Why GROM are the most dangerous men in Poland? Arek "Motyl" Dembiński

Dembiński quotes the maxim he heard from older colleagues after joining GROM: 'train as you would fight'. He describes how the aggressor team arranged ambushes so creatively that they seemed impossible in a real fight — and yet the guys fell into them. When the commander wanted to prove to another unit that he wasn't going easy on his own, he invited them to watch the OPFOR. After it ended, they said: 'No, well, you did go easy on us after all'. Thanks to this culture, Dembiński himself, entering rooms with charges, had a 'one-to-one replication' of real combat. The effect was confirmed when he was hit by three bullets: no one from his team gave up, everyone executed the procedures 'just as we were trained'. He notes that working with FX and constant exposure to high-fidelity simulations means that 'I practically did a 1 to 1 reflection'.

Dembiński himself has been applying this ritual for years and posts videos on Instagram, where people laugh – but he replies that he has reasons for it. He describes two incidents: a friend had a loud flashbang charge (a firecracker?) planted, after the explosion the driver jumped out, and a second criminal jumped behind the wheel and drove off. Another friend had his tires slashed to immobilize the car and assault him. These cases made him routinely kick every tire. He extends this habit to other means of transport – 'people wrote to me asking if I also walk around a tram like that, a train'. He emphasizes that it's not paranoia, just a simple safeguard against a real scenario.

Dembiński illustrates this in the studio: 'Here you have doors, behind me are doors, and the elevator is on your side. I go to that wall, because I stand with my back and see what's happening. If I stand by the wall, look, I see these doors, these doors behind me, and the elevator when it opens, so that no one comes out and surprises you.' He explains that an attacker can come out from behind and pull you into the elevator, or someone might already be in the elevator and want to kidnap you. Standing by the wall, you are aware of every movement and limit variables. He instilled this tactical habit in himself and teaches it in security training. People laugh at it, but he treats it as seriously as checking the car.

Dembiński tells the story of his wife: she was walking with a friend, four men behind them. One said to another: 'you take that one, and we take that one'. She had no pepper spray or anything. His wife turned around and shouted at the top of her voice: 'You know what, yesterday I found out I have AIDS. What should I do?'. The men immediately stopped and disappeared. Dembiński emphasizes that his wife was not trained by him – she came up with it on the spot. He himself has been teaching people for years in training that in the absence of physical tools, creativity counts. Anticipating that someone is following you, after changing sidewalks and confirming you are being followed, such a disruption can be more effective than running away, because you won't run faster on foot.

Dembiński bases this on observations from Israel, where children are taught to throw their backpack so it falls on the attacker, and how to throw small change 'from bottom to top' so it doesn't fall but hits the face – this gives a fraction of a second. He emphasizes that children should walk in groups of 2-3, because with a group of kidnappers, at least one can always run away and raise the alarm. He recommends using a GPS tracker (chip in shoes), because 'children are unaware'. He advises against pepper spray: one child sprayed it at school, the whole common room had to be evacuated, and another sprayed grandma because they didn't want to go with her. Instead – 112 and immediately take photos of the car. He tells of a case of four drugged children being transported through Poland – the police stopped the car by chance before the mother in Spain could report the kidnapping. Teaching children these procedures can mean the perpetrator doesn't have time to disappear.

After leaving GROM, Dembiński taught in military-oriented schools and saw enthusiasm wane towards elite units. Instead of complaining, he set a goal for the next year to visit at least one such school per month across Poland, entirely self-funded. He describes how seeing a GROM operator in person as a young soldier had compelled him to strive for the unit; he wants to create the same spark. During a Young Generation meeting organized by the Ministry of Defence, he learned that a candidate who passed the grueling selection cited watching 'Młoty Lewy' interviews (including possibly his) as the inspiration that mentally prepared him. He already demonstrated his own equipment and took top students to the GROM Hall of Traditions, which he says 'opened their eyes'. He plans a large event to bring 1,000 military-class students to Warsaw.

Dembiński openly says that two or three years ago he declared 'I'm going back to GROM'. He saw online footage of the unit's new capabilities — the embedded Black Hawks, the holistic Super Warrior support — and felt the pull intensely. However, he had built other income streams (clubs, training) and returning would not make financial sense. His wife understood but he acknowledges the difficult first years after leaving: 'I still wanted to be a commando'. He recognizes that the unit keeps advancing, and his shooting test scores now wouldn't pass current standards, which demonstrates how far training has evolved.

Dembiński recalls when a professor measured caloric burn: police ZBO operators peaked at 6,000 kcal while GROM operators routinely hit 6,000 and one record reached 12,000 kcal. The professor initially thought his equipment was broken. He compares it to Delta Facility food stations with labelled macros, and notes that Delta had blast sensors in Afghanistan 15-20 years ago that triggered immediate medical checks after an IED. Now GROM operators have rehab specialists who prescribe 'silly-looking but effective' exercises using balls and bands, which he himself uses for his injured leg and posts on Instagram despite mockery. The programme has pushed the cost of training an operator well beyond the old estimate of 1 million dollars.

Dembiński discovered this fact in a special magazine he bought for the 35th GROM anniversary. He exclaims that it's 'the only one in the world' — even Delta, SAS, Navy SEALs lack organic helicopter capability. He recounts that during his service, a hostage rescue could not be executed because GROM lacked helicopters; now the unit's own Black Hawks increase operational autonomy. This structural evolution was one of the factors that made him want to return.