ARTICLE 08 · MARTIAL ARTS & POLICE TRAINING
Does knowing how to fight help a police officer?
The question seems simple. The scientific answer is not.
Judo, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, and other disciplines develop skills that may be relevant to situations involving physical contact.
Balance, base, distance management, coordination, body contact, control, and experience against real resistance are obvious examples.
But there is a fundamental difference between identifying potentially transferable skills and demonstrating that a particular discipline improves real-world police outcomes.
That second question requires evidence.
Combat sports, self-defense, and police physical control are not the same activity.
TRANSFER
Some skills overlap. The objectives are different.
A combat sport takes place within known rules, with participants prepared for the confrontation and a referee monitoring the action.
A police encounter does not begin that way.
An officer may need to approach, communicate, decide whether physical intervention is necessary, control a person attempting to flee or assault someone, protect their own equipment, coordinate with other officers, apply handcuffs, and establish custody.
The objective is also different. In police physical control, winning a fight is not the operational outcome.
BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS · 2022
Martial arts are already part of formal police training.
In 2022, the Bureau of Justice Statistics â BJS conducted a census of state and local law enforcement training academies in the United States.
The categories examined included different forms of control training and defensive tactics.
Training classified as martial arts training â for example, jujitsu was offered by 60.7% of the academies analyzed.
Among recruits who began basic training, 73% attended academies that offered this type of training.
01 60.7%
of academies offered training classified as martial arts.
02 73%
of recruits attended academies that offered this training.
03 453
academies reported martial arts training within the category examined.
The survey demonstrates the institutional presence of these practices in U.S. police training.
It does not, by itself, demonstrate that any specific discipline improves operational outcomes.
PERFORMANCE UNDER ANXIETY
Additional experience has already been compared experimentally.
A study published in 2015 compared police officers with and without additional martial arts experience during arrest and self-defense tasks performed under low- and high-anxiety conditions.
The groups with additional experience included officers who practiced kickboxing, karate/jiu-jitsu, or Krav Maga.
Officers with additional experience performed better under high-anxiety conditions than those who relied only on regular police training.
The finding is relevant because it suggests that additional practice may be associated with the ability to perform certain skills under pressure.
But the study does not demonstrate that any martial art automatically produces better outcomes in real police encounters.
NIJ · BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU
The question is now being tested directly.
In 2024, the National Institute of Justice â NIJ funded an experimental evaluation specifically focused on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training for police officers.
The project is conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum â PERF and examines training at the Colorado Springs Police Department.
The research title is direct:
âDoes Training Police Officers in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Improve Use of Force Outcomes?â
The design includes experimental evaluation and systematic social observation to examine outcomes related to use of force.
NIJ records US$1,325,889 in funding for the project.
As of September 2026, the project remains officially listed by NIJ with an Open status.
LEVERAGE-BASED CONTROL
There is evidence beyond the name of a martial art.
An evaluation published in 2024 examined a 120-hour program developed by the Saint Paul Police Department.
The program combined leverage-based control techniques with de-escalation components.
After statistically controlling for characteristics of the encounter, the person, and the officer, researchers found an association between the training and reduced use of pain-based techniques.
The analysis also estimated a reduction of 3.3 percentage points in officer injuries and 1.3 percentage points in significant injuries among people subjected to the intervention.
This study is particularly important because it evaluated field outcomes rather than only participantsâ opinions about the training.
Even so, it is an evaluation of a specific program. The findings cannot automatically be attributed to every academy, martial art, or course that uses similar techniques.
SKILLS
What may transfer between martial arts practice and physical control?
To study training transfer, it is more useful to separate individual skills than to treat âmartial artsâ as a single category.
Different disciplines emphasize different problems, and training can vary significantly even within the same discipline.
01
Base & balance
Maintaining stability while another person pushes, pulls, turns, or changes direction.
02
Distance
Recognizing when there is sufficient space, contact, or proximity for different actions.
03
Body contact
Experience with pressure, grips, off-balancing, and resistance produced by another person.
04
Falls & ground
The ability to remain oriented when the interaction changes position or reaches the ground.
05
Control
Using position, weight, body structure, and leverage to limit movement.
06
Live resistance
Practice against a partner who is also trying to maintain position, escape, or impose their own action.
LIMITS OF TRANSFER
The encounter does not end when a position is achieved.
This is a critical point.
In a combat sport, achieving a particular position, takedown, score, or submission may represent success within the rules.
In police work, physical control is part of a larger sequence.
The officer may need to maintain control without losing access to their own equipment, remain aware of third parties, respond to another participant entering the encounter, communicate with the team, gain access to the personâs hands, and apply handcuffs.
After that, the officer still needs to establish and maintain custody.
