Unique Practitioners Part V: Goz Gozwellings- P1

Goz Gozwellings is a Krav Maga practioner with KMM, practicing at the Solihull and King's Heath branches of the club. She also works in an all male prison.

"So how long have you been a member of Krav Maga Midlands?"

"Since a year last November."

"What do you do for a living?"

"I work in the prison service. I'm custodial manager rank, which is the equivalent of an Inspector in the English police. I line manage 25 prison guards directly and I work in the security and intelligence department so I also run the gaol on a rota basis. The prison has over 1000 category B and C prisoners, so I have to run a prison with that many people."

"Do you ever have to go hands on with the prisoners? To be in actual physical contact with them?"

"Yes, you do. We're trained in control and restraint which are techniques we have to refresh every year. The aim now is also on de-escalation techniques rather than going hands on but even putting a "hand on" as in putting a hand on someone to make them move is classed as physical contact and we have to fill out paperwork to justify it. At my rank I normally turn up at the end and oversee the incident and assess what's going on."

"Just to set the scene for those reading this, how tall are you?"

"I like to kid myself I'm 5 feet 4, but I'm really five two if I'm lucky."

"What category prisoners do you deal with?"

"We take all sorts. Some times we get uncategorised prisoners and they get cat A. That's the highest security prisoner you can get. Highest risk to the public. As a rule we're category B which is one down from maximum security. We have remand, sentenced, lifers. We have cat D who return because they fail their open conditions. We can have every type of prisoner. It's a very mixed population."

"With over 1000 prisoners, how many guards work in the prison on a shift?"

"Well, the unit I used to run holds 200 prisoners and and you'd normally work an SO, Senior Officer, and five. Quite often when I was a prison officer you'd get me on a spur which is half of a landing and there'd be me to about 60 which is quite average."

"Have you had any physical attacks or altercations with prisoners?"

"Yeah, I mean I've been lucky I've been in the job 12 years but I've been involved in control and restraint of prisoners. I've had prisoners square up to me. In my job, unlike in Krav, I try to use a lot of de-escalation. Sometimes you're on your own when the altercation occurs. So, over the years I've been involved in all sorts."

"Do you carry batons?"

"Yes we do. We carry the big extendable batons which are similar to the police. We don't have any CS or gas, or any stab vests or anything like that. Now the population has changed there's a lot of hand made weapons on the units, a lot of drug use so we're dealing with the same people that the police are outside but without the equipment. That's why we do have to rely on de-escalation. Also we work in closed spaces so if you're in a cell you wouldn't be able to use gas anyway. Pepper spray is used very rarely if the National Tactical Group are called in, if we have a situation that we can't deal with locally. I've been involved in hostage situation where three prisoners are in a cell or behind a barricade and we have had to use pava."

"Why did you take up Krav?"

"I always wanted to do a martial art but I didn't know what. For about 10 years I've been talking about it. It was originally nothing to do with the job. I'm a bit of a rough and tumble person, although contrary to belief I'm not actually a very aggressive person. I don't like fighting. So it's for my own personal fitness, my own personal protection but also it has changed the way I look at things at work now. So if I was on my own I wouldn't think twice to use Krav now rather than control and restraint because you can't do it with a group of people so it's more practical which is why I like it. In a cell no situation is the same. You've got bunk beds, you've got furniture, maybe weapons all sorts. It's all risk assessed but spontaneous stuff isn't, you just react."

"So has Krav helped you at work?"

"I'm more conscious now of people behind me when I'm on walkways for example. I move and scan more. When we did our last control and restraint refresher, which we do yearly, I realised just how much more practical Krav is. I work with a lot of female officers in a male prison. So the obvious thing is to disable a threat quickly. If I was on my own and I felt threatened I would use Krav now."

"The motto is 'So that one may walk in peace' after all"

"Yes, it's down to perception. My colleagues and even the prisoners now think I can take care of myself. It's part of it, how you carry yourself. It's about perception and someone backing off and leaving you alone."

"You have all male prisoners. How many of the staff are female?"

"There's a lot more now but it's still very male orientated. It used to be a job that people went into from the army. That's changed now, it's more about people skills. I also find that in a male prison, women tend to keep the peace better. As a rule prisoners are more respectful of females. When you're like me you can be an authority or mother figure. Some of them have never had the word 'no' said to them before and they've got no boundaries so you're having to almost parent some of the prisoners."

