Brazillian Jiu Jitsu for Law Enforcement and My Journey to
Blue by Josh Laiva
To start with a little information about me- I'm not a
talented athlete. I am not particularly
talented or strong. Yes, I was a Golf
Teaching Professional in my previous life.
But, I’ve always been a little
overweight. I only learned the benefits
of working out in the three years leading up to my first Jiu Jitsu class. The reasons I started training were pretty
simple. A Police Sergeant that I had
known and worked around was tragically murdered by a suspicious person he
checked out with. As many of our local
Officers did, I took Sgt. Greg Moore’s shooting to heart. I had not worked with him in a while because
I changed departments to a nearby larger city, but going to his funeral brought
the issue home. At the same time I also
noticed several of my coworkers from the city I was now working in getting in
fights and getting hurt. I wanted to
make a change. I needed better training
and I owed it to my family, myself, my coworkers, and my city to seek that
training on my own.
One of my teammates when I started training was a BJJ blue
belt and former MMA fighter. He was a
pretty laid back and confident dude, that one would not want to mess with. So I challenged him every chance I got. It was exciting throwing each other around
the shop where we ate lunch and I found out very quickly he knew what he was
doing. I had done Jiu Jitsu in my Police
Academy for a few weeks and I thought I knew it all. How hard can it be, Right?
That same coworker had mentioned that I could get a
membership at a local Judo club based out of our Police Academy and several of
our coworkers already trained there. I
watched some Judo videos on Youtube to get hyped and my son and I went to our
first class. One of the Senseis was a
Sergeant for my agency and he had me out there helping my son with kids class
on the very first day. I had no idea
what I was doing in my Judo Gi that was two sizes too big for me but I was
trying. I’m not the sharpest tool in the
shed and I struggled with some of the concepts and movements. Truth is that my lack of understanding
continues still today and I have learned this is actually pretty normal. The only way I found to be a better learner
is through repetition. I remember after
that first class that I had never felt so sore before in my life. I had been playing rec league hockey for the
past few years and that never compared to how bad I felt. I really enjoyed learning the different
chokes and throws. The Sensei did a
great job of explaining how they could apply to my job and even though I had
learned the Rear Naked Choke or “Lateral Neck Restraint” before it was really
helpful to drill it and work with it so
much.
After a few classes I learned my first lesson in body
movement and spazzing out like a big dumb animal. While doing simulated matches and going for
my throw, I thought it would be a good idea to spin, and pull, while holding
onto my larger opponent who also wanted to pull away. My right knee popped and it hurt really bad. Turns out I sprained my ACL. I took a few weeks off and even needed to go
to physical therapy to help heal up again.
I have been prone to knee issues all my life even dating back to High
School sports.
After recovering but still feeling knee pain during class, I
stopped going. I kept taking my son,
however he had never done anything like the Judo classes before and at the time
he did not like it.
After initially graduating from the Police Academy, lack of
funding to train was the main reason I never tried to join a local Brazillian
Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) academy. The Judo club
was fun but I believed Brazillian Jiu Jitsu would be a better fit for my chosen
line of work and I was at a point in my career where I could actually pay for
training. I chose to start my training
with a local BJJ academy where I knew several other local Officers
trained. I signed up to try a
class. I remember how scared and
intimidated I was during my first training session but the Professor made it
enjoyable. I started training alongside
one of the instructors who had taught at my Police Academy. I found BJJ was different from Judo, with
more focus on the ground portion and it seemed to not hurt my knees as much as
Judo.
I remember the first few months were brutal. I would get tapped out by pressure or being
tired. I really feared live
rolling. I also started kickboxing at
the same time and OMG, I learned I had no idea how to fight. Up to this point in my life I had been in a
pair of fights in highschool and had only punched one other person. It was easier to see my progression at
kickboxing than in BJJ. After my BJJ
classes, I would be exhausted with both of my shoulders hurting and almost
feeling numb, sore ribs, and a sore neck.
The guys I trained with were great but destroyed me. Rightfully so, because I had to learn how to
protect myself. Despite the struggles, I
was having fun. I remember I trained
hard for months and then out of nowhere, there was a promotion ceremony where
one of the students got his blue belt.
He was a beast, and at that time getting to the blue belt level seemed
nearly impossible. Something strange
happened that night during the promotion ceremony, I got my first stripe on my
white belt. I felt invincible, with my
new stripe, but it didn’t change the fact that I was still the new guy and had
no idea what I was doing. Everyone at
the school was great but I thought there was something wrong with me because I
could not understand more than half of what was being taught and struggled to
execute what I was shown. We would
finish up many of our classes with no gi training and I also found that very
intimidating. I did notice that just
days after that blue belt got his promotion, he stopped coming to class.
