The Tactical Life

Off Topic Guns & Shooting Sports
1392

Thought for the day:

"Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water, in a austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon. He doesn’t worry about what workout to do—his rucksack weighs what it weighs, and he runs until the enemy stops chasing him. The True Believer doesn’t care how hard it is, he knows he either wins or he dies. He doesn’t go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the “Cause.” Now, who wants to quit?" NCOIC of the Special forces Assessment and Selection Course in a welcome speech to new SF candidates.

1393

A five minute fight doesn’t just seem long but it is long. MMA fighters do five minute rounds and sometimes after round one one, or both, fighters are already gassed.

Thinking about this makes me wonder if it’s better to train to be prepared to go five very hard, life and death minutes, or go say 20-30 minutes at an obviously lower intensity. I’m talking about a self-defense situation, not mma or some other combat sport.

1394

This is where we draw the “tactical” line.

As @Idaho has pointed out many times soldiers have to be able to run in heavy kit or March long distances and still fight at the end (with weapons of course).

In the meantime most civilians would likely only encounter real violence for a very brief period. All those FBI statistics about assaults and shootings mention how brief they are. Civilians have the option to disengage and leave that cops and soldiers don’t.

So I’d vote more intense for less time as a civvy.

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1395

How often do the police deal with an active mass shooter, vs a drunk abusive husband with a handgun? I would imagine the second type of instance much, much more often.

Ideally a cop is equally well trained in combat as in verbal judo and physchology. But I do wonder if more emphasis were placed on the verbal judo aspect would if effect more positive change for society?

1396

That’s kinda the point. You practice verbal judo pretty much all shift, every shift. You practice it on the road, at traffic stops and neighbour disputes, mental health calls, domestics, and ‘lower’ or I should say ‘unknown’ risk arrests. Shit, you practice it in the office dealing with bosses and co-workers. You solve 99+ % of problems with your brain and your mouth. You get good at it. When you can get someone to genuinely say “Thank you” for writing them a ticket, you’re on the right track.

I’ve been on around 400 calls this year. Probably 300 of them required me to apply some sort of verbal de-escalation/conflict resolution/verbal judo techniques to varying degrees. Not to mention a few ‘closed door meetings’ with bosses where the gift of the gab also worked to good effect.

I’ve had around 100 hours of formal conflict management training and 100’s of hours practice in real time with immediate feedback. In most cases the worst possible outcome if I’d really screwed up would have been hurt feelings, a public complaint, some more closed door meetings and maybe a nasty note on my assessment.

During the same timeframe maybe 10-20 of those calls required a more ‘tactical’ response ranging from hands on control, to house clearing to a patrol carbine. If I’d screwed those up I could have been injured, been killed or gotten someone else hurt or killed. Which do you think I prioritize in my own training? The thing I practice all day every day with relatively low stakes or the thing I do once in a blue moon when it’s literally life or death?

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1397

Meant to share the post about that fight here. Way to stay in the fight sister.

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1398

That’s a very good explanation.

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1399

Yes, you are correct and Batman730 gave a better answer than I could, well said.

Also, just to point out the oblivious, street officers have it the worst, having to deal with the public everyday. Other units I have worked: SWAT, Narcotics, Fugitive, and Vice, were more direct enforcement and did not include a lot of verbal judo. Actually, I had more “fights” working vice than any other assignment. Prostitutes and “John’s” never want to go to jail.

Personal note for Z: I once got my ass handed to me by a perp later turned out to be high on PCP. At the time of this fight, I thought I was a bad ass: black belt in TKD, ex-Ranger, SWAT, etc. Come to find out, nothing I did hurt this asshole and I was gassing out when back up arrived. If they had not got there when they did, he would have taken my gun and killed me. 3 days later, I got out of the hospital, one week after that, started training at a inner city boxing club. I could not believe I gassed out, could not believe, I could actually be “beat”. HA-HA.

