If you are looking to add some highly useful and innovative tools to your arsenal, or you are seeking to street-proof your martial art, this book is for you.

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policejudo.ca

Transcript

[00:00:00] Travis Bader: I'm Travis Spader. And this is the Silvercore Podcast.. Silvercore has been providing its members with a skills and knowledge necessary to be confident and proficient in the outdoors for over 20 years. And we make it easier for people to deepen their connection to the natural world. If you enjoy the positive and educational content we provide, please let others know by sharing, commenting, and following so that you can join in on everything that Silvercore stands for.

[00:00:40] If you'd like to learn more about becoming a member of the Silvercore Club and community, visit our website at Silvercore.ca

[00:01:07] when it comes to police officers, making arrests. The difference between cooperative and uncooperative arrestees is profound in a world where the optics of police use of forces under an increasingly focused spotlight tactics at police use to expedite arrest and mitigate injury are essential. I'm joined by a retired police Constable use of force expert, non firearm, weapons, expert, and whole slew of other accolades who has written the book, comprehensive joint locking techniques for law enforcement.

[00:01:37] If you're looking to add some highly useful and innovative tools to your arsenal or you're seeking to street proof, your martial arts, this book is for you. Welcome to the Silvercore Podcast, Al arsenal. 

[00:01:48] Al Arsenault: Thank you, Travis. 

[00:01:49] Travis Bader: It's a pleasure to be here. I love it. We're gonna be adding, adding some, uh, tools to their arsenal with L arsenal.

[00:01:58] no pun intended, no pun intended. Uh, your book's amazing by the way, I've been reading through it. It was hard to put down. I really like the way it's written. It is, uh, easy to read. Well, put together tons of graphics or somebody like myself who really likes to kind of flip to different pages and, uh, dive right into things.

[00:02:17] I pictures 

[00:02:18] Al Arsenault: and arrows 

[00:02:19] Travis Bader: and the pictures and arrows of how to move and. Uh, one of the things that I thought was really neat was in the beginning of the book, and you're listening off some of the people who have helped you in your journey and your process through police judo. And one of 'em was a letter of praise from the BC civil liberties association, 

[00:02:42] Al Arsenault: unlikely as that may be, um, uh, Michael Vaughn, uh, she, uh, she was introduced to us through, uh, retired VPD inspector, Ken frail, he's our ethics advisor.

[00:02:54] And, uh, he says, you gotta meet this woman. And ah, I don't want you to do with BC's civil liberties, you know, no, and he goes, no, no seriously. And so, uh, she came out, she was a delightful, um, lady. Yeah. She really respected what we were doing and she did judo herself. Oh, really was a real hook. And uh, she saw what we were doing.

[00:03:14] and, uh, she loved it and, uh, she actually promoted it in their newsletter and she goes, you know, BC civil liberties is not all about just bashing police. We're just calling it like it is. So if all negative stuff comes across her desk and that's what, uh, she reports on, but this, she heard that about this positive thing that police judo, uh, what, what it's capable of doing in terms of, uh, controlling, uh, people instead of beating them into submission.

[00:03:40] And, uh, she had a high price, uh, for our tactics. 

[00:03:43] Travis Bader: I thought that was pretty neat. Like of all places you're gonna be, see something that is going to be, uh, in support of police force from the BC civil liberties association, which really speaks volumes to what it is that you and others have been doing with the police judo.

[00:03:58] Uh, Give me. I know I've, I've got some background I've, I've been following the police judo for a while, but can you just kind of enlighten me a little bit about how that came about and, and what it's about 

[00:04:10] Al Arsenault: well, it goes back to, uh, well, when I first signed up, uh, for the VPD in 79, I was, I was a studying Cutta.

[00:04:18] And then by. Probably by 1986, I was a third degree black belt in karate. But, uh, and I was thinking about going in the, the, um, police academy as a use of force instructor thinking that, oh, I've got like five, six years on the job. I know quite a bit. Right. I know nothing from then, from what I know now. So I, uh, uh, I ended up not going at that time.

[00:04:43] Instead I took, um, a year's leave of absence from the police department. Right. And, uh, expo, uh, X, Y 86. Don't miss it for the world. And you did. Yeah, I did. I was a year. I went traveling. I, I told the VPD, I want to take a year's leave of absence. and they said, no, uh, we don't give a, year's leave of absence.

[00:05:03] We'll give you six months to finish a degree. Mm. And I went, you know, I met with a deputy chief at the time and uh, I said, well, we can't do it. And I says, okay, well, I'll quit. Right. He goes, are you serious? I said, yeah. And I said, well, there's he says to me, there's no guarantee, well, I'll hire you back on.

[00:05:25] And I said, that's okay. Other departments are hiring. I first class gospel stellar record up to that date. And, uh, you top of your class too. And he came in. Yeah. Yeah. I was a, I was the, uh, chief's choice as they called it, the, the top recruit in my class. And then I was a police officer of the year. That was oh five.

[00:05:42] Uh yes. In the last year of, of, uh, work. I tell people in my 27 years that's the first and last years were really good. So, so it's all about appearances. starting and finishing strong the middle of 25 years, quarter of a decade or a little bit dodgy, but, uh, I'll leave a good impression anyways, right? Yeah.

[00:06:04] So anyways, I, I took this, I'll leave absence and I went around the, the world and looked at different. I was looking for the ultimate martial art for police. Hmm. And not necessary to pick up techniques here and there, which I did do. But, uh, I look, I looked around and there's a number of things that police academies were doing.

[00:06:25] They were teaching whatever the instructor knew. Right. Cause that's what he's most comfortable teaching mm-hmm and it's what he's best at. And then somehow they had have, the recruits would have to try and make it work on the street. And some of these techniques that they were teaching aren't aren't necessarily translatable or easily translatable, just because if you're a TaeKwonDo guy and you can kick a knife outta somebody's hand that I wouldn't recommend teaching that to recruits.

[00:06:54] Right. So that was a problem. And then, so somebody in the, in that gym, the marsh, the, the training gym should have some. Expertise or, um, little school of hard, not maybe, yeah. Sometimes somebody, they, they should have, uh, they should have what it takes to, uh, make this stuff work. And, and so instead of teaching what they know, they should say, what do you need to know?

[00:07:16] Mm-hmm . Oh, I'm a, a boxer, but geez, it looked like you do a little bit of wrestling. It looks like you do a bit of a joint locking. So I sh so me as the instructor with the aptitude in martial arts, I should be learning what you, I should be teaching you. Mm-hmm, not, you learn, you I'll teach you boxing and then you try and figure out how that translates into getting handcuffs on somebody.

[00:07:38] Right? So that was a, that was a, a problem. and of course, uh, trainers become, or they they're very parochial. They just teach what their department teaches. Mm-hmm and they teach this over here and, and there's no real or unified system of martial arts for, or, um, control tactics for police. Right. So there's a number of, uh, problems like that, that I, that I, that I saw.

[00:08:04] And I, I, I came back a bit disillusioned. I went, ah, darn. I was looking for something really good. And so I just kept, uh, so I, I got outta karate and then I got into, um, Wu, the Chinese martial arts, uh Shuja which it's like, uh, throwing techniques without any groundwork. Okay. And. and, uh, chink the joint locking techniques and, and, and this and that.

[00:08:27] So I did that and I liked the, the chink quite a bit. And then, um, it was too wasn't wasn't direct enough. It was, it was a little bit airy fairy for policing purposes and, uh, it's, it's a marshal it's artistry, right? Sure. So, and, uh, so I, I left, obstensibly go study, uh, ground fighting, uh, because, uh, Shrek doesn't do any ground fighting.

[00:08:52] Mm. And, um, So I joined, um, judo at the police station under, well, initially Tim Lalor and then Brian shipper. Right. Uh, took it over, um, Brian shipper being a civilian. And, um, I, so I started judo and I really liked it because, and I thought out of all the martial arts that I seen. Judo is probably the most practical, because you say you are under arrest.

[00:09:16] What call, what falls next? You gotta lay hands on the guy, especially if he's not being cooperative. Right. So, so judo does that word in karate? You're under arrest. No, I'm not. These are striking. Oh yeah. So I'm gonna start breaking your kneecaps and punching, knocking you out to get you into, uh, cups.

[00:09:32] Doesn't look too good. It doesn't look good. and, and it's yeah, it's, uh, it's a hard way to arrest somebody. So I, I went through that whole, um, that whole process. And then I, I came out the other end being a little bit, um, judo was at the time was a little bit more still following the sports mode, even though we got out of the competition or the instructor, Brian took it out of the competition mode entirely.

[00:10:03] And, uh, but it was still classic judo being taught. Two police at a police station. So it was loosely by name, only called police judo. But then I, I end up, um, retiring in 2006 and I was, might my own business in Thailand. Like all good stories happened. and, um, um, Sergeant Brad faucet, uh, phone me up and, and, uh, he, him and, uh, you know, acting Sergeant, I guess Ken Resk were at the, the police academy in 2008 and they're having classes of 44, 48 people with the two of them.

[00:10:36] So the's much student, teacher ratio is a bit off there. And so he got ahold of me and said, do you want to come back and, um, be use of force instructor? And, uh, I said, I'll come back as a contractor, meaning that when the students are in the gym, I'll show up, but I'm, I don't wanna write reports. I don't wanna, uh, disciplines, uh, recruits and all that stuff.

[00:10:58] I'll just come in and teach you. But under a couple of conditions, one of them being, um, I want to be able to help revamp the training, uh, program because I was a field trainer before I left. And, uh, I saw some deficiencies in the training and he, he said, fair enough. You know, don't wanna say, oh, you know, you're contractor to shut up just right.

[00:11:22] Relegated to the corner. We're doing that. So, um, so that was, that was a great upon. And like I say, I get to show up when, when they're in the gym and, um, and, uh, yeah, so I, I, I agreed and I came, uh, taught for less than two years until the 2010 Olympics came. Right. And had a glut of, uh, officers after. Yes.

[00:11:43] And they didn't even need one instructor at the academy at the, because they had so many, uh, surplus officers at that time. Really. And then, um, so then I, I switched over to the law enforcement studies diploma. I was asked to, uh, create three courses. Uh, these are for people that want to go into policing.

[00:12:02] Sure. And I had a really strong, uh, my, my entire career pretty well was on the street as a, I was in the CFL club Constable for life. Okay. And, uh, I, I, I stuck, uh, to the street because that was my passion. And, uh, as a result, Of all that, uh, I made, uh, almost 2000, uh, criminal code arrests, like people for offenses.

[00:12:29] And then I probably double that for breaking up fights and breaches of the piece and arresting drunks. And is that for your entire career? Yeah. Yeah. 27. So, and, and that's, that's unheard. That's a, that's a, that's the top one percentile easily. Yeah. For arrest. I know, I know police officers have been on the job for 20 years and I don't think they've made 20 arrests.

[00:12:49] You know, you have to have 

[00:12:50] Travis Bader: man just a real passion for what 

[00:12:53] Al Arsenault: you're doing. Well, well, yeah, and then part of the reason for that is because half my career was spent working in the downtown east side, where sometimes I was resting, uh, three, four people, 5, 6, 7 people in a night. Right. I have to handcuff them to each other because you that's, you're running out.

[00:13:10] Yeah. I remember one time, uh, my partner, um, Toby Hinton were in, in front of the region hotel, and we couldn't move for two hours. Like people were coming across the street to get a, to beg, to be arrested. They were coming around the corner, getting arrested they're, you know, left and right. And then I was expecting somebody to come out of a window and expect to be arrested.

