Fred Fuller
Moderator Emeritus
This comes partly as a result of re-reading Rory Miller's blog post at http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2012/02/first-3-to-5.html . It'll make more sense if you click through and read that now, before you continue.
As I evolve through various stages of learning and training and scenario based experiences, I keep learning stuff about myself. Which is basically the whole point in learning, training, and setting yourself up for experiences according to someone else's script, or rules, or playbook. These are things you simply cannot get in practicing by punching holes in paper all by yourself on a flat range. If anyone here wonders why so many of us keep harping on professional training ... there it is, in a nutshell.
My wife and I spent last weekend at Tom Givens' Polite Society 2012 event in Memphis. Most of the conference was classroom education, with some seminar type training that offered an overview of a particular instructor's offerings. And there was a match, consisting of three scenarios and a set of standard drills.
Scenario One was laid out as follows. Your family is down the hall, surrounded by bad guys with guns. Your family are no-shoots. The bad guys with visible guns are shoot targets. All targets are reactive - a hit to the head or upper chest is required to drop the bad guys, a hit anywhere will drop the no-shoots.
At the entry to the hallway stands an unarmed bad guy. The scenario brief from the RO instructs you to knock the BG aside, enter the hallway, turn 90 degrees to your left, take cover, draw and engage the targets at the end of the hallway. The BG blocking the 'door' is a 3D target, a Tactical TED or whatever brand it was, on a stand, that put it at about nose to nose level. If you haven't ever seen one of these targets, take a look at http://speedwelltargets.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=466 for an example.
So here I am, facing this thing in the door, with instructions to knock the obstacle aside and power on through the door to try and solve the situation down the hall. At the "shooter ready" I assumed a high compressed fence without even thinking about it. I had planned to use a left handed palm strike to remove the TED, reserving my right hand to begin clearing my cover garment in the process of establishing a firing grip on my pistol. The counter motion of my shoulders, left hand/arm/shoulder going forward and right hand/arm/shoulder moving back at the same time, would be most efficient at accomplishing the two tasks.
Then the shot timer went off. And my plan evaporated somehow. I delivered a hard straight punch with my right fist and swatted the target decisively out of the way, bloodying the knuckles on my right hand but doing no real damage to myself beyond that. Which was a good thing, in retrospect. It would have made the approximate 15-yard shots down the hallway pretty difficult with the J frame I was carrying if I'd had to do them weak hand only due to an injured right hand. Not to mention complicating the draw, or the twenty-howevermany reloads I had to do in the course of shooting the rest of the match. Had it not been for Safariland speedloaders, my score would have sucked worse than it did.
And if I'd hit something with some bone and teeth to it, and not just plastic, I might well have hurt my hand - I've done it before hitting people and things, and I should know better at this late stage in my life. I've been trained better, but obviously not to the point of overcoming a lifetime habit of redneck fist throwing.
Getting good, relevant training is a Good Thing.
Getting yourself to the point you can ACCESS your training at the instant you need it, that's an even Better Thing. And I have some work to do.
It never ends...
As I evolve through various stages of learning and training and scenario based experiences, I keep learning stuff about myself. Which is basically the whole point in learning, training, and setting yourself up for experiences according to someone else's script, or rules, or playbook. These are things you simply cannot get in practicing by punching holes in paper all by yourself on a flat range. If anyone here wonders why so many of us keep harping on professional training ... there it is, in a nutshell.
My wife and I spent last weekend at Tom Givens' Polite Society 2012 event in Memphis. Most of the conference was classroom education, with some seminar type training that offered an overview of a particular instructor's offerings. And there was a match, consisting of three scenarios and a set of standard drills.
Scenario One was laid out as follows. Your family is down the hall, surrounded by bad guys with guns. Your family are no-shoots. The bad guys with visible guns are shoot targets. All targets are reactive - a hit to the head or upper chest is required to drop the bad guys, a hit anywhere will drop the no-shoots.
At the entry to the hallway stands an unarmed bad guy. The scenario brief from the RO instructs you to knock the BG aside, enter the hallway, turn 90 degrees to your left, take cover, draw and engage the targets at the end of the hallway. The BG blocking the 'door' is a 3D target, a Tactical TED or whatever brand it was, on a stand, that put it at about nose to nose level. If you haven't ever seen one of these targets, take a look at http://speedwelltargets.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=466 for an example.
So here I am, facing this thing in the door, with instructions to knock the obstacle aside and power on through the door to try and solve the situation down the hall. At the "shooter ready" I assumed a high compressed fence without even thinking about it. I had planned to use a left handed palm strike to remove the TED, reserving my right hand to begin clearing my cover garment in the process of establishing a firing grip on my pistol. The counter motion of my shoulders, left hand/arm/shoulder going forward and right hand/arm/shoulder moving back at the same time, would be most efficient at accomplishing the two tasks.
Then the shot timer went off. And my plan evaporated somehow. I delivered a hard straight punch with my right fist and swatted the target decisively out of the way, bloodying the knuckles on my right hand but doing no real damage to myself beyond that. Which was a good thing, in retrospect. It would have made the approximate 15-yard shots down the hallway pretty difficult with the J frame I was carrying if I'd had to do them weak hand only due to an injured right hand. Not to mention complicating the draw, or the twenty-howevermany reloads I had to do in the course of shooting the rest of the match. Had it not been for Safariland speedloaders, my score would have sucked worse than it did.
And if I'd hit something with some bone and teeth to it, and not just plastic, I might well have hurt my hand - I've done it before hitting people and things, and I should know better at this late stage in my life. I've been trained better, but obviously not to the point of overcoming a lifetime habit of redneck fist throwing.
Getting good, relevant training is a Good Thing.
Getting yourself to the point you can ACCESS your training at the instant you need it, that's an even Better Thing. And I have some work to do.
It never ends...
