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CQB - Fighting In Structures - DVD

CQB - FIGHTING IN STRUCTURES - DVD

 

This is the "secret stuff" everyone wants to know but almost nobody teaches.  And then, only to SWAT personnel.  Marksmanship and CCW knowledge alone may keep you safe from a mugger on a street corner, but when you find yourself fighting inside your house, those rudimentary skills will be found exceedingly lacking.

 

In this DVD, Suarez shares lessons learned from 15 years of High Risk Warrant Service, Drug Raids, Covert Tactical Entries, Hostage Rescue, Hunting Barricaded Criminals, Clearing Industrial and Residential Buildings, and other police special operations both  alone and with his SWAT team. 

 

Originally filmed at Suarez HQ, in a class for the Suarez International instructional staff, CQB Fighting In Structures deals with the missing subject matter that will link all your skill sets and make you a dangerous man with a gun.  The almost FIVE HOURS of material is specifically aimed at teaching the skills and tactics for the Single Operator, or the Small Team.  The first disc discusses all of the tactics in a very down to earth, and easy to remember manner.  No questions are left unanswered as Suarez details how to clear corners, doors, hallway intersections and other architectural features found in dwellings all over the world.   The second and third discs deal with hands on examples of what is discussed in Disc One including the deployment, management and tactics of a small CQB team.

 

Destined to be both a classic work, as well as one of the most controversial DVDs we have ever released, CQB Fighting In Structures is now available.

 

DVD Format

Approximately Five Hours in Three Discs

MORE INFORMATION HERE

From The DVD -

 

THE CORNER - Staple of Tactical Movement -

You find corners everywhere in modern and ancient architecture. Knowing how to negotiate one is the fundamental skill.  There are corners and there are architectural features that are made up of corners.  A door is basically two corners with a tight opening.  An intersection of two hallways is a double corner.  You can find more examples. 

First is recognition of the corner and identification of it being Right or left Sided Corner.  We show you ways to deal with each one of those two possibilities. Then Identify the “Apex” of the corner.  This is the corner's edge which you will use to pivot your movement on.   Identify “Line Of Danger”.  This is the imaginary line that is created by the opposite wall and where you must be careful the closer you get to it.

Once this is done, its easy to Determine A Path of Angular Search.  Eyes, Muzzle, and  Target are kept in alignment in some Situationally Appropriate Ready. Move naturally and not in some crab-walking mode.  There are direct correlations between “taking the corner” and the Force On Force/Get-Off-The-X methods you already know.

Once you can do a corner smoothly and safely, all other architectural obstacles will have an answer.

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COMMENT ON THIS AT WARRIORTALK

Training to Win

By Alex Nieuwland – Suarez International Staff Instructor

As my fellow Staff Instructor Chris Upchurch likes to say: “If I could make you a certified badass in 2 days, I’d charge you a LOT more money!” He is right, of course. There is only so much we can do, even in a 2-day Suarez International training course, to tilt the odds into your favor.  

I think of training to maximize the odds of winning your gunfight as a 3-step learning cycle. Some folks seem unfamiliar with this learning cycle, so I thought I would post it here.

Step 1 is gathering credible information. To the consternation of some, watching TV and playing Modern Warfare is NOT considered credible information when it comes to actually winning gunfights in the real world. Attending a Suarez International course IS credible information. Watching the course DVD before the course makes it easier to absorb the information, but is no substitute for actually doing the exercises in class. During the class, focus on doing the exercises correctly, rather than rapidly. Speed AND performing the task at hand correctly every time only comes with practice. Bring a notepad and a pen, so you will remember what to practice during Step 2. 

Step 1 is like making the down payment on a particular skill. Step 2 is making payments in the form of regular practice to keep the repoman away, and eventually own that skill. This is why taking detailed notes during class is very helpful. Practice can be done by yourself or with a training partner. And if you can tell me who got voted off the island, or who can’t dance, you’ve definitely got time to do some more dry fire practice. 

Step 3 (testing) is where things, hopefully, all come together. In my area, Steel Challenge, IDPA and USPSA matches make for useful testing venues of some of the skill set. The $15 to $25 match fee is money well spent, because the stages or scenarios are often much more elaborate than what you could set up for yourself. You can read more about maximizing your return on investment from IDPA matches here. Steel Challenge is great for testing your fundamentals without the added complication of moving while shooting. USPSA matches allow me to use my primary carry gun (a Glock 19 with an RMR) from my AIWB holster, as long as I do so in their race gun division. Whenever I score better than a USPSA competitor using an actual race gun, I know he’s having a pretty bad day. The true reason for Step 3, however, is not to humiliate gun gamers (that’s merely an occasional unintentional side-effect), but to identify problems in our skill sets. This is credible information that leads to more practice, followed by more testing, and so the cycle continues.

