Subject: A Gun May Be Useless If You Can't Fight

   ISSUE #240 GUIDED CHAOS NEWS        |  Endorsements
LikeTwitterForward
2014 BOOT CAMP?
How does 4 solid days of training at our fully equipped NY facility sound? Let us know--and also what time of year you prefer.
A GUN MAY BE USELESS IF YOU CAN'T FIGHT HAND-TO-HAND!
By John Perkins, former Yonkers NY detective, forensic crime scene expert and Guided Chaos creator; and Ari Kandel, Guided Chaos 4th degree. See the full article and VIDEO on the Kahr Arms website.

A Revelation?


In 2012, the FBI radically modified its firearms training program. A review of nearly 200 agent-involved shootings during a 17-year period had found that 75% of incidents involved suspects who were within 3 yards of agents when shots were exchanged. The new training program emphasizes fast close quarters shooting as opposed to traditional long range marksmanship. It does not, however, go far enough away from traditional firearms training towards preparation for dealing with the reality of criminal violence.

For some, apparently, the result of the study was a revelation. For others, however, it had been common knowledge for a long time.

At least since the beginning of the 20th Century, there have been tensions between competition-based and conflict-based training methodologies in military, police and civilian firearms training. Repeatedly, periods of intense conflict (e.g. Prohibition and the Great Depression for law enforcement, World War II for the military) have given rise to training methodologies designed to deal with the actual conflicts being fought. In the absence of such all-consuming conflicts, however, methods based on competitive marksmanship tend to quickly reassert themselves in the name of “progress”.

Competition or Conflict-Based Training?

The conflict-based methodologies have always included some variations of “point shooting” (i.e. shooting without conscious use of the firearm's sights) to deal with fast, close quarters, reactive conflict situations. The FBI's early training methods, created in part by veteran gunfighters such as Delf “Jelly” Bryce, and the World War II-era methods developed by William Fairbairn and Rex Applegate, are good examples of this. After the World War II era, however, as soldiers, cops, civilians and trainers gradually became further and further removed from the crucible of widespread total war, “combat competition”-based methods moved to the forefront as the most “scientifically tested” and “proven” training methods for gunfighting.

Unfortunately, combat (or more appropriately, “action”) competition-based methods, while in some cases useful for certain aspects of combative firearms application, completely ignore the true, universal dynamics of close quarters reactive combat. The hallmarks of the action competition-based methods, such as a strictly prescribed, two-handed shooting stance and major focus on sight alignment and sight picture, are almost never possible nor even advisable in actual close quarters reactive combat (as distinct from longer range and/or proactive combat, where you have the initiative and control the timing of the engagement). As the late Jim Cirillo, veteran NYPD gunfighter, wrote: “Your problem isn't your front sight, it's your background.”
Close-Range Combat: True Dynamics

It should be obvious that for the defense-minded civilian, conflicts involving firearms are mostly extensions of general interpersonal conflict and criminal assault. Arguments, assaults and criminal predation don't usually start from 25 yards, or even 7 yards. Criminals need to be close to you in order to do what they want to do, and most recidivist offenders have become pretty good at getting to where they need to be before tipping their hand. Arms' length distance, or at most across a room of your home or business (or any business you may frequent that is targeted by criminals while you're there), is the norm rather than the exception for a civilian (which includes law enforcement, as only members of the military are non-civilians).

Because available time and options reduce as distance decreases, and because the odds that even an untrained criminal will “get lucky” are highest at point-blank range (note that a recent major study revealed that cop killers train far more often and more realistically than typical cops), it behooves the armed citizen to devote most of his or her training time and effort to dealing with the true dynamics of this most critical and most likely scenario.

And it is those “true dynamics” of reactive close quarters gunfighting that make action competition-based training methods wholly unsuitable.

These gunfights erupt at the distances where beatings, stabbings, strong arm robberies, abductions, rapes and home invasions occur—because those are the situations the armed citizen is trying to prevent by being armed!

Therefore, the psychological and physical dynamics of this type of gunfight more strongly resemble those of all-out unarmed or contact weapon combat than they do those of any shooting match.
You Never Know What You're Dealing With

Murderers and rapists don't tell you in advance whether you're going to be in a gunfight, or a fistfight or knife fight for that matter. It's a FIGHT for your LIFE on someone else's terms and schedule and you need to train yourself to adapt, move and bring your best weapons to bear as quickly as possible to end the threat and escape before being overwhelmed and possibly having your weapons taken from you.

