Cutting Edge Training for Maryland Law Enforcement

It’s not the sort of activity you would expect to find in a church on a week night. Instead of a Bible study or prayer group, the fellowship hall of the First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Odenton is filled with people kickboxing, grappling on the floor, and swinging sticks and blunt, rubber training knives at each other. The room is full of men and women from their teens to their fifties practicing the Jeet Kune Do. Jeet Kune Do is a street fighting system designed for self-defense and often trained by the military and law enforcement.

The class is taught by JB Jaeger, the head instructor of the Maryland Jeet Kune Do Academy. A bouncer and personal security specialist, he has taught men, women, and children of all ages how to protect themselves since opening the Academy over five years ago. In addition to his civilian students, many members of local law enforcement and military personnel attend his classes, often without the rest of his students knowing. It is the realistic nature of what Jaeger teaches that brings them to the training courses at the Maryland Jeet Kune Do Academy.

“We’re pretty centrally located between Annapolis, Baltimore, and Washington, DC, as well as being right next to Fort Meade. There’s plenty of organizations in this area that have the need for what we offer here, from local law enforcement like the Anne Arundel County Police to other state and federal agencies,” Jaeger said, though he did not disclose any of these agencies and stated that they show full discretion to their clients, whether they are civilian, law enforcement, or military. “Many of the people who train with us have reasons to do so, be that their job or otherwise.”

Many law enforcement officers look to instructors like Jaeger to supplement the training they receive through their own agencies, as many agencies are not able to devote the time or funding to continued defensive tactics training. With incidents like recent events in Baltimore and around the country, many officers are looking for ways to further their understanding of self-defense and how to solve situations without having to resort to deadly force. According to Jaeger, he is the only instructor in the state of Maryland certified by the Jeet Kune Do Athletic Association to teach these tactics specifically designed for law enforcement and military scenarios. He instructs periodic courses that are open only to law enforcement and military personnel through Annapolis Defense & Security, an all-military veteran owned defensive tactics facility in Odenton, Maryland .

Jaeger believes that Jeet Kune Do is an ideal defensive system for law enforcement officers because it widens their options to handle situations without resorting to lethal force. Jaeger says this is referred to this as the Force Continuum.

“Most officers are periodically required to requalify on their side arm but many of the officers I work with state that aside from the training they received in the Academy, they don’t get continued training on tactics for dealing with edged weapons at close range or multiple unarmed combatants at close range,” Jaeger said.

The Jeet Kune Do he teaches offers them options for dealing with such high stress scenarios.

“What we teach deals with every facet of combat. We work with edged and impact weapons, from knives and sticks to improvised weapons, anything that an assailant or you can put your hands on to defend yourself. We practice weapon deployment and retention, unarmed striking and grappling on the ground, situations that officers will likely have to deal with, but may not receive continued training in,” he said.

One particular situation that Jaeger specializes in instructing is edged weapon defense. According to him, this is an often neglected and misunderstood area of training that can have lethal implications, as was seen this past weekend when a Baltimore City police officer was stabbed while responding to a domestic dispute. Jaeger states that Jeet Kune Do training gives officers familiarization with how knives are used in close quarters, through a sub-set of their training in a Filipino martial art called Kali.

“One of the things we often hear back is ‘Well, if he’s got a knife, I’ll just shoot him’. The reality is that it’s not that easy to deploy your firearm and get off an accurate, stopping shot if the knife wielder is within twenty-one feet of you, and that is assuming you know he is armed with a knife and you are twenty-one feet away from him. We’ve seen time and time again through training and real life events that a knife wielding attacker can fatally stab an officer before he is able to clear his holster. You need more than just a reliance on your sidearm to deal with these situations, and that familiarity with edged weapons combatives is what we specialize in,” Jaeger said. “That can literally be the difference between life and death.”