Monday, June 25, 2012

How to spit shine boots!

Spit shining boots seems to be one of the biggest points of frustration for a new recruit. There's not too many things more frustrating than spending hours into the night applying coats of polish, only to show up the next morning to have your R.T.O. tell you how it looks like you polished your boots with a Hershey bar. First, your R.T.O. needs to come up with an original line. Second, there is hope, and once you put in some time to properly put a good base coat on your boots, your shine time will be cut down tremendously for all future maintenance polishings.

There are a lot of online instructions for spit shining, but I've found that even though the instructions are correct, it leaves out important details that will be helpful to the inexperienced shiner. I'm going to include a lot of detail in this post. It's all the things I wish I had known when I started polishing boots.

Selection of the boots is the start point. Some boots are a lot easier than others to shine and some just look better when you finish. I've seen recruits go with the boots that look good polished but aren't very comfortable. I've also seen recruits go with boots that are very comfortable, but are a bear to polish to the standards of a police academy. Most recruits at our academy wear Rocky brand boots with a nice big toe cap. When selecting a good boot to shine, try to get one with a solid and smooth toe on it. I say solid because if you get a boot where the toe is soft and flexes easy, the polish will crack or have creases in it all the time. Smoothness is important because you are going to polish it with the goal of having it as smooth as glass. If you start with a rough and pitted surface, it will be a lot more challenging and take more time to get it how you want it. It's not an absolute necessity to have the toe solid and smooth to start with, but it will sure make your life easier. Some boots have been treated with a silicone coating or other oils or chemicals. Shoe polish will not work on top of these surfaces. If you can't remove whatever chemical is on there, don't get that boot.

Now that you have your boot, let's talk supplies.

1. Polish!

Some say regular black Kiwi. Some say Lincoln. Some say Kiwi Parade Gloss. Some have some off brands that they swear by. I've tried about 5 different brands and types and the differences have been negligible for me. I use Kiwi Parade Gloss because it feels smoother to me and I feel like it's easier to work with.

2. Water.

I've found that room temperature water works best (unless the temperature of your room is freezing). Cold water hardens the polish quicker when you are polishing and you end up with a haze that takes some work to get rid of. So fill up a small bowl or cup with some room temp or slightly warm water and that will work great. This is your "spit." What can be done with spit is accomplished with water all the same. It's just a lubricant while polishing.

3. Polishing cloth.

This is probably the most important part to make sure you don't take short cuts on. If you pick the wrong polishing cloth, you can end up fighting swirls and little scratches the whole time. You will want a soft cotton cloth. Other fabrics just don't get the job done. The cloth must be clean! It seems logical to use some old rag since you're going to just stain the crap out of it, but you cannot use a dirty cloth. A dirty cloth is counterproductive to the shine you're going for. The best cloth I have found is a thick sock. I used tshirts for a couple of years before I used a sock one day because I didn't have a tshirt. It worked great! The thickness helped lighten up the pressure during the polish and it looked great. Some swear by cotton balls. I've tried them and again, it's not that it didn't work, but I prefer working with a soft cloth.

4. Heat source (optional)

Lighter, hair dryer, heat gun... Opinions differ on the use of a heat source. Some feel it compromises the integrity of the leather. I have had excellent results with both a lighter and a hair dryer. I haven't tried a heat gun, but from what I've read online, it's a great option. The process I'm describing here is going to include heating.

5. Edge Dressing

After spending so much time on polishing the tips, a lot of recruits neglect the rest of the boot and still get hammered during inspection despite the great shine. With all the running around you're going to do in these boots, edge dressing is an easy way to keep the edges of the sole looking good. Some edge dressings come in a bottle with an applicator. Some come with a foam applicator tip. Both will get the job done.

6. Brush

Many boots have nooks and crannies where dust gets into and you can't reach it with a rag. A soft nylon brush works great for this.

Alright, now that you have your supplies, clean your boots. Make sure there is no dust or dirt anywhere on the boot. Use that brush to get the hard to reach places. Always do this step first. Cleaning after the polish will mess up your polish job. Leave the edge dressing for the end. If the area to be polished has small particles of dust on it, those particles will be rubbed into the surface and cause scratches. Make sure the boot upper is clean and free of blemishes. Applying some polish to scratches and dull spots will make it look even. If it's more than just a few scuffs, you might have to go with a leather dye to freshen it up. If there are metal eyelets or rivets with black paint chipping off, glossy black nail polish works well to fix that.