Your movement will be more instinctual and fight-or-flight-response-driven than refined and intellectually driven. You may know the best positions, movements and techniques to assure optimum marksmanship and speed under the pressure and dynamics of an action shooting match, but your lower brain will quickly recognize the fact that you're in a very different situation and will accordingly prompt action before you're consciously able to figure much out. We're hardwired to focus on and move away from danger. This is why we constantly see even highly trained competitive shooters “revert” to crouching, spastic backpedalling and “dodging” and single-handed cyclic rate unsighted shooting when faced with an enemy muzzle at near contact distance. Your body won't allow you to attain a static, upright stance and focus on your front sight once it sees the enemy's lethally threatening movement mere feet and split seconds away. Just as your body would instinctively try to avoid a thrown object or strike, it focuses on and tries to avoid an enemy muzzle being brought to bear. Two hands often can't be brought to your weapon as practiced because at least one is outstretched or moving to help maintain balance during your ballistic avoidance motion, or is being used to shield against or disrupt the threat.
Hand-to-hand Training PLUS Intuitive Shooting

Your training needs to account for these dynamics and work with them, rather than against them. Therefore, your training needs to include point shooting or “intuitive” shooting, seamlessly combined with unarmed combat, as there is no guarantee you'll already have gun in hand when violence commences, or indeed that you'll ever be able to get to it at all. Fortunately, in terms of unarmed combat and reactive close quarters gun fighting to deal with criminal violence, good training for one reinforces the other, as the movement dynamics and required physical and mental attributes are necessarily the same, e.g. awareness, balance, muscular efficiency, whole body coordination, physical and mental freedom of action, and moral will to prevail. See http://www.attackproof.com/ for more information on how to develop combative attributes.

In order for a weapon to be suitable for this type of engagement, it must be:
  1. Constantly available, meaning carryable and concealable at all times. Again, criminals do not typically email you their intentions in advance, giving you time to go home, unlock your safe and retrieve your favorite blaster!
  2. Reliable and durable under extreme circumstances. In a close quarters fight, your weapon likely won't be fired from a static, stable, upright stance. It may be fired at strange angles, while spastically moving, in a suboptimal grip. During the fight it may be struck or otherwise disrupted. Regardless, it has to work.
  3. Simple and intuitive to operate. Under extreme fight-or-flight effects, your body is best prepared to use any hand-held object as a striking or throwing weapon. It will already be an accomplishment of nurture over nature to actually SHOOT THE GUN, so it's best to keep things as simple as possible to accomplish that, regardless of time in training.
  4. Quick to grip and draw. When split seconds count and your body is instinctively moving at reflex speed (i.e. the speed at which your hand will pull away from a sudden flame), any additional movement, effort and time required to get a secure grip on an ill-fitting gun and clear snags during the draw is a recipe for disaster.
  5. Well fit to your hand and naturally pointable. While it is somewhat possible to adapt to an ill-fitting gun through extensive training and practice, things are just easier and faster and less likely to fall apart under lethal threat if the tool and user are well matched from the beginning. This increases the user's confidence as well.
  6. Shootable and controllable enough for you to keep multiple rounds on target at cyclic speed (i.e. as fast as you can pull the trigger) at close range, with one hand
  7. Powerful enough to consistently penetrate a big guy's vital organs through commonly worn clothing from all angles with expanding bullets. Within the major combat calibers (including 9x19mm through .45 ACP), this is largely a matter of diligent ammunition selection. More attention should probably be paid to consistently deep penetration, resistance to deflection, consistently reliable expansion and destructive expanded bullet shape than to initial and expanded bullet size or cavitation. Of course, the selected ammunition should not disrupt requirement #6 above.
A Kahr Pistol + Adaptive Shooting = Survival

[John Perkins uses the Kahr Pistol line for defensive concealed carry]

The Kahr series of pistols fits the above criteria for most people. From the larger T and TP pistols through the mid-size K and P pistols down to the smallest MK and PM pistols, the basic Kahr design is reliable, durable, simple, slick and adaptable to various people's concealment, hand fit and shootability needs through its various size and caliber (9x19mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP, as well as .380 ACP for deep concealment/backup) permutations.

In a fight for your life against criminal assault, you need instantaneous, intuitive spine-shot/head-shot accuracy from contact to seven yards (or as far as you can manage) against wildly moving multiple targets while YOU are focusing on the threats, dodging, moving, drawing, hitting, pushing, evading and protecting your weapon at reflex speed, on your feet and on the ground—without shooting yourself!

Many have succeeded, and failed, with less. It behooves us to consider worst-case scenarios and prepare accordingly to the best of our ability.

Anything less constitutes a “strategy of hope”: hope that YOUR attackers will be so accommodating that they'll allow you to put basic marksmanship or competition-based training to use, and you'll be “cool” enough to do it when your life is in imminent danger…

Stay tuned for more articles on:
  •     Concealed Carry
  •     Gunfighting Grip and Trigger Pull
  •     Home Defense
  •     Other Weapons in the Gunfight

HOW DO YOU TRAIN BARE-HANDS TO HANDGUNS?
PART 4 OF THE GUIDED CHAOS WEAPONS SERIES

You can be the best target shooter in the world but if you can't fight HAND-TO-HAND at CLOSE RANGE you will never even GET to your gun. Worse, you could be shot with your own weapon! And if you get the microsecond to draw, traditional Isosceles or Weaver stances could get you killed.


