Sadly, I’ve seen it before: tactical ‘expert’ pronounces that if you don’t use his pet technique, “you’re going to get hit”. A variation: “well, if you don’t want to take a bullet you’d better do this.”

Whether or not I agree with the technique being presented, I hate that method of getting a point across because everyone knows (or should know) it’s nonsense.

Take, for instance, moving off the vector of an attack (which some refer to as “get off the X”) while at the same time shooting at the threat. This has been raised to a religion in some schools, and one such congregant recently defended the idea by saying “people who stand still get shot.”

Really?

If that’s true, then there should be a whole lot of people around (whether alive or deceased) who can be used as examples. Humans have been defending themselves with firearms for more than a century, and the huge overwhelming majority of those people had no formal training before doing so. Since they were likely not trained to move, how did they manage to survive not getting hit? The fact that they generally did leads us to question the logic behind the statement.

I’m sure that with enough digging you could find one or two, but this fellow’s absolutist statement would require that there be a whole lot of those folks – and I think even a little searching will show that there aren’t.

This is the case with so much defensive training: when there really isn’t logic or fact behind what’s being taught, instructors will sometimes fall back on hyperbole to prevent the student from asking the hard questions. There may in fact be a benefit to a certain technique, but the benefit is less than the cost; there may, in fact, be zero benefit. It’s up to the student to recognize when hyperbole is being used to mask a deficiency, and respectfully ask for a logical explanation of what’s being taught.

Do I believe there is a benefit to moving offline during an attack? Yes. Do I believe that it is always a good idea to continue that movement while I shoot back? No, and I think that I do a pretty good job of explaining “why” to my students without insulting their intelligence or trying to scare them into compliance. There is a cost/benefit ratio with any defensive move, and I think it’s a disservice not to communicate that to a student.

Reason. Fact. Ask for them by name. Politely, of course!

-=[ Grant ]=-