Nov 2009
Thoughts on self defense training, Part 8: building blocks.
Monday, November 30, 2009 Filed in:
Self defense, Techniques &
Training
In a previous episode, I talked about doctrine, dogma, and cliché. One particular subject is very often the source of instructional dogmatism, and sometimes spills over into cliché: the shooting stance.
Since we're talking about self defense, let's start with the conclusion: as I study surveillance films of actual shootings, and as I play with the concepts of force-on-force training, I'm struck by the fact that violent encounters rarely involve an identifiable stance. The players, especially the defender, are shooting from whatever position in which they happen to find themselves.
If that's the end result, do we even need to worry about stances? Why do we bother spending the time working on the isoceles, Chapman, or Weaver stances when we're probably not going to be using them when reality comes barging into our lives?
Over Thanksgiving I was discussing this with Georges Rahbani ("The Best Rifle Instructor You've Never Heard Of".) For many years his 'Fighting Rifle' triad has started with basic stances ('platforms', in rifle-speak) and ended up with shooters using whatever stance they happened upon in the course of the encounter. He explained that a basic stance allows the student to do two very important things: first, to eliminate a variable that keeps them from focusing on the necessary stuff like trigger control and sight picture. Second, it helps to develop the level of confidence necessary to be able to control the shot no matter what. Once those have been achieved, the notion of a stance can be jettisoned on the way to a better understanding of a violent encounter.
Some may immediately think of the term 'training wheels', but I prefer to call the stance a 'scaffold': a temporary device that allows us to build something. In the case of a defensive shooter, we're building a skill set. Without the support of the scaffold - the solid, repeatable stance - it's difficult, if not impossible, to build those skills. With it, the student can focus on the truly important things, secure in the knowledge that they are operating from a stable base.
The problem comes when the instructor doesn't understand the true nature of the shooting stance. In those cases, the stance becomes an end unto itself: it drives the instruction, rather than serving as an instructional tool.
A few years back I had an encounter with an instructor who didn't understand this. He went to great lengths explaining why his preferred Weaver stance was the "only stance anyone should ever need." When queried about physical makeup, gun/hand fit, and other variables that affect the success or failure of any given stance with any given student, all he could do was sputter that the Weaver was "proven" to be superior. His dogma was well on the road to cliché.
I've met many shooters who were victims of such shortsighted teachers. More than once have I observed graduates of multiple shooting classes displaying the necessity of getting into just the "perfect" stance in order to shoot. Forced out of that comfort zone, they literally cannot hit the target. Their teachers were so focused on stance that they forgot about the rest of the act of shooting. The stance had become a destination, rather than the journey which it should be.
Roger Phillips, one of the new breed of fight-focused instructors, puts it very well: "Situations dictate strategies, strategies dictate tactics, and tactics dictate techniques……techniques should not dictate anything." Yes, you need to learn a stance that is comfortable and repeatable for you. Understand, though, that when shooting for your life your favorite stance is more than likely going to be abandoned for whatever position the situation allows. Wouldn't it be a good idea to train for that eventuality?
Use a preferred stance to build your trigger control and sighting skills; once that's done, learn to shoot from a 'non-stance'. Get used to being able to deliver combat accurate hits from any angle, any position, while still or moving. If you've used the basic stance properly, you'll find that you no longer need it (at least, for this kind of shooting.)
Ironic, isn't it?
-=[ Grant ]=-
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FRIDAY SURPRISE: I'll take "Stupid things I've done" for $100, Alex.
Friday, November 27, 2009 Filed in:
Friday
Surprise!, My Life
Back in the early '80s, I lead small groups of advanced amateur photographers around the Portland, Oregon metro area at night. The goal was to teach them the fundamentals of available-light photography in an environment that was simultaneously familiar, yet unexplored. We'd gather at about 10:pm at a local Denny's, then head out for a few hours of shooting, usually getting home about 3:am.
Let me paint you a picture: say, 5 people. Camera bags stuffed with multiple thousands of dollars (in Reagan-era money) of easily pawned high-end camera equipment. Major urban center. At night. Sparse police presence. Before cel phones. Before SureFire flashlights. Even before our concealed handgun law.
