Gabe Suarez's Interactive Gunfighting in Manassas Virginia

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redsaber75

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I finished Gabe Suarez's Interactive Gunfighting in Manassas, Virginia and the first thing I have to say is WOW!

The class went well beyond what you would learn in a standard firearms class. Since this was force on force, techniques either worked or they didn't.

Here is what I learned and observed.

1. Footwork is huge!
2. DON'T EVER STOP MOVING!
3. Never move straight backwards
4. Try to move along forward diagonals
5. A pushing kick really can work
* I was amazed at how effective this was at keeping the knife wielding bad guy back for time to escape.
6. There is only so much you can learn from a regular firing range.
7. Shoot the bad guy to the ground!
* Even a 12 ga Federal tactical slug might not put the bad guy down immediately.
8. NOK trainers are awesome!
9. Good holsters are critical.
10. External safeties can cause problems
* The drills were rather chaotic and fast so there really wasn't much time to flip the safety off.
11. Point shooting really does work
* During the drills and scenarios I cannot recall consciously lining up my sights.
12. Centerline/Appendix carry really does work
* I found myself switching over to it during the second half of the first day.
13. Centerline carry can be uncomfortable sitting down
* Now I can see how that Secret Service agent left his gun on a plane (even though there is no excuse for that)
* The answer to this is to drop poundage, it really is.
14. Airsoft is better than paintball/simunitions for training
15. Using the word "meme" will get you stared at in class.
16. Get the propane canister conversion kit for your airsoft pistol.
* It is a lot cheaper than green gas!
17. Gabe kicks like a mule!
* I have the boot mark on my arm to prove it!
18. My thumb is a nice shade of blue right now.

Gabe is incredibly knowledgeable and an all around decent guy. He is incredibly patient and can beautifully weave "bunny trail" questions into an answer that is relevant to the course material.

All I have left to say is that when Gabe is scheduled to come to your area, save that money you were putting towards ANOTHER pistol or ANOTHER rifle and spend it on one of Gabe's courses. I really mean that.

This course WILL tear down your ego, but something MUCH stronger will grow in its place.

Go to www.suarezinternational.com and sign up for a class if he is coming to your area.
 
I took Extreme Close-Range Gunfighting from Gabe last week. I have a review posted.

Fantastic training. Highly recommended.
 
I am really glad that you mentioned #10
I have gotten a lot of grief from 1911 fans when I suggest this possibility.
And I am thrilled to hear you say that point shooting really works.
Someone here asked that since one can train to be very fast and accurate with the sights, so why not use them?
I think that your FOF experiences has an answer to that.
For the record, Gabe Suarez and I will be co teaching a point/sighted shooting class in Prescott this October.
 
10. External safeties can cause problems
* The drills were rather chaotic and fast so there really wasn't much time to flip the safety off.
Click to expand...
I am really glad that you mentioned #10
I have gotten a lot of grief from 1911 fans when I suggest this possibility.
Click to expand...
I shot half the ECRG course with my Colt Defender (well over 200 rounds) and I never had a problem with this. I believe it depends on your familiarity with your chosen system. Several shot the whole course with their 1911-type guns. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it wasn't obvious with our class.

Personally I didn't see any difference in my performance with either my G30 or my Defender.
save that money you were putting towards ANOTHER pistol or ANOTHER rifle and spend it on one of Gabe's courses.
Click to expand...
Unless it is an AK. Buy it then take his rifle course.:D
 
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I'm always reluctant to over-generalize about lessons "learned" from drills using projectiles that move incredibly slower than the real thing.

I do use what many might call a "pushing" (I call it a "stomp") kick, but I know someone really good with a knife would carve my leg if I tried to use it- just as, years ago, I ate a much larger, very strong training partner's lunch using training knife vs. training ASP.

In general, I do agree about the importance of lateral movement for avoidance.



John
 
If you are not aware the kick is coming, I'm pretty sure you won't get a good chance to cut the leg. I was on the recieving end of such a kick in one of the first IG classes and it completely scrambled my OODA loop. One of the other students had trained with it in DBMA and we hadn't trained it that day. It was pure surprise.
 
Cheaper, safer, and not as much padding is required.
Click to expand...

Do airsoft weapons have the same manual of arms and capacity as real weapons now? Do they indicate where hits were made so that you can tell whether the hit would have been effective? If you use sighted fire, do the 6mm BBs go where the sights are aimed? For that matter what is the effective range of an airsoft pistol?

Sims hit a lot harder than airsoft and we still had guys not realize they had been hit (particularly when it struck areas like the head). I had one scenario where I didn't see the blue splash of paint in the middle of my goggles until the scenario ended. If it had been airsoft, I might have come out of that scenario thinking I did much better than my actual performance because without the marker I would never have realized I had been hit in a very bad place.