Our gym flooded one night during the end of the summer due to
a bad water line and was closed for a few days.
When we got back to training after the water dried up, we were learning
some new chokes. While rolling with an
upper belt, he was using one of the techniques we learned that day, and ended
up punching me full speed in the throat.
While being hit, I heard an audible crack. I could breathe okay and there was no blood
but it was very painful and I could not stop coughing. I took the next few days off to go vacationing
with my family. We went to a local lake
cabin and after a few days my throat was still sore to the touch, like a bruise
on my neck, but no further issues.
The following day I was back at work, and while sitting in my
patrol car, I had a sensation I had never felt before. I started to have a horrible gag reflex, like
someone was choking me. No pain, just
felt like gagging constantly. It felt
like a huge pressure build up in my throat like there was something around my
neck. I could barely talk, without
gagging, and went home sick. After a few
hours the gagging subsided and I went to see a Doctor. With one look in my throat, the Doctor
diagnosed me with a throat infection and put me on antibiotics. The Doctor did not believe the issue was
related to my injury from the previous week.
I took some more time off work while taking the antibiotics.
After a few days things felt a little better and I went back
to work, but still with a bit of the pressure feeling in my throat. That day things got really bad. When trying to stand and do some paperwork, I
suddenly had horrible, nearly unbearable, neck and back pain. The pain was so intense I could barely
physically stand, so I finished my paperwork, and went home sick. Our locker room is on the second floor of the
building and I could not even walk up the stairs. I was so sore. I went home and hoped I’d feel better. The next morning things were worse and I had
never felt so sore and sick in my life.
I was worried I was dying and Google searches were not helping. I went back to the doctor worried I had
contracted Meningitis or something worse.
After a few tests, I learned I had contracted Mononucleosis combined
with a pretty severe case of Strep Throat.
A new host of antibiotics was on the way and I was told I would have to
fight through the mono. Over the
following two days, I slept for 17 hours straight. The only problem was, for the time I was
sleeping, I slept on my left arm, with my head on my bicep. When I awoke, I felt a little better but had
this deep pinching pain in my left shoulder.
I was actually barely able to lift my left arm. Back to the Doctor I went and was given some
steroids for my arm. They made it feel
better but I still could not move it very well.
I went back to work a week later on light duty on account of my enlarged
spleen. The problem was now my
shoulder. I was in constant pain and
unable to lift anything in my left arm.
I never told anyone other than my family and doctors about the issue. I went to a bunch of physical therapy and
Doctor’s appointments. Turns out I had
pinched the super scapula nerve when I slept on it and then caused muscle
atrophy as the nerve healed. It took
nearly a year for the diagnosis and nearly two to fully recover.
With the nerve damage in my shoulder, training seemed
impossible. I struggled to hold my arm
up in a fighting stance and I was too weak to keep it close to my body. I didn’t believe I would be able to progress
in my training and I was only able to train a few times in the following
months. After multiple recurring bouts
of strep and a nasty antibiotic resistant bacterial infection in my tonsils, I
had to have my tonsils surgically removed.
I had never had surgery before and was freaking out the day I
had my tonsils removed. I was in my late
30’s which is typically not good for recovery when having your tonsils
out. When the nurse told me the
Anesthesiologist was coming in, I struggled to hold it together. Just then, Trent walked in. Trent was one of my favorite training
partners at my BJJ academy. I calmed
down quickly and with some medication from Trent, everything went surprisingly
well.
After my surgery, I was very hesitant to continue
training. I was told by the Doctor that
if I ruptured the surgical area around my tonsils, I could bleed out in a
matter of minutes. Plus, after all the
infections in my throat, my gag reflex was really bad. Any restriction around my chest, neck, or
abdomen caused me to want to gag and throw up.
My Doctors advised I was okay but it made training miserable. I stopped training BJJ more than once a week
and focused on kickboxing two days a week.
The kickboxing highlighted the weakness in my shoulder but actually
helped with rebuilding my strength.
How Brazillian Jiu Jitsu actually saved my life:
A Reserve Officer and I were working together one day when we
responded to the report of a boyfriend threatening to kill his girlfriend. When we contacted the pair, neither wanted to
cooperate with our investigation. Thanks
only to the victim’s family we identified the boyfriend. Turns out he was wanted by the US
Marshals. The suspect/boyfriend was a
bigger guy, in good shape, built a lot like a football player. When the Reserve Officer went to arrest him,
he pushed the Officer, in the chest, back and onto the ground. I jumped in and went to detain the suspect
who approached me head on. Based on his
actions, I pulled the suspect into a clinch.