Every time you complete a cycle, you will be more dangerous. Hopefully, when your actual test of this skill set comes, it will be just like you practiced, but it all starts with credible information and a notepad. 

Click here to find a Suarez International course near you.

YOU WANNA SURVIVE - OR THRIVE? AN UPDATE

Well, the response to that article was far better than I would have hoped. So much so that I will soon have a book out that will expand on every single one of the points discussed in the article and pull even fewer punches.

I expect the doom-gloomers will burn me in effigy, but those who want to thrive will love what they read.

 

More On the Topic Here - How Not To Get Shot By Police

And Here - You Wanna Survive - Or Thrive?

Stay tuned for the upcoming book - You Wanna Survive - Or Thrive? 

You Wanna Survive....or Thrive?

So this last week our moderators at Warrior Talk banned a gaggle of "tin foilers".

For the sake of those who have not heard these terms because they have been busy working for a living and actually doing something important, here they are -

Tin foilers is a derisive term derived from the “tin foil hat” - a piece of headgear made from one or more sheets of aluminium foil or similar material said to shield the brain from government mind control and/or mind reading. The concept of wearing a tin foil hat for protection from such threats has become a popular term of derision for paranoids with persecutory delusions, and is associated with conspiracy theorists.

Tin foiler is also for those who fancy themselves as modern day Benjamin Martins (Mel Gibson’s character in Patriot) fighting the evil government. These guys spend their days reading about all the evils of the government, and hang out with other conspiracy types gossiping about uselessness. When they dream, they do not dream about bikini women on tropical beaches, they dream about last stands against those pesky "jack booted thugs" with their trusty SKS in their hands, yelling out "F-R-E-E-D-O-M" just before the geek at Foggy Bottom blasts them with a drone attack.

Those types are losers. There, I said it. Do you know why they are losers? I will tell you. They are all huge time wasters. Time is a gift from God and you can use it wisely or waste it. With them, how much time are they wasting on things they have zero control over and will never have any control over?  And worse, not using that time to build wealth, spend time with their families, work, or even train their bodies.  Instead they think it is their job to "save America from itself".

They are purveyors of fear and negativity. It amazes me how much a certain personality fails to thrive unless they view the world as being unfair and about to implode. Give them a nice steak and they will lecture you on cholesterol. Pour them a nice single malt and they will lecture you on the evils of alcoholism. Light up a nice cigar and you will be bombarded with tales of lung cancer. For them, I am sure even sex is a bad thing.

The only thing I care to do for those people is show them the door and some size ten encouragement. If you want a successful life and business, purge yourselves of these guys. Even if what they claim was true, what are you or they, going to do? Nothing.

You may as well complain about the rain. You can complain about the rain all you like, but it will not stop coming down. You can either move to a drier place, or put on a rain coat. Then again, I will bet you could make a very nice living selling rain coats and umbrellas.

The Uzi and Point Shooting Progressions

John Chambers

Suarez International/TSD Combat Systems Instructor

 

Memorial Day weekend found me hosting and participating in Roger Phillip’s Long Gun Point Shooting Progressions class in Liberty Hill, TX. I cannot say enough about how this training should be a mandatory part of your development as a rifle gun fighter. When you find yourself deep in the “OH S@#T” of an unexpected engagement, the Point Shooting skill set allows you hit targets faster, and more importantly, not get shot while doing so!

While all the other participants used the normal mix of rifles (AKs and ARs) I used this as an opportunity to find out more about a weapon system that SI has been studying extensively for the last couple of years, the Uzi. I have owned an Uzi for close to twenty years and have been SI certified to instruct the weapon since 2009, but this was the first opportunity I have had to run it through the Point Shooting matrix and what I learned was very enlightening. There are many advantages to the Uzi in a reactive and aggressive scenario and VERY few disadvantages. We already know that the Uzi is simple and reliable, but I also believe that I learned some things that others have not discussed, nor experienced.

The first advantage is quite simple: it is a compact weapon, even if it is heavier than one would expect. The weight/center of gravity is near the hands and close to the body. This close to the body center of gravity allows extremely quick directional changes of the weapon with minimal movement of the hands. When working the “golf swing” and “over the top” engagements I was able to get the muzzle on the target and engage with accurate fire faster than those using conventional long guns.

Another advantage that we get from the close center of gravity is that the weapon excels in dynamic movement situations. The more aggressively we move with a conventional long gun the more we have to be concerned with overshooting the target with the muzzle or losing control of the muzzle while running. With the Uzi, you move your hands to the point your eyes are focused on and the muzzle sticks to that point. Watch a figure skater or diver and you will see that the closer the hands are to the body, the faster the body can turn. This simple fact of physics is evident when dynamically driving the Uzi in movement.