MORE INFO   

DVDS (below) or DOWNLOAD
 
PART 1: KNIFE OFFENSE | PART 2: KNIFE DEFENSE
PART 3: CANE VS. KNIFE | PART 4: BARE HANDS TO HAND GUNS
Got Questions? Get Answers! Email us | Ask on Facebook | Join our Forum
FIRST GUIDED CHAOS COMBATIVES SCHOOL IN THE SOUTHEAST
 
It's official: Atlanta Combatives is open for business--with Omari George, the only GCC certified instructor in the South. The school also has an informal GC Training Group for contact flow practice.
FIRST GUIDED CHAOS TRAINING GROUP IN THE NETHERLANDS
Want to Join?
Contact person for the group:

Jan Bernard Oostwoud
jboostwoudATgmailDOTcom

The town where we train:

Town: Voorburg
Provence: Zuid Holland
Country: Nederland

You can also register to create your own Training Group here: http://attackproof.com/INTERACT.html
WANT TO LEARN GUIDED CHAOS RIGHT NOW?
 

 VIDEO ON DEMAND 

A
ll our DVDs (including DISCOUNTED COMBOS) are available as Downloads!
NO WAITING |  NO SHIPPING FEES | PLAY ON DROID AND IPHONE*
*iPhone: Use free iOS App "MOD Mobile"  *Android: Use the MOD CloudPlayer (streaming only).

ALREADY GOT OUR DVDs?
The ONLY Guided Chaos School with All This Training:
  GC Headquarters, Elmsford NY 
  • Combatives: Max speed and power development
  • Groundfighting: Ruthless striking, evasion, mobility
  • Combat Boxing: No Rules Dirty Fighting
  • Conditioning: Essential GC 5 Principles development
  • Contact/Combat Flow: Total reactive freedom
"YOU REALLY WANT TO COME HERE!"

"The classes are great…they're very comprehensive. I feel like I've learned more in the last few weeks than I've learned in the last 5 months. I feel like I'm getting a private class every night! We get right down to business…I think it's fantastic. If you're really serious about GC and you want to get better, you really want to come here."

--Santino T.


• FREE 1/2 Hour Private Intro Lesson with GC Master Lt Col Al Ridenhour USMC
  (Required for new students only who have never attended a GC class.) Make appointment.

MORE INFO
GUIDED CHAOS:
"Brilliant Self Defence System.
 I cannot get enough of it."


"It has all aspects of Self Protection covered in depth. Many thanks to all of the Guided Chaos Masters and Teachers. With great gratitude to GM Perkins for the wisdom and insight to create this System."

---Sifu Doug Clark, Instructor Level Technician of Ving Tsun and Practitioner of Tai Ji Quan
www.functionalcombatsystems.com
ENDORSEMENTS:

Blitz magazine article on Guided Chaos Australia Seminar:

"Let me start by saying I thought I'd seen all that the world of 'reality-based self defence' had to offer, so for the easily bored out there, I'll cut to the chase. What I witnessed on the weekend of 26 and 27 March is the closest thing I've come across that resembles a modern-day, reality-based martial art and not just another 'combatives system'. Does it work? Hell, yeah! I got my arse well and truly kicked and at times felt like I was in the middle of a Jason Bourne fight scene."
--Clive Girdham, former Senshido and Geoff Thompson instructor

[Excerpted from the exclusive review of the Guided Chaos Australia Seminar in the Aug. print edition of BLITZ MAGAZINE: Australia's #1 Martial Arts magazine volume 25, issue 6
"Guided Chaos is the only training in my 15 plus years of Corrections that translates into real world application, period."

"Guided Chaos is the only thing that has worked for me in real life situations. Unless you are 6'3" and 285 lbs of muscle, most of the Defensive Tactics stuff (ok all of the Defensive Tactics stuff) will get you hurt. And even if you are that big and strong, there is always  someone bigger and stronger and there may be a lot of them. Nothing like dealing with one guy and it turns into a free for all with all his buddies. This is where you literally need to 'adapt or die' and Guided Chaos is the only training in my 15 plus years of Corrections that translates into real world application, period."
---Bob Miller, Corrections Officer at the largest facility in Oregon
"If I had to pick only one martial arts system in the world it would be Guided Chaos..."--Dr. Robert L. O'Block founder and publisher of the American College of Forensic Examiners International, American Board for Certification in Homeland Security
 

"...through watching videos put out by attackproof.com, and by reading Attackproof, the book, I have learned real survival skills. These skills have been learned...at an exponentially higher practical yield-per-hour training rate than any other martial art classes or seminar I've ever attended, or ever even heard rumor of."
--Matthew Shoener, Police Officer, Scranton, PA


"The Companion Video Part One is stupendous!
A godsend of detail for out-of-state practitioners."
--Mark from Chicago

SEE ALL ENDORSEMENTS
Web and video production for ATTACKPROOF.INC provided by:
Mad Squirrel Productions Inc., P.O. Box 163, 10520, Croton, United States
You may unsubscribe or change your contact details at any time.