CONFIDENCE â OUTCOME
Feeling better prepared does not settle the question either.
Research involving police officers indicates that martial arts experience may be associated with greater confidence in the ability to physically manage a person.
Confidence may be relevant. But it is a different measure from objective performance.
An officer may report greater confidence without this demonstrating fewer injuries, less use of force, or better control in real-world encounters.
The reverse is also possible: an intervention may change performance without producing the same change in the participantâs subjective perception.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
âDo you train jiu-jitsu?â is still too small a question.
To seriously study the relationship between martial arts and police work, the description needs to go beyond the name of the discipline.
01
Which martial art or system was practiced?
02
For how long?
03
How frequently?
04
Is there regular practice against resistance?
05
Which skills are actually trained?
06
Was the training adapted to police objectives?
07
How is performance assessed?
08
Are there data from real-world encounters after training?
09
Were the groups being compared already different before training?
10
Is the outcome being studied confidence, skill, use of force, encounter duration, or injury?
SELECTION
Officers who seek additional training may already be different.
There is another important methodological problem in observational studies.
Officers who voluntarily train martial arts outside of duty may differ from other officers in physical conditioning, experience, interest in training, years of practice, or other characteristics.
If this group shows different outcomes, we cannot automatically attribute the entire difference to the martial art they practice.
This is precisely why experimental evaluations and carefully designed comparisons are important.
COMBATIVES RESEARCH · CS-001
An encounter shows behavior. It does not automatically reveal its origin.
CS-001 â COMBATIVES Physical Control Study
Observational Study of the Dynamics of Resistance and Physical Control in Police Encounters
CS-001 observes the dynamics of real-world encounters involving resistance and physical control.
A recording may make it possible to observe positions, level changes, falls, control attempts, the involvement of other officers, and progression toward custody.
But those images, by themselves, do not make it possible to determine an officerâs martial arts background, training history, training frequency, or the origin of a skill demonstrated by that officer.
That information belongs to another level of evidence and should not be inferred solely from the appearance of a movement.
NEXT ARTICLE
What happens when the encounter can be reviewed?
Much of the historical knowledge about use of force depends on reports, forms, and later reconstructions.
Body-worn cameras have added a new source of evidence: audiovisual records produced during the encounter itself.
But video also has framing, obstruction, movement, missing footage, and limits of interpretation.
The next article examines body-worn cameras and real-world encounters.
SOURCES & REFERENCES
The question has moved beyond the training academy and into police research.
Bureau of Justice Statistics · U.S. Department of Justice
State and Local Law Enforcement Training Academiesâ Training Topics and Instructors, 2022 â Statistical Tables. Published in 2025. Census of Law Enforcement Training Academies.
National Institute of Justice · Police Executive Research Forum
Does Training Police Officers In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Improve Use Of Force Outcomes? An Experimental Evaluation With Systematic Social Observation in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Award 15PNIJ-24-GG-02567-RESS. Project funded in 2024.
Renden, Peter G.; Landman, Annemarie; Savelsbergh, Geert J. P.; Oudejans, RaĂŽul R. D.
Police arrest and self-defence skills: performance under anxiety of officers with and without additional experience in martial arts. Ergonomics, 2015.
Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice
From pain compliance to leverage-based control: Evidence of reduced use of force severity and injuries following police training. 2024. Evaluation of the 120-hour program developed by the Saint Paul Police Department.
Occupational Medicine
Non-fatal injuries among police officers during use-of-force encounters. Study examining factors related to police officer injuries during use-of-force encounters and discussing physical control training.
âMartial artsâ encompasses different disciplines, training methods, and levels of experience. Findings from one discipline, program, or population should not automatically be generalized to other practices.
Observational studies involving officers who voluntarily practice martial arts are subject to selection effects. Better performance among practitioners does not, by itself, demonstrate that the martial art caused the difference. Experimental evaluations and operational data are necessary for stronger inferences.
The experimental Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu project funded by the National Institute of Justice remains officially listed as open. Its existence demonstrates scientific interest in the question, but it should not be presented as evidence of effectiveness before its results are published and evaluated.
External references are used for literature review and conceptual development. They do not constitute original findings of CS-001. The citation of researchers, institutions, police departments, or martial arts is solely for documentary and research purposes and does not imply affiliation, certification, support, sponsorship, or institutional endorsement of COMBATIVESâą.
COMBATIVES RESEARCH · CS-001 · ARTICLE 08
The question is not which martial art is better.
Martial arts may develop skills relevant to situations involving physical contact.
That does not make sport, self-defense, and police work equivalent.
The research question is more specific: which skills transfer, under what conditions, and with what observable outcomes?
Skill.
Transfer.
Outcome.