The concepts of precision shooting and reaction shooting are not mutually exclusive of one another. Rather, they are complimentary, and a well-rounded program of defensive pistol craft will teach the appropriate application of both.
However, when deciding what to emphasize during our precious and limited training time, we must keep in mind the importance of street survival, training to win and live for the fast pace encounters of the real world.
I like many others, learned from experience and consider myself lucky to have survived the sensitive situations in which I found myself. Therefore, speaking to you about fear and mindset is critical to develop the subconscious to react to a deadly force encounter.
In the summer of 2006, I was a guest instructor for a seminar in Mexico City and had the opportunity to meet and talk with Dr. Alexis Artwohl. Dr. Artwohl is the co-author of a book called Deadly Force Encounters: What Cops Need to Know to Mentally and Physically to Prepare for and Survive a Gunfight. I had a unique opportunity to listen to her discuss a variety of issues with others and sit through her presentation at the seminar.
I have tried to live by my own advice: you never hear of a deaf mute being in jail, it is his big mouth that gets him in trouble. Therefore, while I did not say much, I did listen intently, something I think we all need to do more of. Dr. Artwohl hit the nail on the head with her book on Deadly Force Encounters. My only regret is that it was not available back in the sixties and seventies, and that I did not know about her and the book much earlier. If you take carrying a gun seriously and know that you one day may have to use it to save your life or the life of another person, this book is required reading. Please do yourself a service and get it, read it, read it twice, and keep it. Your attorney will need a copy too. Encourage supervisors and tactical team members to read and save it. There is no better book geared to your survival than the book Dr. Artwohl as co-authored with Loren W. Christensen.
Before you can truly come to grips with survival at the subconscious level you need to mentally prepare yourself for the before, during, and after of a deadly force encounter.
As Alexis Artwohl and Loren Christensen point out, fear is an automatic physical reaction to a perceived threat that will result in predicable physical, emotional, perceptual and cognitive changes because of high physical arousal.
Some will regard it as a weakness or cowardice. Fear is actually a gift from Mother Nature, but only if you understand it and know how to use it.
Fear is Mother Nature's way of telling you that your life is in danger and you better do something about it. These natural changes compel you to instinctively, and without hesitation, do one of three things to save your life: fight, flight, or freeze.
Based on these powerful instinctive urges to fight like a demon, run like hell, or freeze in place, police officers can find themselves in a difficult situation. You are asked to deliberately go out and look for dangerous situations where your life or someone else's may be threatened. Then when you are faced with a deadly threat, you are prohibited from choosing any of these three options. You can fight but not like a demon, unless your opponent is fighting like a demon as well. While you can use force, even deadly force, you can only use enough to stop the threat. Added to this difficult situation is having to make a threat assessment during these often confusing conditions.
Flight is not an option for police officers. You are not paid to avoid dangerous situations, but to stay and deal with it. Freezing is not considered a good option for police. We just hope we won't freeze when the stuff hits the fan.
Here are some physical changes you might experience because of a high arousal state:
Pounding heart, muscle tension, trembling, rapid or shallow breathing, dizziness, nausea, gut knots, sweating, dry mouth, goose bumps, feeling jumpy, urge to urinate, urge to defecate.
These physical changes are designed to galvanize you into action and give you the extra edge to fight hard or to run as fast as you can.
Perceptual changes from fear - meaning the natural drugs that cause the high arousal state - also cause your senses to operate differently, sometimes altering your perceptions during a traumatic event.
Two examples of perception changes include tunnel vision and hearing distortions.
Tunnel vision is a result of the loss of your peripheral vision. Your field of vision may narrow to mere inches and you may lose your depth perception and your ability to see what is behind the threat.
The most common hearing distortions are diminished sound ranging from total loss to muffled sounds in the distant; inability to clearly hear sirens or people yelling at you.
Here are a few things you can do to help diminish and control fear:
- Understand and totally accept that one day you may have to use deadly force.
- Stay up to date on police tactics and practice them regularly.
- Practice mental imagery of high-risk situations at least once a week.
- Learn what the physiological responses are to fight or flight and understand that it will happen to you no matter how brave you are.
- Develop confidence backed by real skill. Know that your techniques will work when you need them. The more competent you are, the less likely you will feel overwhelmed by fear.
- Review your past high risk situations to determine what was done well and what needs improvement.
- Constantly strive to improve your observation and assessment skills. (Tactical Communications)
- Trust your instincts.
- Develop a powerful will to win and survive no matter what the situation.
- Stay mentally positive.
- Be knowledgeable of crime trends and criminals in your city and beat and surrounding areas.
- Stay in good physical condition.
I have learned over the years that good communication skills and reading body language can often be the difference between life and death; success and failure.
Let's move on to shooting. I personally look at shooting much like driving an automobile. While you are driving you have total awareness of everything around you. You manage to focus simultaneously on the cars and traffic in front of you. You are looking through the windshield and not at it. You have a good grip on the steering wheel. Your seatbelt is fastened and your feet are positioned on the floorboard to engage the accelerator and brake.
While you are driving along, you notice something to your right. As you shift your vision to look to the right, the vehicle starts to pull to the right. You immediately straighten the car out - all is well. Eventually you learn to stabilize the steering wheel when you glance left or right so you don't allow the vehicle to be pulled in the direction you are looking.
Well, what does this anecdotal story tell you? Keep your eyes on the road. This is a very similar situation as when shooting. The point here is that the key to shooting rapidly and accurately is dictated by your grip and vision.
My intent here is to move beyond fundamentals and share what I believe are good techniques to use when advancing and developing the subconscious on reactive steel.
I am also aware that not everyone will agree with me and that there is more than one way to do something. I hopefully will give you an alternative that has been used on the street and may prove effective for you.
For purposes of this article, I would like the reader to know that I am a strong believer in carrying backup guns and a defensive knife on the support side of the body and that proper training is important for each, however I will focus on the primary duty weapon for this article series.
Also, we are discussing reactive steel targets and the benefit of steel in developing the subconscious. Based on my experience and training when we react to a deadly force encounter, the subconscious reacts 100 times faster than the conscious thought process.
Back to shooting, if you have confidence in your grip and understand the philosophy that if the silhouette of the target is larger than the silhouette of the pistol, you should be using unsighted shooting techniques (i.e. looking through the windshield). However, if the silhouette of the target is smaller than the silhouette of the pistol, you should be using the sights the way you learned when having to make a precision shot, sight alignment (i.e. looking at the windshield).
Now the debate: It is my personal feeling that the combat distances we are actively engaged in are closer than seven yards (21 feet). Based on experience and statistics, we do not have time to use sights. If you understand unsighted shooting then your grip is what is most important, for your grip is what truly controls the pistol and keeps you on target. Knowing this then we can say trigger control is not the priority, but a good grip is. We still want to have good trigger control, but the stress level may drive us to slap the trigger, which will work if we have a very good grip and locked wrist on the pistol. To make a precision shot, I believe trigger control is the number one priority along with a good grip.
In the next article of this series, we will pick up there and discuss engagement distances and a bit about structuring our training to encourage a subconscious decision making process.
