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Thread: Class Review: Shivworks ECQC 03/16/2012 Culpeper, VA

  1. #1
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    Class Review: Shivworks ECQC 03/16/2012 Culpeper, VA

    Shivworks – ECQC – Review
    Culpeper, VA
    3/16/2012 – 3/18/2012

    "How I Partied on St. Patrick's! Brawling and Bruising!"

    It is my hope that you, the reader, have some idea of what the ECQC course is about. If not…
    http://www.shivworks.com/
    http://www.shivworks.com/?page_id=881
    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ecqc+evo

    Okay… With that said, why the hell would anyone put themselves through such a physically demanding class? We all carry firearms, isn’t the point to have superior fire power to end a criminal assault without having to get hurt? Won’t Col. Cooper’s Color Code and a dime sized group be able to solve everything? That how it’s supposed to work, right? Through a realistic assessment of today’s modern society and the dangerous criminals in it, one honest conclusion is that there is a need for realistic training in order to defend one’s self. And that is what ECQC does.

    For me, making the decision to take this class was not really a decision at all. After hearing about it from a good friend, I knew it was something I wanted to do, maybe even something I needed to do. It was a challenge that I was going to face. I didn’t know what the outcome would be. What did I know about fighting? Heck, what did I know about shooting? How was I supposed to manage to put the two together and not get my ass completely handed to me? Am I going to look like an idiot? Will I get hurt? Am I in good enough shape? Putting all of those fears and reservations aside is not something that ECQC will teach you how to do. You have to be able to do it before you show up for the first day. Only after putting all that aside can you really open your mind to the learning experience.

    When I showed up Friday night, and there were 18 other guys there with me. As I looked around the room, I was sizing up every one of them, listening to what they were said, trying to get any insight I could on them. I knew that over the course of the weekend, I’d have to go toe to toe with most of them. I had the opportunity to do my “homework” on everyone, so to speak. That kind of opportunity would not be afforded to me in a real criminal assault. It was that thought that made me realize that no matter how trained or in shape anyone else was, I needed to be able to fight back.

    Before we got into any unarmed combat techniques, we spent a few hours going over the concept of MUC, or “Managing Unknown Contacts.” The key points of which were: knowing what to say and how to say it, how to move away from someone appropriately and the physical techniques to protect yourself from a possibly incoming assault. On top of that MUC foundation we built unarmed combat techniques throughout the weekend. We all learned several techniques for striking, clinch work, and ground work.

    What about the pistol work? It was a shooting class, right? Well, yes and no. There was range time both Saturday and Sunday mornings. However, ECQC is not a class to teach you how to shoot or run your pistol. You need to have a decent handle of how to do that going into it. What the shooting portion of the class does is to show you the concepts of how to plug a pistol effectively into a criminal assault. In addition to the live fire, how to operate the pistol while entangled with another human being is taught. This again builds on the unarmed techniques taught, which build on MUC. Everything is integrated together and supports itself, making for a very robust system. All of the instruction provided is top notch.

    ECQC does more than just teach you the needed techniques; it puts you into an environment where you have to be able to perform them under pressure. That pressure comes in the form of the Evos (short for Evolutions.) You put on a FIST helmet and get handed a loaded Simunitions pistol. There are a number of different scenarios in which can be navigated using the instruction that was provided. Do the sims rounds hurt? Yeah, that’s the point. You don’t want to get shot, so the pain received from doing something wrong is a valuable lesson. Still, all the Evos are monitored for safety, and light coaching is provided to help students work through tough spots. The value of doing it under pressure really shows what is possible to do, and what doesn’t work. The lessons from it are very individual, and everyone gets different takeaways from it. It helps you realize what you need to work on, whether it is your shooting, fighting, physical conditioning, etc. In my experience it didn’t seem like anyone need to shoot any better, but knowing the proper timing to deploy a pistol made the difference between being able to shoot to slide lock or having your pistol ripped out of your own hands and then get shot with it. You can’t get that kind of experience against cardboard targets.

    It was no joke when it was said on the Friday night that this class would push all of us past our limits, one way or another. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything in my life that was so physical, mental, and emotional over the course of a weekend. For me it was filled with a variety of successes and failures, and not when and where I expected them to be either. In that sense, the experience was rewarding because I now have a realistic idea of what I’m capable of and what I need to work on. In addition, in the time since, I’ve found myself looking at many things it a completely different light than I use to. So it seems the benefits of the material have gone so much farther than what they are intended for. So, I know I’ll be taking more Shivworks’ courses in the future.

  2. #2
    At my first ECQC, first night I got back to the hotel, fell onto the bed, and a couple minutes later my whole body just spasm-ed for about 5 seconds. Never had that happen before... or since. There's nothing like your first ECQC...

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by vandal View Post
    At my first ECQC, first night I got back to the hotel, fell onto the bed, and a couple minutes later my whole body just spasm-ed for about 5 seconds. Never had that happen before... or since. There's nothing like your first ECQC...
    It is humbling - whatever parts of the process you were missing is made very clear in ECQC. I also had to call my wife to make sure she knew those hickey looking things on my ass weren't what she'd think they were.

  4. #4
    Murder Machine, Harmless Fuzzball TCinVA's Avatar
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    Wish I could have been there...

  5. #5
    Member Dropkick's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TCinVA View Post
    Wish I could have been there...
    You would have enjoyed it.
    There's always ECQC in High View, WV on November 9-11.

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