U.S. police officers do not undergo advanced hand-to-hand combat training.
Therefore, many officers take martial arts classes outside their job to improve their self-defense skills.
The best martial arts for police officers are Krav Maga, BJJ, wrestling, MMA, Muay Thai, and boxing. Among these, Krav Maga and BJJ are the top choices for police officers because Krav Maga is an all-around self-defense system, and BJJ is a practical system that enables officers to subdue a suspect without causing serious injuries.
Training in these martial arts can boost police officers’ self-defense skills by more than a couple of weeks of hand-to-hand combat training at the academy.
Krav Maga, a self-defense martial art created by the Israeli military in the 1950s, involves grappling, striking, dirty tactics, and even weapons like knives and firearms.
BJJ focuses on leverage and technique and does not involve striking, weapon-based training, or dirty tactics. Advantages and disadvantages exist for each system, including the quality of teaching, variation between schools, emphasis on defense and running away, and the need to be careful when applying submissions.
A video that recently went viral highlighted the deficiency a police officer had when dealing with a hand to hand situation.
In fact it was so absurd, he would even remove his protective vest to engage in the scrap.
Commenters went on to share: “I like they had a one on one. Bet dude still got cuffed up and arrested lol.”
“Didn’t even try a takedown !? He just wanted to throw hands not apprehend him”
“He can’t get arrested for battery on an office…because he never actually hit him. Not once.”
“I’m not even sure that guy could take that guy…”