Now I know what you're thinking, and in retrospect I agree with you. But it seemed like a great idea at the time!
The exact itinerary varied a bit, but a typical evening might find us wandering around the downtown core area, through alleys, construction sites, industrial areas, and perhaps even along the east side of the Willamette River. (Today area residents know it as the "EastBank Esplanade": a tribute to a ditzy mayor who was convinced the way to help "poor homeless people" was to build a boulevard for over-indulged yuppies to ride their bicycles between latte stops. Back then, though, it was just a rough industrial riverbank where bums set up camp once the longshoremen had gone home to dinner.)
These events were very popular - we always filled our limit of attendees - because they were, after all, the only way to get shots like this:
While some of the participants used fine-grained films, tripods and long exposures (giving me a chance to share with them the mysteries of reciprocity failure), others handheld their shots using fast films (often pushed in development) and fast lenses. Both approaches had their uses and limitations, and the facilitator (that would be me) had to be well versed in all of it - while simultaneously maintaining some sense of aesthetics. I'll gladly claim the former, and from the shot above you can judge if I have any business talking about the latter.
Today I wouldn't attempt such craziness without an armored personnel carrier and close air support, if at all. Back then, though, it was just us, our "steal me" bags, and lots of film. And the bums.
-=[ Grant ]=-
Religiosity.
Uncle has resurrected, for the umpteenth time, the "Gospel of John Browning." Like a certain cult popular in Hollywood, fans of the bottom feeder keep trying to convince others to join their weird little group. Luckily, there is a Holy Book which you can use to defend yourself against their evil blandishments.
Many years ago I came across an obscure part of Scripture that deals with this subject. I was able to get it translated from the ancient Hebrew in which it was written, and here are some of the more relevant portions:
We learn of the birth of His Ballistic Holiness:"In the beginning, the universe was without form; the Lord made the
earth in the shape of the sphere, that is to be round, for the Lord
looks upon roundness with great favor."
"The Lord said to Adam and Eve, lo I give you the cycle of seasons,
so that you mayest understand that one thing must follow another, in
their natural order. Do not doest in the Spring that which is meant
for the Autumn, for nature which I hath given to you shall always
complete a circle. The earth doth not shuttle back and forth, nor the
moon travel to-and-fro, for reciprocation is an abomination before
the Lord."
The people were in need of deliverance from the evil around them, and from that need sprang The Gift:"...and she named her son Shmuel, that is Samuel, which means 'he
would be destined a prophet'. And the Lord would listen to Samuel, and
shower him with great favor. As the boy did grow he became known as
Samuel the Colt, for he was exceedingly fast and lithe, with graceful
manner and of great wisdom."
Of course, people never recognize a good thing even when it stares them in the face. From that flows what has become known as the Browning Apostasy, and the punishment which results:..."and the people, needing protection from their pursuers, looked to
the Lord. The Lord said, I will give Shmuel, who you call Sam, the gift of invention
and artistry. From him will come the means of your rescue, which you should
never forget nor abandon; for the Lord wishes you to have only the best."
"And Shmuel asked Yonaton, that is the same as John, how the
detestable thing came to be, and Yonaton answered 'I threw these
parts into the fire, and it sprang whole from the flames as you see
it here, save for the grip safety which was added by the mob.' And
the Lord knew that Yonaton was lying, and vowed to punish him."
"The Lord said to Yonaton, 'you hath committed an abomination unto the
Lord, and from now on you will be cursed. Your followers, though they
be many, will fight amongst themselves in vain; they will revile each
other, none of them seeing the truth, for their eyes will be blinded
by their lust for their own kind. Your devices will be functional but
not accurate, or accurate but not functional, but never both at the
same time, thus always serving to you and your followers as a sign of
your transgression. Some will try to bring peace to your camps, that
is to marry function and accuracy, but their attempts will be
thwarted by my wrath, which will become known in latter days as 'KahBoom'."
