Here in Ireland there is no provision for the hands on aspect of the security industry. So while you’ve passed a course to get your Door licence, it won’t have taken into account the very reason you’re employed in the first place

I visited the Irish Security Expo last year and spoke to various people at the top of the industry and asked about the provision of physical training. I was quite gobsmacked by the responses. The general viewpoint is to bury the head in the sand. These are the people that put together the Door Supervisors Training Syllabus, the guys that the government listens to.

Speaking to the head of one of the largest security training companies (who is also an aikido practitioner) I was told that yes, he recognises that there is a need, but he and his contemporaries didn’t want to be the one’s to address it.

The funny thing is, I have a couple of Garda (police for those of you reading this from outside Ireland) training with me, they relate stories of the time they spent at the training college. The self defence and arrest procedures training is a standing joke amongst the fraternity. Just ask a copper to show you “Avoid 1”

Where am I going with all this?

Lads working on the font line be it walking the beat or on the doors, even the lads patrolling the isles of the high street shops, will at some point have to get hands on and physically restrain somebody.

If the first thing that comes to mind in this situation is a right cross, you’re going to land yourself not only with a criminal charge, but probably with a law suit amounting thousands of euro. You just can’t get away with it any more.

So some form of training is necessary. To be able to enter, hold, takedown and effectively restrain a non compliant person long enough for assistance to arrive or to get the cuffs on, with the minimal of fuss and violence. A respected doorman with a history of working some of Dublin’s worst Bars said to his manager “If all the lads learned this, nobody would ever get hit again, there wouldn’t be any more claims”.

The Garda Baton training is also extremely basic, with no refreshers or follow up courses. I showed two or three very basic non striking and low impact baton techniques to an experienced copper, his eyes were like saucers and his comments were “we should be teaching that s**t back at the college!”

It seems the only people who would disagree are the bureaucrats.

If your a forward thinking club manager who employs door staff, or you work in the industry, get in touch and either come to or class at Pinnacle or get on one of the Control & Restraint courses we run.

We’re bringing over Steve Tappin in may. Steve trains Police and Security across europe in some of the most up to date tactics available. He’ll be in Dublin for a two day open seminar, but be aware places are limited.

Wild Geese Martial Arts
any cause but our own