Now that your boot is clean, let's get to the polishing. Think of polishing like trying to paint a real grainy piece of wood. If you want it smooth, you have to sand the surface smooth and apply plenty of coats of paint. Most of the coats of polish you will apply will be the "sanding" of your boots so to speak. Once the surface is smooth, then the real spit shining can take place. Don't expect to have good results after three, four, or five coats. This initial polishing takes time.

Step 1.
Take your rag and smear it around the surface of your polish to get a good amount on the rag. Apply a coat onto the surface of the toe of your boot. Don't apply a bunch of pressure. A light touch is key. You want the polish on your boot. This is an area I had questions about when I learned. How thick is too thick if a coat? Well, after applying this coat, you want to set the boot aside and let the coat dry a little so the polish hardens up some. If it's taking longer than just a few minutes to dry, the coat is too thick. The purpose of applying the coat is to start filling in and building up polish in the pits and grooves in the leather, but putting a super thick coat doesn't make it happen quicker.

Step 2.
After the coat has hardened up some, take a clean portion of your cloth and dip it in the water. Get it really wet. Don't wring it out before applying it to your boot either. You want it dripping wet. With very light pressure, rub the wet cloth over the polished surface in small, one inch circles. This is where the "sanding" takes place. As you rub the wet cloth over the surface, you are working on rubbing out the peaks of the polish to try and even it out with the pits and grooves of the leather you are trying to fill in with the polish. With the early coats, don't expect the surface to become perfectly smooth. It's gong to look rough until those pits and grooves really get filled in.

Step 3.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you have at least 5 or 6 coats on. You want a good thick base of polish before applying heat. If you apply heat too early, the coat will be too thin and it will just melt it down to the leather.

Step 4.
Apply another medium coat of polish like you have been doing in step one. Now apply your heat source to the polished area. Depending on what you are using, it might be a quick heat application and it might be a little longer. With a lighter, it shouldn't take any longer than a few seconds to melt the entire polished surface. With a hair dryer, it takes a little longer depending on how hot your hair dryer is. Whatever your heat source, apply the heat until the polished surface shows a high gloss shine. That shine means the polish has melted. When it melts, it smooths the surface out. If you're using a lighter, hold your boot upside down so the flame can reach it evenly.

Once it is nice and shiny, remove the source of heat. If you leave it on too long, it will just melt it down closer and closer to the leather surface, which is not what you want. When you remove the heat, the surface will quickly go from shiny to dull and will have several splotchy shades of black and gray. Don't be alarmed. It's supposed to look like that. Set the boot aside and let it cool off for a few minutes before going on to the next step. Never apply heat with any amount of moisture on the polished surface! The heat will cook the water and cause bubbling in your polish.

Step 5.
Repeat Step 2, but apply extremely light pressure and make your circular motions really fast. Light pressure is key! You will start to see that smooth surface forming and for the first time, your efforts will start to seem worth it. Now check the surface for smoothness. If it still has that orange peel texture on the surface, go back and add a couple more coats (Step 1 and 2), and then complete Step 4 again. Keep repeating these steps until the surface has a glassy smooth surface. This does not mean it should reflect and shine like a mirror! The final polishing step is still to come. You are just trying to get all of the texture out of it so you have as smooth a surface to polish as possible.

Step 6.
Once the surface is nice and smooth, get a clean spot on your cloth, apply a SMALL amount of polish on the cloth at your fingertip, and dip that portion of the cloth in the water so it's soaking wet. The amount of polish you want on the cloth is so slight you might wonder if it's going to make any difference at all. Remember, you already smoothed the surface out. This goal here is to apply an very thin coat to make the surface glassy and deep black in color. Rub the polish onto the surface with very light pressure. Water should be running all over the toe because your cloth is that wet. You should barely be able to feel the surface of the boot because you are rubbing that light. When you look at your cloth, you shouldn't see any black on it because the polish was all left on the boot surface. If it's black, you applied too much pressure and the boot pushed the polish back into the cloth instead of staying on the surface. Do small sections at a time. You will have to get more polish and dip your cloth in water multiple times before you have covered the entire toe area.

If it's not even, repeat this step. If you apply 2 or 3 finishing coats and it still looks rough, you might need to repeat steps 4, 5 and 6 a couple more times. You will know when you are done when you can see yourself in your boots and the surface is as smooth as glass.