[00:13:31] We couldn't move. We had, 'em all sitting down there like three, four people, and then the wagon would come in there and somebody else would stumble around the thing. And we couldn't, you know, it's like my goodness. It was like the black hole of arrests, you know? 

[00:13:43] Travis Bader: Well, so either a passion. Perhaps a passion and a combination for having a nose for, 

[00:13:50] Al Arsenault: for that, you know, uh, um, what is, what is it invention as the mother of necessity?

[00:13:55] So right. If you look at what we were offered down there, we had lay hands on many, many, many hundred thousands of people, uh, in, in, in the course of my duties down there and, and, and Toby Hinton too, spent his whole entire career down there more than like 23 years, is that people don't, uh, Deserve to have their arm broken or their job busted because, uh, they wanna fight you.

[00:14:21] Right. A lot of times they're, they're mentally ill, they're on drugs or they're more fighting themselves than anything. And sure. And, um, and after you Wade into this, um, uh, crucible of chaos and carnage and it be, it becomes less personalized when people want to resist arrest. That's their job. Their job is to hide the drugs and run away from the police.

[00:14:47] And our job is to catch them. So, right. It's nothing personal. I mean, they're not, they, they didn't choose to, to, uh, try and fight with me because of me. Right. Um, could have been you or anybody. Yeah. Anybody. Yeah. So it's just, you know, so you take it less personally and then it, uh, um, and just look at it as a, a challenge.

[00:15:06] I, I had, I have so many martial arts skills and it was nice to be able to, oh, let's kind try this or try that. It's like a puzzle. Yeah. So it's a puzzle. It needs solving and, um, as gently as possible. And you know, I, I, I've had one use of force, uh, complaint leveled at me in my entire career. 

[00:15:25] Travis Bader: I actually did a search and I was surprised for somebody with your background and your passion and everything else that nothing shows up in there.

[00:15:33] Well, well, 

[00:15:34] Al Arsenault: if you search under, I dunno, harm reduction or through odd squad, it was, uh, uh, Toby and I started odd squad back in 1997. It's it's we it's, uh, we basically try to educate youth about meaning about gangs or drugs and gangs, right? And so that was, we just had our 25th year an, uh, gala anniversary.

[00:15:55] So we're still going strong and Toby's the workhorse behind that, uh, operation. And then, um, in 2010 we formally started police judo, right? Uh, again, asked Toby to, you know, let's, let's start this new martial art, um, for policing, because I, I realized that through my travels around the world, And through my own experience and judo was the best base martial art, but it still was steeped in rules of sport, right.

[00:16:25] The street and the street has no rules of sport. There's no refs, there's no mats. There's no ethics. Yeah. There's no ethics. Exactly. Right. Exactly. And morality is just thrown out the window. So you, you know, on their end, our end. Yeah. We have to stop the sure. Do tow the line. Yeah. We we're, the criminal code applies to us and they, they don't even want to hear that word.

[00:16:43] So, um, so, so, uh, we, we, we started police judo as a new martial art in 2010. And, uh, even though the roots go back, uh, further, like even back to my search in 1986. Right. Um, you know, so I. Uh, that that's how police duty evolved. And it evolved because of the necessity of laying hands on so many people and, and doing it in an ethical, uh, manner in effective manner in practical manner.

[00:17:15] So, 

[00:17:15] Travis Bader: well, you've also taught, uh, tactical communications for that's right. Government organizations and 

[00:17:20] Al Arsenault: yeah, main, mostly with, um, parks, Canada. Right. I've been coast to coast. I went Pacific rim, national park all the way up to Halifax and during the, mostly during the nineties, but I, I still, uh, teach it, uh, on occasion.

[00:17:34] Yeah. 

[00:17:35] Travis Bader: And that's, that's always a, uh, The I find really interesting because I find that part of the puzzle very fun as well. I find both parts of the puzzle, very fun, but the puzzle of how can we deescalate through tactical communication and gain 

[00:17:48] Al Arsenault: compliance? I don't even understand the concept of deescalation really from my perspective, because I come from, uh, position I'm an ethical officer, right.

[00:17:58] Somebody's trying to, uh, you know, wants to fight with me. So I just don't, uh, knuckle down on the guy. Uh, uh, I mean, uh, to me it's just like a, well, I'm already, you know, he's he's, I, he can't, uh, deescalation is not a verb. Mm. I can't deescalate someone. Mm. I can control the factors that I bring into the Al the altercation or interaction.

[00:18:22] Right. But I, I, I, uh, it's almost the, I almost feel insulted that I, I have to take, you know, or I'd be asked to take a, a course in deescalation. I go, well, no, I don't start off high. It's like tactical communication. Right. You start off, uh, slow. Right. And, and you go in deeper and deeper. And then, uh, you get, you get to the, the ultimate, whatever your bottom line is, you get there.

[00:18:48] Right. And that's the way I've always done it. So when people are saying, well, why you think I'm coming in, guns are blazing. And then I have to, I have to deescalate the situation. I can do with myself, but I can't do with the, the person I'm dealing with necessarily. Cause if they don't wanna play that game, you can provide 

[00:19:05] Travis Bader: them the options.

[00:19:05] Exactly. But it's their choice 

[00:19:07] Al Arsenault: at the end. So, but so this deescalation concept, maybe some people need. To know that or be reminded of just because he's all jacked up. Doesn't mean you have to go exactly where he is. You can, you, you know, you can start, uh, off a little more, uh, gentler or slower or right. Or more, more tactically, uh, slowly.

[00:19:28] But I, I, I don't like, I don't like that. Uh, deescalation, it, it, it just, it comes from an assumption that police the connotation behind. Yeah. The connotation of the police are always gonna be heavy 

[00:19:39] Travis Bader: handed. So yeah, no, I don't like that. And you know, when I say it, I mean, how you can deescalate the situation or the individual by perhaps providing em those tools so that they can make the right decision before that's right before, before it, before it gets to a point where you, you reduce those 

[00:19:55] Al Arsenault: options options, which is the basis of tactical communications.

[00:19:57] You're thinking for them, like, they'd be thinking three or four days down the road, right after they've gotten outta jail and they've got their, uh, court dates set. And, uh, because they're angry, they're drunk, they're UN drugs, they're enraged or whatever. Right. Uh, at the situation is. Just too much for them to, uh, handle, uh, rationally.

[00:20:19] Mm. And so that's what the essence of tactical communication is saying, oh, you can slow down here. You know, think, think about this. This is the reason why I'm asking you to do what you're doing. You're setting contacts. And then, then you're presenting options saying, you can go down this road, this road, this road, and this is what each of them looks like.

[00:20:37] And this is what the end of the road looks like for that mm-hmm . And then finally confirming doesn't does know mean no, like, or is there some conditions that, that. You know, you you'd like attached to it now they might say, yeah, kiss my ass. Well, that ain't gonna happen, but it might be. Yeah. I, before I get boot me out of the bar, which I'm fighting to get out, I want to get my jacket.

[00:21:01] It's hanging on my seat. That's and why do you tell me that in the first place, instead of saying, I'm not leaving, I'm not leaving. Then you get outside after a big fight. They're not thinking, right. So you say before you lay hands on them, you say, is there anything I can do or say to help me to gain your cooperation in this matter?

[00:21:15] I like to think there is. And, um, they go, yeah, give 'em in my jacket. Well, duh. Yeah. Okay. That's that's doable, right? Or I'm gonna drink my last half of a beer. You can do that. Sure. Whatever. But a lot of guys slapped the beer out of the guy's hand, the fights on because, because they didn't listen. Yeah. He, yeah, he didn't listen.

[00:21:33] He didn't go right now and having half the beer is him saying basically screw you, which you're allowed to do. That's yeah, yeah. Which it's a game. Yeah. So is it worth getting into a fight? Cuz the guy wants to show his friends and I'm drinking half my beer before I leave. that's say what you want, but do, as I say so bye-bye, you know, and then.

[00:21:53] You're you're gone and you're the hero and, uh, problem solve. But, uh, but anyways, um, getting back to the, the essence of, um, using force, I mean, we've never been under more of a microscope than now with, uh, black lives matter and all these, uh, people wanting to defund the police, looking for any, any reason to, uh, smear the police and, um, hitting people in essence looks bad.

[00:22:23] There's a couple of things that police do to avoid one, hitting people looks bad. So we avoid, we avoid that. We use joint locking techniques and also holding people. Is highly ineffectual, like holding, grabbing them to typical by the collar. I've got a collar. That's the old, you know, police, uh, old collar, the perp yeah, yeah.

[00:22:44] Collar the perp. That was, uh, you know, and some police literally did that and there's no control. So the difference between holding and controlling is immense mm-hmm , it's like the difference between sport techniques and martial art and street techniques. Mm-hmm is immense, the, the mentality, the different, and, and one of them being, um, police, all police shoot also avoids going to the ground, which you smart sister techniques.

[00:23:14] Police like flocking to these, uh, you know, Brazil jujitsu courses. And, uh, it's flawed to me in my mind, right? From the very outset because you, the ground is not the police officer's friend. You don't wanna be there. Well, now you might be taken to the ground, but about, but you know, even if you do you and police, should we do a ground fighting, but we ground fight with the ultimate purpose of getting up.

[00:23:39] Right. Not to submit when you not to be 

[00:23:41] Travis Bader: on the ground and get 

[00:23:41] Al Arsenault: kicked in the head by all everything. Yeah. Yeah. Your head looks like a soccer ball, right. Six inches off the ground. So, so there's, um, a bunch of, uh, things that we've, I improved in control tactics through, um, through police judo and this, this book here that has just come out here, um, um, Comprehensive joint locking techniques for law enforcement, um, is just, uh, one part of a book that I was writing.

[00:24:14] I started about. Oh, Uh, probably over 10 years ago, the book would be this thick. Well, 

[00:24:20] Travis Bader: I saw in the book you're taught you're referencing future books. Yeah. That you're gonna dedicate the next 

[00:24:24] Al Arsenault: 10 years. And I realize after 10 years, you know, writing, I went, this book would be too thick. So I just took out what is most sale?

[00:24:31] What's the, what's the most, uh, important stuff that police need to do right now. So, so I extracted this, the joint locking aspects out of police judo, and I say, okay, this is one book. There'll be a book on ground fighting. There'll be book on punching and kicking. Sure. Because there's there's times and places where you have to do those things.

[00:24:49] There'll be a book on handcuffing and searching. There'll be a book on, you know, uh, various aspects of, of police judo as it is, uh, now. And, um, but this is the first, the first of that series. So I, I realize that in police judo, um, it's all, it's about controlling somebody and controlling. by the difference between controlling and holding is the presence or absence of pain.

[00:25:21] Mm. So if it's, um, you know, um, um, pain compliance technique, that's, that's, that's, um, that's controlling somebody. Okay. So you, if you grab somebody by the shoulder, by the caller, well, there's no pain associated with that and the person can fight back mm-hmm . Um, and for the veers out there, if you have to grab somebody say with one hand, there's only one place to do that, to be able to, even though it's holding, you can still, uh, um, divert the force that, uh, your opponent wants to use against you.

[00:25:55] And that's just grab just a, uh, behind the elbow, just above the elbow mm-hmm , but, and standing in this blind spot, you stand there or even grab both hands on. If the person's really strong and move, if he tries to move to turn into it, you move, you stay in that blind spot and you hold onto that arm. And if he tries to punch you with the other arm, you just thrust the elbow out towards that.

[00:26:17] Or if he tries to kick you, you drive the elbow down. Or if he tries to spin around and back fist, you, you drive the elbow, uh, towards the direction of the incoming force and it neutralizes the, uh, the force mm. That other, that that's the only hold I would recommend. Right? The rest of them, you gotta put a little pain on it or be able to put pain on it in a real Jiffy.