The weapon’s stock and grip geometry also leads to exceptional accuracy in unsighted or instinctive fire. Quite simply the stock angle is MADE for underarm assault and hip firing! With a rifle with a straight stock like the AR or an AK with a modern stock, when you pull the weapon into your armpit and engage, it is very common for the rounds to impact high on the target. Part of the learning curve is to learn the sweet spot of that weapon when training with your “point shooters follow through” that allows you to have the weapon parallel to the ground when firing. With the Uzi you simply lift the weapon until the butt is tucked under your arm and the angle of the stock and the angle of the pistol grip combine to place the weapon perfectly parallel to the ground and you can put very accurate fire on the target. Roger and I took the Uzi past 20 yards and were placing accurate bursts of fire into the center of the target at ranges that many would believe is impossible!

This also carried over to transitions and shoulder transfers. The standard\ SI over the shoulder transitions or the LGPSP Bayonet Thrust transfers/transitions were quicker than anyone expected. A comparatively small movement of the hands and the weapon had moved and the target was engaged. This was especially evident with the Bayonet Thrust methods!

Prior to this class, if you had asked me about the usefulness of the grip safety, I most likely would have discussed disabling it and simply using the thumb safety. Not any longer! The grip safety is a major advantage when using this weapon with the PSP methodologies! When maneuvering the weapon in the “Baton Twirling” drills, it is driven into everyone’s head that you do not make these manipulations near the trigger. With a conventional long gun, this is very easy since you have the forearm, trigger, and pistol grip separated by the magazine well. Your hands are separated by at least twelve inches in most cases. However, due to the overhung bolt design of the Uzi, the magazine well is the pistol grip and by necessity, your hands are only separated by the width of the trigger guard. The grip safety is VERY comforting when making transitions, transfers and aggressive directional changes of the weapon. In fact I now use the Uzi in a similar manner to a Glock or XD. When it is in my hands and I am expecting contact may occur, I take the thumb safety off and leave it off. I simply loosen my grip so the grip safety is engaged and when firing, I naturally grip the weapon tighter and that will disengage the grip safety. It is very intuitive!

The Uzi is not a rifle. Even with the legally mandated long barrel it is still very compact and this size and balance advantage allows for some things that cannot be done with an AR or AK. Especially in dynamic movements off of the X to the 7:00 and 5:00 positions on the clock. When moving reactively off of the X to the 7:00 position it was totally natural to assume the “Hebrew Homey” position (see pic) and I was able to put very accurate center hits on the target. I would then execute a dynamic directional change and mount the Uzi into my shoulder pocket and engage the target with accurate bursts to the head. It was a very natural movement matrix. When moving to the 5:00, Roger taught us pull the weapon up and over our firing side triceps (see pic). With the Uzi, you can pull the weapon into a superb retention shooting position. Add in a dynamic directional change and you can have half a magazine into the target before they have realized you have moved.

The Uzi is also effectively recoilless, let’s face it, it is a nine pound 9mm! But as the Hebrew Homey shows, it allows some short cuts. One of the coolest “aha” moments that I had was that I was able to “zipper through the mount” in a similar fashion to “shooting through the draw stroke” with the pistol. I would engage the target from the hip and while I was moving the stock to my shoulder, I could place rounds on target while moving the weapon. It was the logical progression of “not being a slave to your mount.” And it was VERY fast, talk about shooting them to the ground!

So what are the disadvantages to the Uzi? Well the first is pretty obvious: terminal ballistics when compared to a rifle. But, used in the proper circumstances, it is not a real handicap. Is a burst of three 9mm hollow points to the face any less effective than a single 5.56 round? No, especially since it is so much faster to engage targets in a dynamic setting with the compact weapon system. The other disadvantage was a total surprise to me. The placement of the forward sling swivel flat sucks when performing transfers. It seems to always put the sling in the way of the left side firing hand and trigger finger. If we can develop a good method of attaching the sling forward, say around the front sight housing, it would be an advantageous modification.

To conclude, we discovered and confirmed that the Uzi is incredibly capable in the reactive CQB environment and it possesses advantages that other weapon systems do not. More to the point, I have determined that it will be an excellent study to explore the use of this weapon system in ways and in environments that continue to push the envelope on capability and expectations.

Stay tuned, this is just the beginning!

Comments from others who attended:

From Roger Phillips:  For a person who is and will always be a very aggressive learner, watching you run that Uzi in the LGPSP was a thing of beauty.  Who would have thunk guys like us, with all of our experience and knowledge, to learn as much as we learned in those two short days.  It's another exciting chapter of the fascinating study inside of the PSP family of courses.

The Uzi just made the big time inside Suarez International and John Chambers just became "the man" when it comes to the Uzi.

I know we say it on very special instances and in this case it is very accurate......... "nothing will ever be the same!"

From WT member "Golucky:"  Thanks again John for letting me trying the Uzi at the LGPSP course. I am building the funds to acquire this bad boy! I was very much surprised about the weight distribution compared to my AK. Folks, it is indeed very fast! It was pointed out in class, how you can hear the rounds from the UZI was accurately on target first, then the barrage from the rest of the tribe with AK's & AR's.