"That's interesting because I would have imagined it would be a lot of wolf whistling."

"You do get that as well. You get a lot of inappropriate behaviour and you have to obviously stamp that out and challenge it because if you don't you know that there'll play on that. They know that I'm not somebody who's easily intimidated."

"Do you think that Krav Maga should be taught to new people coming into the prison service?"

"Yes, I do. It's a lot more practical. Apart from control and restraint we also do breakaway and personal protection. For the staff and civilians it would be so much more practical. Even if it was just to shout "GET BACK!" with a knee or a kick. It's very practical and that's what I like about Krav."

"Why do you think this country has such a 'softly, softly' approach to use of force, both in the police and the prison service?"

"In this job there will always be staff who take it too far and they can almost be barbaric. They use excessive force when they don't need to and because of things that have happened in the past such as prisoners who've gone on to commit suicide or control and restraint that's gone wrong. I think that's why it changed. People can asphyxiate if they're in the wrong position. Every year our syllabus gets changed. There's techniques they take out because they're considered indecent. It's a fine line. Also there's a lot of paperwork now."

"Finally, what would your motto for life be?"

"Feel the fear, do it anyway. Push past it. I'm six feet tall in my head."

** Photos by Lance Manley and Krav Maga Midlands.

Unique Practitioners Part II: Russell Brotherston- G4

On Tuesday 25th February I interviewed Russell, one of the instructors at Krav Maga Midlands. He has some very eye opening revelations about the attitude of Management in mental health care towards self defence.

So, who are you?

I’m Russell Brotherston, I’m 34 years old and I’m a G4 level Krav Maga Midlands instructor and have been for the last two years. I also live in Stratford-upon-Avon.

What did you do before you became a Krav Maga instructor?

I did a few things. I worked for a charity for about 11 years. Mainly working around nursing homes doing recovery. It wasn’t elderly it was anyone who was 18 to 65. Specialising mainly in schizophrenia, bi-polar, manic depressive…that sort of thing. So there was a lot of unpredictable behaviour. Also did community support for the same charity in and around Coventry. That was going to visit adults but also keeping my eyes peeled for if I thought there was any child abuse going on. Levels of assessment involved there. I also did some work on the acute wards in hospitals.

What does that involve?

The acute wards are mainly centred around people who are going on or coming off medication so their behaviour is very unpredictable. Sometimes people who have mental health problems but they haven’t been assessed yet. So for example people who’ve been arrested who are dangerous and they don’t know where to put them so they put them on an acute ward.

What attracted you to Krav Maga as a practitioner in the first place?

Well, I’d done lots of martial arts before. I’d done Judo, Muay-Thai, Kickboxing and European Kickboxing. I also do some normal boxing as well. All of those seemed very rule orientated. There wasn’t really any room for changing. The thing I liked about Krav was that it was the first thing I’d seen where you could spar with like 3 or 4 guys at the same time. You don’t do that in any other fighting sport. The most I’ve heard is in Jiu Jitsu going against two people. I also liked the fact that there was no specific rules so there’s room to develop your own style. Not everyone has the same strengths and weaknesses. I’d see videos on the internet and there’d be people doing different defences for the exact same problem. I was thinking “are these different schools?” but then you’d see them on the exact same promotional video for the exact same club. So they were allowing them flexibility. And of course, the one that everyone likes. You get to do groin strikes.

Did you feel you needed to learn Krav for your job?

Yeah, because when I was working in the mental health sector they don’t want you to do any proper self defence which is quite strange.

Did they give you any self defence training?

We did breakaway training which is done learning very dated techniques. The instructor told me he’d been teaching the exact same thing for 30 years. He hadn’t got any qualifications in self defence. He had one for doing Jiu Jitsu. But he didn’t talk that much about “what if there’s a problem?” For example he was talking about someone choking you from the front and he showed us a solution that WOULD work…provided the attacker attacked you in a very specific way. He didn’t make that clear or anything so when he got me to choke him and I held him in a way that wasn’t good for the technique he was like, “No, no. Put your arms like this!”

But I didn’t get any breakaway training until about 6 years into the job when me and another member of staff were assaulted by patients on the same day, but at different centres. That’s what prompted it. Came out of nowhere. That’s what happens in the mental health world. I had to react in a calm way which the job hadn’t prepared me for. They’d prepared me more in the hospital but only marginally.