[00:26:37] So you can get somebody into a tech, uh, a joint locking technique without applying the pain. Right. But you ready to go? Right. So if he starts resisting all of a. Then you just, you amp it up. So you're just outside, just at the start of the person's range of motion. Then you can crank it up till you get to the, uh, you know, towards the end of the range of motion.

[00:26:58] That's where the pain, uh, begins. 

[00:27:00] Travis Bader: Do you ever find any run into people who are highly pain tolerant? Whether just because drugs, crystal 

[00:27:06] Al Arsenault: meth, people are mentally ill, even, um, um, goal oriented people, same people that pepper spray doesn't work on. Right? Same validate. You want to work on those three categories of people, but it generally it's the one that fails on pepper spray works on best on silver police officers after it bounces off the forehead and your partner gets it.

[00:27:27] that's right. He's in a world of pain, but other guy's just blinking and thinking I've cooked with shit harder than this mm-hmm. But, uh, but, uh, yeah, so, and, and, um, was talking about use of force and handcuffing. they still teach, uh, this, uh, pressure point control tactics method of right. Bending from the waist, put your arm behind your back and all this stuff.

[00:27:47] They teach that as, um, a method of handcuffing. Right. And it's totally, um, 

[00:27:53] Travis Bader: it's kind of the gospel out there for some time. 

[00:27:55] Al Arsenault: Wasn't it? Yeah. Well still is. And then, and then, well, what about the guy? That's got two fingers up and bleeding from the forehead and no shirt on yeah. Is on crystal meth and saying, screw you, what about that?

[00:28:07] How does that work? It, doesn't not very well. You need the, you need these kind of techniques either. You you're getting the person into a joint lock, causing some pain, or if there's no, if the lights are on and no one's home, then, um, basically you're using the arm as a tether, right? To take him down into a, an inferior, uh, position he's face down, uh, you know, uh, uh, You don't want to give 'em a dirt nap right away, but you're in a position to do that if, if it's required and, um, and that's, that's the, that's the way to go.

[00:28:42] I mean, um, so yeah, so, so handcuffing is, uh, Is a real, it's a perishable skill and it's a real art form and there's some very novel techniques in here. I'm just about to enroll, um, online course called HC cuff. The hands saw on saw that control saw using functional force. And it's, it's brilliant if I don't say so myself.

[00:29:06] Yes. Um, because it's very practical and it's probably the, the most advancement in handcuffing in the last 50 years. Really. Um, yeah. You get talk, instructors are talking about how you interlock your fingers, the front or all. just, just superficial crap. Yeah. Whereas, you know, it was, uh, whereas we got, um, uh, technique called the, um, chain link lock or cufflink lock where you put the handcuff on somebody and then you use the ch prying down of the chain on, over yeah.

[00:29:35] On. So you're using the joint lock to, to retain, uh, your control over somebody. And you can still have one hand for you to shake to hand. Um, so things like that are, that are really, really, um, I've never been taught before. Well, I haven't seen it. No, I made it up. I mean, I mean, there you go. That's why I call it chink, you know, sort of a joint locking chin.

[00:29:55] Um, I call it chain chain. Nah, and I realize that, you know, I'm going, oh, you can get, you can get a lot of purchase on that. Yeah. So, so, so the handcuffing, you, even though it's, uh, a required or, uh, necessary skill Hmm. Police still don't practice it or, and the techniques are given are, are, um, useless. Like if a person's bending over their waist, turning your feet out, bending forward, thumbs up.

[00:30:25] If they're doing all that stuff, just throw 'em the handcuffs. Hey, you mind putting these on behind your back? yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. What the guy, what the guy, the crystal meth guy, what? That doesn't get you any closer to handcuffing him there. And then police, when they see. Um, it's going to be a potentially violent situation.

[00:30:42] Yeah. They get, they're confused between like the, the person might have a weapon. You pull your gun out at the low ready now you're head of the game. Right. Mm-hmm that makes sense. So if he all sudden he reaches in boom, you just up off the ground. Yeah. And, uh, you can, um, double tap the game. People, uh, police think that, oh, this is Harry.

[00:31:05] So I'm gonna get my handcuffs out in preparation, kind of like the low ready, but it's not, you've just handcuffed yourself because you're a better martial artist or, um, police technician than I am. If you can have your handcuffs in one hand and get that guy under control with your, your free hand one free hand, then you're better than I am because I need both hands to manipulate the person, to get him on the ground, get him into position where he can't resist you any further.

[00:31:33] Then I can put the handcuff on, but they, so they're, they're almost in panic mode. They go, oh my God, this is gonna, I I'm ahead of the game here. I got my handcuffs in my hand and it, it does reverse. And then of course, when they get 'em under control, they're looking around for their handcuffs, cuz they had to let go.

[00:31:48] Of course, because they need both hands to lay hands on somebody who's being violent or so. So whenever, um, and this, if, if you see, um, you know, arrest gone badly, right. The person ends up being shot. Sure. Right. And then you go, oh, okay. Then you, you play the frame back a little bit. Why did he shoot him? Ah, The bad guy's got the Baton, the officer's Baton is about to hit him in the head and he shoots him.

[00:32:22] Sure. Fair. That does, does he have a weapon that could injure kill you? Does he, you know, did you tell him to drop the Baton is, you know, did he fail to do that? Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's green light, you know, check, check, check, boom. And, but then that's the final frame analysis, but he hold on, he's got the officers at Baton.

[00:32:43] How did that happen? Right. So you rail, you roll that, uh, the, the, the tape back a little further. Oh. And the officers, you know, hitting him in effectually. Mm. And the guy just being, what is this? The guy's being ferous at the best. And he just strips the Baton. Because the officer doesn't know how to use it.

[00:33:02] Doesn't know how to retain it and then, but, okay. But why is he hitting him? Why did the Baton come out? So you roll the tape back and there's the officer trying to, he's holding onto the guy rather than controlling him using some pain and doing it rather in effect. So he's losing the guy, just busts out, cuz the guy's not under, under control.

[00:33:25] He's just being held in effectually. Right. And then the officer starts to panic and he pulls out his Baton and then you roll that back and maybe you get into TCOM maybe you think, oh, the guy's being, he's getting into a fight with him because he's being, um, Maybe he is coming in too hard. He didn't use his T com.

[00:33:45] He didn't try and, you know, go from the bottom up. And, um, and he in senses the guy into, to the point where he begging, he begged the guy ends up begging for, to be arrested because of what the officer has said. Maybe could talked, talk them down a little bit or got 'em to cooperate or whatever like that, but doesn't happen.

[00:34:04] You see? So there's a series of failures and guaranteed every, every one of these uses of force where the perpetrators gets shot. If you rule that, take back, you'll see a whole series of mistakes done, uh, tactically by the officer. And 

[00:34:23] Travis Bader: it's always easy to look after the fact and say, oh, should have done, should have done, should have done.

[00:34:28] And I guess a goal here, particularly with the publications that you're putting out is to ingrain. The scenarios and those skills. So a person can more readily come to that in the heat of the moment. 

[00:34:40] Al Arsenault: Right. And the officers really can't be blamed and they're, you're gonna see more officers suing, uh, counter suing when they get done for assault saying if, uh, I I'm counter suing my department for failure to train mm-hmm because you, they get 60 to 70 hours in, in BC, 60 to 70 hours of, uh, tactical training in the police academy.

[00:35:01] That's nice. And, uh, hairdressers get like 300, right. Uh, foot CFL football players. I'm sure they get more than, uh, a couple hundred before they go into the, the big game there. And it's 60 hours. Yeah, that guy with a bleeding from the forehead. No shirt on, on crystal meth. There you go. There's 60 hours of training.

[00:35:20] Go and deal with that 

[00:35:21] Travis Bader: guy. Well, then there's a fear factor cuz the officers go in, they may not have been into a 

[00:35:25] Al Arsenault: physical altercation. Right? Everybody, everything looks like a nail. When you, when you got no skills and they only, they give you a hammer or a couple of hammers on your, on your belt, that's all you're bringing to fight.

[00:35:35] There's nail is, is a nail. Yeah. You're only tool only fight you're bringing to it is the tools on your belt and you get that's where you get this what's called gadget reliance. If people, you know, rely on the taser and OC and those things fail, I mean the battery's not charged or the, the taser barbs, uh, don't make proper contact or the pepper spray is you got the kind of person that, uh, just can blink through that.

[00:36:00] Right. And uh, so those things fail, but I find that your hands on skills, if, if they're you're print trained properly, um, are, are solid state. They generally don't fail. They may not work on everybody sometimes. Yeah. You'll have to break away and, and uh, punch, kick, shoot. You know, uh, you know, there's no perfect, um, you know, set of tools that you can give somebody and it's guaranteed to work on everybody, but police judo will work on the vast majority of people.

[00:36:29] I, I 

[00:36:29] Travis Bader: remember years ago, this one guy, he had a, um, got into a, a fight and he was in martial arts and he thought, okay, here's my chance. I'm gonna practice some of the stuff I know. Right. And he was using judo chops. So judo, chop, judo, chop to the neck. And he's like, I he's like, it surprised me how ineffective those were in the scheme of things.

[00:36:48] And I just started resorting to haymaker essentially. And. I'm wondering if in your progress as you're going through things, were there things that were commonly taught that you later looked at and said, man, 

[00:37:00] Al Arsenault: those don't work at all. Oh gosh. and I look back to some of the older training manuals. I, how did they survive that did, did the, uh, the level of, uh, techniques are kind of techniques they're teaching are horrible, even in, even in the army, just, just horrible.

[00:37:18] They're they're difficult, they're ineffective. And they haven't, they haven't, uh, sort of, uh, gotten around to figuring that out. But, um, yeah, there's even to this day, they're, they're, they're teaching things that are actually 30, 40 years old that are, they're not that, not that practical. So this is a police.

[00:37:37] Judo is a bit of, um, a breath of, uh, fresh air in terms of, uh, techniques. I, if the, to be in listed in our, a list of techniques, You gotta have a couple of factors. One is, uh, you know, it's gotta be effective and practical. It's gotta be ethical. It's gotta be, um, the, the person has to have a, an, uh, inability to, to attack you.

[00:38:03] Mm. So, or be attacked by other people. Like, so that's why going to the ground is we do do some of that and you can go to the ground if you have your I've done it a few times. Sure. My partner watching me just get bored. I guess I take somebody down, try something new. Yeah. Try something new. Just go to the ground with 'em just for fun.

[00:38:23] Um, but, uh, invariably the ground like is, like I say, it's not, there's not the officer's friend. Oh. And so you wanna try and avoid that and, uh, like, like a ground fight, uh, uh, to get up as soon as possible and possibly to disengage or reengage them in a more positive, uh, way. So, so there's, there's been a number of, uh, techniques being taught over the years by different police academies.

[00:38:53] And that still go on to, I just met an RCMP officer in Berny. Um, he's close to retirement. He said he just did a two years stint at depo and. Got out. And I said, why? Because I was teaching them things that I know, uh, wouldn't work. Right. So bending from the waist and all that stuff, mm-hmm , you know, I was, I was, I was, uh, uh, trained as an instructor in that.

[00:39:17] And, uh, I, I never used it because doesn't work well, it works on totally compliant people, but that's, that's not what this handcuffed skills should apply to people that don't wanna get arrested. Those that's, that's the, that's their, that's the necessity of, of, uh, of control in getting the cuffs on difficult people, not the people that are put 'em on themselves.