I also don't like padding for sims, let alone airsoft. If you make it too painless, people start treating it like a game and taking risks they wouldn't normally run. If you make sure people have a little skin in the game (so to speak), training seems to yield better results (though it is hard on the instructors who get shot repeatedly all day long).

I'm not saying Airsoft can't be used for force-on-force training or that it isn't an effective tool. I just disagree with the assessment that it is the better tool.

10. External safeties can cause problems
* The drills were rather chaotic and fast so there really wasn't much time to flip the safety off.
Click to expand...

Have you had any formal pistol training prior to this class? I don't see how an external safety can be any slower if you incorporate flipping the safety off as you index the pistol to the target? If you don't have time to get the pistol out of the target and rotate its muzzle to the target, then I don't see how whether you have an external safety is an issue.
 
Do airsoft weapons have the same manual of arms and capacity as real weapons now?
Click to expand...
The ones we used did. The pellets and gas are filled in the mag, the mag is inserted, slide operates like on a real pistol. We had Glock17/19 models that fit in our actual holsters. When the mag is empty, another mag that has been preloaded with gas/pellets can be inserted, the slide operated and you are back in business. Of course these models are around $150 and the extra mags are close to $50, too.

We were using them 21 feet and under. I had on a t-shirt and two sweatshirts and I didn't have any problems telling where I was hit. I've been a paintball vet for several years now. My shots went where aimed when I actually had time to use them. Man on man at close range with movement doesn't leave much time for aimed fire.:D

One big advantage, as I understand it, is Simunition doesn't like for us 'civilians' to play with their toys. Airsoft don't care.
 
Have you had any formal pistol training prior to this class? I don't see how an external safety can be any slower if you incorporate flipping the safety off as you index the pistol to the target? If you don't have time to get the pistol out of the target and rotate its muzzle to the target, then I don't see how whether you have an external safety is an issue.
Click to expand...

I am simply relaying what I saw.

Guys in the class with pistols with external safeties had trouble with flipping the safety off while beating back a knife wielding attacker. They all had prior training as far as I could tell.
 
And I am thrilled to hear you say that point shooting really works.
Someone here asked that since one can train to be very fast and accurate with the sights, so why not use them?
I think that your FOF experiences has an answer to that.
Click to expand...

First, I'm no expert, nor do I claim to be. That said, it's not just his experience; I was there in the class too and can wholeheartedly say that I never saw my sights the entire class. Not once. Not kidding. The action/drills happened so fast (like they do in real life eh?) it was all I could do to react, GOTX, draw from concealment, point and fire at the mass moving at me, all while moving as best I could. Sometimes, I wasn't able to do it fast enough too.

Point shooting does work at these ranges and speeds, and not only that, it's the only thing that does IMO: fail to move, or stop and use your sights, and you *will* be shot or knifed virtually everytime. Good sights are still important for precision shots of course, but in the unbelieveably fast-paced world of FoF scenerios that mimic real life ones, there's simply no time.

This seminar opened my eyes; outstanding, cutting edge training from an outstanding, cutting edge instructor. www.suarezinternational.com (I'm just a exceedingly satisfied student FWIW.)

In as far as airsoft effectiveness, while you may not feel a hit in a padded area (or in your face shield), you will not only feel them elsewhere, but see the results of them: my shooting hand was hit multiple times (with an according amount of scabbing strawberries) that I've been asked several times today what happened by folks at work. (This should also give you an idea of the effectiveness of point shooting too-these hits were from folks doing the shooting at me doing the same thing. Now I gotta work on honing it...a tough goal under such fast-paced, tunnel-visioned circumstances). I think most folks came away with similar views too.

Barring Simunitions which doesn't allow civilian use AFAIK and is very expensive for this quantity of training, airsoft is the only venue we have and guess what, it's pretty effective: I don't want to get shot with them as they bloody hurt. And that's a good thing, and what makes them as viable as training tools as they are (and ones I can use in my house/garage/backyard too).

YMMV of course.

C-
 
As far as the 1911 safety issue, I am a 1911 guy, and flipping the safety off is a natural part of the draw to me as breathing, and I had no issue with that during the class-and have the blister to prove it :); my new all-metal airsoft 1911's reliability in general was another thing altogether-it sucked, unlike my reliable carry 1911's. Of course, I couldn't use them here, or in this manner for obvious reasons.

One that may be a more legitmate issue is deactivating the grip safety: one must draw from concealment so blazingly fast that it's possible to draw with weapon who's grip safety isn't very sensitive and not activate it totally-even though it feels like a decent grasp in the unbelieveably short time these things happen.

