Page 42 of Crowe
I gave them a few minutes to finish their food and clean up, then I went to the front door and held it open. “Y’all follow Hawk to the training area.”
Once the six of them were lined up on the open ground outside the farmhouse, I stepped up in front of them.
“Today we’re going to start with some hand-to-hand combat training. Hopefully, you already have some hand-to-hand combat skills, but it won’t hurt for you to pay attention anyway. You might learn something. Now, one last thing, I know you’re all law enforcement officers, and you’re used to being the authority, but here at TBT Training Camp, you’re the trainee, I’m the one in charge. Got it?”
They all glanced from side to side at each other, but then they all nodded.
“Okay, Hawk’s going to take the lead. He’s our hand-to-hand combat expert, so pay attention to what he’s showing you this morning.”
Hawk stepped forward. He was built for this. He was a big guy, and he moved in a confident way that said he didn’t need to do anything to prove to you that he was dangerous.
“Hand-to-hand isn’t about strength,” he said. “You’re all going to encounter someone bigger than you at some point.” He glanced at Reyes and Castillo. “Some of you already have. I also know you all have self-defense training, but I want to start with the basics so I can see what we’re working with. We’re going to start with how to break a hold. Simple stuff. Wrist grab, lapel grab, bear hug from behind. You’d be surprised how many situations start with one of those three.”
“What about knife defense?” Webb asked. He was mid-thirties, the most experienced of the group after Reyes.
“That’s this afternoon,” I said. “We’ll run the holds this morning and do knife defense after lunch.”
“Why split it?” Okafor asked. He seemed genuinely curious. I liked that about him.
“Because they require different mindsets,” I said. “Hand-to-hand is about control. Knife defense is about survival. You don’t want to blur those.”
Okafor nodded.
Hawk started them on wrist grabs. I watched from the edge of the grass, arms crossed, tracking each pairing. I was watching for the habits that got people hurt, the instinct to pull away instead of turning into the hold, the tendency to tense up when they should be dropping their weight. Things that I could share with Hawk for later in the morning.
“Castillo,” Hawk said. “You’re fighting the grab. Stop fighting it.”
She reset and tried again. This time, she turned into it instead of against it, and Garza’s grip broke cleanly.
“There,” Hawk said. “That’s it. Again.”
He was like that. He’d tell you what you were doing wrong, show you what right looked like, and then watch you do it until you had it. He never made anyone feel stupid, but he didn’t giveneedless praise either. If he told you you were good, you were good. That was what made him such a good self-defense trainer.
We worked through the morning. Bobby circulated with water and made sure nobody pushed through something they shouldn’t. At one point, Mitchell went down awkwardly on his wrist. He wasn’t injured; it was just a poor landing. Hawk was crouched beside him before I’d taken two steps, checking the range of motion with his hands, asking questions in a low voice that didn’t carry to the rest of the group.
“Walk it off,” he said finally. “You’re fine. Take five minutes.”
They all handled themselves really well, which surprised me a little since their department had specifically requested this as part of their training. But what I’d said earlier was true, and it never hurt to refresh your training.
By eleven-thirty, I called a break for lunch.
Bobby had set out food on the long table in the farmhouse—sandwiches, a pot of soup that had been going since morning, and fruit. The group settled in with the comfortable noise of people who’d been working hard and were ready to eat. I filled a plate and took it to the far end of the table where Hawk was already sitting with his soup and his coffee, looking at something on his phone.
He put the phone face-down when I sat.
“Okafor’s going to be good,” he said.
“I know. The instincts are already there.”
“Reyes, too. I can tell she’s had some training. Not all of it good, but she’s got the discipline to unlearn bad habits, which is rarer.”
Hawk drank his coffee and looked at me with the expression that meant he was deciding how to say something.
“What?” I asked.
“How’s Noah?”
“He’s good,” I said.
