Shooting when walking forward

[GJM]

Sometimes, you need to not move. Once, a moose charged my wife and me, while we were on snowshoes. We both pivoted to face the threat (the charging moose) and we both fell over on our backs, as the snowshoes got caught in the side of the trail. That was instructive, learning occurred, and we were lucky not to have been stomped. A few years later, a brown bear charged me, while I was standing in knee high brush. I made certain to resist the urge to move, so I didn't fall. I think it is instinctive to move in the face of a threat, and it takes training or experience to sometimes resist the urge to move!

[SoCalDep]

Sometimes, you need to not move. Once, a moose charged my wife and me, while we were on snowshoes. We both pivoted to face the threat (the charging moose) and we both fell over on our backs, as the snowshoes got caught in the side of the trail. That was instructive, learning occurred, and we were lucky not to have been stomped. A few years later, a brown bear charged me, while I was standing in knee high brush. I made certain to resist the urge to move, so I didn't fall. I think it is instinctive to move in the face of a threat, and it takes training or experience to sometimes resist the urge to move!

^
Great point on its own, which can also be adapted to teams where movement can put one in the path of another's rounds.

[Redhat]

^
Great point on its own, which can also be adapted to teams where movement can put one in the path of another's rounds.

This is something I haven't heard mentioned enough. Even if it's just a two person team.

[DDTSGM]

I agree with much of what you've said. What I've found though is that movement, when allowed, tends to be instinctive. When one trains a "you must do this" approach, things tend to fall apart.

Likewise, I agree with much of what you've said. I teach/taught all aspects of movement - not just one. I also believe that there is no perfect tactic that will fit all situations.

Focusing in on movement, when allowed for a moment, I think that by introducing movement drills, you are giving the shooter experiential data to draw from. Ken Murray put it this way: your life flashing before your eyes is your subconscious rapidly rolling through the rolodex of your experiences to find a solution to the problem you are facing (paraphrase). The following contains an example of this by Ken Good and explains my rational:

Creating Lag Time And Tactical Advantage By Movement During The Draw

The Problem

Several decades worth of statistics tell us that over one-half of the police officers killed with firearms have been within 5 feet of their assailant at the time of the fatal assault:



Additional research by the Department of Justice should give all officers cause for concern; during the last two decades less than 25% of the officers killed with firearms were able to fire their own weapons in their own defense:



During the period 1992 – 2001 there were 816 identified assailants responsible for the deaths of 643 officers. Of these 816 assailants, only 23 were justifiably killed by their victims, an additional 80 were killed at the scene by other officers.

These factors would seem to indicate that many of the officers killed were caught unprepared by their assailant(s). Undoubtedly for some of these officers the first danger signal they perceived was the assailant’s weapon coming up onto the target - them.

While an officer, standing poised and ready on the firing can draw and fire two rounds in approximately 1.5 seconds, in the circumstances described above those rounds are after the assailant has already fired.

Many trainers will point out that many of the officers killed had broken basic safety rules and ignored danger signals. Unfortunately, while this is true, it is also true that some of these officers had never faced such a threat in training and had never developed the skills to help them prevail in such a situation.

Equally unfortunate is the tendency for trainers to ‘miss the forest for the trees’ and focus on close range firing drills rather than the root of the problem: 1) poor situational awareness and 2) training techniques that do not fully develop the subconscious decisionmaking process.

Subconscious Decisionmaking

In an article entitled Boyd’s Cycle – The OODA Loop, Ken Good makes the point that:

Any process that must be accomplished in a compressed time-frame should be relegated to the powerful subconscious mind, through training.

‘If you consciously try to thwart opponents, you are already late.’ - Miyamoto Musashi, Japanese Philosopher/Warrior - 1645

Subconscious decisions are decisions arrived upon based on what we perceive, how we orient that perception, and the time allowed for making the decision. If the threat is close and the time-frame compressed we will automatically default to the sub-conscious pipeline. Whatever we brought to the situation, genetics, personality, training, assumptions, tools available, will pour out of us without conscious thought or effort.

I frequently use an example based on a real world incident in Southern California. A police officer has pulled over a motorist on the roadway to issue a traffic citation. Starting off, the officer does everything correctly. He finishes his initial assessment and begins to approach the vehicle to make contact with the driver.

