Aikido in law enforcement

I would like to join the Law enforcement agency(police) after i graduate from college. So i would like to know if any of you folks out there are in this line and how much of Aikido do you use in your line?

Just a funny story I read... Somewhere in the US an officer broke a criminals arm (sankyo) while arresting him for some realtively small crime. The Bad guy sued the officer for breaking his arm. ANYWAY... the lawyer convinced the jury that the offender himSELF broke his arm while resisting a (potentially not violent ) Aikido technique (Sankyo) and the officer was found not guilty. Happy End.
Wonder if one could convince the jury that "oh he himself just ran his groin onto my foot". Guess not

So much of Aikido being useful in Law Enforcement...

Anyway I guess any MA experience comes handy... just don't count on it TOO much...

And as far as I know it... some bokken/jo techniques are quite doable with shorter one-hand-things (in this case the rubber thing that cops have... don't know the name in english )

watch out bad guys

Jorgen
Estonian Aikikai

P.S. One of my senseis works in local police deparment as the chief for the against drug section thing... he has said Aikido is quite efficient and has used it quite much... just know your limits...

On the whole, there is a largely resistant element to most police learning Aikido, or jujitsu to their proven methods. Although, more and more teachers of self-defense for government, and state training facilities are interested in Aikido as an addition to their Karate, Judo, Jujitsu training? Still they option towards the muscular strikes, and takedowns of old style armbars, or jokingly refer to just plain shooting the resistor ...

I have trained with various local and state police in NJ in Karate, but they almost always lean towards using the physical strength in movement over Aikido's harmony of movement with allowing the attacker to injure themselves with their own resistence. Legally, it is more expediant to have muscles bruised, or justify a gunshot, rather than trying to justify a person's injurys from Ikkyo or nykkyo?

Once Aikido goes back to teaching fingerlocks, and few pressure point pain applications, then I think the law enforcement community will have reason to add Aikido to their defense study courses?

You want to see something funny, watch Eighty year old Wally Jay tie up black belts into pretzels with fingerlocks and pain applications on fingers and toes?

(Wally Jay does accredit some of his knowledge to Aikido, even though his form is Jujitsu.)

While I am not a police officer a few of the people in our dojo are. One of the guys that started training at the same time I did was a retired state cop with 17 yrs of Uechi Ryu karate under his belt. He always used to say that he wished he'd had aikido training when he was active on the force. One of my first instructors who has just been hired as police chief in a nearby city would occasionaly tell stories of when he used aikido on the street. Once he held an escaped psychiatric patient for nearly a half hour in an ikkyo pin until backup arrived. He always told us that ikkyo was the technique he ended up using the most. Funny thing is he said the guys he worked with would always ask him when they were going to get to see this "karate" stuff he did. He told them he did it all the time, they just didn't see it.

When I look at the backgrounds of many of the people in our dojo: police, military, highly ranked in other martial arts, etc. It kind of answers the "is this effective" question for me. If it didn't have merit these people wouldn't be wasting their time.

Sorry I blathered for so long,
Bronson

Thanx Bruce and Bronson for your replies. Greatly appreciated.

any cops out there have any Aikido stories??hehe

OK, here goes...I'm a cop (and formerly active duty Army, currently inactive reserves). I can't say I've used aikido technique so much at work as I have aikido spirit. This is mostly because I am brand new to aikido (8 months), but I have employed aikido principles (somewhat) a couple of times. Between my law enforcement and my limited aikido experience, I would say that if you are looking for aikido to make you more skilled at physically controlling someone in the police role, you may be disappointed. This is for two reasons: (besides O-Sensei's assertion that aikido is not for correcting or defeating others) First, and it's been said many times here, is that it takes a long time to become proficient enough at aikido technique to use it in a street situation. Second is that street situations can become very dangerous very quickly. Until you are extremely experienced and well trained in aikido technique, to depend on its techniques could well land you in the hospital, or worse. IMHO, nothing is worth that. I will go home at the end of my shift, and see my family in the morning. If that means I have to put a criminal in the hospital or worse, so be it. Needless to say, the street is a TAD more cutthroat than the dojo. That said, I believe aikido IS useful to law enforcement. I do not go to work each night wishing to hurt another human being, criminal or not. So far, I have avoided ever injuring a suspect in the course of an arrest, and I hope my aikido practice will help continue this little streak. OK, have at me...

David: yea,i get your point. i too wanna go home in 1 piece...hehe

And i'm not looking for aikido to make me more skilled at physically controlling someone in the police role. Its just a coincidence i'm thinking of joining the force and was wondering how much use is my Aikido(excluding the beautiful philosophy).

He and his website may be of some help.

http://www.aikieast.com/instruct.htm

He is also an active member here.

Here is his email, it is on the aikiweb search engine...
aikigeorge@aikieast.com

Good Luck Nikon!!

Thanx chris!