Click Here to Train with John Chambers

Ultimate Pistol Gunfighting School

by Chris Upchurch, Suarez International Staff Instructor

I recently had a chance to help out with Gabe’s Ultimate Pistol Gunfighting class in Prescott. I was planning on a road trip out west this summer to see my parents and enjoy the outdoors a bit. What better way to enjoy the outdoors than on a range with a bunch of other like minded folks?

I brought what is now my usual setup: two Glock 17’s, one on each hip, with an extra mag in front of the one on the left and a Grab-N-Stab in front of the one on the right. The primary Glock has a TSD milled slide and an RMR while the backup runs irons. For force on force work I replace the real Glocks with a set of KWA airsoft and the knife with a Nok trainer.

Most of the students in the class brought Glocks. There were also a pair of XDs, one M&P and a 1911. Five students had RMRs on their pistols. Airsoft was mostly Umarex, with a few more traditional green gas guns in the mix.

Thursday

Gabe began the class with a lecture on surviving training in the hot, dry, high altitude environment of Prescott. He’s had folks drop out of class due to dehydration and heatstroke and really pounded home the message. If you’re planning on training in Prescott or any of our other warm weather training venues during the summer, read Roger Phillips’ excellent article on training in hot weather and Dr. John Meade’s thread on dehydration. With the environmental dangers out of the way, Gabe moved on to the safety lecture, going through the standard safety rules.

Next Gabe went through the fundamentals of pistol marksmanship. Despite teaching high-speed low-drag classes almost exclusively, Gabe does a great job with the fundamentals of marksmanship. This is something that’s really impressed me ever since the first time I heard his fundamentals lecture at the instructor class a couple of years ago. Why cover the fundamentals in an advanced, nay, ultimate class? While we’ll be doing plenty of running and gunning, we’ll also be doing some long range precision marksmanship (including shots that a lot of folks might not think were possible with the pistol). In order to make these shots, your fundamentals have to be practically perfect. After a bit of dry practice Gabe reviewed the drawstroke.

We ran through the drawstroke a couple of times to verify everyone had it down properly, then kicked off live fire. First up was single, carefully aimed precision shots from the holster, followed by some multiple shot drills. After a couple of evolutions it was clear that we had some very good shots in the class, and we also had some folks who need some work.

Gabe talked about reloads, demonstrated several and discussed S.I.’s philosophy. This segued into a discussion of malfunctions and malfunction clearance. Our reloads and malfunction clearance techniques are closely linked since in the middle of a fight you probably won’t be able to immediately tell the difference between a malfunction and running out of ammo.

After lunch we did some target focused shooting. This is what Roger Phillips calls Type 2 focus. You’re lined up with the sights, but rather than focusing your eye on the front sight, you focus on the target, leaving the sights blurry in the foreground. This began a pattern that would continue for the rest of the live fire portion of the class: alternating between precision sighted fire and point shooting. This isn’t something we get the opportunity to do too much of in our other classes. They tend to emphasize one or the other, either point shooting (CRG, PSP) or sighted fire (ACPM, Active Shooter Terrorist Interdiction). The four day format of this class offers more flexibility and the time to examine both methods in depth.

Moving on to a somewhat coarser method of point shooting, Gabe talked about using the front sight post only, ignoring the rear notch. This is analogous to shooting a shotgun with a bead sight, only in this case your arm substitutes for the the shotgun barrel and stock. For the folks with RMRs on their pistols, Gabe introduced the ‘RMR Guillotine’: you use the top of the RMR housing to ‘cut off’ the target at the neck.

Now it was time to start running and gunning. Gabe went through the conceptual basis for getting off the X. He explained the OODA loop and talked about how we can exploit our opponent’s OODA processing time to reduce our chances of getting hit in a gunfight. He went through the different directional options and explained why we like the forward oblique angles if they are available.

To get people used to moving and shooting, we started with the pacing drill. You take three steps to the right, firing a burst as you go, then on command you take three steps to the left, firing a burst. We worked dry first to make sure everyone was in sync and doing it correctly, then went live.

At this point Gabe threw in a bit of precision shooting, following the pattern of alternating between run and gun and precision fire mentioned earlier. After shooting some precision groups from 12 yards, we switched back to getting off the X. For today we concentrated on the 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock directions, working it extensively dry before going live.