When I did so, he utilized my external carrier as a handle, ripping it
off to the ground and pulling me to the ground with it. My left knee hit hard on a rock on the frozen
ground and instantly felt as if something was broken. I remember being on my knees, feeling the
pain, looking at his legs as he was turning to run. Then I remembered my BJJ training, I didn’t
need to be standing, and I have all I need to get the job done right here from
the ground. So I wrapped up the
suspect’s legs, pulling him down and moving up to his hips as the Reserve
Officer jumped back into the fight as well.
Once on the ground, I was able to continue to move up his back and
secure the RNC, to effectively bring the fight to an end. The suspect provided his hands before needing
to be rendered unconscious. Without the
training I had been doing for the past year, I didn't believe I would have
reacted the way I did to arrest the bad guy.
When my knee struck the rock, it ended up just being a good
sprain. I went to a local hospital and
was given a few days rest with time off work.
The bad news of the injury was I had developed a horrible case of
patellar tendonitis which I deal with to this day. When I went back to work, I still had trouble
walking, but started wearing the padded knee sleeves under my uniform that I
had been using when training BJJ to prevent any further knee injuries.
The following work week after the injury, I responded to the
report of a male passed out behind the wheel of his truck after injecting
unknown drugs into his body. I was close
by, and was the first Officer on scene.
When I went to stop the guy, he charged out of his truck towards my
patrol vehicle, with his hands digging in his pockets. I was able to get him pushed back onto the
hood of my patrol vehicle where he pulled his hands out of his pockets. I told him why I was stopping him and he went
digging in his pockets again. As a
Police Officer, I was fully aware of what it means for someone to have their
hands digging in their pockets. They are
either accessing weapons or contraband and it is a very dangerous
situation. I spun the male around to
handcuff him and he spun right back at me.
The witness said he swung to punch me, but I missed that because I had
shot in at his hips as he spun around.
We went down to the ground and he ended up in a turtle position, still
going for his pockets. I then used the
RNC to bring him flat to his stomach and he started to comply. The helpful witness went and grabbed the bad
guy’s arm, yelling he had a hold of him, but let go, when I let go of his neck
and grabbed the other arm. The bad guy
then rolled on his back and was pushing me away. Without hesitation, I went to a knee on belly
position, while pulling on his wrists, holding him down briefly, before he
rolled away and tried to get back up.
After the suspect got back to his feet, I took his back as he tried to
run away. As I secured the RNC again,
the bad guy ran head first into the tailgate of the nearby truck. The suspect ducked and put my head into the
tailgate before falling to the ground.
After hitting my head and falling to the ground, I missed the hitch to
the truck by mere inches. I did maintain
my grip on the RNC and rendered the suspect unconscious once on the
ground. I learned the true pressure it
took to render a Heroin addict, who had just shot up, unconscious, and had the
bruises, from my fingertips, on my bicep, to prove it. After handcuffing him, my backup Officer
arrived. When I walked back over to the
area where we had initially struggled on the ground, I observed a folding knife
on the ground, around all the gear that had been yardsaled off my vest. The knife’s blade had been opened. The knife, and some needles, had all been
located in the bad guy’s pockets and he had opened the knife during our altercation. He was likely planning to stab me with the
now open folding knife. Turns out this
bad guy had a felony out of state warrant.
Apparently he had fought and injured three Officers in another state and
they had put the warrant out for his arrest.
I wholeheartedly credit my BJJ training with saving my life
from the knife wielding Heroin addict. I
had only trained for a year up to this point.
The movement, concepts, and repetition of training saved my life and
prevented me from being stabbed or even worse.
After this incident, I re-dedicated myself to training BJJ. I switched to a Renzo Gracie academy that had
just opened up in the area where I live.
The Renzo Gracie school offered more classes and a pair of talented
black belt Professors Jordan Damon and Tony Meonich.
Over the next one and a half years, I continued to train,
sometimes attending as many as four classes a week. My Professors at Renzo Gracie have done an
amazing job explaining the movement, concepts and submissions as I
trained. I’ve trained through bruised
ribs, broken fingers and toes, and my fair share of bumps, bruises and
sprains. I love to train and there has
not been a week that goes by that I don’t use some of my training at work. I have had to take some time off for
injuries, but I usually snap right back into training.
I have attended multiple seminars at several different
schools and even had the pleasure to train with Sheepdog Response. The Sheepdog Response classes really gave
unique and invaluable insight into using BJJ while defending against weapons
such as guns and knives. I have had the
opportunity to learn from great instructors and competitors such as Dave
Camarillo, Trevor Prangley, Guy Metzger, Marcus “Buchecha” Alameida, and Joao
Assis.