It's an issue worth looking at, and while I'm an advocate of the mechanical safeties as a advantage of the 1911 platform for carry purposes, for me personally, I think it warrants a relook at the grip safety in terms of making them more sensitive, removing them, or perhaps using a low thumb hold (yes, this isn't the grip of the day in the 1911 world, but there ya go).

C-
 
Do airsoft weapons have the same manual of arms and capacity as real weapons now?
Click to expand...
Yes and yes, at least if you choose your weapon well and only load as many into the magazine as the real gun holds
Do they indicate where hits were made so that you can tell whether the hit would have been effective?
Click to expand...
This is the biggest shortcoming of the system, as I see it. If you hit a thickly padded area, your opponent might not even realize he got hit. I don't think anyone makes a marking airsoft round, do they?
If you use sighted fire, do the 6mm BBs go where the sights are aimed?
Click to expand...
At close range? Yes. For longer distances, not so much.
For that matter what is the effective range of an airsoft pistol?
Click to expand...
Perfectly adequate for CQ training.

Sims hit a lot harder than airsoft and we still had guys not realize they had been hit (particularly when it struck areas like the head). I had one scenario where I didn't see the blue splash of paint in the middle of my goggles until the scenario ended. If it had been airsoft, I might have come out of that scenario thinking I did much better than my actual performance because without the marker I would never have realized I had been hit in a very bad place.
Click to expand...
Concur.

I'm not saying Airsoft can't be used for force-on-force training or that it isn't an effective tool. I just disagree with the assessment that it is the better tool.
Click to expand...
I think it is a different tool, not necessarily better. It has some real advantages over Simunitions.

Cost. If you're independently wealthy, you can afford to run Simunitions a lot. For those of us who work for a living and/or are not LE, Mil, or a training academy, Airsoft is a lot more doable.

Safety. Not much to elaborate on here. The rounds are lighter and the gun is not a real gun, so a fatal "oops" is one step harder to make.

Reliability. I have yet to run a Simunitions scenario in which one of the guns involved did not jam up tight as a drum. It's great when your opponent's gun does that, less fun when it is your partner's, and it downright sucks when it is yours. Yes, yes, we should all know malfunction drills, but it gets ridiculous and clearing them seems to involve some non-standard techniques (tap-rack-bang never works).

Mike
 
Yes, the two big advantages I can see to Airsoft are cost and ease of use. The jams in the Sims pistols come from the plastic jacket around the marker round building up in the bore I believe. I know in the simunitions course I took, the instructors cleaned the bore after every scenario (max 20 rounds) to prevent this. We still had 3-4 malfunctions IIRC; but it seemed to help. Of course, that is a big logistical pain to clean every simunitions weapon after every scenario. Since I wasn't the one who had to do it though, I didn't mind so much :)

Barring Simunitions which doesn't allow civilian use AFAIK
Click to expand...

There are a few facilities that do use Simunitions to teach civilian force-on-force. I know Tac Pro Shooting Center offers these classes to civilians because that is where I took mine. I was thinking that Guncite did as well; but I may be wrong on that.
 
More things I learned

19. You will get shot in the hands a lot.

20. Your draw must be flawless.

21. Did I mention never stop moving?

22. I'll say it again. NEVER STOP MOVING!

23. Practice running forward diagonals.

24. Understand what "In Quartata" means with regards to fighting in a hallway

25. Take Tom Sotis's AMOK class which is now on my list of things to do

26. Lift up your cover garment as if you were going to bite it.

27. You can use bystanders to conceal your draw in a robbery situation.
 
We are not going to discuss what any of us think of the man personally. Please, everyone limit your discussion in this regard to what you think of his training and/or factual statements.

Yes, 30 cal, if you mean Suarez plea-bargained to avoid felony charges, that appears to be true.

John
 
mods,

i am not trying to stir up the pot. i do not know mr. suarez personally nor do i have an axe to grind with him and his organization.

nobody's perfect (although i would like to think that all legit gun owners are law-abiding).

it is reasonable to assume that mr. suarez may be dealing with a credibility issue resulting from a recent misdemeanor criminal conviction, but if he has something of value to teach gunnies then i am all ears.

which is why i am really asking, in the most sincerest manner, if anyone else here who has taken instruction from him feels there was knowledge worth spending $$$ on.

thanks again.

-slob
 
With all the respect due, it is hardly reasonable to expect an unbiased view to be found from Mr. Suarez's site.

I will say that Mr. Suarez usually writes well about tactics.

If you want Mr. Suarez's version of what happened legally, you can find it here (you will have to register as a member at WT).
 
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