To finish off the day with something a little different, Gabe demonstrated a technique for dealing with a beginning shooter who’s having difficulty with sighted fire. Rather than trying to diagnose him solely on the basis of his shooting, where he may have one problem stacked up on another, you wipe the slate clean and start from the bottom up. First you have the shooter point in, verify his sight picture, then the instructor uses his finger to press the trigger gently to the rear. This guarantees a surprise break, since the shooter’s trigger finger isn’t even involved. A miss here indicates a problem with sight alignment/sight picture, or possibly their grip. Then, gradually you involve the shooter’s trigger finger until eventually they are doing everything themselves. This is a really great technique for a new shooter who’s having some problems. I first saw Gabe demonstrate it during the instructor school a few years ago and I’ve used it effectively for several students since then.

With this we broke for the day.

Friday

Gabe started out the day today with something rather interesting: a description of appendix carry by Jeff Cooper from the 1979 edition of Cooper on Handguns. I’ve read this before (Gabe has posted it here on WT as well as in a blog article, but Gabe had an actual copy of Cooper on Handguns. He used this to kick off a discussion of the advantages of appendix carry.

While Gabe set up some steel targets on the 100 yard range, he had me run the class through some precision shooting drills at 3, 5, 7, and 10 yards. Some students showed quite a bit of improvement from yesterday, but there were a few who still needed work.

We moved over to the longer range, starting out at 25 yards and moved in steps back to 100. Among the students, those who shot well on paper at 3–10 yards generally had the easiest time dinging the steel.

As we were doing this, Gabe brought out his AWC Abraxis suppressor and some subsonic ammo. I had a chance to shoot it, as did the students. This is a wet suppressor, and when it was freshly filled with water it was enormously quiet. As it dried out it got louder, but still reduced the sound to levels that were tolerable without hearing protection. The really incredible thing is how small and light it is. At one point Gabe had to practically pat himself down to figure out which pocket he stashed it in.

 

While we were engaging in some longer ranged shooting Gabe also demonstrated shooting from some more supported positions, including kneeling, Askins and Creedmore. These allow you a more height than prone, but provide a steadier hold.

When we were back at 100, I took a few shots at the steel and found that my bullets were impacting to the right. Thinking it might be an issue with the cheap training ammo I was using, I brought out some of my carry ammo and observed the same problem. The last time I shot this pistol at distance it was dead on, so I don’t know what happened to it. I really need to take Gabe’s advice and put a witness mark on there to verify the position of the adjustment screws. I made an adjustment and got it back on target, then tested it on paper over lunch.

Also over lunch I had a chance to shoot a student’s brand new TSD VEPR. This is a very nice rifle. It was so new he hadn’t had a chance to put an optic or even a rear sight on it, but it was relatively light and handled light for a semi-auto .308. A GPR/semi-auto GSR is on my list, and this is definitely a contender.

After lunch Gabe talked about the importance of stretching. The GOTX stuff we do is pretty dynamic, and increasing your flexibility is going to pay dividends in allowing you to move explosively off the X without risking injuring yourself. Gabe went through the basics of the takeoff and had everyone work it solo, with no gun involved.

 

Once everybody had the basics down it was time to start putting this stuff into practice. Yesterday we’d looked at the 3 and 9 o’clock lines, today we worked on the diagonals: 1 and 11 o’clock to the front, and 5 and 7 o’clock to the rear. 1 and 11 are fairly straightforward, you get off the X at the appropriate angle and shoot. Going to the rear is a bit more complicated, particularly the 5 o’clock line (for a right handed shooter). S.I. has several ways of doing this and we gave the students a chance to go through each of them dry before allowing them to pick whichever they liked best to do live.

Thus far, we’d been assuming that you’re facing the threat when the fight starts, but in the real world they be be beside, or even behind you. Gabe explained how our GOTX skillset is adapted to deal with threats from these directions. As he was doing this, a student asked a question about what point you were justified in shooting, which segued into a discussion of managing potential threats on the street. Gabe talked about how to evaluate someone who approaches you and using attitude and body language to dissuade folks that you don’t have any reason to be dealing with. This wasn’t planned to be on the menu for today (Gabe was going to talk about it tomorrow), but it turned into a great discussion, with some excellent contributions from some of the students.

Eventually, we got back to addressing threats to the side or rear. It was getting towards the end of the day, so we did it dry only for the moment. With that we closed out another great day of training.

Saturday

We reconvened again on Saturday morning. Today we would have some company on the range: S.I. Staff Instructor Corinna Coplin was running a Ladies Gunfighting class on the range next door. It had been a long while since I’d seen Corinna and her husband Richard, and it was great to see them again.

We picked up right where we left off, with addressing 360 degree threats. Gabe reviewed the techniques and we went ahead and ran it live. The students had a chance to shoot it with threats to their right and left, as well as threats behind them, turing to the right and left sides. In each case we worked it getting off the X in the direction you were facing, and in the opposite direction. Simply booking it in the direction you’re already facing is the obvious solution, but being able to go in the opposite direction is important in some circumstances. The obvious direction may be blocked by a car door or some other obstacle.

