Martial Arts and the Police

Lurch

 

                   As an avid collector of martial arts books I am surprised by the amount of books and manuals produced by serving policeman or former policeman teaching jiu jitsu or wrestling techniques for use in arresting criminals and hooligans since the beginning of the twentieth century. The art of Barjitsu, really jiu jitsu, was written about by Conan Doyle in "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" to explain his escape from his arch enemy Professor Moriety and the plunge off the Reichtenbach Waterfall in Switzerland. At the time the book was written Yukio Tani and others were touring the musical halls demonstrating judo/jiu jitsu as a self defence art, their manager at that time was an Edwardian Engineer called Barton Wright who imported Japanese jiu jitsu masters to show the self defence art of jiu jitsu which he in a moment of self promotion called Barjitsu.

                   The earliest manuals of this art show people dressed as policeman using jiu jitsu to arrest criminal offenders. The book "The Complete Kano Jiu Jitsu" by Hancock is one of the earliest I have that praises the use of jiu jitsu as a tool for the police. The number of booklets produced in the beginning of the twentieth century that have Police Jiu Jitsu as their title is great. If you can buy it a booklet "American Police Jiu Jitsu" by S. J. Jorgensen is interesting not for it's contents, which is standard, but for the photographs of police uniforms in the ninteen twenties and thirties. Another booklet that came into my collection "Lighting Jiu Jitsu", this shows line drawings of soldiers and policemen to subdue various criminal types and Nazi soldiers using jiu jitsu like techniques. The father of military unarmed combat W. E. Fairbairn had arrest techniques shown in his manual "All in Fighting", called "Get Tough" in the U.S.A., as you would expect from someone who was a policeman for thirty years in Shanghai. To return to the theme of police jiu jitsu I have recently obtained a book called "Police Jiu Jitsu" by Molyneux from the nineteen sixties that uses jiu jitsu for arrest techniques, no throws are shown as the author thinks that they are too difficult for the average policeman to do in a live situation. From the same era I have the book "Defense and Control Tactics" by Georges J. Sylvain which covers standard police baton and unarmed combat. Police self defence is shown by Jordan Roth, in a booklet with the same name, wrist and elbow locks are shown, the use of police baton and handcuff techniques. A booklet was produced by Desert Publications "Police Karate" by Scott R. Bartels and Royal J. West, it has basic karate techniques with some insight into handcuff techniques.

                  Celebrated karate master Takayuki Kubota, inventor of the kubotan, a metal rod on a key chain, really an updated version of a yawara stick ( traditional jiu jitsu weapon ) wrote a book  called "Close Encounters"-"The Arresting Art of Taiho-Jutsu" and contains some workable techniques as you would expect from an ex Japanese Policeman.

                   M. G. Harvey who won the Military Cross in Korea, he led his company of Glosters from encirclement on the Imjin River, wrote a book "Self-Defence By Judo" this put together the self defence techniques of Kime-no-Kata, judo self defence and Kimewaza of the Marunouchi Police Dojo. Former London policeman Mike Finn produced a small manual on "Police Self Defence" which has photographs and line drawings passing on the experience of his time as a policeman and his multi grades in different martial arts. I was given a booklet "Police Self-Defence Manual" as a present by Bill Gill, he is a retired provincial policeman in Canada and graded me in his style of jiu jitsu "Misu Ryu", a jiu jitsu style created for the police.

                    Finally I obtained a book "Ease Of Restraint" by L. Martin, it was privately published by the author, he had studied under Fairbairn and had obtained his teaching licence for Shinnoshindo jiu jitsu the system Fairbairn took the restraining and arresting techniques  from when he was a Shanghai International Policeman.

                   For the martial artist who works in security the information in books is out there if you do not have access to police training or the local jiu jitsu school is teaching too violent techniques in your security job, just do a little research on the internet, and practice a few of the techniques in these books and you can increase your skill base for your job. But remember use always minimum force and use only enough force to restrain not to punish.

                                                 

                                              Yours in budo

                                                                  Ian "Lurch" Durie.