(nice thing about a serious inner city boxing gym, you get your ass handed to you every training session)

Not slamming TKD, but, when you are on the street, you need short, violent maneuvers. Now, every training session I do, ends with 5 minutes of the most violent HITT , I can think of, usually, when I have access, combinations on the heavy bag. So, I guess, I fall under the “self-defense, 5 minutes rule” for training.

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1400

Is arresting naked people as gross as it sounds?

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1401

I will share with a personal quirk. I hated touching people on the street without gloves. Yes, naked perps can be gross, but, I hated the ones covered in their own vomit and shit worse. It is also a highly sensitive situation, especially with female. Image trying to control a drunk, naked woman (in public) who is passively resisting. You cannot control her with touching “something”. Then it gets quoted on YouTube, “cop grabbing woman’s breast”.

Hopefully a female cop is working you can call over for help, she can do the major lifting and you will not be accused of “inappropriate sexual advances”.

Same apply to the female cop with a naked male, call for backup, because everything is recorded somewhere on social media.

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1402

Thought for the day:

“you’ve already failed the moment you underestimate your adversary regardless of his background”

“I’ve always gravitated to the narrative that humans are more important than hardware. Hype is hype, and at the end of the day the tactical industry can and will sell you everything. But personal resilience and grit, those are earned”.

1403

Thought for the day (2): movement, movement, and more movement.

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1404

This comes full circle to my concerns previously, the second scenario (5’ w/ movement) seems very real world to me and it was still close, even in a video where the shooter was pretty obviously trained and comfortable with drawing and firing his weapon…a lay person, a person that has gotten rusty, or simply a trained person who let their physical fitness go is one mishandled draw, missed trigger, or misstep away from a knife to the body and having their weapon turned on them. That’s a pretty humbling video to watch, as I always assume that my better than average physical conditioning would help me in situations like that…it wouldn’t.

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1405

The people who need to see demos like that are… everyone. The average person thinks gun vs knife is not a fair fight so assumes a cop had other options than shoot. Or could shoot him in the leg. As that and other videos show, you might not even get a shot off. These videos also show how someone just charging is a serious threat. Not to sound sexist but a small female officer getting charged by a big guy won’t be able to draw her weapon, point and say freeze. I wouldn’t expect a male officer to do that either.

The thing about the Tueller distance demos is that both parties know what is going on. And it is still not easy.

I know the Gracies teach to fall backwards, with your feet up, like an open guard position, and shoot from there. I’ve seen others teach that as well. I don’t know if anyone else has seen that tactic.

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1406

I’ve seen that fall back and draw tactic. Personally I’m not a fan because you’ve sacrificed mobility. I prefer moving back to create distance then circling laterally to maintain it until you can finish the fight.

1407

I saw a video with the fall backwards technique and thought it looked ridiculous. I didn’t know it was taught by the Gracies, and I’m a nobody with no training, so take my $.02 for what it’s worth. But falling backwards and putting ones feet up looks fun to practice on a mat, but on concrete or asphalt it looks like a great way to knock oneself unconscious.

1408

I also dislike touching people without gloves. Shaking hands is right out. Also, fighting naked 20-something females is way less fun than some might think. Super awkward and uncomfortable. Would really rather not.

1409

I wouldn’t think it would be the only/go to option but simply an option. If you saw in the video when the shooter failed to draw his weapon in time he knew he was done. If you realize you won’t get your weapon out in time and the attacker is already close to striking distance falling back can give you more time. It could be the better option than forgetting about drawing your weapon and engaging him empty handed.

1410

That’s why you practice falling properly.

1411

Oh yeah, I get the idea and if you’re overbalanced and going down anyway, it might not be a bad way to go. I also appreciate that it rapidly creates distance between your vital areas and the blade. I just don’t like the idea of voluntarily giving up my feet. It seems like pulling guard with a gun. It may be worth practicing, but I find I it hard enough time finding time to practice higher percentage stuff like moving and shooting, off cover shooting, retention shooting, manipulations etc. It would never be high on my list.