As he makes visual and verbal contact, the driver reaches down between his legs to grab a handgun, with full intention to shoot the officer. The officer has just entered the OODA cycle in terms of this particular engagement. The suspect has already started cycling. As the officer reads the body language then moments later actually sees the handgun coming into view (observation), he begins to orient to the situation. It is not something he regularly witnesses. During the orientation phase, he concludes that this is really a handgun, this threat is real and imminent, and he must decide what to do. As the threat is relatively close and the time-frame is compressed, the sub-conscious immediately dominates the decision phase and the officer is now on autopilot.

The officer is driven backwards by the pressure of the moment. He rotates 90 degrees to his right and begins to accelerate and run to get back to his vehicle. The vehicle represents everything that is friendly and safe. It embodies familiarity, cover, concealment, communications, and additional weapons with which to neutralize the threat with.

Simultaneously, the suspect, attempting to engage the officer, immediately creates a decision-action by the officer to turn and leave the immediate vicinity, a subconscious decision he is now exploiting. The suspect continues to move through the OODA cycle again arriving at the top to observe. The suspect now exits the vehicle and observes a police officer with his back turned, essentially attempting to outrun super-sonic projectiles.

Let’s get back to the police officer. Where is he in the OODA cycle? He is in the unseen third O as in ‘Oh Sh#@’. He can no longer obtain any good visual information in relationship to the moving, now firing suspect. Only the grace of God can help him now. How did he find himself in this situation with little prospect of successfully overcoming the circumstances? A virtually instantaneous subconscious decision compelled him to arrive here.

Could it have been avoided? Most certainly, it could have. How? Through well-directed ‘Force-on-Force’ training. Training that would allow an officer to observe this situation not for the first time while under extreme duress. These observation opportunities should be given progressively and repeatedly. This observation process starts creating a cache that ends up becoming a reference point from which to properly and efficiently orient. All the non-verbal cues, timings, the bio-mechanical possibilities and constraints of the combatants are now identified, sorted, stored and are ready for retrieval by the powerful subconscious mind. New courses of action will be discovered and can be experimented with.

The subconscious now has new experiences from which to draw upon. This creates an improved matrix of actions, increasing probability of success in the future.

Throughout this article, which is included in your course notebook, Good makes the point that it doesn’t matter how good a technical shot you are if you don’t get into position to shoot without first becoming a victim of your adversary.

Instructors and officers must strive to create training exercises which create a subconscious reaction to a perceived threat. While scenario-based training exercises are a critical part of this process, we can begin to develop appropriate reactions during firearms training on the range.

Lateral Movement Draw Drill – Creating Time and Tactical Advantage Through Movement

Once the basic mechanics of the draw have been taught and have been practiced enough to become adept and comfortable, you can begin to program appropriate subconscious responses into the officer’s training.

The following explanation of the Lateral Movement Draw Drills contains the rationale for the drills and a brief explanation of a suggested training sequence.

Rationale For Tactics

If an officer is drawing their weapon in response to a close range assault they are REACTING to the subject’s actions. Our goal should be to ACT quickly and make the subject REACT to our actions (refer to Ken Good article above). In doing this the first consideration should be to take an action which makes the subject modify their initial course of action.

Our scenario is that we are drawing in response to a weapon being presented at close range. At first glance, it would seem that there are several options available to an officer in this situation:

1) Draw in response to the threat. This is likely to be the response that most static range training evokes. The problem is that we have done nothing to seize the advantage and make the subject react to our action – the subject merely continues their already ongoing plan of action. Common sense also tells us that we aren’t going to outdraw someone who is already in the process of drawing or presenting their weapon.

2) Move back while drawing in response to the threat. This is one of the most commonly taught responses to a close range assault. The problem is that the subject who is armed with a firearm is not forced to do change their plan/do anything different to hit the target, US!! – they merely continue the actions they have already begun. Additionally, there is the potential for the officer to stumble as they back away. This technique does initially gain advantage if the assailant is armed with a cutting or striking instrument - it does create more reactionary gap. Another consideration for close range assaults is that the subject can move more quickly forward than the officer can backward.

3) Move into the threat while drawing and/or blocking. This tactic has the advantage of being counter-intuitive; it is not the expected response in this situation. This tactic has the potential to cause a substantial shifting of gears in the suspect’s planning process. Officers would primarily benefit from this tactic in an extremely close range assault.

