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Sam Harris has a new, very interesting podcast with Rener Gracie about police training and how inadequate it is across the entire United States. Officers in Cal

Sam Harris has a new, very interesting podcast with Rener Gracie about police training and how inadequate it is across the entire United States. Officers in California get one - 4 hour course every two years to learn how to subdue criminals, and of the 4 hours, only one is actually spent training, the other three are instruction. Rener Gracie is obviously famous for Brazilian jiu-jitsu but he also trains police on how to subdue criminals in a safe way. He has some interesting ideas about how to identify bad cops also. It was worth the listen. https://samharris.org/podcasts/246-police-training-police-misconduct/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/246-police-training-police-mi...

bitexploder 6y ago
My BJJ gym offers deep discount to police. This is a good thing. I’ve rolled with many police fresh to grappling and even with my limited skills they are very easy to subdue. No wonder they resort to weapons (lethal and less than lethal) so quickly. I have been training a few years now.
- nobodyandproud 6y ago
  Judo (the mother of bjj) is seeing a revival in police circles. It’s good to see grappling arts make a comeback, as there are plenty of non-lethal ways to make someone submit. Edit: For cases where the police officer already is in control.
  - bitexploder 6y ago
    I think American wrestling and or BJJ are much more practical than Judo as a martial art for police, but Judo is better than nothing. Judo is good for getting things to the ground, but the ground system of Judo is inadequate for many situations. (I’ve trained Judo and with many judokas, even advanced ones just aren’t very good on the ground without some other ground fighting system). Regardless it’s a big step in the right direction.
    - stouset 6y ago
      As a fellow judoka, I’d agree. It’s unfortunate because there are some aspects that could make judo a better groundfighting base than BJJ for this type of situation. When a judo match goes to the ground, the competitors must be clearly making progress toward a pin or submission or the referee stands them up. This favors more explosive movements (resolving a situation quickly) over a slow positional game from your back. Of course, a skilled BJJ practitioner could also make quick work of an untrained opponent. But judo’s focus on quickly establishing a dominant position has some advantages. Unfortunately this ruleset also enables competitors to “turtle up” in a defensive position on all fours. It’s hard for your opponent to quickly get a submission or a pin from this position, so the fight will quickly be reset by the referee. This has led to a lot of even competitive judoka having very weak ground game, as they can get by for the most part by assuming this position. Obviously that’s not going to be very effective in a real-world situation. BJJ has its flaws for this sort of thing too. At least in the gyms I’ve trained in, there was very little focus on throwing. So once a fight is on the ground someone with a BJJ background will excel. But against a resisting opponent, they don’t have nearly the tools that a judoka has to bring things there. In the end I think either one will give you a massive leg up, but it’s important to keep in mind why you’re training in the first place and understand the bad real-world habits that their respective rulesets can encourage when taken too seriously for the sake of competition.
      - bitexploder 6y ago
        Good points, gyms can vary a lot. My gym and most gyms I have visited focus on wrestling style takedowns, and maybe some Judo stuff too depending on what the instructors know. Honestly, for the general self defense you only need a few well practiced takedowns. We drill single leg, double leg, and I drill a couple collar based judo trip/throw. It mostly comes down to spending time on the feet. No-Gi at my academy lets you do basically anything from standing. My gym does a lot of MMA and has a strong competitive nature (we train for comps a lot) so we get a lot more focus on the standing game I think. FWIW I have done Judo some too and find it fun. Except when I get slammed lol.
kwertyoowiyop 6y ago
It seems like a great idea, and that they’ve gathered significant evidence that other police departments can now take advantage of to start their own similar programs. That’s really exciting. The episode did kind of devolve into a commercial for Gracie JJ though. Well, maybe that just keeps it simple for others. One phone number to call for training...
alexc05 6y ago
I suspect I'm going to get crucified on hacker news for this. And my criticism it isn't necessarily related to this specific episode. BUT Sam Harris has been pretty credibly described as being islamophobic, sympathetic to fascists, amplifying and platforming "race scientists" aka: white nationalists attempting to maintain a veneer of respectability, and being a recruitment pipeline for the alt-right. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris I know how well the "don't listen to Sam Harris" argument would go down around hacker news, but I'd say that one who does, should listen to him with the lens of being aware that he gives a suspicious amount air time to the online racist grifter community. If that's the world's only source in the world on Renee Gracie, then maybe Harris is an ok choice. I find it hard to justify giving bandwidth to a guy who gives so much bandwidth to nazi propaganda. https://medium.com/@tedheistman/does-sam-harris-want-you-to-be-a-nazi-without-realizing-it-84fe17453fbd https://medium.com/@tedheistman/does-sam-harris-want-you-to-... https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/3k7jx8/too-many-atheists-are-veering-dangerously-toward-the-alt-right https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/3k7jx8/too-many-atheists... I'm not saying that Sam Harris is definitely a Nazi, but the venn diagram of online nazi content and Sam Harris' content has more overlap than one might generally expect to occur by chance. https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/episode-22-sam-harris-is-not-a-nazi https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/episode-22-sam-harris-is...
- throwaway0xa 6y ago
  You can just read the panic in these words. The fear that someone may read something that's against the narrative. The hurried attempt to commit as many fallacies as possible to discredit the source of the heresy. The virtue signaling is palpable. The shibboleth words of the neurotic ("platforming", "Nazi", etc.) are on full display. I present to you the modern leftist.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    “Virtue signaling”, “narrative”, “modern leftist”. Your own argument is regurgitated and empty. You seem to be using this site to push a right wing campaign. I hope dang bans you.

