

(29:49):
And that's where you get agencies sending people to, you know,
OK. And that's where it's really tricky is there are some agencies in
Wisconsin have a thousand plus officers. Yeah. Right. Um,
a few years back, and I don't know if this is still an accurate statistic, but a
few years back, 65% of agencies in Wisconsin had

(30:11):
10 or less officers. Right. So that's a, that's a huge, like
how they do things in Milwaukee are not how they're going to do things
Now, do you think, you know, getting people access to
the training that they need? Do you think it's more of
a, a money, a funding issue or is it more of a,

(30:32):
hey, the minds haven't been open enough yet to see
the need to go above and beyond or to at least deliver
So I think there's kind of three main elements
to training being
implemented within agencies. I think at

(30:55):
the largest scale, you're looking at like, cultural,
societal, even like political elements, right? And
those are ones that we on a day-to-day have very little influence over,
right? And then there are agency level
issues. We have a little bit more effect over those, but
still, and there's a lot of overlap with these, right? Because agencies, they've

(31:19):
got city and county boards to answer to. They've got limitations
on budgets, which overlap into political
issues and stuff. So, but agencies have
restrictions, right? They have limited budgets. They, most
agencies are, are short on staff. I
mean, they're, they're struggling to find officers and good officers at

(31:42):
that. So they're, you know, officers are
working different shifts, 24 hour, you know,
they have 24 hour coverage. It's, it's tough. And
like I kind of said before is they have. a ton
of responsibilities placed on them, but the training they received, they
have high responsibility, kind of low training. Like those, those two things

(32:02):
don't match up. Um, but they do the best with what they can. I mean,
all in all officers do an amazing job. One
of the, uh, phrases I often like is, you know, if the general public
knew how limited training officers received,
they wouldn't be so like upset when they

(32:23):
saw some, they'd be a little more understanding. They'd be like, man, you know what? For
that guy that has had this much training and he hasn't had defensive
tactics training in 10 years. He didn't do too bad, you
know, like, I mean, I think there'll be a little more understanding. But
the expectation is, and I'm okay with this, is
that officers are trained to a high level. I mean,

(32:43):
the public expects that, and I think we should be able to deliver on that.
But the reality is, is a lot of agencies are are
really restricted, oftentimes by budget limitations,
right. And by just being able to like schedule
officers for training without compromising, you know,

(33:04):
service, you know, you got officers that,
you know, they've got duties, they've got to perform, if
you're going to have them come into training, that means there's a hole somewhere on
their shifter, exactly. And if you're not going to have them do it on shift,
So essentially, the the bench is not strong enough to
let's say they're working on an eight or 10 hour shift to even pull one

(33:26):
or two of those hours away. right to give them training. That's a great
And that's one out there in the world. That's a great way to put it. The bench isn't deep
enough right now. Right? There's not that relief factor built in. So
then the alternative is, is, okay, you're gonna pay guys overtime. Yeah.
Well, you know, and then you get people burning out. And it's, to
me, it's not a job where if I'm in a situation, and

(33:49):
I need someone to protect me, I don't want them in their
overtime hours protecting me. I don't want them tired. I want them fresh, right?
Well, and there and that's, that's one of those things too, where, you know,
nothing gets people in an upper or more when, you
know, you start looking at overtime budgets and, you know, and things like
that. So I would say two of the biggest like. hindrances

(34:11):
to training really taking off at agencies is
you know budgetary limitations and
then having enough staff having enough of a bench to
be able to officer offer training to officers
Now, now how many how many departments you see offering officers

(34:34):
training off shift? Um, is
It's it's becoming more common. So I think that's where we
Like, hey, well, we'll, you want to go do jiu jitsu, or you want
to go lift weights, you want to go run like, hey, well, we'll give
So I think that's maybe where we have the most impact currently. So

(34:57):
like I say, you know, you got those big, you know, cultural, political,
uh, you know, factors, those we have a little bit of control over. You
got agency factors like staffing and budgets and stuff. Those,
those are changing. They're getting better, but we still have limited effect over that. But
what we have. good effect over like today is

(35:17):
just that is getting officers access
to training on their own time, potentially on
their own dime. Some agencies are supplementing it where they'll pay
for officers like to have gym memberships and stuff, which which
is awesome. I think that's a that's a good compromise. But
officers are still having to kind of invest in themselves a little bit and

(35:39):
like, you know, put forward that time. And it's it's not
ideal, right? I think It would be great if agencies,
you know, provided that for officers across the board, but I'll
I'm going to put you in a numbers game right now. These aren't real numbers, but I'm going to have
you like give me your best logical guess. If you had 10 officers

(36:00):
from various departments, how many of those 10 do
you think are getting what you would consider black belt Bob
and training for forever. How many of the 10 do
you think are getting adequate training through
Man, through their department? Yeah, none.

