Andy C--you are spot on about the saying. However, this does not apply to all areas of the job. When you work in a Wild west war zone where everbody 12 and under is armed, gun play is inebdible. I can count atleast 5 times when just to get the Principal from Point A to B, cover fire had to be laid down. While In convoy, we were ambushed several times, and had to shoot our way out, as you know, parameters change greatly when you go mobile.
I wanted to touch on a few more things and give you guys some drills in my next post.
I talked about being consistent in your drills and gun handling, I wanted to touch on this a bit more and discuss why. To fully operate at "All Green" Status, where we are hitting on all 8 cylinders, I feel we need to understand what the body does naturally under stress, when we are being attacked. If we can work with our body and not fight against it, following our primal programming, if you will, we greatly tip the odds in our favor. The following things happen to us when we are faced with a threat:
1. We orient toward the threat
2. We Lower our center of Gravity
3. Our hands come up to our line of sight
4 Tunnel vision kicks in
5. Time seems to slow down (Tacypsychia)
6. Loss of fine motor skills
In # 1-3, we can see how this relates to our basic presentation of the firearm. We square up on the target, enabling our vision to fully take in the situation. We bend slightly at the knee, enabling us to move off the line of attack quickly. Hands come up to our line of sight to make them ready for use--combine this with our presentation of the gun, bringing it parallel with our line of sight. With #4-6, we need to dispel the negatives so often we hear about them and focus on the positives, or what they can do for us! They were not naturally programmed into us to harm us, but help us!Tunnel vision, actually improves our visual accuity to a great degree, enabling us to focus on our target. Tacypsychia is a weird one. I have experienced it several times--most guys call it the "Time Warp"--time seems to drag, and sounds seem to sound like you are underwater. Again, the positive is it gives you much greater detail perception and quickens your decision making skills. Loss of Fine Motor Skills--a Big One. The body re-routes blood to the Major muscles to aid in large movements, thus reducing fine, small movements. This is where consistency comes into play. When we reload our gun, when we use the slide release button, that is a fine motor skill, when we use an overhand charge, reaching on top of the slide and chraging the gun into battery, that is a gross motor skill..make it a point to always load you gun the same way everytime--this promotes consistency and works with your body. For those of you who also shoot AR-15's, M4, etc. I would urge you to do the same with them--I can tell you from experience that when reloading, hitting the bolt release often does not produce enough force to slam the round into battery--thus using your charging handle every time you reload is a better practice. I was pleased to see when I trained at Tactical Response, they teach the same thing.
Stay Safe.