[00:39:41] Mm-hmm , that's, it's nothing. So anyways, he was disillusioned by what he was, uh, told to teach. And, um, so he left mm-hmm and I said, well, good for you. But you know, that that's that's today. That's going on. Right. You know? And, uh, so it's not, uh, you know, 40 years ago, but it's 40 years ago. Um, Know tactics and, and you can't blame the officers because if they haven't been, they, they have no, they don't know anything about police judo.

[00:40:08] How are they gonna pull that? You pull that outta their ass, you know, they, so it's just like, um, a police police were shooting mental people. Mm. A couple decades ago. Right. So, um, I was actually looking, I was a non firearm weapons, uh, expert for 18 years and act, I was actually close to bringing in the taser into Canada and Darren Lauer actually did it.

[00:40:35] very, but, but because of BPD at the time, weren't interested in it, even though I demonstrated Brad and I faucet and I demonstrated at the, uh, for the ERT members. Yeah. Uh, just extra training, another tool we're not interested. So Darren Lauer picked it up, brought it in. Yeah. And for dealing with mental people, it helps MHA.

[00:40:57] And so. so the first inquiry that comes up after you shoot a mental person, the question will be, could you have done something else? And then the, the lawyer will say, well, didn't, isn't there a thing called the taser that, uh, Victoria is using. right. So then you're liable. So every once one, um, police department, uh, adopts it, say in Canada, everyone else has to follow suit a default, and we could have been that leader, but anyways, Victoria end up stealing good for them.

[00:41:28] But, um, but having said that you can't, you know, uh, they're gonna have, there's gonna be some problems when, when ju police ju becomes more recognized the same, question's gonna pop up. Well that, why did you punch 'em kick them? Yeah. Him and all stuff. Could you have done something else? No. Well, isn't.

[00:41:48] Police judo, you know, it's gonna be like that. And it's like, aren't there better techniques. Aren't there more, you know, advanced or more modern techniques available that you could have done. And that's the kind of questions that are gonna be asked in the future. And, uh, so you know, a police department should.

[00:42:08] Pick this, this kind of training up because it's very practical, effective, and, uh, effective and tactical and ethical and all that other stuff. Mm-hmm but they should also just pick it up because it's the right thing to do. And, and the tools are stronger, like right than. Then, you know, trying to, you know, knee striking somebody in the thigh when they re offer resistance, striking looks bad.

[00:42:31] Yeah. It's optically poor and breaking the machine is a poor way of generating compliance. Right? Because now, you know, we get into a fight like that. It's it's who, who can destroy who first? Well, you 

[00:42:45] Travis Bader: can also turn on the whole survival instinct. They're like, holy Crow, this really hurts. I'm in a hell of a lot of pain.

[00:42:50] You've gone too far. If you're not enough problem too far. And now you're in the fight that you didn't. 

[00:42:54] Al Arsenault: I mean, joint locking can cause pain too, but it's something you can dial up or dial down. Whereas once the strike is out, it's, whatever it is, what it is. So you can't, you know, saying, oops, I hate you too hard there story.

[00:43:07] Let me take 50% of that pain back or here I'll fix your rib for you or something. But, uh, yeah, so there's, there's um, some, um, Changes that have to be made in policing in terms of use of force and police judo is, or is, is we're on the cusp of creating this new, um, um, method of dealing people. Now it draws from a, a number of martial arts that draws from our, a number of, uh, police control.

[00:43:38] Uh, I used to say arresting control tactics, right? I flipped it around purposefully in my book. It's controlling arrest tactics. Mm. You gotta control you first. Then the handcuffs control that's right. So not arrest you're under arrest and then try and control you. No, like you're under arrest and they go, no, I'm not.

[00:43:55] And he runs away. so you better grab him. You better control him first and saying you're under arrest mm-hmm and I don't have to chase you. 

[00:44:01] Travis Bader: well, I, I like how the, uh, the book, uh, is conscious of Hicks law, of course, where number of options you have, your reaction time will decrease cuz your mind's going for all, all the different scenarios of what I could pull from me.

[00:44:16] And it'll concentrate on some, some basics and variations on those basics and other variations, right? 

[00:44:21] Al Arsenault: So there's some, some, uh, techniques and concepts in here. I like teaching by concept rather than, you know, uh, I was in, uh, in 1986, I went to, I think it was a Sydney police department and there's a fifth degree black belt in he keto there.

[00:44:37] Okay. And he was the instructor. He was a civilian. Sure. Which is by my estimation is wrong. He should not be teaching a civilian should not be teaching, uh, control and arrest tactics. Anyways. So I, I was just goofing around. We was, was talking about techniques in general. I did this thing where you interlock your hands behind your head.

[00:44:59] It's, it's not a, a technique you do anymore. And you squeeze the fingers together. And then the, the guy's hands are locked in there. Hmm. And I, and he says, he gets one of his students. I says, do it to him. So I did it and the guy couldn't get away. And he goes, and he was telling me just before that, he says, there's a thing in ha keto.

[00:45:16] There's 10,000 techniques in ha keto. And I, the time I was thinking, that's a dumb way to look at it. Mm. Uh, 10,000 technique. So anyway, he does a thing and he did, he said he didn't sing that before. And I said, there's a thing in ha keto, there's 10,001 techniques in ATO , but that's a technique driven thing.

[00:45:36] And, and the students are confused, um, uh, by the sheer number of variations. But, but if you look at. Uh, joint locking. There's only like four things you can do. You got four fingers, all four things you can do, uh, uh, uh, you can hyper, uh, extend it, hyper contract it. You can twist it mm. Or do a combination of those things.

[00:46:02] Right. That's it. So it doesn't matter if you're doing a finger bar, an arm bar, a leg bar, a back bend or whatever. That's the same principles. You know, you got your fingers, three segmented, your arms, three segmented. Your, your legs are three segmented your even your body. If you can, uh, call your legs one segment your torso one and your neck.

[00:46:24] Sure. It's all three segments. You can, hyperextended it hyper contract, it twisted, or a combination of those things. So simple. So, so now you say, okay, this finger bar is a variation of the arm bar. Oh, I get it. So now this is number, this technique number, you know, 108. This is technique 109 for that thing is technique one.

[00:46:46] Yeah, no, it's just all of that one principle, so, right. It's easier to remember. And then you, um, you can in sort of invent things as you go, because you're just looking for the, the essential principle behind the kind of control you want to. Generate. Now, if you've walked through these, these technique is helpful, but at least you don't have to RO memorize each one as if they're separate mm-hmm , you're missing the point.

[00:47:14] You the, uh, and it's the commonality I've been studying martial arts for over 50 years. Yeah. And I used to say, uh, oh, like different styles of cut out there. There's scores of them, but they're all the same. Mm. At the beginning to a beginner and say, oh no, we are do our block this way. And we do the open hand.

[00:47:33] And, but it's all the same, all the same stuff. The, the principle, the techniques, they're just dressed up a little different, you know, sugar plum Fu punches with one knuckle this way. And yeah, somebody else punches this way and a vertical fist or whatever, but it's just, it's all a punch mm-hmm it's. So it doesn't need, uh, designation as a new.

[00:47:53] Style of martial art. It's really, I mean, it's just all the same, whereas judo, it's just judo. Right? You see there. So there's somebody could do there. There are many different ways of doing, say an outer reap, take the back leg and falling down. There's many ways of doing that, but rather than saying, oh, on our style of judo, we do the auto reap this way.

[00:48:16] No, they, they, they say bullshit. At least the judo guys got it, right? They say, no, it's all the same. But, uh, police judo is a new martial art because the, the philosophy is, is totally different. And judo better not be using this on the street. And police judo is saying you better, you better be this on the street, uh, correctly.

[00:48:34] Yes. In the course of your duties. Yeah. And, uh, judo is the, you pin the guy, you get him on the ground. Mm. Which you don't want to be. And his back's on the ground in policing. You want, no, you want him face down and you want to be standing above him or kneeling on him. Right. You know, so everything, uh, everything's different about police judo and the end end game is to put handcuffs on somebody.

[00:48:57] It's probably the only martial art like that. Mm. To actually the end game is not the double tap on the shoulder, whatever it's to get him under control and on the ground and in handcuffs. So anyways, the, um, getting back to this, um, a keto, uh, so he's, he's teaching in the police academy has no never been in probably in a real fight in his life.

[00:49:23] And yet he's teaching this theoretical stuff and he's teaching it from look how much I know. Ah, and then they somehow. You know that stuff, the, the officer has to distill well, yeah, he taught us that, but it's not very practical. Does he know that? Mm-hmm, probably not mm-hmm but it's still it's part of the curriculum cuz he's teaching it.

[00:49:45] So he, he get into, into, um, into problems like that. Being the training is instructor centric rather than, um, being situationally centric, like what is needed on the street. Mm-hmm not what the instructor knows, but what is actually needed and that's, and, and we've done some work, uh, with, uh, again, Sergeant Toby Henton, he went, uh, uh, into, uh, force options training before he retired and he was doing the data mining and saying, well, okay, what, what's going on the street?

[00:50:19] How are officers being injured? How are, uh, what kind of techniques are being. Thrown at the officers. And, uh, you know, and if something's not working like neck restraint, why isn't it working? So these kinds of, uh, things, and so the techniques, um, uh, being. Um, used on the street, uh, by the offenders, for example, can help drive the, the training in.

[00:50:44] So if there's a lot of officer being taken down by the, you know, the, the popular area of MMA and everybody thinks they're a big MMA star, right? The, the, the downtown east side or whatever, the gas, town's a big octagon. Yeah. And, and they just want to go out and do that. So maybe that's something you should train, uh, train for how to, how to, uh, avoid being scooped, um, by the legs or, uh, tackled or something.

[00:51:10] So, um, but that's in, that's here. And some other part of the country it'd be something different. The states had more likely, geez guys reaching into his jacket. Right. You'd be a bit, little bit worried that there's not a gun on the end of that hand. So we're in Canada. We don't have to worry about that much more knives and things like that.

[00:51:29] But, um, so your training have to reflect the problems that the officers encounter on the street. and, um, and handcuffing is an essential skill and it's, it's covered in my view, just, um, peripherally, almost like just incidentally. So, you know, you, you, you should be handcuffing everybody all the time in training, so you have, uh, some proficiency and they just decide, well, they get to the point where they're handcuffing and they've skipped that to save time.

[00:52:01] Mm. And, um, and yet, You know, they'll teach, I don't know, like knife defense, just to tick that box saying yeah, 18 years ago we taught him knife defense. Yeah. It was four hours of knife defense and they tick that box. What about handcuffing somebody? Why is this do the final frame analysis? He didn't, uh, wasn't able to handcuff that person properly and the other person's dead as a result of that, uh, ineptitude.

[00:52:28] So shouldn't, shouldn't the most common, the most likely thing, uh, be trained the most and the least likely, uh, thing, uh, be trained the least, you know, but, uh, you know, it's just like, it's least like less, less, less likely in Canada that we shoot somebody. However, the, um, the, the, the repercussions of a bad shoot is different from a bad wrist lock mm-hmm , you know, so, so there's a lot of, um, training associated with, um, firearms training, for example, um, then are say handcuffing and, and sure.

[00:53:06] You know, the chance of somebody being injured in the process of handcuffing isn't negligible. But if you go, if you let that thing, slide to the where the gun comes out, the final frame analysis, the officer might be justified, but have they been able to cut that, uh, violence encounter off by initial control, getting, gaining control and maintaining control throughout the whole thing, right?

[00:53:32] People will get control. And as soon as they reach for their handcuffs, the guy bust loose because the technique is a two handed technique of control. And then when they reach now, they've lost. Um, and, and incidentally, every, every joint locking technique, you have to have pressure and counter pressure.