(36:22):
Okay. How many do you think are going above and
beyond on their own, outside of work,
putting in that extra time, maybe spending their own money, maybe they're getting a stipend, right?
and you know, joining a jiu jitsu gym, or even just like lifting and
Yeah. So that's where it becomes really department specific. Okay.
Some agencies, the culture within an agency has become

(36:45):
one of training, where of that 10, maybe
five, right? In other agencies, it's,
it's, it's less so and it might be like one or two, but that's, you
know, you know, it's
And, you know, I'll speak to just trends that I've seen in the last,
you know, two or three years being involved with, you know, C4C and

(37:07):
you, Bob. But, you know, when we first started and we'd
have like C4C courses, we've seen a pretty good
mix of people that would go to it. that were
sent by a department. Yeah. But there definitely be there that were
there on their own dime and taken vacation days
to get their own police training. And they're not cheap courses.

(37:28):
No. Right. But like some of the more recent ones, you'd,
you'd ask the room, Hey, how many you guys, you know, do your department send
you all the hands go up? Yeah. How many of you guys train jiu-jitsu or
on your own 50, 75% of the hands go up and you're like, wow,
And it's changed. So it's getting better, right? Yeah. So you asked before, like
of those 10 officers, how many of their agencies

(37:52):
are providing them adequate training? I say, I say zero because I, I
know what it takes to develop good usable skill, right? And
that's not being done in eight hours a year, right? Like that's, that's just
not how physical skills work. If you want to have competent physical
skills, you have to be, you know, to quote Chad, you
have to be training a little, a lot, right? It's gotta be frequent training.

(38:15):
And that's not the norm within agencies. It's just not, I
always like say, like, when you look at good
training programs. There's two main prongs to a good
training program. What's being trained, right? The
curriculum or at least what's being focused on what

(38:36):
the attention is being placed on. So what's being trained and then
how it's being trained. And how it's being trained has
kind of three elements to it. It has to be trained with aliveness,
right? Yeah, old SPG adage, right? We got to
have that opponent process going on. And
maybe that might be a little intimidating for some agencies. But let's

(38:58):
be honest, if we're going to be using force, you know,
as part of our duties, it's against somebody that's resisting.
So training has to, you know, reflect that. training
has to be representative, right? Training has to be reflective of
the real world environment, right? It has to be reflective of what
we're really doing. And then the

(39:20):
third part of like how we train is frequency. And
that is probably the thing that I think we
still have to make more progress on is
in a lot of agencies, they'll do a four hour training
block a year or an eight hour training day. when
in reality is, like, think about building somebody,

(39:42):
building somebody's just jiu-jitsu skill, right? And we talked about
before, on the realm of like variability and
dynamic situations, jiu jitsu is on the low
end, right? Yeah, but just to develop jiu jitsu skill, how
many hours a week would you recommend somebody train at least
Now, you know, I'm even thinking as you're saying this, like if I go to a seminar, and

(40:04):
I go to a three hour seminar, do and three hours is that's a
lot by the time like a three hour seminar is done, my brain's just like
done two hours is great. If I go to a two hour seminar, and
I don't practice it, like the very next day and do
Yeah, like gone. And that's and that's, that's like I say,
a lot of agencies now more than ever, are doing a

(40:27):
better job as far as what they are training their officers.
I mean, I've worked with man 4050 officers
from probably 40 or 50 different Wisconsin agencies, right. So they're
And I think jiu-jitsu's helped a lot with that. 100%. And where MMA's at,
and understanding what tools

(40:49):
civilians are walking around with nowadays. But man,
to bring in a specialty instructor, it costs a lot,
but in the grand scheme, it's way less than giving your department of
30 people three hours every week per person. to
And that's, and that's one of the biggest challenges there, right? So I think agencies
are getting better as far as like exploring more

