Ken Hackathorn-Retention Shooting Drill

[Jamie]

This is a respectful and excellent discussion of the kind I really appreciate, and have come to expect, here at P-F.

@Surf, good post.
What you describe in paragraph 2 is what Paul Gomez taught to us, as members of his Baton Rouge Training Group, back from 2002-2005 while I was still in the area. Paul taught us contextual positions as they related to situations and distance (I take it as #3 position from your description). Of course Craig coming over to Paul's "Boat Port" and working with us really opened the door.

I was exposed to similar techniques as Mr. Hackathorn demonstrates while at Gunsite in the early 90's... not taught in class, but hanging out at Hershel's in the evenings with a few other guys. While we as a shooting/training community have grown an incredible amount since, thanks to luminaries (like Craig and the Shivworks collective), it's also good to understand the contextual lineage imho.

While I'm old and wearing down and my training is not as "Recent, Relevant, and Realistic" (I can hear Craig saying that LOL) as it once was, I continue to learn thanks to excellent discussions here.

[Randy Harris]

Lets get this out of the way to start with....I have mad respect for what Hack has done over the course of his teaching career and his influence in the training community....which goes deeper than many realize......but having said that....

The methodology he is showing in the video is arguably not "awful"..... IF the target is outside of 2 arms length and is NOT closing the distance (and I said arguably). He seems to be operating in some "in between" area that exists in the land of unarmed stationary cardboard targets and is rarely seen in the land of armed moving adversaries. If he is close enough to keep you from going to 3/4 or full extension in your normal draw stroke but he is not close enough to grab it if your elbow is in your stomach then that is a VERY narrow window of time and space. Honestly, if the BG is at 3 yards and stationary then we should be seeing sights not shooting from "1/2 hip" (and don't try to tell me it is too slow.....)

Now.... if the BG is at 2 arms length - 2 yards- then the "elbow in stomach" still extends the gun far enough that it can still be slapped away or grabbed in under a second. Think about reach, how fast hands can move and how long a step is and apply that to the 2 arm length distance. Even better, grab yourself a blue gun and a partner and see just how fast that distance is covered. How quickly can you cover 1/2 a yard? The distance there is ONLY 1/2 step from an extended hand touching the other guy. So within a half step a gun held in the "Jelly Bryce" position is still being served up for being slapped out of the way or grabbed. And that is something that will NEVER be obvious to you if you are simply keeping the range safe from recalcitrant cardboard and not rolling with live opponents.

If the BG is inside 2 arms length then firing from the #2 still scores hits on him and does it while allowing you to use your off hand to fend without shooting a hole through your palm. OK, so they are not COM hits. OK. I can live with that because they are not the end... they are the beginning. They are "tenderizers" that help us retake the initiative , gain better position and then finish with sighted fire into high value target areas if still needed. And besides, nobody ENJOYS getting shot in the thighs, groin and lower abdominal area......"well...one guy did but he died" .

If they are OUTSIDE 2 arms length we can simply go to our standard draw stroke #3 position and get 2 hands on it. No need to use a "draw stroke deviation" and stick your elbow where it never goes in your normal draw stroke. And if you will simply move laterally ONE big step you have now gotten out from directly in front of him, turned 2 arms length into 3 arms length and from here you can (unimpeded) get the gun up in eye line, extended and bust a grape just like it was 3 yards away...because now it is almost 3 yards away. Tactical Geometry.

Again, I'm not disparaging Hack's life's work, I'm merely stating that extreme close range state of the art 1970 is not state of the art 2020 and we just have learned so much more about extreme close range and entangled pistol fighting in the last 20 years (and even more so the last 15) than we were able to learn and experiment with in the days before Sims/airsoft and NOK trainers were widely available. We learn more about the interpersonal dynamics of gun fighting by shooting live adversaries with fake guns than we are going to learn by shooting fake adversaries with live guns. So plan and train accordingly. I can use virtually any technique and still dominate angry cardboard...not as much works well against a live resisting opponent.

[DueSpada]

Whatever the specific technique, I posit that gunfighting at spittin' and scratchin' range be the first taught and default scenario. This because being jumped before you know what's going on can shut you right down.
What say ye?

[UNM1136]

Whatever the specific technique, I posit that gunfighting at spittin' and scratchin' range be the first taught and default scenario. This because being jumped before you know what's going on can shut you right down.
What say ye?

While nice in theory, it avoids the crawl/walk/run approach. Whole schools of point shooting have sprung up, that may work for some, but not really for all, or even most. It is, in my opinion, better to drill the fundamentals, then introduce the more difficult stuff. There is a reason @SouthNarc wants you to come to his class with basic skills/knowledge. I'm not saying you have to be an A class shooter to benefit from close quarters training. You need a basic level of training to safely conduct the training. You do need a good bit of trigger time to adapt to the muzzle blast of close quarters shooting. I was shooting the ECQC head on the cardboard drill when an experienced shooter next to me kept announcing "someone is shooting major", referring to me using my .45ACP duty piece to the rest of the classes assorted 9mms. From the muzzle blast, one lane away. I had more muzzle blast being right on top of it. This is a specialized kind of shooting, and while likely more applicable than 25-50 yard bullseye stuff, it needs to be undertaken by someone with a bit of safe handling time.

Maybe in 20 years I will be proven wrong about this, but I am not sure...

pat

[ViniVidivici]

Indeed, the kind shooting we're discussing here, retention shooting, whether integrated with combatives or not, is advanced.

Alot of proficiency in fundamentals of pistol shooting needs to be learned before this.

[runcible]

A conclusion that I drew after my first private-sector class in 2010, was that it doesn’t cost extra to teach to a high standard and with progressive methodology from the very beginning. It takes just about as much time to teach a stale curriculum as to teach something more nuanced, given common learning objectives.

My follow-on conclusion down the road, is that it in fact saves time down the road when the frame of reference expands to include follow-on student development, rates and time-commitments for shooter remediation, and “adaptation” training blocks to “translate” from orthodox/single-discipline shooting to shooting within an expanded and interdisciplinary context.

As relates to the “zero to three foot gunfight” (verbiage: Craig Douglas), the mechanics don’t cost any to teach from the very beginning. The related learning blocks that aren’t range-centric, that absolutely make the methodology and requirements self-evident, do have an additional time commitment entailed - but given the limits for how hard you can really run baseline folks in continuous range training before physical/mental/focal burnout blunts continued learning, and how many training programs alternate venues to accommodate just such a reality; I’m inclined to think that such additional time doesn’t count against the total. It has to be spent regardless, given DT/DM/CT/whatever requirements, it might as well have a complimentary scheduling and conducive content.

With all of that said, I think there’s benefit to the shooting portion not being wholly tunneled in on the ECQC-target, for the same reasons: scale of reference. The adapted draw-stroke is a 100% shoe-in with no cost but getting Instructor and student buy-in. To apply periodicity in the context of shooting skill development, from time and time that draw stroke is going to have to terminate in a 25yd or greater shot, and other such variations working outside of the scope of the entangled shooting problem.

[BigT]

Whatever the specific technique, I posit that gunfighting at spittin' and scratchin' range be the first taught and default scenario. This because being jumped before you know what's going on can shut you right down.
What say ye?

We should be teaching the skills most likely to be required in order. So after "no shooting yourself and other by accident" next priority would be being able to draw rapidly and make fight stopping hits at a car length. Because historically that seems most typical.