Everything is going really well! We get to do arrest control and firearms training twice a week now, which is helping us develop hands-on skills we need. Arrest control is really interesting and fun too. We have been learning lots of holds and takedowns to use if necessary. Last week we got out our handcuffs for the first time and learned how to "hook" someone up as they say in the law enforcement world. This was neat because handcuffs will be one of our most frequently used tools as cops. One thing we have learned is that it is good to break in your cuffs before using them. The ones issued to most of us are very stiff and unkind to our wrists.
Shooting at the range is a blast (no pun intended). Our instructors are very experienced and are there to give us good advice and teach us new techniques during each range session. A benefit of this academy is that we have instructors from many departments within the county rather than from just one department. This means that we get some of the best from the entire Denver metro area. I definitely have some of the least experience in my range group but I am quickly learning and will continue to improve. I will try to post some pictures from the range soon.
Things are definitely continuing to pick up. The written tests have been more frequent and challenging and PT has definitely been increasing in intensity. Today, we did a modified (quite modified) version of a Navy SEALs workout but it was still very tough. We were told afterwards by Deputy Joselyn that this workout gives us a good idea of where we are at physically and what we need to work on. Boy is he right and I have lots of work to do. We will eventually work up to this full workout or at least close to it I think. In PT we have been working on improving both our cardio and strength. We continue to be challenged every single day both mentally and physically. We need to be tough in both categories.