(41:13):
updated modern curriculum. Right. I think, um,
I think, uh, uh, John Kavanaugh, uh, uh, it's, it was quote
on one saying something along the lines of like updating the software. And I really liked
that. I really liked that. Cause it's like, that's what we need to do. Right.
We're trying to update the software right now. A lot of agencies are still operating
off of like windows 98. We're just trying to bring it up to

(41:34):
like Windows XP, right? And there's gonna be some stuff
from the old system carried over, but there's gonna be some updates that have
It's the same thing as jiu-jitsu today. Like if you tried doing the jiu-jitsu that
was done 15 years ago, some of it's gonna still be
No, it's like John Donahuer says this, but like

(41:57):
Americana from Mount. every white
ball goes for it. Yeah, it's, it's like never been hit at
black belt worlds. Because like, you can't get someone out
And that's where I think agencies are becoming their their awakening to
that where they're saying, Hey, we need to update

(42:18):
the software. Right. And again, In Wisconsin,
it's one thing in other states is another. But I say, we
are seeing more and more in multiple states throughout
the country agencies like being open to that idea.
And I think not to like call it specific current events, but

(42:38):
I think there's been a lot of current events in the last five years that have really
led to that. accelerator
being pushed out. Like it should have been done sooner, but
Well, so there's complacency

(43:01):
I apologize. Um, and there's different types of complacency, right?
Sometimes agencies can kind of get complacent where it's like, ah,
it's, it hasn't been a problem, right? Until it becomes a problem people,
right. And then, but officers can become complacent too. Right.
Um, and sometimes it's when an incident actually occurs
that like, people start to wake up a little bit, right. And,

(43:23):
and you never want that to be the most motivating factor. But
unfortunately, sometimes it is. So that's where
I say, I think a lot of agencies have started really opening
their eyes to updating the software build. And there's a lot of
good curriculums out there. Obviously, like I, I

(43:46):
But there's I mean, I've got close relationships with other
guys that are involved in other companies that offer good stuff. And
truth be told, this is nothing necessarily new. Like
guys have been putting in work on this since I mean, UFC
happened in like 93 guys like Paul Sharp and
Fletch Fuller and some of these other guys. They've been doing this stuff since the late

(44:07):
90s. Right. And it's just, you know, it's starting
to really gain traction spreading. Yeah, it's getting better traction now.
And I think some of that might be as an account of, you know, good
use of like social media and other resources, but and, and
it's just continuing to evolve, right. But
that's where even though a lot of agencies are starting to update that

(44:28):
software, and changing the, you
know, what's being taught, I think one of the missing pieces still
is how it's being trained. And that's that frequency factor. If
guys aren't training, at least, I
don't know, a couple times a month, like, you can have the
best curriculum on the planet, how you train it really makes or

(44:49):
And jiu-jitsu technique, concepts, all
of that aside, right? Like, The
first time you want your adrenaline in full
throttle is not in a serious situation where you
or someone else can be hurt. And you know, like
me and you, how many times have you just tapped someone out

(45:10):
by kind of like just laying on them? One of my favorite things in the world. Yeah. But like for
real, for real, the cardio taps or like the pressure
taps, like, but like, man, officers, like
the first time, you see red, or going
to the black, whatever your terminology is, should not
be out there in the real world, right? Like you need to be getting

(45:34):
It's, here's the thing, and I, I try
not to criticize guys doing the job, because I think overall, they
are doing an amazing job with what they got. You
know, but I'm also a proponent of trying
to always do better right and I think that
officers can almost be set up for failure to a degree when

(45:56):
we're not giving them these skill sets right and then they
get into these situations and they've never been there before
and you know these things escalate and spiral and they
go in a direction that you know maybe had they been given
a different skill set you know, maybe they wouldn't have
gotten hurt or maybe, you know, the subject could have been arrested without,

(46:17):
uh, injury or something like that. So it's like, um, I feel
like we let those guys down sometimes. Cause it's like, we have the technology, like
we just got to get it in their hands. Um, so they, they can
use it. I mean, on a grand scale and this is, I
mean, not to get too far in the weed on statistics here, but like just
to reinforce the fact of how. I

(46:39):
mean, good of a job officers actually do. So,
all right, let's go back to numbers. Are you ready? All right. Price is right. I'm so
bad at these. How many people do you think have contact with the police on
average in a given year? How many people? Yeah.
So there's about 333 million people in the United States, right?