"And the Lord said to Shmuel, yours too will be many, and they will
be entrusted with serving as a light unto the world. They will be
mocked and ridiculed by those whose devices are either functional or
accurate, but never both at the same time, whilst yours will continue
to be functional and accurate, each at the same time, and fairer to
look upon as well. Whilst I made man and woman, you will make them
equal; for the world is not flat, neither should your gun be."
With tongue planted firmly in cheek, I wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving!
-=[ Grant ]=-
Monday meanderings.
Monday, November 23, 2009 Filed in:
General gun
stuff, Revolvers, Ammunition, Current
Events, My Life
Not much to say today. I've got a ton of work to do, and have a rare (for me) headache. Seriously - I don't often get headaches. When I do, perhaps once a year, I'm twice as annoyed as those who get them more regularly. I don't do NSAIDs, so I just suffer until it goes away. In the meantime, children, small animals, and insufferable boors are advised to keep their distance.
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Freedom Arms has lost a lawsuit alleging that their Model 83 is defective. As Uncle points out, there's supposed to be a law that prevents such things.
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Tam reports plenty of ammo on shelves. I went to a gunshow this weekend and noticed the same thing; unless you want .380ACP, stocks are just about back to normal. As I explained a while back, it's just a matter of the supply chain refilling itself.
(There are folks out there who flunked Econ 101 and continue to believe it's all some great conspiracy. The value of any theory is in its predictive ability, and so far I'm ahead on that count. Read the comments on my article and you'll find that they're still not happy.)
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Thanks for all the comments regarding our dog. We've come to understand that he'll do what makes him comfortable, regardless of how it looks to us.
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That's it for now - back to work I go, pounding head in tow!
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: The Witch is Back.
Back in '51, the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Oxfordshire welcomed a new member to their staff: a computer. Today we don't even bat an eyelid when a new PC shows up in the office, but back then computers were a Big Deal. (After all, how many new staff members get their own office - the largest one in the building?)
The Harwell Computer, later to be known as "WITCH" (Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell), now occupies a unique position in computing history. It holds the distinction of being the world's oldest surviving computer with electronically-stored data and programs. All the original parts are present and it is capable, in theory, of being operated.
Though it hasn't been switched on for over 35 years, it is now being restored to operational status at the Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. They expect the restoration to be completed next summer, at which point the WITCH will be able to claim another title: oldest operational computer, beating out the Ferranti Pegasus whipper-snapper at London's Science Museum.
-=[ Grant ]=-
A reminder.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 Filed in:
Blog stuff
Gub control.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 Filed in:
Current Events
A few days ago I ran across this article on Ohio's 10tv.com site:
I couldn't help but think of this:COLUMBUS, Ohio — A man attempted to hold up a west side store on Thursday night, but he fled after the clerk raised questions about his weapon.
The attempted robbery occurred at a Family Dollar store on Sullivant Avenue.
According to police, a man armed with what appeared to be a handgun entered the store and demanded money.
The clerk apparently did not believe the gun was real and told the man to leave the store. He left without taking any cash. The store's surveillance camera captured images of the man.
Anyone with information about the incident was asked to call police.
-=[ Grant ]=-
What is the true value of "dry fire"?
Monday, November 16, 2009 Filed in:
Techniques &
Training, Self defense
A few weeks back, I took some flak for suggesting that a working knowledge of cognitive science - especially neuropsychology - was a valuable instructional tool. Such knowledge allows an instructor to better serve his/her students, and gives the students the tools they need to self-correct aberrant behaviors. Some apparently don't believe this, or perhaps simply don't understand why.
Some years ago I was having a specific shooting problem, one which I had a great deal of difficulty solving. During a course I approached my instructor, a person of some renown in the business, with the issue. I was hoping to gain an insight as to what I could do to solve the problem, but the response was a curt and dismissive "dry fire." I countered that I had done quite a bit of that, and it wasn't helping. "You need to do it more," was the conversation-ending reply.
As it happens the problem couldn't have been helped by any amount of dry fire, but it took me quite some time to figure that out. In retrospect it was obvious, but only because I'd gone to a great deal of trouble learning how the brain works (without which I'd never have found the solution.)