Depending on your academy staff, you might need to also polish the heel of your boot. It's better to show up on the first day with a high polish on the heel and not need it, than showing up with a dull heel and get yelled at about it.

Now apply the edge dressing. Make sure it gets applied evenly around the entire sole edge around the boot.

You're boots are now good to go!

If your laces start looking like crap...get new laces.

If your boots start looking like crap even with a good polish and clean...go get some new boots. I have had the same boots for three years and they look great, but the day they look less than professional I'm buying some new ones. Don't try to polish a turd.

From this point on, you should only need to clean the toe with water and repeat steps 5 and 6 to keep the surface shiny. This usually works 4 or 5 times for me before I put a medium coat on and melt it to get the surface nice and smooth again. The initial shine will take hours, but each maintenance shine afterwards should take only 5-15 minutes depending on if you need to melt a coat on.

Occasionally you will get a deep gash on the polished surface. This sucks and will require you to work a long time to fill it in with polish. You might even need to strip polish off to get down to the depth of the gash and start with an even surface, but you can get it back to looking good with some work.

Don't be a slacker when it comes to your boots. Who do you shine your boots for? Not the public. Not your R.T.O.'s. Not the suspects. You shine your boots for yourself. If you take pride in how you look, it will show in how you carry yourself. Command presence is very important in this job. Looking good and exuding confidence is a huge part of this.












Sunday, June 24, 2012

Luck Favors the Prepared

Like I discussed in my last post in regards to PT, you do not want to wait until you start the first day of the academy to start studying and learning. There are areas you can study and become as much as an expert at as possible while you're preparing.

I don't mean you should get a hold of all of the Learning Domain workbooks and start cramming. You're not going to be able to become an expert on subjects covered in over 40 books in the amount of time you have. These are best studied with your classmates and the instructors teaching them. But what about radio codes? Get a hold of the list of radio codes from your sponsoring agency and start memorizing! If you are a non-affiliate, you should be able to obtain a list of radio codes from the academy you will be attending. If not, be resourceful. Talk to past recruits who attended that academy and see if they can help you get the material. Academies administer radio code quizzes toward the beginning of the academy. If you know them word for word before day one, you will have more time to dedicate to studying other material because you have the radio codes nailed.

What else can you do? Go get your boots and learn how to spit shine! When I started the academy, I had no idea what the standard for boot shining was. I had never been taught how to spit shine and really didn't know how they were supposed to look. It's more of a skill than you think. Learning on the fly can cause extra stress during the academy. Spend the hours learning how to perfect the spit shine now instead of on the nights you could be studying. Avoid getting yelled at by your R.T.O. and make yourself an asset to the rest of your classmates who don't know how.

Learn how to properly press a uniform. Jump on YouTube or hit up your military buddies to start learning the basics of drill. Take a writing class if you're weak in that area. Study grammar! Report writing class will not have time to fix your writing deficiencies. They are supposed to concentrate on teaching you how to write police reports, not helping you play catch up because you didn't pay attention to grammar rules in elementary school.

Get your life in order. You will not, or at least you should not, have the time to take care of major car or home repairs, move to a new apartment, deal with finance issues, have that surgery you've been putting off, the list can go on and on. When you start the academy and have the goal of excellence in mind and not just getting through to graduation, you don't want to have extra stressors in your life that don't need to be there. Some things you just don't have control of, but square away the things you can take care of now.

If you already have been offered a job with an agency or you know which agencies you're going to apply with, start doing ride-alongs with them. This gives you some great exposure to the job and you have the opportunity to pick the brain of an officer or deputy who possibly attended the academy you will be going to. Just keep in mind that academies change. A 25-year veteran can give you invaluable advice about the career, but likely has no idea how to prepare for the academy you're getting ready for. Even those who attended just a few years ago may not be familiar with the most recent changes at their alma mater. So get some good advice, but be ready to make adjustments if things have changed.

Luck favors the prepared. If you have the time now, but choose to put it all off until you have to, you're starting a pattern that will follow you for the rest of your life until you change. Why not make that change now and start a pattern of always being on top of things for the rest of your life?

Saturday, June 23, 2012

PT!!

Writing about Physical Training (PT) first isn't my way of saying it's the most important aspect of the academy. In fact, I have seen many a recruit enter the academy believing that since they are in phenomenal shape that the academy will be a breeze. They can PT all day long, but they struggle miserably in other areas. The reason I am including this topic so early on is that it is one aspect of the academy where preparation can and should be started immediately.

