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Hey Board, I wanted to share some things I encountered while in country while On PPD (Personal Protection Detail). All in all, my team had 6 CI's (Critical Incidents) where shots were exchanged. 3 of these were direct attacks (ambushes) on our Principal. Luckily, our team had no casualties during this time. In almost all of the incidents that happened, our fundamentals suffered. In 2 of the 6 incidents, our reactionary gap was broken before we reacted (less then 50 yds) In terms of Self-Defense, most problems can be avoided with awareness alone--this is a core fundamental that needs to be drilled on alot. The closer somebody is to you, the easier it is to hurt you. Another factor that came into play was using movement during incidents. From the time of recognition of the threat to the time of presentation there is a small delay--to improve odds during this time, the best option is to move laterally during presentation, reloads and jam clearing. We call this "Getting off the X". From training on this, we found it is best to move a whole body length laterally (1 side-step, not several!). Lastly, another key fundamental we saw: Always shoot slow enough to get "combat accurate" hits. By Combat Accurate, I mean a hit that significantly effects a target's ability to present a lethal threat. To do this we have to train to understand the balance of speed and precision. If a man can shoot six shots in six seconds in the same hole, I would say he is shooting too slow--If that same man can shoot six shots in 4 seconds, but the shots spread out, but all in the Center of Mass, that is much better, becasue he has shaved 2 seconds off the time the threat has to kill us or our family. Combat shooting and Target Shooting are not brothers--they are not even related!

When I trained at Valhalla, my training style was totally revamped.I realized that the bottom line in Personal Defense shooting is Efficiency and Consistency. By this I mean using as little cognitive thought as possible in our shooting--we do this by Working with what the body does naturally in a High Stress Incident, not trying to teach it something alien or unnatural--I will guarantee you your body/mind will revert to it's primal instincts--get in touch with what these are. By consistency I mean doing everything the same way every time--for those of you who are former Military (like me--USMC 10 years), you are familiar with this tactic. The fewer options you give yourself, the more precise and mechanically efficient our movements will be. Apply this to presenting your firearm the same way every time, reloading your weapon the same way every time, etc. I will touch more on all of this later. Hope this helped somebody! If anybody wants to add something or ask any questions--please feel free. I think sharing knowledge is key if you are serious about protecting yourself in a hostile world.

Stay Safe.

Ranger - Great information. Thanks for sharing. I look forward to more.

Principal

Thanks. I've been wondering for years what bodyguards call the person that they guard.

- Jim

Thanks Ranger. It is kind of you to share your experiences . Good stuff.

Thanks for the post. The more "real world" info we have on self defense the better we are. It helps with my training to hear about these incidents, since I have not had the occasasion to experience them for real (thankfully!), but I do want to make myself ready to react when the time comes.

Post more.

seamusTX wrote:

Principal

Thanks. I've been wondering for years what bodyguards call the person that they guard.

- Jim

They had to change it from Tango once someone figured it out.

Ranger,

Good information. Muscle memory and reflexive action should equal speed.

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.