[00:53:49] Mm-hmm you gotta have both mm-hmm. In, in, in, in with the twist lock, which is one of the techniques in the book you're pointing the elbow up. Mm-hmm the, the, the counter pressure is gravity. Otherwise you, you have one hand here, one hand here and you're doing a joint lock. You need, if you just go like this things gonna move mm-hmm you have to have pressure and counter pressure.

[00:54:09] Mm-hmm . And so. so the guy's got him in this joint lock, a rear bent wrist lock, and then they go to reach for handcuff now, oh, there's no control. And the guy just spins out of it. So he had good control, but he lost it because the technique that he's using is not effective. Mm-hmm is not effective for doing one hand control wheres.

[00:54:30] Uh, if you use a, um, a double twist lock, which is highly featured in this book, mm-hmm with one hand, I can, I can take you to the ground. I can stand you up. I can sit you down. Uh, I, I could, you could take duct tape our hands together, and I can have you flip flopping all over the place mm-hmm without ever, um, um, releasing the grip mm-hmm and it's the only technique that's like that.

[00:54:51] And I picked that up from actually from, um, the Royal Hong Kong police academy. And when I was on that, uh, when I was in Hong Kong and they did it in a very. Um, the guy was in, I George button he's dead now, but he was a, he was a civilian and, uh, again, and, uh, he was teaching that and it was, um, very sort of, uh, one dimensional technique and I took it and I've gone.

[00:55:15] I went down, I vented a whole bunch of, uh, twist lock techniques that Ito's never seen before. They wouldn't have to, because they would, they don't go down that road. Mm wait. They do a double tap. That's the end. That's the end of the session. Mm-hmm where they take the person down. They, they don't have to get 'em into handcuffs.

[00:55:33] Mm-hmm . And so the, um, the, the end RN game is in policing is to get 'em into handcuffs. Right. And, and, and without control without, yeah. Breaking them if hurting them, if possible. So, yeah, but, uh, so anyways, that's the essence of, of holding versus controlling, controlling versus hitting, you know, in the optics of, uh, today's climate out there.

[00:56:00] Travis Bader: I police do you have a bit of a go-to so if you're going to go you're in a situation T comes, start to fail. You're gonna have to go hands 

[00:56:07] Al Arsenault: on. Oh, absolutely. I know where I'm going. A 

[00:56:11] Travis Bader: go-to if you're dealing with somebody who you say, okay, this one might be a little bit of work. Yeah. 

[00:56:16] Al Arsenault: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I just gotta, you know, you assess the person, the person's got long hair and he's yelling.

[00:56:21] I'm not gonna be, you're not gonna arrest me. I'm just looking. Yeah. Okay. I'll take him down over there. Mm-hmm grab him by the hair on the opposite side of the head. Spin 'em around. Yeah. Whatever. But my go-to, uh, position. Has always been to grab the elbow and get into the blind spot. So if you're there, it's like on my back and I can't get you cuz you're, you're holding onto me.

[00:56:44] Right. You're back there. Right. It's like, it's the same thing. As you're coming up to a driver asking for his driver's license and registration, you don't stand directly in front of the, the open window. Right? Do you? Right? Because I, the guy going, no, I don't have my license, but get shot in the face. Right.

[00:57:01] So you pee around the corner and Ooh, in a minute criminal, like where you look, I don't know you so and so now to shoot you, he has to take his right hand, get out the window and you're along the side, like that's a hard shot to make mm-hmm . So that's the blind spot. When you're asking for the driver's license and registration, it's a safe place.

[00:57:20] Mm-hmm so this is the same thing where you grab him by the elbow and you stay in that spot. So if he moves you move, if you, if, if you, if he stays stationary, you grab him here and he turns into, and you don't move well, he is gonna crack you. Right. But if you stay there, it's just like, if he's stronger than you, it, it is very annoying.

[00:57:39] and, and you could punch him and, and kick him at will if me be. But sure. So, um, being in that blind spot and grabbing him there, and quite often, when, uh, would, when people go a little bit, ape shit on me, I'd grab him by the elbow and I'd put 'em up against the wall. I'd stand in the blind spot. In my free hand, I'd grab him by the throat.

[00:57:59] Mm-hmm and I'd push him into the wall. Right. So he can't, he can't Dodge. He can't move. Yeah. He, he can't even drop down. He couldn't even drop down to the ground if that's his strategy. Mm-hmm and. and, uh, so, so like a cross grab in essence mm-hmm and then you can squeeze as much as you want. It could probably not recommended these days, but I'm just talking about in the early days, early days.

[00:58:21] Yes. When I was discovering yes, the, uh, um, the safety, um, benefits of being in that blind spot. That's my, that was my go-to position. I have them. And then we'd have a talk mm-hmm 

[00:58:33] Travis Bader: and a very receptive audience. Right. A very receptive audience. So what do you think it's gonna take, VPDs already incorporating some of this into their training.

[00:58:43] Uh, what do you think it's gonna take for other agencies to incorporate? 

[00:58:48] Al Arsenault: Well, it's a good question, because like I say, um, police agencies are very parochial, even Delta has their own pension for sure. Doing things like they love the P P C T stuff and, and, uh, uh, Brazilian ground fighting, I think, and things like that.

[00:59:04] And, uh, every agency says, well, my instructors, they, they know what's best for us and fair enough. Sure. But I think that, um, uh, the VPD has, uh, through Adam Palmer, the chief fair, he loves, uh, both police ju and, uh, odd squad. Um, and, uh, he's mandated that all the police recruits have to do 40 hours of police, judo training before they go to the academy, get their 60.

[00:59:37] Wow. And we've had, um, anecdotal feedback saying they learned actually quite a bit in that 40 hours and they really loved that training. And, uh, so we're hoping that there's gonna be some rub off at the academy level. Uh, I think my book's floating around there now, so maybe good, good. I slow , we'll pick up on some of the stuff, but it it's just a matter of, um, you know, it's, it's promoting things like my book and this, this Huff, this online, uh, training that's coming out this fall.

[01:00:09] Um, and, and then police agencies have to be aware that there's some alternatives before they will actually move towards it. But, um, chief Palmers stance on police judo is backing. Um, our training is, is a good example. Um, But, um, like say it just takes a trainer in there that doesn't like the concept or he's doing his own martial art, and doesn't realize that he's handicapping other officers by teaching what he knows instead of what they need to know.

[01:00:46] So, um, 

[01:00:48] Travis Bader: yeah. And I guess with the, any more high profile cases coming up, the more, uh, attention that this will get, we'll just be raising in people's minds. Like isn't there another way isn't there were there other options and why didn't you look at them? Why'd you discount them if you did look at them, 

[01:01:03] Al Arsenault: right?

[01:01:04] Yeah. I mean, and even. Doing things like simply handcuffing there's that native, um, elder and his granddaughter at the bank, you know, you remember that? Oh, right. Yeah. So, you know, but be because the officers are, oh, well we handcuff everybody, you know, that's uh, which is not the right answer. You're still using force.

[01:01:23] So you have to count for why you're handcuffing them. And they got it in their mind that just supposed to handcuff everybody. And, uh, you know, it's, it just went sideways and looks bad. Uh, yes. You know, it's, uh, looks bad. A number of levels. Yeah. So, but, and, and you'll see, uh, um, there's things being taught.

[01:01:44] There's a thing called the spear where you, you do a surprise reaction, the baseball bat breaks and the guys, the crowd, and then you turn that ne this response, uh, reaction into a positive thing. And then you push back on the, on the person to sure. Try and keep him off of you. Um, the last time I was, uh, surprised like that was, uh, never so again, it's a civilian teaching it, um, two police, the police, you know, they, uh, gobble it up.

[01:02:17] It's they get another, they got a certificate on their wall, the trainers call it certification or, uh, intimidation through certification. Right. And that the one week spear course up the thing, but no one's ever done it. Mm-hmm no one mm-hmm and yet we teach the twist lock. Yeah. And all the recruits they're doing, they're doing it in the jail all the time.

[01:02:37] Mm-hmm um, I got one recruit. He said he did it, uh, 80 times in the last five months, you know, you know, in the skids. Cause it works, but, but it works. Yeah. So I, I, I can, I can show you video. I can show you still pictures. My there's a bunch of them in my, yeah. In my book here. It's not, it's not some show me, somebody show me a picture, a video of somebody doing the spear doesn't exist.

[01:02:59] So, but it's a nice tight little package. And like I say, the instructor gets his, give the certification. Yeah. So the instructor looks like he's got, um, you know, wide depth of a wide, uh, broad range of experience, but the puddles only like an inch deep, uh, you know, uh, so, and they don't know, they seriously, they don't know the value or the, uh, uh, the impracticality of such techniques.

[01:03:26] They just learn. what somebody's been is teaching. They like it, they get their certificate and, um, and, and, and it's simple enough and they can run with it and teach it. Mm-hmm please. Judo. Not so much. Mm-hmm yeah, there's a lot to it, but there's parts of it. Yeah. Pull out techniques and stuff like that, but you're not getting police judo, uh, you know, um, certification, um, in a weekend.

[01:03:53] Um, no, so, but, um, 

[01:03:57] Travis Bader: I, I think in like the litigious society that we live in, people just love and glom onto certificates. Oh, you're certified in PP, C T you're certified in OOC, whatever it might be. Right. You're covered. Okay. Department departments on it's side, and we wanna hire more people that have all of these certifications.

[01:04:12] And, um, I'm, I'm wondering if that's ever gonna reach a tipping point 

[01:04:17] Al Arsenault: of the, well, I, like I say, I've mentioned before that there's police officers starting to think about, um, You know, counter suing the department for failure to train mm-hmm and part of that failure to train could be, well you're training me, but it's, uh, more useless.

[01:04:32] Yeah. Right. You're training me. And, uh, the techniques don't work. Mm-hmm and you're sending me out there. It's like that RCMP guy, he quit depo because he's being told to teach things that he knows doesn't work. Mm. In, in reality, it looks good on paper and it's a nice slick little program, but he, he realizes that, uh, no, I'm not, I'm not, uh, serving my brother, officer or sister officer very well by sending him out and having them to try and use that technique on the street.

[01:05:02] In reality, I 

[01:05:03] Travis Bader: just gotta wonder about the world of litigation that opens up too. When a somebody leaves based on their, uh, assertion that what's being taught, isn't gonna be something that's effective, uh, provided that's communicated to the department, to the detachment. They've now got a responsibility to turn around and say, okay, we've looked into it.

[01:05:26] We discount your, your thoughts because a, B and C cuz if they don't, somebody else will get themselves hurt and they've got this precedent of somebody leaving. I, I mean that the optics of that are terrible. I, I gotta wonder. Yeah. And, and of course we're talking about the RCMP and, you know, municipal police and the, um, federal police, there are gonna be two completely different beasts as well.

[01:05:50] Mm. And I think the municipal police are able to perhaps respond to issues more quicker, 

[01:05:55] Al Arsenault: faster. It's like the RCMP is like trying to turn around a, you know, ocean liner. They very, um, bureaucratic, uh, organization and, um, and, um, police in general, they're very traditional, um, kind of, um, Agencies, you know, they're not really ones to think outside the box really, really quickly really well.

[01:06:21] They, they want sort of the status quo and, and they're really bit reluctant about trying something new. Like for like, for example, when we started odd squad in 97, I was gonna ask, we were borderline in inherit. Right? Wow. Seven police officers. They wanna educate, uh, youth in particular about drugs and gangs and, and we're picking up cameras and there's a thin blue line, right?