So what can you expect? How good of shape do you really need to be in? The answer really depends on which academy you attend. The academy I attended concentrated HEAVILY on long distance running. I think I can count the number of non-running PT sessions on one hand. The only question we ever needed answered was, "Are we running 6 miles to the north today or to the south?" At the academy where I am currently assigned, we do a long distance run for PT maybe once every other week or so. Our PT sessions concentrate more on full body workouts, core strength exercises and sprints. Most PT programs in the state will be adopting a program similar to ours soon enough, as the Lifetime Fitness program is being redesigned by POST to move more toward these ballistic style workouts. Apparently we do more sprinting after suspects in this job than jogging after them for 6 miles. Who knew? Regardless of which PT program your academy runs, if you prepare yourself, you will do well in even the most difficult programs. If it turns out to be an easier program, you'll be a rockstar.

Mistake #1 is to show up on the first day of the academy with the hopes that the academy staff will whip you into shape. This doesn't work because the majority of the recruits show up on the first day in great shape already. You will be the one lagging behind the class on runs and getting yelled at to get off your knees while the class is doing push-ups. You will also be fighting to stay awake to study at night because you're so exhausted from the workouts and you will suffer academically. Show up in the best shape of your life. You will perform better in other areas of the academy and the PT program will do what it's designed to do without killing you.

By this time, many of you are familiar with the physical agility tests different agencies put applicants through. These can consist of a dummy drag, wall climb, 500 yard run, a 99-yard obstacle course, and various other tests agencies decide to use. If you aren't familiar, look it up online. Many agencies publish exactly what their physical tests consist of on their website, or you can call and ask. In my opinion, you could almost roll off the couch, wipe the potato chip crumbs off your shirt and pass these tests in flip flops. This makes it even that much more sad when applicants show up to this test during the hiring process, get light headed and throw up from exhaustion.

Most academies supplement the standard POST agility tests with additional physical testing for the recruits. These are usually a more true test of your overall fitness. Pull-ups, sit-ups, push-ups and a mile and a half run are common exercises recruits are tested on in addition to the mandated tests. Sit-ups and push-ups are often tested by how many you can do in one minute. If you can do at least 50 sit-ups in a minute and 50-push-ups in a minute, you should be fine in this area. Recruits with above average fitness get up into the 70's and 80's with sit-ups and push-ups. Pull-ups are sometimes timed, but usually you are just tested on your max reps without stopping. 20 pull-ups is a great goal before the academy starts. Over 20 pull-ups is excellent. As far as the mile and a half run, there are some rabbit recruits who can run it in under 9 minutes. This is a great time and I suggest doing what you can to get there, but it is not a common achievement. An acceptable time would be down around 10-11 minutes. That being said, don't get your time down to 10 minutes and stop. Keep training hard and get your time down as low as you can!

I am not going to include specific workouts in this post, but I will tell you that your workouts need to vary. Don't just go to the gym and hit the weights. Don't just go out and run until you drop, five days a week. You need to achieve a balance between strength, cardio and endurance. When you run, include hill runs, sprints, as well as long distances. Make sure you include a lot of core exercises. Your core is such an important aspect of your overall physical conditioning and should not be neglected. Every week or so, take a day of rest and then test yourself to see how you're progressing. If you aren't improving, you aren't working hard enough. Try any of the popular workout programs out there like P90X, Crossfit, or Insanity. Log onto the Internet and try different workouts you find on YouTube. Whatever you do...WORK HARD.

There is always the recruit who shows up terribly out of shape and tries to downplay it by telling us, "But I lost 40 lbs. before the beginning of the academy." Great job. I applaud your accomplishment, but that doesn't make the fact that you are in horrible shape go away. An obese person could stop eating ice cream every night and walk one mile a day and lose 40 lbs. in short order. Just because you are in better shape than before does not mean you are in great shape. Set higher goals for yourself. If you can't get into great shape by the time the academy starts, then maybe you should hold off on applying until you can get yourself there. When you enter this career, your life ceases to be just about you. The lives of the public, your partners, your partners' families and your own family count on your physical ability to do this job. Sometimes you have to make a mature decision and put your own needs aside. If you can't make that commitment, maybe you should take more time to prepare yourself and apply next year.