Some student questions led into a discussion of when and under what circumstances you should intervene in a problem that does not involve you directly. Gabe’s position (which I agree with) is that something that’s not a direct threat to you and yours is not your problem, unless it is so extreme that it shocks the conscience. We had a nice discussion about this with lots of back and forth among the students.

At this point Gabe called an early lunch. After lunch, we discarded our live guns, along with any knives or other weapons and switched over to airsoft gear. Gabe gave the airsoft safety briefing. While airsoft seem a lot safer than live weapons, we need to ensure no live weapons make their way into the training environment and that everyone wears eye protection at all times. He also talked about the importance of being a good training partner and playing your role in the scenario (particularly when playing the bad guy).

We started out, as we usually do in Force on Force, with the ‘suicide drill’. Two students face off and bring the gun up and fire on command. This drill allows students to learn from direct experience that stand and deliver shooting that relies on trying to outdraw an opponent doesn’t work, no matter how fast you are.

The S.I. solution to these sorts of problems is to get off the X. We’d done this live the past couple of days, but for getting the light bulb to go on there’s no substitute for experience. We started out in the most difficult situation imaginable: a drawn gun pointed in directly at your head, finger on the trigger. Most other schools don’t have a solution for this, instead they’d say that you’re dead and you should have been paying attention and not gotten yourself into this situation in the first place. However, with aggressive use of the takeoff everyone in the class managed to get out of the way before the gun fired, even some of the more seasoned warriors.

 

After working against the drawn gun with and without return fire, we started working against opponents drawing from the holster. Compared with the drawn gun, this is pretty easy, so we allowed the bad guy in the scenario to track the good guy and try to shoot him again. The measure of success is how many shots the good guy gets into his opponent before he gets hit himself. Most folks in the class were able to get at least 3–4 hits onboard before taking one in return. These little plastic pellets airsoft guns fire don’t have much in the way of terminal ballistics, but in real life those 3–4 rounds would probably impede the bad guy’s ability to get his rounds out the door and onto the good guy.

GOTX techniques tend to work real well in the 3–7 yard range. For the 0–5 foot range we’ve got some hands on techniques for dealing with adversaries (more on that later today and tomorrow). In between is an intermediate distance we call no-man’s land. Too close for GOTX but to far to go hands on directly. For this distance we have the ‘double pekiti’. Essentially you do a takeoff to the 1 or 11 o’clock, but on your first step you do another takoff back towards the opponent and go hands on. Think of a wide receiver going one direction than juking back the other way, only in this case we’re trying to pile into the opponent rather than slip past him. Once you’re within arms reach then you can go hands on with him.

If you’re within that 0–5 foot range of arms’ reach and the opponent hasn’t drawn his weapon yet, you can jam his gun and keep him from getting it into play. This is not a permanent solution, of course. It requires immediate followup with guns, knives, fists, or whatever you can muster to take the opponent out of the fight.

After everybody was done wrestling around, we called it a day. Later that evening most of us gathered for dinner at S.I. HQ. In addition to some great fellowship with other students and the S.I. staff, folks also had the opportunity to pick through the OST warehouse for anything they might want to buy. He showed off some TSD stuff, including the new Uzi RMR topcover and the TSD Bowie. More on the Uzi tomorrow. The TSD Bowie is just fantastic. This was not one of the things on my list, but after handling it I think I’m going to have to get one. The big thing was the way it balances, from the moment I picked it up it was just perfect. The knife felt like an extension of my arm. The blade and scales were the high quality I would expect based on the Grab-N-Stab. This is really going to be a good one.

Sunday

Today we were joined by S.I. General Manager Tom Cornelius who provided some additional help with instruction. We picked up about where we left off last night, with some hands on stuff. We by talking about the body’s natural flinch response, and how you can cultivate that to deal with incoming attacks. This is not the stylized, smooth martial arts block or parry, this is more along the lines of flinging your arms up in the direction of an incoming blur to fend it off. It won’t win you any style points, but it’s a lot easier to pull off when you’re surprised.

 

Yesterday we worked hands on with the gun in the holster. Today we covered what to do if he already has the gun out. There are many methods for disarming people, the ones Gabe teaches are simple, brutal, and allow you to apply common concepts to different situations (gun high or low, held to your front, side, or back). Most of them involve getting a hold of the gun and the wrist and moving them in opposite directions. Others involve trapping the gun under the armpit and attacking the opponent from there until he drops it. In either case, the key is not just to take or trap the gun, but to follow it up with an immediate and brutal assault, whether it be with your fist, knife, hitting him with his own gun, or shooting him (with his gun or your own gun, depending on what’s handy).

After spending a couple hours practicing all the different variations of our disarm concepts, we moved on to some other subjects. Gabe talked about choking people out and demonstrated the basics of the technique. The students had a chance to practice this, carefully, without actually choking anybody out. For situations where a higher level of violence is justified, he showed us a technique for killing someone by snapping their neck (it looks absolutely nothing like the BS techniques you see in movies or on TV).