bitexploder 6y ago

My BJJ gym offers deep discount to police. This is a good thing. I’ve rolled with many police fresh to grappling and even with my limited skills they are very easy to subdue. No wonder they resort to weapons (lethal and less than lethal) so quickly. I have been training a few years now.

nobodyandproud 6y ago
Judo (the mother of bjj) is seeing a revival in police circles. It’s good to see grappling arts make a comeback, as there are plenty of non-lethal ways to make someone submit. Edit: For cases where the police officer already is in control.
- bitexploder 6y ago
  I think American wrestling and or BJJ are much more practical than Judo as a martial art for police, but Judo is better than nothing. Judo is good for getting things to the ground, but the ground system of Judo is inadequate for many situations. (I’ve trained Judo and with many judokas, even advanced ones just aren’t very good on the ground without some other ground fighting system). Regardless it’s a big step in the right direction.
  - stouset 6y ago
    As a fellow judoka, I’d agree. It’s unfortunate because there are some aspects that could make judo a better groundfighting base than BJJ for this type of situation. When a judo match goes to the ground, the competitors must be clearly making progress toward a pin or submission or the referee stands them up. This favors more explosive movements (resolving a situation quickly) over a slow positional game from your back. Of course, a skilled BJJ practitioner could also make quick work of an untrained opponent. But judo’s focus on quickly establishing a dominant position has some advantages. Unfortunately this ruleset also enables competitors to “turtle up” in a defensive position on all fours. It’s hard for your opponent to quickly get a submission or a pin from this position, so the fight will quickly be reset by the referee. This has led to a lot of even competitive judoka having very weak ground game, as they can get by for the most part by assuming this position. Obviously that’s not going to be very effective in a real-world situation. BJJ has its flaws for this sort of thing too. At least in the gyms I’ve trained in, there was very little focus on throwing. So once a fight is on the ground someone with a BJJ background will excel. But against a resisting opponent, they don’t have nearly the tools that a judoka has to bring things there. In the end I think either one will give you a massive leg up, but it’s important to keep in mind why you’re training in the first place and understand the bad real-world habits that their respective rulesets can encourage when taken too seriously for the sake of competition.
    - bitexploder 6y ago
      Good points, gyms can vary a lot. My gym and most gyms I have visited focus on wrestling style takedowns, and maybe some Judo stuff too depending on what the instructors know. Honestly, for the general self defense you only need a few well practiced takedowns. We drill single leg, double leg, and I drill a couple collar based judo trip/throw. It mostly comes down to spending time on the feet. No-Gi at my academy lets you do basically anything from standing. My gym does a lot of MMA and has a strong competitive nature (we train for comps a lot) so we get a lot more focus on the standing game I think. FWIW I have done Judo some too and find it fun. Except when I get slammed lol.

kwertyoowiyop 6y ago

It seems like a great idea, and that they’ve gathered significant evidence that other police departments can now take advantage of to start their own similar programs. That’s really exciting. The episode did kind of devolve into a commercial for Gracie JJ though. Well, maybe that just keeps it simple for others. One phone number to call for training...

alexc05 6y ago

I suspect I'm going to get crucified on hacker news for this. And my criticism it isn't necessarily related to this specific episode. BUT Sam Harris has been pretty credibly described as being islamophobic, sympathetic to fascists, amplifying and platforming "race scientists" aka: white nationalists attempting to maintain a veneer of respectability, and being a recruitment pipeline for the alt-right. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris I know how well the "don't listen to Sam Harris" argument would go down around hacker news, but I'd say that one who does, should listen to him with the lens of being aware that he gives a suspicious amount air time to the online racist grifter community. If that's the world's only source in the world on Renee Gracie, then maybe Harris is an ok choice. I find it hard to justify giving bandwidth to a guy who gives so much bandwidth to nazi propaganda. https://medium.com/@tedheistman/does-sam-harris-want-you-to-be-a-nazi-without-realizing-it-84fe17453fbd https://medium.com/@tedheistman/does-sam-harris-want-you-to-... https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/3k7jx8/too-many-atheists-are-veering-dangerously-toward-the-alt-right https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/3k7jx8/too-many-atheists... I'm not saying that Sam Harris is definitely a Nazi, but the venn diagram of online nazi content and Sam Harris' content has more overlap than one might generally expect to occur by chance. https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/episode-22-sam-harris-is-not-a-nazi https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/episode-22-sam-harris-is...

throwaway0xa 6y ago
You can just read the panic in these words. The fear that someone may read something that's against the narrative. The hurried attempt to commit as many fallacies as possible to discredit the source of the heresy. The virtue signaling is palpable. The shibboleth words of the neurotic ("platforming", "Nazi", etc.) are on full display. I present to you the modern leftist.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  “Virtue signaling”, “narrative”, “modern leftist”. Your own argument is regurgitated and empty. You seem to be using this site to push a right wing campaign. I hope dang bans you.