Armed Defense Around Vehicles

My own personal training tour for the month of June 2017 continued with the Armed Defense Around Vehicles Course taught by Rob Pincus. This course was part of the 2017 Personal Defense Network Tour. I try to catch a PDN Tour event every year when they come to Iowa. This course was not a skill development course per se but a science experiment in ballistics.

This course was designed to show the effects or lack of effect of different ammunition and firearms on a typical automobile. Throughout the day we fired handguns in 9mm, .40 and ,45 as well as Rifles in 5.56, .308 and .300 Blackout. 12 ga slugs and 00 Buck was also used.

Initially we fired through the windshield from the interior to show the deflection or the "inconsistent predictability" of rounds as they exited. I found that you could with a certain degree of accuracy at least guess where a round may go initially. There were always outliers and WTF moments however.

Next we attempted to skip rounds off the hood of the vehicle to explore the different angle and trajectories this produced.

We moved on to shooting different portions of the vehicle exterior with the above mentioned rounds to test penetration. After every round the interior of the vehicle was disassembled to attempt to track the bullet path. We discussed loss of momentum,spalling and probability of penetration. What I learned was you could assume the vehicle was cover for a bad guy and assume it was not cover for you.

We talked about the results as they related to not "crowding your cover" and other tactics. We learned the best places to obtain cover using a vehicle and what areas may only afford concealment. I learned a huge lesson about what ball and hollow point ammunition can accomplish as well as typical rifle cartridges. The day went by quickly and time was well spent.

As a bonus at the end of the day I got to shoot the new PD10 prototype from  Avidity Arms. Sweet gun. Single stack 9mm designed with all the defensive bells and whistles we advocate in the Combat Focus Shooting Program. Check the course out if you get a chance

Combat Focus Shooting 2015 : PDN Tour part 2

The day after Combat Focus Carbine I regrouped at the Big Springs range in Searsboro Iowa for the two day version of Combat Focus Shooting taught by Rob Pincus and a part of the Personal Defense Network national tour. I had taken the one day version of this course titled Fundamentals of Combat Focus Shooting back in April with Ken Crawford and Allesandro Padavoni. I enjoyed that course but I was looking forward to the two day version to practice some more skills but more importantly to learn from the teaching techniques of the man who developed the Combat Focus Shooting program. Although this was an end user class I was really looking at it as a bit of instructor development for my classes as a I.C.E. Defensive Firearms Coach and potential CFS instructor candidate.

As he did with the CFC course Rob spent a fair amount of time explaining the course and some of the CFS principles prior to any bullets going down range. He talked about Safety,Comfort and Competency and the three safety rules. He gave us the context of the course. CFS is a shooting program that teaches you to shoot efficiently in the context of a Dynamic Critical Incident. A Dynamic Critical Incident is defined as surprising,chaotic and it involves the presentation of a lethal threat. In the context of this class the lethal threat was more than two arms length away. CFS is also a intuitive shooting program that works well with the body,works well with the gun and works well within the context of intended use. As he had the previous day he talked about  efficient vs effective and physiological vs psychological stops to an attack.

We did many drills during this two day course so I will not list them all here. Suffice to say we covered, critical incident reloads, malfunctions, the Balance of Speed and Precision,presentation from the holster, lateral movement, Multiple target engagement,weak hand only engagement, strong hand only engagement, volume of fire and many more. As previously described in the CFC post we did all this while under varying amounts of stress such as experienced during the "take a lap' and "wind sprint" drills. What I want to talk about is what I took away in regards to the "why " of CFS.

The first concept that resonated with me was the explanation of competence. Rob explained how when we learn a new skill we work through four levels of competence. First we are unconsciously incompetent because we don't even realize we need the skill. Secondly we are consciously incompetent as we learn our need for a skill and its employment. Thirdly we are consciously competent as we refine our skill yet have to think about its use. Lastly we become unconsciously competent as the skill  becomes "second nature" and we don't think about its use. Rob used the analogy of moving you foot from the gas to the brake while driving. When we first learned to drive this was a conscious movement but now for most drivers it just happens. Personally I equate it to my time as a military free fall parachutist. During the MFF basic course I was often a tumble biscuit as I tried to control my body and make it do what I wanted as I struggled to maintain my stability in the relative wind. By the time I was a senior MFF instructor myself I only had to have the desire for something to happen in the air and my body made it happen much like the brake analogy.