(46:59):
Okay. So how many people do you think have police kind of third of
them? I don't know what that breaks down to, but let's say about
Where's our numbers, guys? Is that a third? Okay.
So but okay, so about 60 million police contacts a

(47:19):
And is that just what do you consider a police contact like this right
But it can be a a citizen
initiated or law enforcement initiated. So it could be
That or they, you know, you get pulled over for speeding or they're investigating a

(47:40):
crime. So it could be anything. Right. And, you know, any of
those contacts could potentially turn into
an arrest situation and or potentially even a use of force situation. Right.
So. So of those 60 million, say,
police contacts, On average, how many do you think
and this this number, I think surprises a lot of people. How many do you think

(48:06):
Okay, I don't know what number I don't know what percentage. Let's
go percentage this I know. I
tried percentage last time percentage. 3%. Yeah,
you're pretty close. One to 2%. Okay. So I
asked that question to a lot of people. I even asked that question, like new police officer
recruits. Yeah. And I get numbers from like 30 to 50% a

(48:28):
lot of times, where people think that, you know, half
I'll tell you that, like, yeah, it's even more of a surprise when it does happen,
then, like it If you said 50%, that officer
would know every time I need to honor
off. It's going to be this or that. But when it's 1%, you

(48:50):
And that's where complacency can start to kick in a
little bit, right? It creates even more. More often than not, it
doesn't happen. But when it does happen, the stakes can
So how many times in a in a person's career? Yeah. Does
Yeah. So yeah, what percent? So it

(49:13):
varies greatly. So here's the crazy thing is, if
you're talking about an officer in like a big city, like Milwaukee
or something like that, right? Like the number
of use of force encounters, potentially like interactions
that involve weapons and stuff might be tenfold to
what a, you know, a rural officer might experience in

(49:35):
their whole career, right? So a MPD officer might
experience, you know, in one year, what they might experience
in 10. So it really is, that's where I say, man,
it's such a complex issue, because every agency is
And I'm sure it depends like what your role is to write, whether you're on

(49:57):
And what's wild, though, is so so you Okay, so of
those, you got one or 2% that result in a use of force, right?
Then how many of those of that do you think we've
Like police getting shot? No, no police. Oh, so like lethal, you

(50:19):
So of all police contacts, how many do you think result in, uh, please
shoot nominal. So less than
Um, and when you start looking at that, right. And
so you, okay. One to 2% of all interactions and then

(50:42):
shootings is even less. So you got to keep in mind that
most of those use of forces. although they
are rare and unfrequent, like most of them are
appropriate uses of force. Yeah. Right. So it's a small number
to begin with. And then the amount
of bad use of forces that occur are even more rare.

(51:03):
Right. So on a whole officers dealing
with split second decision making high stress, chaotic
dynamic situations. man, they they they do
a pretty good job, especially considering how little training.
It's amazing. And it's really hard, like the world, the world
we live in, like, you know, you hear about the bad

(51:25):
stuff, right? You don't hear about all the great stuff. When someone has
a bad experience at your gym, they leave a review. If a visitor has
a great experience, they probably don't do anything, right? Right. And it's
If it bleeds, it leads, right? Like that's the old media adage. So, I
mean, that stuff gets attention a lot, but to be honest, like I say
now with that said, I'm a big proponent of

(51:47):
like, but can we do better? Right. And I'm
always, I'm always of the belief, like we can always improve. Right. So
we can always do better. I'm not, I'm not okay with. any
bad use of force, right? I want that number to be zero. And
that's where I think training can have some impact. It
might not like stop all of them, but like,

(52:13):
Yes. It's a good point, but that's where I say, like, if we can improve
officers trainings, like we can bring that number even lower.
Right. And, and, and make them safer and make, you know, uh,
So let's, uh, let's give a quick shout out to, um,
crossover. Sure. What do you guys do, uh, for

(52:35):
police officers at your Academy? Do you guys have a special program for them?
Um, do you just put them in the shark tank and beat the shit out of them? Yeah. So
Sorry. Um, you didn't tell me. Um,
so crossover is unique in that we've always been
a firm believer in like, teaching