I will admit it has not all been perfect, I was in another
fight last spring where I got punched a few times by a suspect after I fell
down, when I tried to complete a throw while holding onto a sweatshirt that
ripped in half. Again, thanks to my
training, I was able to think, and not go condition black, while being punched
in the face with the suspect standing over me.
I was able to think about my training and remember to utilize my legs,
as we had trained, to create distance between the standing suspect and prevent
him from hitting me more. Having a hard
head helps too, but I was able to ask myself what to do, and how to defend
myself, while being punched in the face.
I also learned some valuable lessons.
Trying to power throw someone by grabbing normal clothing is a risk,
because it will give way. Normal, basic,
high percentage takedowns would be the most productive for daily fights in the
line of duty. In a fight, where someone
is fighting to flee, or to prevent being arrested or imprisoned, there are no
rules, and they will fight with no regard for anyone’s safety, to include their
own. What that means for me or any other
Officer training in Brazillian Jiu Jitsu, is it may take a lot of work to hold
that person down, more than you would expect.
I was a little disappointed with my performance and the fact I allowed
myself to get punched. I made my
training partners at the academy run through the scenario with me multiple
times and my professor was so great we drilled the movements for a full week in
class. Through my academy, I got
connected with an Officer from Syracuse NY, who was a former MMA fighter. He shared how much he had struggled during
one particular incident to take a suspect in custody despite his training. It's completely different in our jobs because
there is so much we can’t do and we have policies and procedures to
follow. I was reminded of a valuable tip
that I don't think I’d heard since I was in the Police Academy. Under stress, you will revert to 10% of your
training.
The 10% statistic turned on a light for me and for the next
half a year, I trained more than I ever had previously. I also started recognizing movement patterns
that were easier for my body type and that I felt more comfortable with. My Professors all told me they could see the
improvements. I will admit sometimes it
didn’t seem like I was moving forward.
There are a handful of white belts, a stripe or two below me that I
really struggle with at my academy. I
have to remind myself that as I train and improve, they are too. So whenever someone new comes in and I get
the opportunity to train and work with them, I can get a good grasp on how much
technique I already know. Over the last
year one of my favorite parts about training has been the little details. I may have seen a sweep, escape, or
submission before, but each time I see it again I try to take something new
away from it. I try to add one detail to
help me out and recognize the concepts that make the movement work. I have learned that the small things make a
big difference.
I had been given my 4th stripe on my white belt in the spring,
so I assumed that by fall I would be promoted to a blue belt. I know not to focus on the belt, but for me I
saw it as a symbol for all I had learned and been through to get to that point. Ultimately I could train at a white belt for
the rest of my life and still be happy because I really love to learn the
endless details and how it all works. I
realize it is a valuable skill that I want to become second nature for my job,
however I believe at the same time I have become addicted to BJJ.
In the early part of 2020 there was a large seminar scheduled
with the part owner of our gym who also owned numerous BJJ Academies in the
Texas area. Professor Brian Marvin was
a really inspiring dude, who was also an amazing BJJ Champion. The problem was the seminar was scheduled on
a day I was working. The month before,
my Professor told me that they would be doing promotions that day and I needed
to be there.
It was pretty stressful leading up to the seminar. I was told to bring my family, but never
actually told I would be promoted.
Nearly every student from the academy was there. My sons had been training on and off with me
at Renzo Gracie and I wanted to show them the value of all the hard work I had
put in. I had seen the progression of
some of my teammates as well and knew for sure some of them were getting
promoted, but I was a little unsure of myself.
When the day came, I was still very nervous, but we had an
amazing seminar, with the promotion ceremony afterwards. I was one of the last few to get promoted to
blue belt, and when the Professor called my name, I was ecstatic. For me being promoted to blue belt meant I
was progressing in my training and actually improving. I’ve never claimed to be good, but I just
want to work to get better. The weeks
following my promotion were especially tough, with all my other teammates no
longer holding back and throwing everything they had at me. It was like the promotion brought out another
gear in everyone else. I welcomed the
challenge and was excited to work to continue to improve.
Unfortunately at the beginning of March, I had to stop
training for fear of the Coronavirus. I
continue to work out at home, and will be excited to start training again once
this is all over. I can’t wait to
continue this journey.
I'm writing this for all the Police
Officers/Deputies/Troopers out there considering training BJJ. The training you receive at the Police
Academy is great, but not enough. In my
humble opinion, with the changing political climate for our jobs, the laws, and
the policies and procedures put in place by our administration, there is
nothing better you can do to protect yourself, your family, coworkers, and
society than to train BJJ. I’m not
really concerned with injuries, nor should anyone who starts training be, and I
have found I get hurt worse working on projects around the house. It's an amazing cardiovascular workout that
builds strength and self confidence.
Plus the bonus is it is the best stress reliever I have ever found.
Josh Laiva
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