The image accompanying this post was apparently taken in 1907 of the City of London Police learning or demonstrating restraint techniques. They are clearly wearing jackets which suggest that there may have been input from some Japanese martial arts into the restraint techniques they were learning at the time. Numerous famous Japanese Judo and Jujitsu men were beginning to come to the UK, and some of them became celebrities — taking on strongmen and wrestlers in public events and becoming notable for overcoming much larger opponents despite their relatively smaller size.
Nevertheless, as with many things, the world of control and arrest, physical intervention, and restraint training has moved forward. In some respects the training hasn’t moved far enough away from the ideas of the transplanted oriental martial arts which were adopted in the early and mid-1900s.
First, a rare good point: there are two officers here, and each of them is assisting in the physical intervention. If you’ve read parts one and two of our series on “What Not to Do,” then you’ll recall that we typically prefer having two people or more involved in restraint interventions. Multiple officers bring more control options and a better safety margin for everyone involved.
💡 Key takeaway: Two-officer restraint interventions are the gold standard. Whenever possible, wait for backup before engaging physically.
Despite the two-officer approach, this restraint technique is extremely fragile. Let’s break down the specific risks that make it a cautionary example rather than a model to follow.
We much prefer it if the person’s head or neck is not being compressed. Specifically, during restraint techniques we don’t want the subject’s airways to be blocked, or for their ability to bring air in — or push it out — to be impeded. When you push a person’s chin to their chest, you start to do dangerous things to their airway and food passageways, which directly increases the risk of positional asphyxia.
When you push a person’s chin to their chest, you start to do dangerous things to their airway — and directly increase the risk of positional asphyxia.
⚠️ Warning: Any technique that compresses the neck or forces the chin to the chest is a positional asphyxia risk. Airway protection must be your first priority in every restraint.
We also need to look at musculo-skeletal disorder (MSD) issues when we design restraint techniques. One of our favoured principles is to keep the spine in as neutral a position as possible so that the risk of an inter-vertebral disc rupture, or of damage to the spinal cord, or of damage to the vertebrae themselves, is minimised to the lowest degree possible.
On close inspection of this photo, you can see that the restrained subject’s neck vertebrae are starting to become visible because of the pressure his head and neck are under.
You can see the restrained subject’s neck vertebrae becoming visible — not a clever restraint technique.
If you are going to take a subject to the ground because “in fast moving encounters, gravity will often prevail,” then you should have a specific plan as to which parts of the subject you want to touch the ground first. One look at this technique and you can tell there is a high chance that during a physical intervention the subject’s head could be the first thing to go into the ground — and with a fair degree of force.
That means four problems in one move:
A further point: the load in these photos — the man’s head — is at full reach from the officers’ bodies. You can see them stooping to achieve the hold on him. We would much prefer they were in better balance, because when things start moving (subjects often resist, after all) then maintaining and “chasing” this restraint technique gets tricky fast. Extended-reach holds collapse under dynamic resistance.
Things have moved on, but every now and then my team and I come across suggested restraint methods that stray from good practice in ways not too far from the one above. The principles are clear: protect the airway, protect the spine, control the descent, and keep yourself in balance.
✅ Action points for trainers: Audit your restraint syllabus against these four risks — airway, spine, head-first impact, and officer balance. If any technique fails two or more, it’s time to redesign.
All the best for now — more advice and training on what to avoid in restraints in our next post in this series.
Gerard O’Dea, Director of Training, www.dynamis.training
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