[01:06:45] Oh God. Yeah. They're going, whoa. Like, no, I mean, odd squad is about proactive policing. It's about, um, you know, community policing. It's about, uh, uh, doing something. thinking outside the box to try and solve a problem that you can't arrest your way out of mm-hmm you can't arrest your way out of that. So, you know, the, uh, the best way is to try and prevent the bomb from blowing up in the first place, rather than just mopping up the, the blood and the guts afterwards.

[01:07:16] You know, I remember 

[01:07:17] Travis Bader: when that started and I remember hearing the, um, uh, the different sides and different opinions. And everyone's like, well, you know, good for them, but there's always that reluctance and hesitation and maybe fear of, uh, this being exposed and what there's light shine on it. Yeah. And, 

[01:07:32] Al Arsenault: and, um, the, we, we broke a lot of ice there for police carrying cameras and, and, and even for these reality shows to, to come out, um, subsequent to that, mm-hmm , um, you know, we were always the one police used to be always the ones holding the door open for the filmmaker and they went, wait a minute, we can do this.

[01:07:53] so we'll make our own videos. And, uh, and it was, um, Uh, LoRa can file generally respected what we doing when they understood what we're doing. Mm-hmm and then there's a few, uh, people in the police department, their nose were a joint or, uh, they weren't part of it, uh, you know, credo that, and they're jealous and, and you think the higher up that, uh, people go the, the more refined they are as a person and not necessarily.

[01:08:21] So the Peter principal, right. Just, you know, proves that. So, and we've had, uh, we had, we had a former mayor wanted Toby and I fired really? We spent three. Yeah. They, they put three lawyers on it, then like $120,000 to see if odd squad could have a voice independent of the police department. And answer was, uh, yes, we can.

[01:08:42] and, um, and, but, you know, so. But when you're at the spear tip of the spear, you gotta expect some resistance. You're doing things, right. You're changing things. You're out of this conservative group and you're gonna get some resistance. They're gonna be people that once they see how the, the tip cuts, they're going, that's cutting in the right direction.

[01:09:07] I like that. But you get some other, uh, uh, police, uh, mucky, mucks. Say no, I don't, this it's just, they see it as more paperwork or it's, or there's a bit of a risk involved or something in there. They, they don't wanna, they don't want to do that. 

[01:09:24] Travis Bader: Right. So, well, you've always, so you and you were right there, ground level odd squad when that started 

[01:09:31] Al Arsenault: up.

[01:09:31] Yeah. Yeah. Uh it's like, it was, um, I'm sort of the creative seed behind both odd squad and police judo. Toby's the worker be he takes stuff and runs with it, you know, but, um, initially on, uh, good for him. Good for, to, yeah. Yeah. On odds in odd squad. Uh, we were both at it for really hard. We were going, uh, 90 miles an hour.

[01:09:52] We were working seven days a week. And, you know, just thinking nothing about grabbing a camera and going out to Surry on our day off at two o'clock in the morning to, you know, uh, videotape, uh, an attic who just come down after the three day crystal meth run type thing and, uh, you know, stuff like that is.

[01:10:10] Uh, you know, it's, uh, just a tremendous amount of work, but it it's paid off in the long run. We've beg board and stolen, whatever we can to keep ourselves going, we don't get any federal money or, uh, provincial money. We just do fundraisers. And again, they drop more than a million dollars a day in the skids.

[01:10:29] And if we we'd have 1% of that, it would be rolling in do 

[01:10:34] Travis Bader: well. You've got a whole team now don't on odd squad. 

[01:10:36] Al Arsenault: Oh yeah. Yeah. We've, we've lost. Uh, we, we started off with originally with seven guys and then very early on, uh, we picked up Chris, uh, Graham, uh, doing the hockey. He had a hockey program running parallel to ours.

[01:10:47] Uh, it was educating hockey, um, players junior a about, um, the perils of drug abuse and things like that. And, and Brian shipper was, um, sort of quiet behind the scenes guy. Just always, uh, uh, helping us out. Mm. And then couple of the odds squad guys dropped out very quickly. And then we've picked up a few other people with Doug Spencer doing the gang, uh, uh, stuff.

[01:11:14] He's amazing. He's he just guy does so many presentations. And, um, we picked up a younger people like Constable Brendan Frick. He was a police judo. I know he's a police judo black belt, and he does a tremendous amount with odd squad and just a wonderful young Constable. So we have a new generation of, uh, people, uh, coming up into odd squad cuz you know, Toby and I are getting a little along in the tooth.

[01:11:40] I'm I'm gonna be 70, uh, in February. Toby's 10 years behind me. We have March nine camp. He's a little bit behind, uh, Toby. And so, 

[01:11:50] Travis Bader: uh, so what's, what's the driving force between creating all of these new sort of, uh, programs, these ideologies, these, uh, the directions, the odd squad was kind of revolutionary, particularly around pure event.

[01:12:03] I don't know of other places that were doing it. It's, what's unique in the world. There you go. Uh, this, uh, the police judo is something that I 

[01:12:09] Al Arsenault: haven't seen again, unique in the world. Right. I mean, it's just, I, I think if, uh, you could have had the same group of people, like, uh, Toby and Brian and mark and myself and, and, um, whomever.

[01:12:23] On the, on the police judo side of things, we could have been, you know, working left Testco Saskatchewan and oh, we made another arrest again. That's two for the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. So there's no necessity there and there's no invention, but since we are armpit in deep in human misery and, uh, the drug and the stuff that we saw down there and are resting so many people in the, the human behavior at its worst, it's just, um, it's just, it was just, um, if anybody had, should have PTSD, it should be like Toby and I and mark, and who spent a lot of time in the skid, but, uh, the, um, the end, the end game there, or end result of all that is let.

[01:13:08] Try and be creative and think outside the box and see if there's another way of tackling this, because the way it's being done is not really effective or it's, mm-hmm, not practical. And so, you know, you got the, the skid road there and one side of the fence, we got, uh, trying to keep other people from becoming drug addicted and, and humanizing the addicts.

[01:13:34] You know, they, you know, they just didn't choose to be a drug addict really. And, um, and then the other side of the fence is like the people, the police that deal with them wanna keep, uh, them safe by giving them superior tactics. Mm-hmm we also want these superior taxes going to keep the, uh, drug addicts safe.

[01:13:52] They say, they're not getting their arms broken, their jaw, jaw broken and stuff like that because they're whacked out. Yeah. And, um, so you know, you basically, you want to have your. These people treated like it was a family member. It happened to me once I had a, someone in my family that was suicidal and drinking and, and on drugs.

[01:14:15] And I sent the SMP over and I'm going, oh God, I hope it's. I hope it's somebody that's well grounded and have good technique versus somebody that, oh my God, this guy wants to beat this up. And then he's gonna get his arm broken mm-hmm and I sent, you know, or worse. So, um, so, you know, it's, it's kind of, uh, it's kind of like that.

[01:14:36] So we've out of the, that, that miserable neighborhood is full of, uh, dysfunction. There's some good people down there as well. Sure. My uncle Frank lived down there for his whole adult life and he was a, he was an alcoholic and never got into trouble, but there he died a few years ago. Buts he, um, there's, there's good people down there, but there's a lot of people there, there.

[01:15:01] Quite frankly, dysfunctional. And they, they go there because the rent's cheap, they can lose themselves. They, the government's gonna look after them. Mm-hmm and, um, and they fit in because no one cares. If you got a mental illness or, or criminal or whatever, they just don't give a shit mm-hmm . And, um, and as much as they like to call it a neighborhood.

[01:15:23] Yeah. Um, yeah, yeah. That same neighborhood, um, that put my, I end up staking myself out in, in, in my last year, on the job to get robbed down there because there's, uh, civilian brought in. Um, footage shot from, uh, a top of a building of these two older people getting robbed, right. Violently robbed. Right. And, and he showed us this and I said, this isn't right.

[01:15:52] So Toby and I hatched a plan called old timer. And I stick myself out in the lane weight. To be robbed. Mm. I actually wore a helmet because I thought I was gonna get boot fucked mm-hmm and we had a camera in there. It was controlled. My hand was in a bandage. I can control the, uh, the, uh, hidden microphone and control the video camera.

[01:16:10] And we film them from across the, uh, the laneway to, uh, was in the, the two worst neighborhood, uh, laneway in the skids and, uh, two nights in a row. And we nailed two robbery crews. Yeah. And I had a flash roll of some money and I bought some crack and showed them the money, you know, and right. Oh man, you shouldn't show that your money around here, you know, you know, the guy was guy, the guy was he like sausage?

[01:16:35] Yeah, yeah. Guy wasn't being friendly to me. He didn't want any competition when he was gonna Rob me later. And he did. And so, yeah. So he cut the, the strap off my neck, like a man person underneath the jacket. Yeah. And I thought I was gonna get a yeah. Razor blade. Know, off my neck had an ambulance standing a block away, but that was the most frightening thing I did, uh, in my career.

[01:16:56] And I had, uh, PTSD for about three weeks. Mm-hmm I went immediately to Thailand. I was walking around bumbling around banging my head on things and falling off a curbs. And just, yeah, it's like having a chip tooth. Your tongue goes over that chip portion. It's gone leave it alone. Yeah. But it's like, I day night that's a good explanation.

[01:17:17] I'd re re I would, I would rerun the scenarios in my head and sometimes they would change. What if the guy had to slip my, uh, throat? What, you know, what if he booted me in the face? What if this happened? When I, you know, and, um, it was, it was quite frightening. So I did get a, I did get accommodation for it, but it was for meritorious service because the, uh, uh, UN mentioned.

[01:17:41] Uh, person in the police department who I would just say is plain jealous says you can't premeditate bravery. I go, isn't that the isn't that the essence of bravery will you say, wow, this is gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt. I'm doing it anyways. I'm doing it anyways. That's bravery not to run around the corner.

[01:17:56] Oh, it happens the bank robber. Oh. And they, you, you pull out your gun and they drop their gun. You would get it for bravery for, uh, stopping a bank robbery. But right. Anyways, 

[01:18:05] Travis Bader: no, that's, uh, you know, the anticipation of the event, the anticipation of the fight is always worse than the fight. right. Yeah, 

[01:18:12] Al Arsenault: exactly.

[01:18:13] I'm 45 minutes. I'm waiting, you know, and I had a little bean in my ear and Toby's, uh, uh, telling me what's going okay, they're forming a human shield. They've got five people standing around you. I'm, I'm laying on a, a piece of car on a cardboard in, in the lane way. Yeah. Uh, having bought some crack, pretend to smoke it and pass out, which right.

[01:18:31] Doesn't really make a lot of sense. But anyway, they, they bought it. uh, and, um, They say, oh, the guy's for kneeling down. He's grabbed your strap and he's sling away at your thing. Uh, you know, it's just like 45 minutes. Like that both nights, I was just like, oh God, when's it gonna happen? Yeah. And, uh, you know, I just had one good hand.

[01:18:51] I was gonna sit up. That was the, the, uh, the signal that they've been robbed. Yeah. I just sit up and, um, the guy saw away and then he laughed and. No Al hasn't given the signal yet. So he went around the corner, the knife he had was two dull. So he bought a razor blade. So he could saw the, oh man strap right off my neck.

[01:19:13] Right. And then the, then the, uh, robbery went down. He couldn't make it easy for me to off . But you, you talk about, you know, you're inside your head and I'm pretending to be asleep snoring and the, the stuff that runs through your head, the, your mind bounces around and, you know yeah. 

[01:19:32] Travis Bader: The funny 

[01:19:32] Al Arsenault: games that plays.

[01:19:33] Yeah. People, the other police officer behind panic bars, you know, right in the hotel panic bar where the word panic. Yeah. It's like now it's like panic, you know, strong arm, you know, I, uh, this, uh, oh, it's just like stuff would run through my head and. Even scenarios. I'd be trying to shut my mind off to not worry about it.