(52:57):
good what I would call universal jiu-jitsu, right? We
didn't name the academy wasn't named because of this, but it worked out
well, that we want your jiu-jitsu to be able to cross over
between different contexts, right? So we're really building that good universal jiu-jitsu.
If you want to go do a jiu-jitsu match, you'll be fine. If you have to defend yourself

(53:18):
Yeah, it's kind of like our general goal as well. So a lot of our officers
find value in that, because they're just building those good, you know, universal
skill sets. And then what I do, and this is
kind of outside of crossover, I will usually
maybe every other month or so offer a specific

(53:43):
On some sort of law enforcement objective, because like I mentioned earlier that
when the objective changes, tactics, tools, strategies change.
So I want to make sure that we put those lenses on every once in a while where
we say, hey, look like you've been looking at things through the jiu-jitsu lens,
which is great, but let's put on the law enforcement lens here a little bit. and
see how this stuff transfers over. So we'll

(54:09):
Yeah, so we offer a law enforcement discount. And
we have a ton of officers that train. Yeah, we do too. And
that number, and this has been really reassuring has
been growing. I think officers are
starting to realize the value. And this is where I go back to, you
know, I offer the law enforcement wellness project

(54:32):
that we offer our agency that I
think officers are really starting to realize, look, it's
a It's a skill that offers so many different like
benefits, right? Yes, it helps you in the course of your duties, you
know, potentially, but also just like physical mental
well being. I mean, not to get to, you know,

(54:54):
doom and gloom here, but one of the sad statistics
that I don't think a lot of people realize is on average, more
officers die from suicide than they do in the line of duty. right?
I mean, it's heartbreaking, right? Yeah. I mean,
and addressing mental health and stuff is
it's so crucial. I mean, like, getting officers

(55:17):
better training and everything that's that needs to be done.
Yeah. But we also have to really be realistic that
these guys got to deal with some stuff that I mean, is
impossible to do. Yes. Right. And, um, You
know, that's where, you know, they've done good research, a lot
of research on the veteran population, but more recently research on

(55:40):
law enforcement population about the benefits of just to just
to training, not necessarily law enforcement specific, but just to
do just to training on dealing with things like PTSD and
stress management and stuff. So it's like I'm so happy to see guys
coming in to gyms because, you know, it's not the end all
be all. It's not it's never going to be one size fits all. It's not going to be, you

(56:01):
know, you know, this is the answer to everything. But you
know, it's a it's a drop in the bucket. Maybe that
Yeah. So I mean, we have a ton in our academy too. And I
just want to allude to this for Um, you know, everyone out there, but
it goes well beyond your local police officers. Like
we have secret service, we have FBI, we

(56:22):
have ATF at our Academy and just like so
many, and we also do a law enforcement program. Um, ours
is a little bit unique because we actually do, you might like
this. We let officers train free until their blue
belt, as long as they're coming. at least twice a
week, right? Because I'm not gonna give you a free membership forever, right?

(56:43):
And essentially the less you come, the more you pay. So there's the incentive to
actually get your ass in to train. And
we do that because we do have a limited amount of spots for it.
And my idea is is like hey, I want it to be free because these people that are
getting out of the Academy They don't have that necessarily dispose like you don't get
paid a ton as a new cop, right? Like sure, so even if you don't

(57:03):
get paid enough, yeah, right It's like if if you're not getting that
then you know, I want to be able to give them something. Yeah, especially
as our new so my other reason for it
is You know by the time someone does get their blue belt and you know one
or two years They've moved up the ranks a little bit more income If they can afford
Yeah. Well, and I think that's one of the things that it's so challenging too, because

(57:25):
think about this. What are, what do you think the number one challenges are to
just get somebody, not necessarily a law enforcement officer, just
somebody to train jiu-jitsu on a regular basis,
right? Like there's a lot of hurdles to that. And it's often just
like life circumstances, right? Whether it's finances, time,
family, all that, right. I would say for an average law enforcement officer,

(57:48):
I mean, they're just people, man, they got all that same stuff going on, and
sometimes even magnified, right? Because they're
working long shifts, crazy hours over time, weird shit happens
at work. Absolutely get held over. And, you know, they
just want to get home and see their kids, man. And they just want to spend time with their family. And
then it's like, then on top of that, you know, now they're gonna go try to get to the

(58:08):
gym. And it's like, It's, it's a lot, man. So it's like the
more we can do to make that easier, whether that's, you know,
by, you know, reducing the financial, you know, burden
by making it more available to them, whatever it is, I think
like it, it hopefully would just lessen that, you know,
that, that those hurdles a little bit, um, to

(58:32):
All right, man. Well, let's uh, let's get this wrapping and
I've got 10 rapid fire questions for you. How's that sound? All right.
I love it. Sweet. Uh, these go all over the
place. So get ready for it. All right. Are you, are you
Like I said, I made it. I see I come prepared. I'm
I'm asking you in a different order. All right. What's your favorite Jiu Jitsu submission?