Rob used a couple of analogies that will also help me refine my own instructional technique. He talked about the Christmas/Lottery model of shooting precision. In this model a child is opening presents at Christmas. Every present is expected to have a wonderful gift inside. As each present is opened the child's dopamine levels rise and a euphoric feeling is experienced. But inevitably some presents contain socks or tshirts from Grandma. So disappointment happens and dopamine levels drop. In the lottery model however individuals buy a lottery ticket never fully expecting to win but if they do dopamine levels rise unexpectedly. Rob wanted us to be the Christmas shooter and not the lottery shooter. Have the confidence and expect to get the hit and be disappointed if you don't. Don't send the shot down range and be happy if you get the hit by chance.

The Balance of Speed and Precision is a core concept of the Combat Focus Shooting program. It is drilled and talked about in many different scenarios. The underlying concept though is that the shooter should shoot as fast as possible while still getting the necessary hits in the intended target. They target itself defines the need for the amount of precision. Rob has developed another analogy that makes this easy to understand. Imagine a U shaped tube partially filled with a liquid. Each stem of the U has graduations from 1-10 with the 1 being at the top and the graduations moving down. On the left is speed and on the right stem is precision. Also on the right stem is a pump that can fill the tube with pressure. Based on the target increasing pressure is forced into the tube. As the need for precision increases numerically the liquid on the speed side moves towards a lower number and vice versa. It was a brilliantly simple yet effective graphical representation of the Balance of Speed and Precision concept. I have hopefully reproduced it accurately below. But you get the idea.

The last concept that Rob explained in some detail was the phenomenon of Tachypsychia and Bradypsychia or the perceived speeding up or slowing down of time during a DCI. He utilized another story and graphical representation that would lose a lot in translation here but suffice to say it involved commandos, spy satellites and terrorist bad guys. This story also made the concepts crystal clear in my mind. 

All in all this course was what I had hoped it would be. I honed my own skills while learning some innovative ways to teach the I.C.E. Training Company Concepts. I am looking forward to my chance at becoming a  CFS instructor in the future and teaching these concepts more thoroughly to others.

Finally I give you a video of my figure 8 drill. Shows that even an experienced shooter that has run the drill before can experience cognitive dissonance. Keep training.

Combat Focus Carbine 2015:PDN Tour part 1

Recently I traveled to Searsboro Iowa to participate in a few courses offered by Rob Pincus and his I.C.E. Training Company. The first class I participated in was the one day version of the Combat Focus Carbine course. The context of the course would be a home defense scenario where the need to shoot was established. I brought two different rifles to this class, because one is none and two is one as the saying goes. My first was my Stag Arms Model 2. This is just a plain Jane AR-15 platform that I bought right after the Sandy Hook "they are coming for our guns" scare. This would be my back up choice.


My primary weapon was an AR-15 I had recently built. This AR had a Palmetto State Armory cold forged barrel and upper receiver with a Palmetto State Armory nickel boron BCG and bolt. The lower parts kit and stock were from Brownells. The trigger assembly was a Rock River 2 stage trigger and it was in an Anderson manufacturing lower receiver. The optic was a Strike Fire Vortex with back up Magpul sights. I had shot only about 100 rounds out of this weapon prior to the class.

Rob spent about an hour at the beginning talking about concepts that were familiar to me as an I.C.E Defensive Firearms Coach. I talked about that experience here -http://www.mikemac356.blogspot.com/2015/03/defensive-firearms-coaches-course.html . He first talked about Safety,Comfort and Competency. How safety was his responsibility as the instructor. He talked about how comfort was a shared responsibility and how it was up to him to make us intellectual comfortable by explaining the "why" and the reasons behind the drills we would perform today. No BS answers, more tools for our toolbox or that's they way we have always done it. The "why" would be backed up with examples and empirical data. It was up to us to be physically comfortable and to let him know if we needed any accommodations with our gear or physical limitations to attain that physical comfort. Competency was an individual and subjective trait that was the shooters responsibility. We were not competing against each other but against ourselves. Our goal would be to leave the class a better defensive carbine shooter than when we arrived. Rob talked effectiveness vs efficiency and how something could be effective without being efficient. He talked about psychological stops to an attack vs physiological stops. You actions could psychologically stop an attack by making the attacker run away but our goal was to physiologically stop it by engaging the threat in the "high center chest". Lastly before we started firing Rob went over the three safety rules.

#1. Keep your trigger finger somewhere other than the trigger
#2. Point your rifle in a generally safe direction as much as possible. ( Rob designated this direction as down range or at the ground.)
#3. Remember you are in control of a firearm any discharge whether negligent or intentional could cause serious injury or death to you or others.

