By the end of this week, Brantford’s Bryon Davis plans to be physically and mentally qualified to train the city’s current and future police officers in a program called Applied Defensive And Preventative Tactics, or ADAPT.

The program was developed by Earl Portnoy, grand master of the Shui Huo or Fire and Water system of Kung Fu, and involves everything from handcuffing, controls and escorts to takedowns, baton use, pressure points and even the use of a common belt as a weapon.

Davis is the first person in Canada to be trained how to teach by Portnoy in the ADAPT program which has been used to train local police in Texas as well as Texas State Troopers, U.S. National Guard, Army Special Forces, U.S. Air Troopers and FBI.

The owner of D and D United Martial Arts Davis practises Goju-Ryu and Wadokai karate as well as Brazilian Jui-Jitsu and has been a martial artist for 25 years and taught for 10.

The hope is that he will become skilled enough to train local law enforcement to do their jobs more proficiently and safely.

“The aim is to get as proficient as he is, he has a really good, proven program and there’s nothing that’s even close to what he does up here [in Canada],” Davis said. “The law enforcement needs it and really deserves it.”

“The police have a hard job but they deserve the best training there is and that’s the goal, to bring it to them.”

Variations of ADAPT have also been used to train hospital staff and flight attendants and could be used locally by Davis to make various high-risk jobs safer.

Portnoy started practising martial arts when he was 17and started teaching in 1972. Since then he has developed several martial arts schools as well as private security and bodyguard companies.

He and Davis met around two years ago at the martial arts hall of fame in Houston, Texas and have been working together on Davis’ ADAPT skills for almost a year.

Portnoy said while the system is easily picked up, he wanted Davis to be the first to teach it in Canada because he felt he was a comprehensive learner and very skilled.

“The system that we teach is a comprehensive system and it’s very easily learned. You get everything from non-lethal to very lethal where you could fight five or six people,” he said. “He [Davis] wants to learn and that makes a whole lot of difference to an instructor. He learns fast and he learns well.”

Portnoy and Davis had scheduled to meet with Brantford police today to discuss the logistics of the program and the necessary steps that need to be taken to have it implemented in the city.

This week was the last of many training sessions and saw the sparring partners work for five days, 12 hours a day through various methods and techniques.