[01:19:55] I gotta concentrate on snoring here. Um, uh, I couldn't let my mind get, uh, too preoccupied. And then I'm hearing the play by play in my ear underneath my helmet and I'm going, oh God, I wonder how this is gonna end, end up. But, um, yeah. And always said old timer and they used the footage. It went around the, uh, north American continent at least.

[01:20:17] Yeah, I guess. Yeah, it was pretty classic operation, but very interesting. But that, that was diff even that was difficult to pass because we had to bring in the use of force or, um, uh, the undercover, um, a trainer to look at our operational plan to make sure that, uh, oh fuck. I'm in my last year. So I'm expendable, but they didn't want, they didn't want the paperwork saying, oh, he died, you know, poor Al got his neck slashed, then he's dead.

[01:20:45] So you know, a lot of paperwork there, but he wanted to make sure. That, um, we could do it. And he looked at my skillset and my, my own, uh, undercover, um, time in Strikeforce and, um, things like that and realized that yeah, he had a good plan. Uh I'm you know, I'm a good, uh, decoy and, um, so I went with it.

[01:21:09] Somebody else could have just shut it down, you know, they'd say no, it's too dangerous. Being conservative. I was surprised actually, they, they okayed it, but maybe they didn't like me. I mean, a couple enemies, so, well, yeah, 

[01:21:22] Travis Bader: go. I think, uh, having the background in the police judo and having the, uh, the physical capabilities probably really helped with the mental resiliency.

[01:21:33] Yeah. In those 

[01:21:34] Al Arsenault: days, it wasn't in, you know, it was in 2005. Right. So it was, um, sort of predates police, judo, uh, martial arts. Yeah. But my martial arts, I was, uh, quite confident in my physical abilities. Uh, even though I was, uh, year from retirement. Um, I've, you know, my, so my physical decline was, uh, on its way, you know, happening, uh, even to this day, I'm still fit.

[01:22:01] Like I'm a problem. I mean, you're 70 and you're you're fit. No, I'm still running and doing all kinds of things, doing weights and doing martial arts, but, um, Um, the, um, tactically mentally, I, I could go back into patrol tomorrow at age 70 mm-hmm because, uh, my, my mind, I still read case law. I'm I teach police ju I go on police course training courses.

[01:22:25] What the fuck are you doing here? I, you retired a long time ago. Yeah, I, but you know, I go, go for a walk along to ride alongs, but keeps your work relevant too. Yeah, exactly. I wanna be say, oh, when you know, 18 years ago when I was on that job, this is what we did, you know, mm-hmm I wanna be sort of, uh, current, and then of course my use of force having to write this book about.

[01:22:45] Please use of force. I have to be, this is cutting edge, right? This, this is not 40 years ago. Yeah. This is cutting edge stuff. Right. And so, uh, so like I say, I could, I could go back on the street tomorrow and, um, and uh, do quite well, well, I have 

[01:23:02] Travis Bader: a feeling that's a lot of officers out there that will benefit greatly from this book and the subsequent books that, uh, that you've, uh, alluded to both in this podcast and in this book.

[01:23:12] Yeah. So 

[01:23:12] Al Arsenault: from this, I'm going to. Police are lazy and cheap. Sure. So this book's, I don't know, 86 bucks or something it's expensive and for good reason, 

[01:23:23] Travis Bader: what's your life worth? Yeah, what's a lawsuit 

[01:23:25] Al Arsenault: worth what's but, um, yeah, so, and, and, um, and, and they don't want to, they don't want, now Wade through all this stuff, let alone try and practice it.

[01:23:35] So too, it might be a bit much for the, the average flat foot, but, um, I'm gonna make a, from this, I'm gonna do a prey of it and call it essential joint locking technique for law enforcement. It'll be like arresting people for dummies, you know, mm-hmm but so that'll be coming out, uh, next year. So it'll be maybe a third of the size of this book.

[01:23:56] So rather than doing, you know, four different shoulder cranks to rest of 'em right. I'll just teach one and, and. Basically in here there's I, I just broke down roughly eight forms of resistance. You grab an arm. He can, you can, he can bend his arm. He can straighten his arm. He could, he could pull away. He could push into you.

[01:24:16] He could drop straight to the ground. He could do all these, you know, eight trying to attack you. Yeah. So eight different kinds of resistance and I'm going, okay, just learn one. Yeah, just one counter. So if you grab somebody, they can do one of those eight things. Now in the academy, they might teach you two.

[01:24:34] Mm. So when I say, well, if you're smart, you'd learn all. Eight mm-hmm eight. If you learn six, then act surprised if the other one or the other two come out. Mm-hmm , you know, so that's, that's, that's all you have to do. And, and they can look at this book and say, I don't like this. I love this technique. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use that technique.

[01:24:54] And it's, you know, the pictures are easy enough to follow and there's arrows. Totally it's well written. Yeah. Uh, and my first book, I was, uh, entitled chink, which is a joint locking, uh, season and controlling in, in, um, ground fighting. Mm. Because I. coming from the San show, uh, aspect of, um, Wu, the Chinese marshal.

[01:25:17] It said judo without the that's like throwing without the ground fighting. Right. And then I was coming into Jule and the groundfighting so had all these, a type personality, policemen ripping, trying to rip my head off. And then, so I grab a finger and I'd bend it or whatever, trying to get myself out of an headlock or something say, well, you can't do that.

[01:25:37] I said, well, what do you mean? I just did it. Mm-hmm . And I said, no, you can't do that. It's against the rules. Oh, we have rules here. Got it. And then that's why I was sort of disillusioned by, even though judo is a good, basic martial art, I was almost, I was almost ready to quit judo yeah. At the police station because of its rule bound.

[01:26:01] Mm. And then I was finding, I was going to the police academy during the day, sometimes all day. And then I'd come to the judo class at night with a Brian Chipper's judo class. And it's saying, this is what we're doing in at the academy, just for the police that are here. Mm. And then when I was, uh, um, you know, um, at the academy I going, this is what we're doing in the judo class.

[01:26:28] That would be good. Right. And then I'm going back and forth. I'm going, well, wait a minute. Why don't I just combine the, the essence of judo, the practical stuff out of judo, take away all, all forms of traditionalism and rules and all that stuff, anything to do with sports, strip it, bear. Yep. And so, and, and then combine it with the, the control and arrest techniques.

[01:26:54] And then I went there. There's my martial art. There it is. I, I couldn't find it. and I I've got certain techniques from different, uh, agencies, but there it is, we'll create a, a Toby. And I decided to create this new martial art, call it police judo, and, um, spend a lot of time developing it. Um, and, um, so in essence, it, it becomes a, um, a really good solid method of, uh, controlling and arresting people.

[01:27:23] Well, where can people get this book? Well, I think you just go on Amazon, uh, CA yeah. Or Al arsenal books.com. There's a, a page I'm gonna start writing a blog on that. Uh, Al arsenal books, plural. I'll, I'll put the links up in and yeah. Description for sure. And the description below hit the like button hit the like 

[01:27:42] Travis Bader: button.

[01:27:43] There you go. Yeah. Don't forget to subscribe. Yeah, 

[01:27:45] Al Arsenault: exactly. So, um, so it's been, uh, a. uh, interesting, uh, uh, journey from say, starting in say 1986, even though I started my martial arts training in, uh, 71. Mm. But, uh, it became more practical and I, I, I sought out the more pro, uh, more, I start with the more practical methods of, uh, getting, taking people into custody.

[01:28:15] And I, I dropped karate because. this wasn't working can, but yeah, I can't break people. Yeah. You know, I, I, so I, I fell back on some joint locking techniques I learned at, you know, jujitsu seminars, for example, mm-hmm . And then, uh, I got into, like I say, the, the Wu, the, the chink, the joint locking, and specifically that, which I.

[01:28:40] For master show yang, who was my instructor, uh, and, um, and he, um, instilled in me and as with some other instructors, uh, about the VA, the beauty of joint locking mm-hmm . And, um, so I just refined those techniques and, and incorporated a bunch of them into the control and arrest. Tactics that, uh, F fantastic that the police were already doing.

[01:29:06] And, and it's a good, it's been a good diffusion of, um, old and new, uh, techniques. Yeah. And, um, and, um, and like I say, the, um, it really makes, if you read the book, it, it really makes it clear, um, the importance of controlling somebody versus holding them in the difference between sport techniques and street techniques.

[01:29:29] Right. And, you know, standing on your, staying on your feet versus going to the ground, these are all really, really basic things. That I'm still shocked that police trainers don't seem to appreciate they don't you think they figured out pretty quick when they go to the street, they just jump on. They just follow their, their martial arts training, blindly almost, you know, they, um, he's the odd guy.

[01:29:55] He's, you know, he's trained in jujitsu, but he get, they get it. You talk to 'em two minutes, they get it. Yeah. But they just don't, haven't had a much opportunity to break out of it. So they, well it's 

[01:30:06] Travis Bader: that linear or rigidity of thought that a lot of people can get into, particularly in law enforcement. If 

[01:30:12] Al Arsenault: there's a imagine for me, I was third degree, black belt and karate, and I come into a ch club.

[01:30:17] I hated being on the ground. Yeah. It was so foreign to me. I was just strictly stand up guy mm. And punching and kicking. And it was horrible and getting close to sweaty men and. And they're GE and, oh, I, it just drove me nuts, but it was because I was partnering with Doby and he'd dragged me to these, uh, these judo classes.

[01:30:40] Yeah. So I stuck with it. And then I came to appreciate, uh, the beauty of judo in terms of, um, being able to manipulate the human body mm-hmm , um, to get them on the ground and, and, uh, and control them. And then, but like I say, I was turned off by the, um, techniques that were impractical for street use, but then, you know, please judo resolved that cuz we just dumped those techniques.

[01:31:07] Impractical techniques took the good stuff out of judo. So it's like a, uh, I was a little bit reluctant about calling this Toby suggestion, calling it, police, judo, the new martial art mm-hmm you know, it would've been, I would better preferred something defend do or something, you know, , you know, so that there's no preconception.

[01:31:28] Of you hear police judo and police go, oh, you're running around a pajamas. No shit, no, it's it's gentle way. Right? Yeah. Got a gentle way and all this stuff, and they think of this, it's a sport, it's an Olympic sport. And you knows so far from that people would, yeah. People would say, oh, it's why do I wanna learn a sport type thing, even though presumed you JSU was a sport, but sure.

[01:31:52] But I don't know. They, I just, I thought it would. would turn people police off, but then I thought, oh, on then, on the other hand, I thought, well, how will the judo community react? Right? There's only one form of judo. And now they're, we're saying we're appropriating the name a little bit. Police judo. Well, uh, professor conno, when he invented judo in back in 18 83, 82, 83, he turned us back in Japan.

[01:32:21] There was hundreds of styles of jujitsu. That's a precursor to jujitsu. And, uh, he turned us back in all those and saying, no, I wanna create a, I wanna create something that, uh, he was a high school teacher and, uh, and he, he wanted to teach, um, we, we didn't even call it a sport back in those. He wanted to teach something that school kids could learn.

[01:32:45] Mm. And his essence was to create a better citizen. Mm, make them a be it's polishing the mirror to make a better person. You can see yourself more clearly and, and be, be a decent human being. Well, if, uh, professor conno were alive today, he's saying, well, then the judo people, if they had said, oh, professor, they, uh, they've, you know, they've, um, bastardized judo.

[01:33:13] Well, yeah, what'd they do, uh, they're trying to make better police officers using superior technique. And, uh, and part of their grading, uh, concept is that they have to do, uh, proven history of, uh, volunteerism and, uh, and yeah. Yeah, they're trying not to hurt people and they're trying to be, you know, yes.

