In his oldest work (Shanghai Municipal Police - Manual of Self-Defense 1915), W.E. Fairbairn includes the following tidbit towards the end of the book in a section that matches situations and techniques (no picture or further description is in the manual): (2) Your opponent attempts:- (A) To strike you with his fist... (3) With baton, strike forearm a smart blow from below. Those of us who practice certain forms of Jujutsu probably understand a number of reasons why the baton may be down in such a position as to allow this strike - most obviously, it is not particularly civil for police to begin many interactions with weapons in offensive positions (the photo below is from the UN Police Manual 2015, showing the sort of position we are talking about). So one reason to have a less than ideal starting position may be context - especially when equipped with weapons one cannot simply get the weapon between themselves and a possible aggressor, let alone cocked into an aggressive position as