This is the "big picture" rule. It encapsulates for me the I.C.E. training philosophy and why I like the companies methodology. They give you facts and research to back up what they teach. But first and foremost they expect you to act like an adult. They are not there to babysit you because firearms and the use of them for self defense is very serious business, not a game or a hobby. Once safety was established we moved to the line at about a distance of 7-10 feet. All the training would be at self defense distances within the context of the course. I don't think we shot more than 30-40 feet away from the targets at most.

Anyway I got an epiphany during the very first drill. Rob talked about body mechanics and position. He talked about how we should be able to hit what we where aiming at using our body position and not need to use the sights at self defense ranges. We conducted a raise,touch,press drill where we raised the rifle to our shoulder, touched the trigger on his command and then smoothly pressed the trigger to the rear. We were not using sights or optics. In fact my sights were down and the dust cover was closed on my optic.  My first shot was high and left about 12 inches from the intended target. I thought that was weird but my second shot was in the same general area. So based on Rob's advice I brought the stock up higher on my cheek lowering my point of aim. Viola!!! I was hitting right where I needed to be. This is where the epiphany happened. I have shot hundreds of thousands of rounds out of the AR15/M16/M4 platform in my life. It is probably the weapon I am most familiar with. But I had been doing it all wrong!!! I had been taking the time to acquire the target through my sights and unconsciously adjusting my point of aim all these years. I had wasted precious seconds as I cleared rooms during my military career. Seconds that mattered. It was a lesson I will not forget.

After our body positions were squared away we moved in to "up" drills where we conducted the raise,touch press commands on our own at each command of "up!!" Single and multiple targets were engaged with 3-5 rounds. Rob talked about malfunction procedures as they presented themselves and emphasized not looking as you resolved the issue and keeping your control hand on the rifle. We then moved our optics to match our body position and briefly zeroed them to the distances we were working at. My zero had been the 25m/300m zero that I was used to from the military. I had to move my point impact about 1/4 inch left at self defense distances. We then moved on to the Balance of Speed and Precision Drill. This drill is the bread and butter of every I.C.E. training course. The concept is that the target dictates the need for precision. The shooter should go as fast as possible while still getting the needed hits. On the "up" command the shooter moves laterally and either engages the high center chest area with multiple shots or one of the 3 inch numbered circles with a single shot if a number is called out. Rob encourages each individual to push themselves. If the shots start to stray outside the boundaries of the box the shooter needs to slow down, if the shooter is shooting 1 inch groups they need to speed up. The high center chest box should be filled with bullet holes, pretty much equally throughout, and the single shots can hit anywhere in the circles.

After this drill we moved on to shooting from different positions. Sitting,kneeling,squatting. The precise position was not emphasized but getting a good solid shooting platform in each position was. For instance due to my reduced mobility (old guy issues) I had my feet in front of me in the seated position rather than shooting from a cross legged position as I was taught years ago. However the important thing was to keep elbows off of knees. Putting them either on the thigh muscle or the knees in the tricep so a muscle to bone platform was utilized and not a bone to bone connection which might be less than stable.

Once we shot from all positions we conducted flow drills. We would randomly move from position to position and at the "up" command we would shoot from the position we were in or the next position we had been moving to. Tactical Yoga!! We then moved on to the lap drill. We were to hit each circle at our own pace, being accountable for each shot. This drill emphasized the need for precision vs the perceived penalty. One lap had us utilizing only one shot per circle for a total of 6 rounds. Then we were allowed to take as many rounds as needed to hit each target but had to hit each target once, finally told to use 6 rounds but we were not allowed to move on until we hit the previous target. All these instructions carried different penalties vs perceived benefits and required varying degrees of precision. However Rob made the point that the need for precision for each target never changed but our perception did.

The next drill was the "sprint" drill. There were 3 lines at approximately 7 feet, 15 feet and 25 feet. We were told there would be 3 different commands. First command was a movement command telling us to move to a particular line, the second command was a firing command and would be the "up" command or a number as we had been experiencing. The third command was a safety command and that command was "stop!!" Anyone could give this command but only Rob could give the first two. One last clarification was that any command superseded the preceding command. So went through this drill only once as it was a fairly physical drill as we moved swiftly between lines and reacted to the commands. The heat was taking its toil on some of the participants. They probably learned the importance of fitness in self defense. Finally we shot from varying degrees of cover and around vehicles.

Finally the day was complete. Rob conducted a very thorough debrief in which each participant was required to ask a question, make a comment or talk about an issue closely related to the days training. Everyone was required to participate and Rob answered using science,examples and logical reasoning. As all I.C.E courses are this course was enjoyable and motivating. I left feeling i had more knowledge and that I had achieved the goal of leaving a better shooter than when I stepped on the range.