This actually came to me while watching an online video titled something like “How to take a punch better”. This is a key element – who you learn from is very important.
It’s always been one of my strong points that I can take a punch pretty well. I haven’t been hit in a while now (thank God), but when I saw the video available online, I thought, “What the heck. If I can learn a little bit more on how to take a punch I might as well.” (Maybe that’s why you watch my videos. You understand that no matter how good you are, no matter how much you know, even small, incremental improvements compound over time to make you a significantly better private investigator!)
So this very accomplished black-belt goes on to explain something that I just figured every good instructor teaches his students…
He trains his students to keep fighting even after they get hurt… and that surprises me. And that’s key! Many so-called “experts” aren’t TRAINING people to keep fighting after they get hurt!
He explained that when people are training in the gym, when they’re sparring with a partner and get hit – maybe it’s a little harder than they expected – they go into a defensive position and the sparring stops.
Your partner checks you, “Are you okay? I’m sorry man, I didn’t mean that. I didn’t think I was going to hit you that hard. I didn’t see you stepping into it”
The black-belt explains, “Look. In real life, if you get hit like that, the other guy is not going to stop and check to make sure you’re okay.”
The important lesson he wants to teach is when you’re sparring and you take that punch or kick that would normally stop the sparring, continue sparring for another few moments before you stop. Get used to the idea that you’re going to still have to stay defensive. Maybe you’re going to have to throw some blows to distract your opponent. But train like the real world!
I know a police officer, an excellent police office. He’s was a Field Training Officer for years. He would bring the new police academy graduates out on the streets and work with them for months at a time before they were authorized to work alone.
He and I had worked together for years in the private sector as loss prevention officers before he became a cop. We had both been punched more times than you could count. But many police recruits don’t have that real world experience.
My friend says, “It’s kinda’ funny. These are officers out of the academy – they’re cops on the street – but they’ve never been hit before.”
He says, “The first time they get hit, every one of them are stunned. They’re surprised! They’ve just never been hit in real life before and it’s kind of a funny thing.”
What does this have to do with you as a private investigator?
Chances are, you’re not going to get hit. I hope you don’t get hit. If you’re a process server, there’s a slim chance. I’ve had at least one guy I can think of take a swing at me and miss. So it’s unlikely you’re actually going to be hit. But the key lesson I want you to think about is: Who do you learn from?
As someone who’s been there and done that, it never occurred to me – not once in a million years – that you wouldn’t train a person to continue fighting after they’ve been hit.
The fact that this black-belt has to train people to keep fighting even after they get hurt just surprises me. He’s one of very few MMA instructors I’ve seen teaching this. There are some law enforcement trainers out there that are teaching this and it’s vitally important.
As an investigator, you’re occasionally going to come to a dead end in an investigation. You’re going to come to where you don’t have a telephone number for someone and you really need it for a pretext. Or you’re going to lose somebody on the surveillance. What do you do now? How do you report that to the client? What happens if you regain them? How do you write the report?
Honestly, an investigator like myself who’s been out there for years doing these things and come across all these little problems, who’s – so to speak – been hit hard enough to be hurt and fought through it, I know what the answer is. And I’m happy to share that information with you here online.
But I also want you to know it’s covered much deeper, and chronologically as it should be covered, in my courses in Investigator’s Ultimate Guide Series.
Please take a moment, right now to check out my free report: If You Want To Be a Private Investigator Give Up… Unless You Do Theses Three Things. Just reading my report will teach you about some of the really important basic you need to know.
You can get it for free right here…
Stay street smart and safe,
-Larry-
Larry Kaye,
Private Investigator