The REALLY Important Stuff

[WETSU]

This summer I had the opportunity to serve as a tackle dummy, badguy and instructor for a local police department's Force on Force scenarios. They ran every officer through the evolutions twice, from admin types to SWAT cops. It was an active shooter scenario, with lots of victims running around cluttering the arena and adding confusion.

Guns ran dry or malfunctioned, we went hands on. I used a knife on a lot of them. Both sides gave as good as they got. Good training. Here are some observations and they don't invlove caliber, bullet design, holster set up, gear selection or stance. The Really Important Things:

Weapons handling skills, marksmanship, immediate action/malfunction clearance and personal tactics will win the day. Period.

If you carry a gun for protection, to fight with. Learn that roscoe backwards and forwards. You should know it like a lover in the dark. You should not have to look to see where things go... We all "know" this, we have heard it before. But this pays dividends in a fight. Having to look down at a malfuntioning gun or to do a reload got a couple people "killed". Train on this 1000's of times until you can do it in your sleep. It is really, really important. You should not have to think about it, it should be automatic, so you can focus on fighting and making your next move. Same with proper drawstroke in all segments. Very important to be able to collapse back into retention when a guy in all over you-and still shoot.

Learn to shoot weak hand, off your left shoulder, supine, from position 2 or 3 in the drawstroke. To get your hits. This also paid off.

Marksmanship. Train to to get your hits, with combat acceptable results. In a fight, with tunnel vision and a fast moving, dynamic situation, you want to be to the point where your bullets go where you will them to, without thinking shot placement. Train to shoot on the move and to lead a moving target.

Personal tactics. Work those angles. A lot. Learn how to properly use cover. Train to pie a doorway, approach a T intersection, modulate your pace in a building between fast and slow, extended and compressed. Learn how to use all your senses. Train against a live opponent if possible to learn how to detect their mistakes and read them, and how to minimize your own. Do a debrief each time to learn what each of you did right and wrong and why someone lost the fight.

Take the time to learn some basic retention, extreme close quarter techniques, and when to use the right one. Lots of guys lost it here. They got tunneled in on retaining a long arm, instead of controlling the hand/wrist I was using to stab them with. I am not a knife fighter, Kali kind of guy. I was able to cut and stab a lot, and switch hands behind their back if I got tied up, and continue my attack.

Mindset. Stay in the fight. If you get shot, its not over. Train to use everything to win. Gun, knife, hands, feet, teeth. Never, ever give up.

Train hard guys. Train for the unimaginable as though it was inevitable.

WETSU

 

[shooter521]

Train for the unimaginable as though it was inevitable.

A-FREAKING-MEN.

 

[armedindy]

i need to take a pistol class...i had to be trained to drive a car, id like to be trained on how to use my weapon better...

 

[WETSU]

armedindy. Taking a pistol class is like making a down payment. You still need to make regular payments. Like driving, you do that every day. And will for another 50-70 years God willing. Thats a lot of daily training. You learn a lot during those years. You pick up on all sorts of cues, near misses, visual cues etc. Shooting needs to be the same way. So many people buy a gun, go to the range, line up the sights and punch paper. They take a class. The return to the range, line up the sights and punch paper. They need to take it to another level and learn how to fight. And they need to train with that weapon, on a regular basis.

By all means take a good class. But make regular payments. For life.

 

[lovemachine]

WETSU, you should be a motivational speaker.

Your words hit home for me. I NEED to take another Defensive Pistol class. I only have 2 Defensive Pistol 1 classes under my belt.

 

[rhino]

The Really Important Things:

Amen!

To this I'd add something I've had the opportunity to learn and relearn multiple time, most recently in August: you still need luck to prevail.

Louis Awerbuck has been telling us for years that you need 90% luck to "win." I think he's right.

However ... when thinking about it, I added this in my own mind (and I've shared this with a few others): in order to capitalize on whatever lucky breaks that arise, you have to have that other 10% in skills, mindset, preparation, etc. You have to be ready, willing, and able to immediate seize whatever opportunities arise as well as adapt to adverse circumstances to the best of your ability.

That means educating yourself over your lifetime. Never stop learning. It means continuing to develop your existing skills and abilities and adding new as you can. It means be willing to do what you need to do immediately in order to prevail. It means making most of the "big decisions" ahead of time so that when you have to process huge amounts of sensory input, think, and decide under stress, you have all of the resources at your command to do so.

 

[WETSU]

Rhino, couldn't agree more. One one evolution, a cop hit me square in the melon from 35 feet using an airsoft pistol and the very start of the scenario. None of my mindset, tactics, skill or gear would have helped me. Stuff happens. have your bags packed and be ready to go when your time comes.

That said, as you mentioned. Fortune favors the prepared. Good luck doesn't just happen. There is usually a good deal of ground work that went before the final event to position the winner. Sun Tsu said, "all battles are won, before they are ever fought". The side that prepared best, wins.

And, yep as far as learning for life? Absolutely. Never let age be an obstacle to being on your game. A couple years ago a salty old cop from the same department cleaned my clock when it was GO time. He cleared leather, shot me to the ground and went home. He was cool and did everything right, and made it look easy.

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

Rhino:

Ever hear the phrase "Chance favors the prepared"? ;-)

-J-

 

[esrice]

Good stuff WETSU.

 

[rhino]

And, yep as far as learning for life? Absolutely. Never let age be an obstacle to being on your game. A couple years ago a salty old cop from the same department cleaned my clock when it was GO time. He cleared leather, shot me to the ground and went home. He was cool and did everything right, and made it look easy.

I hate it when that happens!

Rhino:

Ever hear the phrase "Chance favors the prepared"? ;-)

-J-

Indeed, I have!

 

[Shay]

Training needs to be realistic and it definitely sounds like yours was. Training with resistance and stress is the only way to test what you think you know.

Bravo for making safer cops.