4) Move laterally to the left or right while drawing in response to the threat. This option does require the subject to alter their plan in order to engage the target. This tactic also gains advantage if the assailant is moving at us with a cutting or striking instrument - it moves the officer off the straight-line axis of movement by the subject.

5) Move diagonally forward to the left or right while drawing in response to the threat. This tactic is likely to create even more lag time in the subject. As mentioned earlier, moving into the threat is counter intuitive and may, in and of itself, create additional lag time in the subject. Movement into the threat coupled with diagonal movement requires the subject to move more in order to track the moving target. It requires more movement, and is, therefore, probably more difficult for the assailant to track and engage a target moving diagonally into them than a target moving laterally with no movement forward or back.

6) Moving diagonally to the rear while drawing in response to the threat. As mentioned above, movement into the threat coupled with diagonal movement requires the subject to move more in order to track the moving target. Movement to the rear while moving laterally requires less movement for the subject to engage at moderate ranges, at closer ranges this tactics serves to create distance and if the assailant is moving at the officer with a cutting or striking instrument - it moves the officer off the straight-line axis of movement by the subject.
Considering the pros and cons of the six listed tactics, it appears to me that moving diagonally forward while drawing in response to the threat is the best overall response. If I had to choose one tactic to teach, this would be it.

Implementation

The first step should be to practice the tactics chosen with inert/red guns on stationary targets. This gets you used to the movements and points out any problems in footwork or coordinating movement and weapon handling. Avoid the tendency to begin the movement drills with live fire, practice with inert/red weapons and build the initial repetitions with utmost safety.

The second step should be live fire on stationary targets. This gives you the practice and confidence in your ability to engage the target while using the movement techniques. You must ensure that the range berm will contain the rounds fired during movement drills and that if more than one shooter is going through the drills at the same time there are sufficient safety officers/coaches.

The first two steps can be accomplished quite easily during a range training session. The third step is to add the human dimension of a live assailant. This step is accomplished with inert/red weapons. Caution: there must be a conscious, physical break between live firearms training and inert weapon training. (Proper safety protocol must be followed - this handout is not intended to address those protocols)

The assailant goes through the motions of the attack while the officer responds. One variation might be to have the officer acting as the assailant to throw foam balls or other soft objects which the officer must avoid.

The fourth step is to arm both the subject and the officer with non-lethal training ammunition (NLTA). (Proper safety protocol must be followed - this handout is not intended to address those protocols) If the building block approach is followed, the officer should enter these drills with confidence in their ability to perform the task and the result should be a positive training outcome.

The final step is to interject the officer into a realistic force-on-force training designed to test the officer’s response to this type of assault at an unexpected time.

Conclusion

The purpose of this handout is to convince you that a stationary draw is useful only to get the weapon out in advance of a potentially dangerous situation, i.e. upon approach to a robbery alarm. Beyond that it serves no purpose. For survival in situations where the officer is suddenly assaulted or caught unaware with their weapon in the holster we must ingrain a subconscious response that allows us to move while drawing to engage the threat.

Note: All data on officers killed and assaulted come from the publications Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (for the years 1993 and 2003); U.S. Department of Justice.

[Caballoflaco]

Sometimes, you need to not move. Once, a moose charged my wife and me, while we were on snowshoes. We both pivoted to face the threat (the charging moose) and we both fell over on our backs, as the snowshoes got caught in the side of the trail. That was instructive, learning occurred, and we were lucky not to have been stomped. A few years later, a brown bear charged me, while I was standing in knee high brush. I made certain to resist the urge to move, so I didn't fall. I think it is instinctive to move in the face of a threat, and it takes training or experience to sometimes resist the urge to move!

I can’t be the only person who has walked into a restaurant or store where the floor was startling slippery and had similar thoughts about how that could greatly complicate any kind of a fight.

[SoCalDep]

Likewise, I agree with much of what you've said. I teach/taught all aspects of movement - not just one. I also believe that there is no perfect tactic that will fit all situations.