Why was dry fire not the answer? Well, Rob Pincus recently wrote a terrific piece titled "Dry Reps can lead to Poor Performance" which answers that question. Rob is one of the few people in this field who has a good grasp of how the brain interprets information and makes decisions, and he's applied that knowledge to his Combat Focus courses.
A little close observation will support his contentions; for instance, I notice that even relatively new shooters have no problem learning how to reload their autopistols. Push the button, the magazine drops out, insert new magazine, release slide using whatever method one prefers. Easy, right? Physically, yes.
The issue comes when it's time to reload during a string of fire. When the gun goes empty, the student usually try several times to shoot again, only slowly realizing that there is a problem. They tip the muzzle up and observe that the slide is locked back, then stop for a second or two while their mind confronts the situation: "Oh, I need to reload!" The physical manipulation of the reload proceeds smoothly and quickly, compared to the awkward moments before the decision to reload was made.
Dry reps will not make the situation better, but rather will reinforce this behavior. Rob explains why.
(Interestingly, I've observed the same phenomenon among some "experienced" instructors. They may have practiced slide-lock reloads dry, but since that practice lacked context they never developed the reflexive sequence of recognizing an empty gun and reloading it efficiently.)
Read the article carefully, as there is some terrific information to be gleaned.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Pipe dreams.
Friday, November 13, 2009 Filed in:
Friday
Surprise!, Completely
irrelevant
My sister is an organist, and one of her ambitions is to someday build a custom house - around a pipe organ. If you aren't familiar with what that entails, let's just say it would need to be a big house.
Pipe organs, even modest examples, are large instruments. As they increase in complexity, though, they grow seemingly exponentially. A large organ can have thousands - even tens of thousands - of precisely tuned pipes that produce notes when fed with pressurized air. Just the valving to make one of these behemoths work is mind-boggling in complexity.
Even the part you can see - known as the console - can make a 747 look positively simple:
Main console, Atlantic City Convention Hall organ, from http://www.acchos.org
For more great pictures of pipe organs, check out this Dark Roasted Blend story.
(Oh, for those who are interested - the Atlantic City organ is perhaps the largest ever constructed, but has never been completely operational. The largest working pipe organ in the world is the Wanamaker organ shown in the article. The building in which it is housed is now a Macy's store. No kidding.)
-=[ Grant ]=-
Wednesday wanderings.
To all our veterans: my sincere thanks for your service and sacrifice. Enjoy this day knowing that there are people in this country who appreciate the job you do.
===
Rob R. sent me a tip that Jeff Quinn at Gunblast saw the Chiappa Rhino exhibited at the National Association of Sporting Goods Wholesalers show in Reno. (Scroll down to just about the bottom of the page for the pics.) Looks like they're actually coming, though no pricing yet.
===
George Ure over at the Independence Journal has an interesting take on government holidays:
===A couple of major insights usually come from Veteran's Day. First is that I've always held that if you give someone a day off to 'observe' something, then they ought to be honor (if not legally) bound to do some observing. I don't mind the bond traders and bankers that get the day off, but if they aren't laying flowers on graves, showing up at a parade, or in some other way honoring those who have paid freedom's highest price, then WTF are they getting the day off for?
Deer season in western Oregon ended last Friday, and I have an observation. While I don't wish to sound like Statler and Waldorf, I'm not at all impressed with the trend toward more powerful cartridges for deer hunting. I've talked to quite a number of hunters in this neck of the woods, and these days the most common caliber chosen for the task appears to be a .300 Winchester Magnum. If one ever needed a perfect illustration of the term "overkill", that would be it.
When I was coming of age, if someone said "deer rifle" that meant a .30-30. If they said "elk rifle", that meant a .30-06. My Uncle Bob, one of the best hunters I know, used a .300 Savage for everything. To find a .30-30 in the woods today is something of a rarity, a little like seeing a red plaid hunting coat: "how quaint!" I can't believe that these calibers have become any less lethal over the last few decades, but I can believe that hunters have become less skilled. Why bother with skill building when you can buy hardware to compensate, right?