Do you feel the training they gave you was for insurance and health and safety compliance rather than keeping you safe?

Yeah, completely. I’d been there 11 years and I did one breakaway training course for one day, that with the lunch break probably lasted about 6 hours, half of which was the instructor talking. A Q&A session about how people get stressed and you can calm them down by talking. We probably did about two and a half hours of physical work and I never broke a sweat the whole time. It was rubbish to be honest.

I saw the advert for Krav Maga Midlands when I had to take someone to the police station, the flyer was up in the reception. That was about 2 years before I became an instructor. I went to loads of lessons, asked Bartosz for lots of tips and had my punchbag in my garage where I practiced for about 6 days a week for at least an hour, hour and a half, just going through strikes.

Did your hospital or the other organisations tell you not to use self defence tactics but only to disengage from a violent situation?

Yeah, that’s basically what you’re meant to do. That’s what breakaway training is. It only works for if someone goes to grab you. It’s not for if someone tries to punch you or kick you or stab you. There was one incident I heard of where a patient grabbed a fire extinguisher and chased someone down the corridor. The real element that happens is that people at work do what they need to do to get out of a situation. I know a woman attacked by 5 or 6 patients at the same time in the canteen. All she could do was hide under the table. Legally we’re not meant to go in and do anything, but another guy ran in, grabbed her arms and dragged her out. He was legally meant to leave her to be beaten up, that’s what they say you should do. Which I find disgusting. That’s one of the reasons I got out of it as I thought there was no way I was getting sued for defending myself.

When the guy punched me they asked me if I wanted to press charges. Friends were saying I should as he knew it was wrong. But from the standpoint of the company it’s just a hazard of the job

On a more cheerful note. You teach kids as young as 6 Krav Maga?

The stuff I teach the kids in class is different. Kids don’t have that fear element. You know with forward rolls you build up to it in height. Kids will ask me to put the pad for them to jump over at about chest height. They take to it because the only similar thing is something like Tae Kwon Do where you stand in a formal line, it’s very uniformed and you’re put in with the adults. Kids don’t like to learn like that. They like to run around and play so you put it in the format of a game. For them it’s playing, building their co-ordination and motor skills. Their parents watching from the side can see the self defence connotations.

It’s interesting with the hospitals and charities not wanting you go hands on, the irony is that children, with all those rules around contact and DBS clearance to work with them and we’re teaching the next generation a much more common sense approach including kicking to the groin.

Exactly. I talk to the parents first so they know  that it’s Krav, it’s a physical thing. I’m going to be playing rough and tumble games with their kids picking their kids up, spinning them round. I’m going to be wrestling like 3 or 4 at once, they’re going to be trying to pin me down (laughs). It’s just part of the thing. You’ve got to teach them that if they’re not running away or making a lot of noise. A bunch of 6 or 7 kids can quite happily take out an adult if they’re punching and kicking. That’s what they do to me. They don’t get the chance to do that anywhere else. The stuff they learn with me is specifically for class or if something serious happens. The hard thing is convincing them not to try the tactics on other kids.

In the kids’ classes they learn two responses to everything. Response against a child and another to an adult. If a kid grabs them in a bear hug then they can’t really start kicking them in the groin or elbowing them in the head. They do Rapping On The Barn Door which is rapping the knuckles so they person lets go which won’t work on an adult.

Which do you prefer teaching? Adults or children?

(Laughs) It’s a totally different thing. Well I can teach adults for a lot longer. Children’s classes are tiring. It’s 6 of 1 and half a dozen of the other. Kids when they’re in great mood can be so much fun, they really can engage. At the same time they can get really wound up and get really hyper and get quite disobedient. So it’s a question of keeping their attention so you stop and start, stop and start. Ideally I’d like a child’s energy in an adult. Kids can go on for games for ages. Adult games like 1 or 2 minutes, with kids it’s about 5. They run and run until you tell them to stop.

Any advice to anyone wanting to become a Krav Maga instructor?

Do like I did. Train and train and train. Anything like sports, the basic things you know just keep doing them, fast and slow again and again. A good idea is to get a camera and film yourself so you can see what you’re doing. Another is to get together with students you know, preferably of a higher level so you’re always training with people with more knowledge than you. Like when I did basketball I played with better people. Eventually I could compete with them but for a long time they thrashed me (laughs).

What would be your motto for life?

Do not be too timid or squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment . The more experiments you make, the better.