By Brian Willis

For many years law enforcement trainers have talked about the Survival State of Mind, Officer Survival and the Survival Mindset. This philosophy was on the leading edge of mental preparation and conditioning training 20 years ago and has played an important role in the advancement of law enforcement training. The time has come however, to take this philosophy to the next level in the evolution of training. This means moving beyond training officers to Survive and train them to WIN. Every year there are hundreds officers who are victims of violent assaults which they survive, but result in these officers being seriously injured, and in some cases permanently disabled. We have to respect and admire these officers for surviving these horrendous encounters; however, we are left to wonder what the outcome could have been if they had been trained to win and not just survive; if they had been trained to be the predator and not the prey. We must learn from the experiences of those officers and realize that the first step in this transition to Winning is accepting the reality that for many officers ‘Survival’ is completely defensive in nature. Unfortunately many people mistaken believe that teaching officers to win is tantamount to training them to be paranoid, to over react, to respond excessively and to brutalize subjects. Nothing could be further from the truth. Winning takes many forms and can range from the use of effective communication skills to gain the voluntary compliance of a subject, to the use of lethal force to win a confrontation by taking the subject’s life to protect the officer or someone else. Training officers to win is about teaching them to be calm, focused, in-control and confident in any situation. It is about training them to assess the situation and respond in a manner that is reasonable and necessary based on the totality of the circumstances. It is also about providing officers with the verbal and non-verbal communication skills so their interactions with people are clear, concise and professional.
Winning is about control. An officer who is in control of themselves because they have a high degree of competence and confidence in their skills, tactics and knowledge will be more easily able to control subjects and situations. They use their professional presence as well conflict resolution and crisis intervention skills effectively.

Winning is about understanding. Officers with the winning mind understand the realities of action versus reaction, and time and distance. They understand when to disengage to create distance, time and options and they understand when to penetrate and take away time and options from their opponent. They understand the difference between killing and murder and they understand that as law enforcement professionals they may have to take a life to save a life. They understand that the only acceptable goal in any confrontation is winning.

Winning is about commitment. Officers who posses the winning mind commit to train throughout their careers to enhance their skills, knowledge, fitness and tactics. While others make excuses and abdicate the responsibility for training to their agency or organization those with the winning mind accept that fact that there has never been, and never will be, a law enforcement agency killed or injured in combat. Cops get killed and injured in the line of duty, not agencies. Therefore they make a personal commitment to continually train their mind and body.