Since We Don't Get to Pick...

I think that each of us has to take responsibility for our own personal skills development process.

In primary, secondary, and many undergraduate university experiences, we become accustomed to the learning model of going to class, expecting an instructor to feed us information, and then being tested on how well we can regurgitate this information.

Over the course of an adult life, though, this model breaks down. Adults have to decide for ourselves what we want to learn, where we're going to find this information or how we're going to develop these skills, and then evaluate whether we've mastered what we've learned.

Going to "school" is a good way to learn the basics, but the lifelong learning model is the best way to apply those basics to the issues that are important to each of us.

For self-defense skills, this is how I've tried to apply these ideas:

I've taken a number of instructor-led shooting classes. Some focused on basic skills, some on more advanced skills or tactics. All involved tests. I've taken notes, and go to the range periodically to practice those skills.

Beyond these "school" experiences, I like to turn Active Self Protection videos that seem to apply to me into scenarios that I can solve at the range. I decide which scenarios to focus on, how to set them up, and the different tactics I might want to use to solve each problem.

Then, I run through each one.

Afterwards, I think about which tactics worked and which didn't, what basic skills I need to improve, and whether I likely passed the test (survived the encounter). Etc.

The three biggest challenges I've faced in this approach:

1) ASP encounters almost all involve movement. I've had to find places that are set up to safely shoot while moving.

2) I learn a lot faster when I can bounce ideas off a buddy or two. I've had to actively seek out and keep in contact with likeminded folks.

3) It is hard to set up FOF elements in these scenarios. This is an ongoing challenge for me.

Here's something that I only learned through experience on the street - and only after years of being involved in incidents that turned bloody or fatal... We train for the possibility of a once in a lifetime confrontation (if you're an ordinary armed citizen - and not in police or military type work...) but we also ought to consider the more likely possibility of domestic strife turning life threatening... Yep, family, friends, inter-personal situations that turn sour.... can end up in an armed scenario - usually when you least expect it.

One of the first things I used to strongly recommend to any of my officers going through a divorce or other traumatic family situation was to remove every firearm from their dwelling if the potential conflicts are still under the same roof... That goes double for situations involving alcohol or drug taking as a lifestyle... Also seldom considered is that one side or other in a difficult domestic situation can easily have the other side's firearms confiscated by simply lying about some previous or current threat or incident when officers had been called to the scene... When my son went through a bitter divorce, removing his weapons from the dwelling before officers were called to the scene by his soon to be ex- wife saved him a ton of difficulty during the weeks before their final separation...

In my years in police work I knew of or was involved in more than one officer suicide (mostly by firearm -once by vehicle...) but I won't touch on that dark side of having and using firearms by responsible citizens. If you have a family member or friend with serious emotional problems - being able to handle the situation, intervening only when absolutely necessary, is something that all of us should consider - since it might be necessary - and yet none of us train for it at all (unless you're in police or military and moving up into supervisory or commanding assignments...).

Something to think about...

I happen to adhere to the the Constitution so I believe any free citizen should be able to carry whatever, period.

That said, I advocate training and under current circumstances in this country I would advise a duty size gun with as many spare mags as you're willing.

I executed a knife take-way, during personal time, neutralizing a situation of a confused elderly individual, who did not recognize one of his teen relatives, due to advancing dementia. Was I glad that I had attended a Steve Tarani knife seminar, and SouthNarc’s Shivworks ECQC? YES! Both of these training events were more advanced than any LE in-service training I had received. Both emphasized taking a weapon away from an opponent, for at least a portion of the training.

While it is true that I could have SHOT that elderly person, to save his grandson, isn’t life SO MUCH better, for everyone involved, because I had attended FoF, on my own dime, and knew how to strip a weapon away? Notably, I did not “take-down” that elderly person, or cause any bruising. The actual forces were applied to the knife.

FWIW, I used an amalgamation of Steve Tarani’s blade take-away, Shivwork’s pistol take-away, probably supplemented by understanding some principle of leverage that I had accumulated during Lifesaving and Water Safety instruction, conducted by the American Red Cross. (A panicking, drowning person can kill his would-be-rescuer.) The blade stripping/take-away, during the Tarani seminar, had all been face-to-face, so, I had to adapt, as I ambushed the elderly person, from a rear-quarter direction.

To add a bit, to my previous post, in case anyone thinks that I was crazy for doing a blade take-away, rather than just shoot the elderly person, well, what if I said that this was inside our home, and that these people were related to me, by marriage? Yes, it was, indeed, a situation best handled as a take-away. I was not going to shoot my father-in-law, to save our nephew. I had to risk doing a take-away. It was, quite simply, necessary. Having some experience, with force-on-force training, made it possible for me to do this.

There was some amount of peril involved, and I knew it. The knife wielder was of the “Greatest Generation,” and knew a thing or two about behind-the-lines unconventional warfare, in an occupied country, during WW2. He was holding that knife as if he knew what he was doing.