Wednesday Wisdom At The Blog

 The  following Blog Post is from regular contributor Steve Forester. It covers the basic question of  are you training for personal protection, or for sport.  While there are some carry-overs between the two, you need to be sure which one you need to invest your time and resources on.

 What Do You Actually Want To Train For?

by Steve Forester

 The existential problem lies not in the firearms themselves, but rather in the belief in 'The Test' as an accurate measure of gunfight survival.  The assumption that gunfighting ability can be measured by the tape, the timer, and the target.
 

The assumption that if one can hit a certain size target, at X yards, within X number of seconds - then that is some sort of measure of gunfighting ability.


That is still the assumption today.


The problem for those who subscribe to this theory is they could not explain how those who won actual gunfights sometimes did not perform that well in competition.


The point they are missing, IMO, is SNS (Sympathetic Nervous System) stress. SNS is not present in competition matches. Cannot be reproduced in training. Regardless of those who have students run and get their heart rates up before shooting. A lot more going on than elevated heart rate.


What competition does not take into account is heart, mindset, and killer instinct. 


One can train someone to put a bullet into a certain size target, at a certain range, in a certain time. And it may not mean squat in reality.


I suppose it is human nature to want to quantify responses to danger. We want to be able to say that, well, I can put two rounds into an 8" circle in 2 seconds, well that means I can win a gunfight. 


Besides that it makes one feel superior if they can grasp the techniques. Human nature.,


The entire basis for 'combat competition", Gun Site, and all training since. All based on some 'scientific' notion that surviving a gunfight - or any fight - can be quantified. Meaning measured and therefor controlled. 


Mankind always want to control his environment. If we can measure and quantify it, we can control it. Simple, right!


Except survival is not so simple. It involves a whole host of things including who wants to survive the worst, killer instinct, and ruthlessness. A whole host of what a scientist would call 'independent variables' come into play.  


People do not like to think of these things. It is much more comforting to think that  if I can go to this or that school and learn how to put a bullet into certain size target in a certain time-frame, then I am good. Now, I feel secure.


THAT is what made Gun Site a LOT of money and established the 'modern technique'. That philosophy has continued ever since. 


It continues to this day. The 'belief' that standing on a range and hitting a certain size target, in a certain time frame, is going to guarantee we will win a gunfight.


Humans are so naive. So soft. So easy. We run to comfort. 


That is why people react so violently to point shooting. People want to subscribe to that comfort level. They do not want to admit that surviving a gunfight might well be more determined by who wants to kill the other the worst. That we de-evolve into sub-human beasts.


People are not 'comfortable' with that. Don't like that. More comfortable with sticking to established 'standards' like time, range, and accuracy.


W.E. Fairbairn was the first to understand AND base his techniques on the fact that we will degenerate into sub-human beasts in a life or death fight. 


That was accepted in WWII - at least by rogue agencies like the SOE (Special Operations Executive) and the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) because their survival depended on it. 


However, immediately after the war, it was forgotten. As Rex Applegate wrote in his book: "The Close Combat Files...":


"It all seemed to disappear by the 1950's. Most agencies subscribed to a 'not invented here' attitude. The competitive marksman and martial artists were not interested in anything that took away from their chosen art".  Rex Applegate, The Close Combat Files…p. 185.


This is still the way it stands today. Even in military and LE circles.


However, one fact still remains:


"The importance of this type of combat lies not alone in the extreme offensive skill set which the students can achieve, but also in the fact that any man, regardless of size or physique, once well trained in this technique, has a supreme self-confidence in himself and his fighting abilities which he could not achieve in any other way".  Rex Applegate, The Close Combat Files...", p. 161.


Those who can grasp it, can understand it, will recognize the genius of these words and train accordingly.