Usually the biggest hurdle for people in regard to PT is themselves. A recruit might try three times to do a set of twenty push-ups during a PT session and crumble to their knees after only ten. Then an instructor or an R.T.O. stands next to them and motivates them to keep going and not quit and they can miraculously complete all 20 push-ups. Why does this happen? Most people have a false sense of where their physical limits are. It takes someone forcing you to go beyond those limits to learn where your true limits are. When you can push yourself to your true limits on your own, you will get the most out of your PT sessions.

STOP EATING CRAP!! Start taking nutrition seriously. Stop eating fast food and microwaving frozen pizza pockets. Cut out the unnecessary sugars. Take a nutrition class. At the very least get on the Internet and start educating yourself on the right way to eat. There is plenty of information out there. Exercise and nutrition go hand in hand. The reason this Learning Domain is called Lifetime Fitness, is because it is something we should instill in ourselves forever, and not just during our time at the academy. This job is physically demanding and adds a lot of stress into our lives. Proper diet and exercise will keep it from taking too many years off of our life.

This is such a broad subject and I couldn't possibly cover all of the aspects in one post. I will break things down in greater detail in future posts, but the point I want to get across right now is to start getting yourself into shape. Whatever you decide to do, give it maximum effort. Don't cheat yourself. If you do, you will wish you hadn't by the end of week one of the academy.

Email me if with any questions. I have no problem offering advice on nutrition and exercise. I'm not an expert, but I have learned quite a bit and am willing to share what I know.

Motivate yourself and get to work!

Friday, June 22, 2012

Excellence


This is my first blog post, and I want my first post to let readers know who this is intended for, why I might have something to offer regarding success in a police academy, and what you can expect to get out of this blog. I've never written a blog before, but I've noticed a lack of material out there that could help recruits prepare themselves prior to entering a basic police academy. I am a recruit training officer (R.T.O.) at a basic police academy in California and have graduated several classes. Prior to putting in to be an R.T.O., I was a field training officer for several years at an agency with over 1,000 badged personnel. I've done some other things in my career, but those two are the most relevant for what I want to get across to my readers.

In my years at the academy, I've seen a number of recruits fail, quit, just do enough to get to the graduation stage, and push themselves past their limits to achieve excellence. By the nature of my assignment, I never have the opportunity to speak with recruits to give them advice on how to better prepare themselves prior to starting. Additionally, I don't have the chance while they are recruits to really spend a lot of time with them individually and give them valuable advice to help them get the most out of their academy experience. With a large class, I might get a handful of one-on-one talks with a recruit, and they are very valuable training moments, but it's never enough time to say everything I want to. I am hoping this will give me that opportunity.

The information I'm going to write is intended for those who are preparing themselves to enter an academy. Whether that means you are putting yourself through as a non-affiliate, trying to get hired and be sent to an academy, or you have received an offer letter from an agency to sponsor you and you have a start date, you are who I am writing this information down for. This is not an advice column on how to get hired by an agency. I have never worked in backgrounds and it seems like my department changes what they are looking for with every new hiring pool anyway. Even if I had worked in backgrounds, every agency emphasizes different qualities in what they are looking for in a new hire and I'm not willing to tackle that dragon. This is also not a discussion board for cops to offer their opinions and get in Internet brawls with each other about what they think is the right way to do things. If you are a LEO and have some valuable advice or insight on one of the topics, shoot me an email and I'll include your comments if it's relevant. But if you simply want to know what you can do to get yourself ready...read on.

In the following posts you will read about both mental and physical preparation. Everything from your attitude, how to prepare your uniform, and physical demands, to dealing with the R.T.O.'s and/or drill instructors will be covered here. I am going to be as candid and blunt as possible. If you aren't willing to make any personal changes and believe you are the perfect candidate who would be a blessing to any agency, and they better act fast because you won't be on the market long...do me a favor and leave my blog. Come back when you have found some humility and might actually get something out of it. Law enforcement is filled with way too many badges who believe they are bigger than the profession. You are a problem in the academy and an even bigger problem on the streets.

One of the things I tell my recruits is that during their time with me, I'm going to hold a mirror up and be very frank with them about their deficiencies that could cause them problems in this profession. If they don't have thick skin and a willingness to make some changes, it might hurt a little. Some people don't like being told that they are lazy, passive, overweight, or that they have a quitter's attitude. So if you want to learn what qualities make an excellent recruit and set the stage for becoming a great officer...read on. And feel free to send me emails. I will do my best to email you back with answers or cover your question in a future post.

MOTIVATE!!!