(58:59):
All right, rapid fire. I'm supposed to say the jiu-jitsu philosophical thing of
I'm going to go with Neon Belly, man. And you don't think Neon Belly's a submission? If
you Neon Bellied me, I was also tapping. Talk to some guys in my academy. Neon Belly's a submission.
All right. One piece of advice for new police officers or

(59:21):
Cool. Advice for new jiu-jitsu students.
What about a piece of advice for current police officers or law enforcement officers who've
been in the game for a little bit, maybe the ones that are starting to get a little, you
know, complacent? Yeah, yeah, don't get complacent. How do you like how do
you keep learning? Okay. Favorite

(59:48):
Um, The people, man, is some amazing
It's unbelievable. How
do you overcome having
to juggle as much as you do, right? I got a lot of irons in the fire, like
kids jiu jitsu, own a school, your own training, c4c, the

(01:00:10):
Yeah. Uh, I have an amazing support network. My
wife, she'll listen to this. So I got it. Like it was, she's unbelievable. Like
she holds on the fort. She supports me, uh, you know, backs
me. I got amazing kids. Um, she'll you come hang with me
on a Saturday night, Memorial day weekend. It's
against her better judgment. Um, so that that's huge.

(01:00:31):
And just, I mean, honestly, like Matt time management, just learning
Uh, what's your most memorable moment, whether it's a BJJ or
It has changed over the years. I used to have other ones, but in all honesty, training
jiu-jitsu with my kids. I've got a six-year-old, nine-year-old, and
being on the mats with them and doing jiu-jitsu with them, it just, it melts my

(01:00:57):
My daughter's nine and she's gotten close. I mean, she's got a little- Razor
blade forearms, get that rear naked choke on you, just wrecks it. Neon belly
Oh, man. What's the number
one top improvement you'd love to see in police training? I
know we talked about a lot of areas of opportunity. What would it be like if you had

(01:01:25):
Nice. What's your go-to hobby or passion outside of Jiu-Jitsu? Like
Do you glamp? I kind of. We got a little pop-up

(01:01:52):
Oh, man. I
don't know. I might have to edit this part out. Which
is an open book. I'm an open book, man. Yeah. Cool.
Were you good? No, it's horrible. I never learned how to read music. So

(01:02:15):
what I would do is I would just move the slide to wherever the guy next
We have a trombone in back and we can actually make a little Instagram short of it.
Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate you anything else you want to share with the audience jiu-jitsu
people Law enforcement officers people on the edge of
training people been training for a while anything else closing words from yeah I

(01:02:36):
think I mean I can't incur encourage guys enough and by
I can't encourage people enough. Like, just try it,
man. Just come on the mats and like, just try it.
And I think I've met more people. I've
never met somebody that's regretted training, but I've met
hundreds, maybe thousands of people at this point that, you know,

(01:03:00):
regretted not training or not starting soon
Yeah, I say the number one thing you hear from from people, man, I wish I
Yeah, so area, I'll give a couple plugs. So they're

(01:03:20):
like, I've said multiple times, I've got a lot of things going on. So
for crossover stuff, crossover bjj.com. Everything's
on there. If you're interested in like police jiu-jitsu, hit
me up at C4CPJJWisconsin at gmail.com.
Email me and I'll help you out any way I can. And if
you're interested in kind of, you know, looking at jiu-jitsu through

(01:03:44):
that wellness lens, our 1078 program, you
can hit me up at 1078BJJProject at
Well, thanks so much, Bob. It's an honor to
have you on my podcast. This being your first podcast, I've
ducked and dodged podcast for a long time. The voice of Bob is out there

(01:04:04):
in the world now. So is your beautiful face. I appreciate that. If
you love this podcast episode, please like subscribe stars rate,
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