-=[ Grant ]=-
Thoughts on self defense training, Part 7: teaching styles.
Monday, November 09, 2009 Filed in:
Self defense, Techniques &
Training
In my experience, those who teach the martial art of the gun exhibit several styles of instruction: doctrine, dogma, and cliché.
'Doctrine' is that core body of concepts/techniques which are (or should be) taught as a cohesive whole. They are the things for which an instructor or school becomes known. At their best, those concepts and techniques reflect reality; they fit together and support each other. They make sense when thought of as a unit. They reflect an overriding philosophy of instruction, and should not be in conflict with that philosophy or each other. Doctrine should be verifiable, and it should stand scrutiny. It should be open to question, and be able to answer for itself. Doctrine evolves, it progresses, as the world around it does.
When doctrine becomes stagnant, or a teacher becomes enamored with his/her own perceived infallibility, doctrine is replaced with dogma. Pronouncements are made, not based on reason or experience or research, but on the strength of the teacher's personality or reputation. Questions are answered dismissively, in a manner that reinforces the inferior status of the student. "Best practices" are replaced by "one true way"; dogma does not evolve, because it is self-reinforcing. Learning, in the sense of adoption of the dogma, may happen - but understanding rarely does.
The worst form of instruction occurs when the teacher has neither doctrine nor dogma. Instead, he relies on cliché: pithy sayings and one-liners that replace dialogue and reason. The cliché is delivered in such a manner as to take on a life of its own, as it has no context. It allows neither questioning nor independent thought, but rather aims to eliminate both. Its relationship to the world at large is tenuous at best; it is the perfect embodiment of the famous quote from Mythbuster's Adam Savage:
Cliché travels far and wide, because it's easy to remember. People may not understand it, but they sure can repeat it!
It's rare that an instructor spends all of his time in one style. He may switch patterns or incorporate elements of another style, depending on his goal and talent. The doctrinal instructor, for instance, may use cliché as a memory aid or mnemonic tool to help his students retain information, while the dogmatic instructor may use it instead to quash dissent or inquiry that threatens his authority. Every instructor will have a primary style, though, reflecting his abilities and grasp of the subject matter.
It's not unusual to find what started as doctrine is presented as dogma in less capable hands. For instance, an instructor may be a devotee of a certain school of arms. That school may have the best doctrinal approach to teaching, but when the student instructor brings the information back to his students, something is lost in translation. The instructor may not have understood what he was being taught, or simply lacks the talent to transmit that information to others. In either case, he may translate the doctrine into dogma and present that to his students. Like the grade-school game of 'telephone', the original intent is garbled.
That is, unless great care is taken to make sure that the student instructor truly understands the material, and is held to the same high standards as the school itself. That's rare in the firearms field.
-=[ Grant ]=-
FRIDAY SURPRISE: Morse code.
The LIFE website this week unveiled a photo retrospective of Project Mercury, America's first human spaceflight program. If you look at the picture captions, you'll notice one name on most of them: Ralph Morse. There's a good reason for that.
Ralph Morse was a staffer at LIFE (and later TIME) when he was assigned to cover a press conference in Washington in 1959. That event was the announcement of the Project Mercury astronauts. Sensing the long term importance of the announcement, Morse contacted his editor and told him that there would be a lot of public interest in these men. He suggested that the magazine assign someone permanently to NASA, which was then less than a year old. Morse got the job.
It was a good choice; Morse had already been with LIFE for over a decade, bringing back some of the most well known pictures in their archives. NASA was a fledgling agency, and Morse had gotten himself in on the ground floor of what would become the Space Race.
Over the next couple of decades, Morse would become an insider at NASA. He got exclusive access, and was even allowed to place his cameras in restricted areas his competition at NEWSWEEK couldn't even dream of. Along the way, he produced some of the most iconic images of the various NASA projects.
It all started at that press conference, where an idiot reporter (some things never change) asked the astronauts which of them expected "to come back alive." Morse grabbed this shot of the astronauts showing their mettle:
Some of his shots were very well known...