 

Some folks claim that all fights end up on the ground. That’s not really true, and in fact in the real world, where we have to deal with multiple adversaries, we really want to stay off the ground if we can. We don’t always get what we want, so we need some ground fighting skills, if only to keep adversaries off of us long enough so we can get back up. Gabe talked about the importance of keeping your feet towards the opponent and fending him off until you can get your gun out. Once you’ve got the gun out and shot (if necessary) we want to get back up, while still being able to address the threat. S.I. teaches a modified version of the Turkish get-up, only instead of holding a kettlebell above your head, you’re pointing a pistol at the opponent. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time on the ground because the Arizona lawn (i.e. gravel) that the range is made of wasn’t really suitable for extensive ground fighting.

At this point we broke for lunch. Today Gabe brought out his SBR Uzi with the new TSD RMR top cover on it and let us shoot it. This setup is slick, to the point that having something like this in a gunfight is positively unfair! Combine the RMR with the four points of contact that a long gun provides you and the low recoil of the Uzi and 5 yard double taps to the head are just stupidly easy. The optic is mounted nice and low, where it cowitnesses with the iron sights and doesn’t interfere at all with the ability to point shoot the gun (in case you want to go for body shots instead). We even had some guys using this to ding a 3ft steel gong at about 200 yards. The Uzi’s a great gun to begin with, but adding the RMR takes it to another level.

After lunch we had one last bit of FoF to take care of. Gabe wanted everyone to work the double pekiti against a live airsoft gun to get a feel for how for out they could take this. (yesterday we’d done it without any pellets in the gun). This wrapped up the airsoft portion of the program and we switched back to live guns for the rest of the class.

Many of the things we’d done in class involve drawing your gun while tied up with someone hand to hand. Depending on which hand is available, you may have to access with the support hand, rather than the primary. One technique for dealing with this is to grab the pistol upside down and work the trigger with your pinky. We call this the ‘Australian Homie’. You aren’t going to win any speed or marksmanship competitions with this grip, but if you can get a shot or two into the guy that may be what you need to break free and gain the time and distance to get your gun into a proper grip and unload on him. In order to get a feel for this, we had the students shoot it a couple of times live. Getting a good grip where you pinky can reach the trigger and your hand isn’t in the way of the slide takes a bit of work, but it can be done.

When you grab a gun during a disarm, there’s a good chance it’s going to go off sometime during the process. Students, particularly those who’ve left their thumb in the path of the slide due to an improper grip, may be leery or afraid of this prospect. So we have them get a good firm grip on their slide and fire off a shot. All that happens is the slide moves back about a quarter of an inch. As long as you’re clear of the muzzle, your hand will be fine. Experiencing this helps give confidence during a disarm.

One possible outcome in a clinch, particularly on the ground, is that you’ll end up with a contact shot. The problem with a semi-auto is that if it’s forced into the opponent hard enough the slide may come out of battery preventing the gun from firing. One solution is to pull the gun back so the muzzle is no longer in contact with the opponent, but that may not be possible (if the gun is trapped between your body and his, for example. In that case we can push forward the back of the slide and force it back into battery. This will smart a bit, but it can mean the difference between life and death in a fight. We had students shoot this both with the heel of their hand against the back of the slide and with the slide up against their bicep.

There are certain situations where S.I.’s usual GOTX solutions aren’t going to work. If you’re in a narrow hallway or between two parked cars, you can’t really bust off the X at an angle. For these situations we’ve adapted a technique from European fencing, by way of the Bowie knife. With a blade, the In Quartata technique is used to evade an incoming stab while delivering your own in return, we’re basically doing the same thing with lead in stead of steel. You step to the side while turning sideways and delivering your own shots in return. This is still getting off the X, just by a smaller amount.

 

When you draw very aggressively from a closed front cover garment you can sometimes catch the muzzle on the garment. Bullets will still go through, of course, so if you’re close enough to point shoot you can still shoot the bad guy. To give students some experience with this we’ve got the Murphy’s t-shirt drill. In this case, the originator of the drill, Richard Coplin, happened to be on the next range over helping Corinna teach the Ladies’ Gunfighting class, so Gabe asked him to come over and explain the drill and run it for us.

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Finally, we had the students do the Turkish get-up live fire. This was a good way to finish up the course. After a group picture we got the range cleaned up, handed out the certificates, and reluctantly went our separate ways.

Final Thoughts

This was a great class. Gabe did his usual excellent job teaching it. With a four day class like this it would be easy to run it like a pair of two-day classes. While this draws on several classes, Gabe really did a good job blending them together and creating a course that really takes advantage of the four day format.

Tom and Richard provided some welcome help and I hope that my own contributions were useful. As usual when I help out with these sorts of classes (whether it be with Gabe, Randy, or John Meade) I ended up learning a tremendous amount myself.