[01:33:36] Familiar. What's your point? Yeah. Sounds. Sounds good. So he would be clapping if you were alive today. I guarantee cuz I know there's I know, uh, four eighth degree block belts. That's about as high up as you can get, you might see a ninth down floating around, but uh, but so I know four personally that love the concept of police judo.

[01:33:55] They loved how we've used and they're proud that the word judo is in our new martial art police, judo. They actually appreciate because they can say, ah, look at, um, police are using our, the validates it basics. Yeah. Yeah. And these eighth degree black belts, they they're interested in. They're gonna buy this, but they they're interested in this book.

[01:34:15] Right. Because they people often come to them saying, well, we wanna learn something that's proc like self defense. Mm-hmm . because it's all stor uh, the heavy duty people are all, um, immersed in sports aspect. Mm-hmm and then somebody says, oh, we want to learn the, the street applications of this stuff.

[01:34:37] Mm-hmm . And the little week on that, and then going, well, look at this it's right here. They've, they've taken the street out, they've taken the basics of judo and they've made it into the street applications, which reminds me of another story. Again, I was mining mail business in, uh, Barta. And, uh, I sent Toby, uh, an email saying, I, I just, before I left, I, I read, um, an article.

[01:35:04] I wish I had saved it in a newspaper about a fifth degree black belt in karate. He was pushing his daughter in a stroller, went into a bank and realized that there's a bank robbery going down. Mm. So he grabbed the guy at the teller in a headlock, and he said in an interview afterwards, he said, if the guy, if the second guy hadn't a pepper sprayed me, I would've beat the shit out of all, three of them, the last guy had a gun.

[01:35:32] Mm. And rather than being contr and saying, oh my God, I put my daughter in danger. Anybody else in the bank in danger? I got into something. I didn't see the big picture. Uh, I didn't know what I was doing. Why, why, why would I have 180 pound anchor in my arm? Mm-hmm and I, I didn't know how to defend against the pepper spray.

[01:35:51] And I didn't see the third guy or, you know, it's like, God, I'm glad. I'm so glad things worked out. But he was, he was saying it would beat the shit out of all three of them that, that. Things being a little differently. Mm-hmm oh, like this, uh, contestant number one. Are you ready? Contestant, number two. Are you ready?

[01:36:09] Contestant, number three. Are you ready? Mm-hmm head to me. Okay. Let's fight. Mm-hmm he would've beat the shit out of all three of them. I'm positive. Sure. If no gun, no pepper spray, maybe, you know, but unfortunately the bank robbery, wasn't a sanctioned event, a sporting event. And, and I thought what an idiot, rather than being contr, you know, and I think that guy needs to be street proofed.

[01:36:36] He's confusing sport in street. Mm-hmm , which is a, a deadly air to. So I, I typed to Toby. I said, oh, we should do, uh, we should put on a course of street proofing your martial art. It doesn't matter what it is, come to us. Mm-hmm . And, um, we have the expertise in using force in terms of actually applying it about knowing the law, yada yada, and then three weeks later, uh, Joel Johnston.

[01:37:01] He is a retired Sergeant. Yeah. Uh, yeah, so he was a use of force expert. Yeah. Still is. Uh, and uh, he said, oh, I know a fellow from, um, uh, this organization and karate organization. And, uh, they're looking to, to teach us, to teach them self-defense techniques for, because their instructors are teaching self-defense for women, but none of the instructors, these are fifth downs, by the way.

[01:37:30] Mm-hmm and. None of 'em have been in a street fight. And so I'm not sure if they're teaching them what's practical or what's effective, right. Or whatever. And I went good for them for coming. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. For seeing that. And I said, well, no, we're not. I, I said, I don't think we should be teaching these guys.

[01:37:48] Oh, what to do, because they're gonna Ize whatever we teach them and they should, we should, they should probably, if they're training. A certain way. They should probably, uh, fall on their strong points rather than trying to learn ground fighting or throwing mm-hmm , uh, might be a bit much. So maybe there's things just simple things they can do, like don't kick to bed cuz right.

[01:38:12] You're off balance. Second go, the leg leg, your leg can get grabbed, you know, um, instead of, uh, you know, punching to the head, the closed fists, Palm heel strike mm-hmm so you don't break your knuckles. Yeah. You know, you know, the base hit the soft yeah. Hard, hard parts of your body, the soft parts of their body, this awareness, um, which is 90% of the, um, self defense game.

[01:38:35] So, um, so he said, okay, so no, we, we, uh, uh, so he, the head of the organization put it to the, uh, all the karate schools, different styles and saying, we wanna do this. And, uh, they got their nose outta joint, but police judo was gonna teach us how to sort of, you know, fight to say, you know, so, and then there's like some pushback because they were getting.

[01:39:06] Money from the go government agencies. Right. So they had to put it into open tender so that they're not just hiring their friends. Right. So they did. I said, I said, if you find the me Toby Hinton and Joel Johnson, if you find somebody who's like Toby and I started police, judo, new martial art, we both have, uh, me Joel and Toby, probably over 70, 80 years of policing experience, probably over 125 years.

[01:39:31] Um, I got 50 years of martial arts experience alone, like over a hundred years of, uh, St. Martial arts background. Joel's an expert in use of force. I mean, try and find this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was a P weapons, weapons, um, expert. And I said, if you can find, and we've been in, um, Scores of street altercations.

[01:39:54] If you can find somebody with those qualifications, you hire them. And he used to apologize. Oh, I'm sorry. I just know I gotta, I just gotta, you know, couch out to these guys. Um, and, uh, so anyways, they had 10, you know, Heidi competent martial artists, um, come in for their interviews. I can do this, I can do this.

[01:40:16] It's my qualifications. And I've taught self defense for women and other things and all this stuff. And I got trained provincial champions or Canadian champions or whatever they do all this. And they asked them all one question, you know what that question was? Have you ever been in a fight that's right.

[01:40:33] Ever been in a fight. And he said, all, all 10 of 'em said no. So we got the contract. There you go. but you know, but those 10 who came in for the interview. They need to be street proofed mm-hmm cause they don't get it. Mm-hmm they're saying I've got, I've watched videos. I've been in the dojo and I've done martial arts techniques.

[01:40:58] Mm-hmm and um, yeah, I'm pretty good at it and going, yeah, but how about when the guy's biting you and there you're doing neck extra and the guy bites you in the arm or number two, guy's kicking you in the head and uh, you're putting neck strain. He's pulling out a knife and stabbing you in the guts. Mm.

[01:41:15] You know, it's like, how's it working out? Yeah. How's that working for you? Mm-hmm well, you didn't even know about that. So you're gonna teach people how to fail on the street. I mean, Street's got, it's got no rules, you know, lack of morality and ethics. And uh, so anyways, those guys need to be street proof.

[01:41:31] Yeah. Cuz they're dangerous. They're telling they're teaching stuff. That's dojo based, you know, rather than street based. And there's a 

[01:41:37] Travis Bader: lot of that out there. There really 

[01:41:39] Al Arsenault: is. Oh yeah. Well you. You've seen it yourself. Sure. I mean, you all your viewers too, have probably seen guys teaching gun defenses and knife defenses and, and they're just so bad and, or handcuffing even, I'm just going, scratching your head.

[01:41:53] How can they do that? Yeah. I was watching one video and the guy was putting on a pair of handcuffs, honest to God. He, I think he had 'em both on, in a second. One second. It was like, like that I go, holy crap. But I just going what a useless skill. And I can tell you that the guy who's doing that without, I didn't know his background.

[01:42:16] Mm-hmm he, he cannot be a police officer. No officer would spend any amount of time doing something that's, uh, totally useless in, in for realistic and practical purposes. Yeah. So you had, you have your hands exactly. Spaced this much apart. You had to have I bed. Yeah. And you have that it's like, it was like, it was totally a useless skill but it was, it was impressive.

[01:42:46] Impressive was all good out. But it saw the guy saying, no, I'm not putting my hand behind your back, raises his hands up. Then what? Right. That your technique is, is, is like bending over at the waist and doing all this stuff. If he's doing that, then getting him to put the handcuffs on himself. So it's like, uh, here's, here's a useless skill that no one will ever use and, uh, practice it.

[01:43:06] It's dumb. 

[01:43:07] Travis Bader: Well, I'm looking at the time here and I wanna make sure that we're um, uh, so got the listeners from 

[01:43:14] Al Arsenault: eight or sure they have nodded off. Uh um, third Ramo Coke into it. There you go. 

[01:43:21] Travis Bader: um, is there anything else we should be covering before we wrap it up? 

[01:43:26] Al Arsenault: Oh, geez. Uh, gonna have to have me back for a few more.

[01:43:29] Um, Podcast, because I get, I get so much to talk about. I, I, there's some stories I 

[01:43:34] Travis Bader: wanna ask you about, I told you at the, at the get out that I asked around a little bit, if anyone had any stories and they're like Al arsenal. Yeah. I got some Al stories. It's like, okay, let's hear 'em. And everyone went quiet.

[01:43:45] So you have 

[01:43:46] Al Arsenault: some friends said I'll track 'em down to I'll know I'll track 'em down and, and they know you'll track 'em down. I can kill 'em with an eyelash or, uh, I know more ways to kill 'em than they know how to die or I'll hit 'em so hard. They'll be the first person in heaven, in a wheelchair type of stuff, you know but, uh, yeah, I know I'm slowing down.

[01:44:02] They'll probably catch me when I'm 80. They'll stick there, stick, stick my cane through my wheelchair, spokes have their way with me. But, uh, but I'm uh, uh, yeah, I've, uh, , I've got a bit of a reputation. Uh, if you dig down deep enough, you know, we've been Toby and I invariably been called renegades or cowboy cops and, uh, the, uh, and the, um, journalists is all happy and that they screwed us around them.

[01:44:28] We're Toby and I are highfiving each other, you know, it's like, well, this is good. we think they're ruining our, our careers, but they, they realize that we enjoy the notoriety. Sure. And, uh, yeah, so we, we stepped outta the box. We were thinking, um, You know, um, thinking ahead thinking differently. And, uh, it hasn't been an easy road, like say having a previous mayor wanting us, uh, both fired right.

[01:44:51] And all stuff. So we've, we've done a lot of innovative, um, things in terms of educating, uh, youth through odd squad and, and, uh, educating police through police judo. And, um, it's been a, um, a bit of a struggle and it hasn't been easy all the time, but, uh, I think that, uh, after odd squad, like say we just finished our 25th year anniversary gala.

[01:45:18] And so obviously we're doing something right there and totally worth it. And police judo is, um, you know, 2010 plus, uh, uh, getting, getting in there and the roots go back decades. absolutely with it. Uh, so we, we want to be doing some things, uh, right. And, um, yeah, so it's, uh, I, I got a million stories. I, you know, I've been around the world a few times and yes, you have around the 

[01:45:46] block 

[01:45:47] Travis Bader: for sure.

[01:45:48] Uh, I'd love to dig into those as well. Yeah. I, I really, really appreciate you coming on to share those stories and the, the comprehensive joint locking techniques and the book that you've put out and it's, uh, I'm not all the way through it, but I've gone through a good portion of it. Uh, very well worth it.

[01:46:06] Anybody out there that's on the fence, uh, get it. It's worth the money there's techniques in there that will help you out whether you're law enforcement or not law enforcement. Uh, definitely go pick this book up. Oh, appreciate it. Yeah. 

[01:46:19] Al Arsenault: Thank 

[01:46:19] Travis Bader: you. Thanks for having me here. Thanks so much for being on the social.