...while others weren't:
All of them, though, came from the camera of an inventive genius whose enthusiasm for his job knew no bounds. Were it not for his eye, his ingenuity, and his nose for news, we wouldn't have this great visual record of our nation's greatest achievements. George Hunt, at one time LIFE's Managing Editor, said “if LIFE could afford only one photographer, it would have to be Ralph Morse.”
Ralph is now 92, but unfortunately for us gave up photography some years ago.
-=[ Grant ]=-
A few thoughts about the revolver in self defense.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009 Filed in:
Revolvers, Self
defense
Regular readers know that, despite my (occasionally) bombastic promotion of the wheelgun, I'm the first to admit that it is not the perfect tool for all jobs. The revolver's suitability for self defense depends on the nature of the threat one expects to encounter.
The revolver's greatest weakness is its limited capacity, while its greatest virtue is its resistance to externally induced failures.
It is something of a trend among today's fashionable criminals to attack in multiples, i.e. more than one assailant. If each of the assailants is committed to the success of the attack, especially if each of them will have to be shot more than once, the revolver may in fact be at a disadvantage. Remembering that there is no such thing as a magic bullet, if you have three assailants and only five rounds you may have some hard choices to make.
This scenario often plays out during home invasion robberies. In these types of incidents, a revolver for home defense may be sub-optimal; a high capacity autoloader may be a better choice.
While many may scoff at the idea of more than a single attacker, or believe the old saw "shoot the leader, the rest will run", this is a very real risk. This is particularly the case in areas with substantial gang activity (which is just about everywhere these days.) If you keep a revolver for home defense, this is a possibility you need to consider.
On the other hand, most assaults are still of the good ol' one-on-one variety, and those outside of the home tend to fit this profile. These are personal crimes, and the action tends to be close in, fast, and violent - conditions in which the revolver, being the quintessential reactive tool, shines. It is quick into action and is less likely to experience functional failure in a close fight; there is no slide to be pushed out of battery, or slowed to induce a jam.
That isn't to say an autoloader is useless in that environment, only that it requires a bit more management. Gabe Suarez is at the leading edge of teaching close-in handgun deployment, and he's developed techniques to keep autos running in tight conditions. A revolver, though, is largely immune to the mechanical difficulties of fighting "in the hole", and remains a viable choice for that reason.
Is that a reasonable tradeoff for capacity? I think so.
-=[ Grant ]=-
Monday meanderings.
One of the hardest things to predict in this business is workflow. The shop will be humming along, work flying out the door, then suddenly a few large projects (total customs or heavy restorations) come in and the work slows to a snail's pace. Those bottlenecks seem to come in groups, when they're most difficult to deal with. It makes mincemeat out of the most conservative projections!
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Occasionally someone will suggest that being a one-man shop is limiting the amount of business I can do, and that I should take on employees. Aside from not wanting the hassle (I was once a corporate lackey with a pile of employees to handle - I know of what I speak), there's also a bit of personal pride involved: if my name is on the work, I think it's important that I actually do said work. If it's good, I want the accolade, and if it's bad I don't want to be reduced to pointing like a 5-year-old and screaming "but it's HIS fault!"
There exists today a well-known gunsmithing concern whose very talented owner used to do all his own work. He "progressed" to having employees, but supervised their work closely. Judging by the recent experiences of a couple of my clients, he's been reduced to sending out emails explaining why their shoddy work is actually better than the quality product he used to provide.
Personally, no amount of money (or time savings) will convince me to do that - my clients deserve better.
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I've written about this before, and others continue to make my case for me: people have a different mindset about guns they perceive to be unloaded. You may get tired of hearing it, but safety is so important that I'm going to keep bringing it up: there is a solution.
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Dog people, I need some advice. We have a year-old Shepherd/Newfoundland mix who won't sleep in the spacious, insulated doghouse we've provided. He'll go in to eat, and he's been known to voluntarily pile his toys in it, but he sleeps on our porch exposed to the rain and wind. One would think that sooner or later he'd get cold enough and wet enough to use it for the intended purpose, but it has yet to happen. Should I just leave him to his misery, since it appears to be of his own choosing?
-=[ Grant ]=-