We had a really great group of students. There were some really experienced guys (particularly on the hand to hand/martial arts side) who contributed a lot. During the discussions there was a lot of great back and forth. Everyone did a good job handling the heat, elevation, and dry conditions and we didn’t have anyone fall out for environmental reasons.

All in all an excellent experience. The Ultimate Pistol Gunfighting class does a great job taking students through S.I.’s advanced pistol curriculum. I’d highly recommend it. Gabe’s not teaching as much as he used to so if you get the chance to take one of his classes, jump on it.

 

Discuss this class on Warriortalk.

The Responsible Gun Owner

By Don Robison

Suarez International Tier1 Staff Instructor 

I’ve been surfing the web and various gun forums this week and I don’t know if it’s a new phenomenon or just something I recently picked up on. Lately it seems that every time someone does something with a gun someone else disagrees with I hear the cry “You’re not a responsible gun owner!”, “A responsible gun owner wouldn’t do that!”  I recently was involved in a discussion about a guy who had some guns stolen from inside his house.  They weren’t locked in a safe and it was decreed by these self-appointed responsible gun owners that he was an irresponsible gun owner and it was his fault someone stole his guns out of his house because he didn’t have them in a safe.  Really, I mean REALLY, is this what we’ve come to; blaming someone for their house being robbed?  On a different forum I was in another discussion that involved the use of the word firearm or gun versus using the word weapon.  Once again the self-appointed responsible gun owners decreed that a responsible gun owner wouldn’t use the word weapon because it might make some people uncomfortable. Really, politically correct much?  Firearms were designed as weapons; punching pretty little groups of holes in paper was a secondary use.  No scratch that; it was a tertiary use right after killing people and killing animals. Punching holes in paper came about as a way to practice for killing people and animals; not the other way around.  

What is a responsible gun owner?  If you ask thirty different people you will likely get thirty different answers. From what I’ve noticed recently are the answers will generally be divided among two camps; those who go along with the thinking of the antigun movement, and those who go with a more traditional view point.  One side of the fence will tell you that all of your weapons need to be locked in a safe and should never be outside the safe unless you are using them.  Doing anything less makes you an irresponsible gun owner and you deserve to have your house burgled.  The other side will tell you that locking them in a safe is a smart practice, but if you have some outside the safe on display or for other purposes it’s acceptable.  After all, it wasn’t that long ago that glass front wooden gun cabinets were the norm in many people’s homes.  I fall into the second camp; I blame criminals for their actions and not crime victims for the actions of criminals.  I asked the question; what is a responsible gun owner?  Here is my answer.  A responsible gun owner is a person who responsibly handles their weapons and takes reasonable care in securing them.  What is responsible handling to me?  It’s handling them in a manner that isn’t reckless i.e. they follow the four rules for safe gun handling as appropriate to the situation.  Why do I say appropriate to the situation? Contrary to the beliefs of some there are times when at least one of those rules will be broken because of the situation. We at Suarez International teach point shooting which wouldn’t be possible without breaking Cooper’s rule number 3; Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target. Instead we say keep your finger off the trigger until you’ve made a conscience decision to shoot. This is because you may be firing from half hip, ¾ hip or indexing off the slide and never see the sights. What makes Fairbairn, Sykes, and Applegate wrong and Cooper right?  Ever holstered your gun? Every time you holster your gun in a traditional type concealed carry holster you’re are pointing your muzzle at something you don’t want to destroy (rule 2 violation); typically your hip, thigh or calf.  If this weren’t true people wouldn’t be injured when they have an accidental discharge in their holster.  What is reasonable care in securing a weapon? To me as well as the legal beagles it is defined as “the degree of caution and concern for the safety of himself/herself and others an ordinarily prudent and rational person would use in the circumstances.”  Just because locking them in a safe is the most cautious doesn’t mean not having them in a safe isn’t reasonable care.  If you have your TV stolen or other valuables stolen from your home should you be blamed for not taking reasonable care by not locking them in a vault? The same goes if your car is stolen from your garage.  For most of us other than our home our vehicle is the most valuable thing we own and they are routinely the target of theft. A reasonable person would consider a locked home or garage reasonable care for securing their other valuables; why does a home suddenly become fair game for robbery just because someone owns weapons.  

I’m often told that words mean something; the next time you are told or are telling someone what it means to be a “responsible gun owner” stop and think about what that means to you. Also stop and remember that just because it means one thing to you it doesn’t mean you are right and everyone else who disagrees with you is wrong, stupid or irresponsible. 

For the record I think it’s a sound practice to secure weapons in a safe that aren’t being used, but admit to having weapons that aren’t in my safe. Some of them are out for home protection in addition to my every day carry gun, some are used to dispatch varmints around our property and some of them are used to plink a few times a week on my small home range.