Focusing in on movement, when allowed for a moment, I think that by introducing movement drills, you are giving the shooter experiential data to draw from. Ken Murray put it this way: your life flashing before your eyes is your subconscious rapidly rolling through the rolodex of your experiences to find a solution to the problem you are facing (paraphrase). The following contains an example of this by Ken Good and explains my rational:

While you have made good points, I disagree on some of the information. I deleted the rest of your post when quoting just so it wouldn't be repeated, and anyone interested should read your initial post as it is detailed and well reasoned.

First, the LEOKA stats take into account the distance where the officer was killed - not necessarily where they were incapacitated. We don't know how many incidents began at a further distance but the attacker then approached the officer and killed them. This was the case when LASD Sgt. Steve Owen was killed.

The fact many officers weren't able to draw suggests the potential in many of the cases of ambush-style/surprise attacks where the officer simply didn't stand a chance - you mentioned (I think quoting another) that their first signal may have been to see a gun... I would submit that for many of them their first signal was possibly the fact they were dead... having not even seen the attack, and that's not what we're dealing with here. In short, statistics do the thing they always do which is to leave one with a sinking feeling that the supporting evidence may not be that strong and the arguments to disregard them may be disregarding good information. Ultimately the statistics leave us with more questions than answers.

Further, the idea that actions under stress must be subconscious is misleading. The actions should be (ideally) subconscious, but the decisions to take those actions must be conscious decisions based on circumstances. One can't effectively train an automatic movement response because the direction of the movement is completely dependent on the location of the attack as well as other factors such as obstructions, barriers, traffic, and as has been mentioned, team mates. People have died because they stood still. LASD Deputy Mike Arruda died because he moved. I don't train automatic responses for things that require decisions.

This is why I think the sidestep is a valid training element in that it is the "first" step, or kindergarden level of movement. It's not about "getting off the X" or some other BS... It's about learning to do things while doing other things... To move... and draw while moving. It is not the answer... It is the first level of learning when it comes to shooting while moving.

This is not to say that once one manages to develop a level of shooting skill they should not incorporate movement... It's to say that in a class/training environment I find the juice is often not worth the squeeze and it's often approached in a manner that is insufficient, inappropriate, and wastes time the student could be developing automatic skills. Once those skills are developed, doing them while moving could be a good thing, but it's going to either be pretty much one-on-one and in a class environment efficiency will suffer. It may be worth it, but that's going to be at a high level of learner from a motor skills approach.

In fact, I think the reinforcement of movement could be introduced on a limited basis on the flat range, but to sacrifice automaticity on fundamental skills... I'd disagree. I would agree 100% that when getting into force-on-force, movement is a huge learning tool, and bringing movement and shooting together there becomes huge. This is because force-on-force isn't a great learning environment when it comes to motor skill (learning to shoot... learning to move) but it's a phenominal environment for creating strong emotional connections and memories to aid in decision-making.

In my opinion, and it's just that, everything is important, but it's not about giving people "everything" because we can't, so we need to prioritize and give people what they need where they are.

[Wondering Beard]

I can’t be the only person who has walked into a restaurant or store where the floor was startling slippery and had similar thoughts about how that could greatly complicate any kind of a fight.

Now try cobblestone streets, the old very rounded, lots of space between the stones, European type. :-)


Example: Tallinn, Estonia.

[UNM1136]

I can’t be the only person who has walked into a restaurant or store where the floor was startling slippery and had similar thoughts about how that could greatly complicate any kind of a fight.

Now try cobblestone streets, the old very rounded, lots of space between the stones, European type. :-)


Example: Tallinn, Estonia.

Some of my martial arts buddies and I in the mid 90s had access to a hockey rink, at which we proceeded to pummel each other. Really teaches you how to protect your balance. Rolls and breakfalls on a hockey rink without padding is something I shudder to think about in my advanced dosage.

pat

[Caballoflaco]

Now try cobblestone streets, the old very rounded, lots of space between the stones, European type. :-)


Example: Tallinn, Estonia.

Yup, and in addition to cobblestones, The college I went to had brick sidewalks and roads, some of which dated back to the late 1800’s. A little rain mixed with the thin layer of brick dust would turn them into red ice when wet.

[Rex G]

^
Great point on its own, which can also be adapted to teams where movement can put one in the path of another's rounds.

So true. A close relative of “Priority of Fire” is to stay out of the path(s) of others’ “friendly” fire.

This includes staying low, if one has gone down, to avoid standing up into others’ fire. This has happened locally, at least once, with deadly consequences.