TRAINING HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED

SCENES FROM RANGE TRAINING
Complex skills are learned step by step. Here the students practice stepping off the line of the threat. This is the first step in dealing with an attack at arm's length	Now the students are ready to use a palm strike as they acquire a firing grip on the holstered handgun. Soon they will be ready to draw and to fire from the protected-gun position.
Even though the students have used the opportunity to move laterally to cover before shooting, they still move through the protected-gun position on the draw stroke for consistency. Hick's Law says that the fewer decisions you have to make under stress, the faster you can respond.	After engaging the threats, the students do a 360-degree scan to check for other threats. They are verbalizing to identify themselves as the good guys to potential witnesses. By moving their guns to the "navel position," they can safely move in any direction with a loaded gun in hand.
Many intermediate-range shootings go down one-handed. Students sample a couple of techniques to determine which works better for them. After this photo was taken the students were reminded to shift the shoulder forward of the hip joint, to ensure faster recovery from recoil.	Even the best technique may not fit every student. This 4'7" woman struggles to get her pistol aimed high enough to hit the pelvic region of an adult of average height. If this protected-gun technique won't work reliably for her, it's better to learn it on the range than on the street.
If the non-dominant hand is wounded it's useful to have some practice drawing, shooting and reloading with the dominant hand only. Not too tough - both students are on the same sheet of music at this point. These wounded/return-fire techniques are only performed behind cover. If you don't do it right on the range you probably won't do it right on the street.	If the dominant hand is wounded things get more interesting - the non-dominant hand has to do it all. The student on the left is wearing an open-top holster right at the hip. His gun is in action while the student on the right, with a thumb-break holster behind the hip, is still working to clear leather. With his equipment he had an easier time drawing across the back than across the belly.
Whether you've been knocked to the ground or surprised in bed, you still have to be able to hit your assailant. This is one of several unconventional ground shooting positions taught.	This technique, borrowed from the Center Axis Relock system, is particularly useful if you have to shoot out the left side of your vehicle and your safety belt has locked you in place.
	This 4'11" 60-year-old woman was short on strength but long on determination. It took several sessions to find the right combination of gun and technique for her. Among the challenges she presented, she is right-handed but very strongly left-eye-dominant. It turned out that the weapon-silhouette point was a much more reliable method for her to aim the gun than using the sights, with only a small increase in group size. By using a shooting position that emphasizes relaxing on the gun, rather than muscle, she is already back on target before the ejected case has reached the apex of its flight to the ground. A dogmatic insistence on the first or second shooting position she tried would have resulted in an unhappy student lacking the confidence to fight back. A similar insistence on using the sights would have slowed her response unacceptably.

A Note on Stages of Training

• My friend Ralph Mroz, in his book Defensive Shooting for Real-Life Encounters, discusses the stages of firearms training:
  1. Grounding in the Basics: This is the fundamentals of marksmanship, such as position, sight alignment, sight picture, trigger control and breathing.
  2. Range Drills - Simple to Complex: Ralph describes the progression in complexity of range drills, including shooting from cover, shooting from different positions, shooting with the non-dominant hand, multiple targets, etc.
  3. Force on Force Scenarios: This involves students actually shooting at each other with non-lethal projectiles, such as Simunitions or Airsoft pellets, to simulate the stress of real-life encounters.
• More recently, it has been suggested that stage-three training may be more accurately viewed as testing than training. The thought here is that stages one and two teach and build skills and that stage three tests how they are applied.
• I cannot quarrel with Ralph about the desirability of incorporating stage-three training but I had limited physical facilities. I evaluated the use of Airsoft pistols to offer this training but lacked the facilites and additional staff to do so safely. (There have been several tragic accidents in law enforcement due to procedural breakdowns in maintaining an absolutely "sterile" environment for this type of training.)
• While I was always successful in teaching fundamentals and most of my students left the range shooting better than when they arrived, I concentrated on providing high-end stage-two training with an emphasis on street-relevant tactics.
• The training that I offered was similar to the use of forms or kata in the martial arts - I offered a series of exercises with a lot of emphasis on how body position contributes to shot placement under stress. This was not done with the assumption that one will have perfect "stance" in a fight but with the intent that, with increasing practice, one will "break free of the form" and be able to fight from an imperfect stance. The purpose of the form is to emphasize the key elements during the training process.

Miscellaneous Notes

• I strongly discouraged the use of handguns with ported barrels in my courses. When shooting from the protected-gun position, one of the most valuable techniques I taught, porting can vent hot gases into your own body or face. The same concern applies to at least one other of the close-quarters techniques I teach. (If this is a concern in training, it should also be a concern on the street, where, in addition, it is not likely that you will be wearing hearing protection.)
• I discouraged, the use of handgun-mounted laser sights in my courses. The temptation to look for the red dot on the target seemed to discourage students from concentrating on the body-index components for the close-quarters techniques.
• I discouraged the use of Magnum ammunition, at least for close-quarters work. The concussion from the barrel-cylinder gap is a serious matter and, at close range, the muzzle blast quickly destroys the printed paper targets I used. (If the former is a concern in training, it should also be a concern on the street, where, in addition, it is not likely that you will be wearing hearing protection.)
• I strongly encouraged minimum calibers of .38 Special in revolvers and 9x19mm (Luger or Parabellum) in autoloaders. However, I noted that some students who were comfortable shooting larger calibers, such as .40 S&W and .45 ACP, in autoloaders, with their usual two-handed shooting position at their home range, were no longer comfortable when shooting with some of the one-handed techniques I taught.

Questions? Comments? Stephen P. Wenger P.O.Box 4227 Show Low AZ 85902-4227 U.S.A.

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