2015 PDN Training Tour Update #5

Another unique opportunity that we had for the students here in the advanced pistol handling class was to have Melody Lauer join us, not only as a student but as a little bit of a guest instructor. Melody, appreciate you coming in. Thank you. I appreciate you inviting me down. Yeah, for sure. So you've gotten a chance to go through CFS now. You've gone through the advanced pistol handling course, or at least most of it. We've got the afternoon to finish up here. But one of the things we do is a lot of one-handed shooting and one-handed manipulations in the advanced pistol handling course. And you have kind of become a famous in the internet, international video, TV, radio, all over the place, for something specific you do in terms of an applied skill set for one-handed shooting. Talk about a little bit. Yeah, I started doing the concepts of baby wearing and carrying purely out of need of mothers coming and saying, "I want to do this. I want to do it safely. What do we do?" The class started out as basically just a holster safety, safety theory, kind of a class. And now we're trying to kind of develop more along the lines of shooting skills, similar to what we're doing here in advanced pistol handling. Obviously, if you have a child in your hands, most of those skills are going to be one-handed. Even if you are controlling an older child with your hand or something like that, obviously that makes all of your pistol handling one-handed. So I think a lot of the skills that you learn in something like advanced pistol handling, whether it be the shooting or the reloading and all those manipulations, one-handed really apply to someone who is interested in that. What do I do if I need to go to the gun and I have to control a family member? Yeah, you know, we talk about a one-handed shooting just for injuries or for, you know, pushing somebody out of the way, that kind of stuff. We've certainly talked about defense of others. We have a DVD through Personal Defense Network on shooting in defensive others. Usually thinking about saving that person over there who's under attack or pushing somebody behind you. When we talk about small children that we're actually carrying or you even teach a couple of techniques for setting down an infant that would be injured by being dropped or kind of quickly and efficiently getting an older child down that's not going to be injured and then moving away from the baby, kind of drawing fire away from the baby, getting the baby to cover, doing all the things that we would think we would have to do. But getting a chance to actually practice it today was cool. So we actually had you take center stage there and run some of us through those drills He's about the size of a one-year-old, a little floppier. So you've got baby in your arms and you need to go to firearms. Obviously, you have to get access to your firearm. Also, you can do one of two things. Some people are really concerned about hearing on babies. So you can either put one hand over the ear, press the other ear to your chest. However, the problem is is that baby has their hands free. So if you're drawing a gun and you have less control so if you're drawing a gun, baby can grab it. So it sucks, but I'd rather buy my kid hearing protection than have to bury my child. So I prefer to keep control of the arms. So I'm holding onto the arms, holding the body in close. Then I can draw my cover garment up. You can actually use that as a means to catch the cover garment, but that's not reliable. Cover garment up, dive for the gun, up, press out. Splay the body to protect the child. Keep them as far away from the gun as possible. And basic one-handed operation of the firearm. Everything's one-handed from there. And then opposite coming back. The other thing, too, is regarding safety of the child, obviously, if you're in a gunfight and bullets are incoming, you don't necessarily want that baby in that fight. So top priority is actually getting the child out of the fight. Now, if it's an active shooter or something where anyone in the area is going to be killed or the violence is directed at the child, well then the safest place for the child is in your arms while you're taking it to safety or if I've got you there, I can give the child to you and say run while I take care of the problem. But if the violence is directed at me and I don't have to worry so much about the child, the safest thing to do might actually be to distance myself from baby. So there's an attack or violence directed at me, depending on the age of the child, if the baby's a newborn, then I have to be very careful. I can't just let the baby go and hit the ground because that could be very damaging to the child. But if it's an older child, you know, two or three, I might be able to let the child go, sidestep, draw. And take care of business there. But if it's a baby who we don't want to drop on the ground for obvious reasons, I might be able to kind of do a low lunge. Oop, got caught on my magazine. Low lunge, lay them on the ground. And then do a response. Go. Up! Move to cover. And that sand baby, as you call it, really does change everything. I mean, it's like juggling with the limbs and the head's moving around. And as most people probably know, I've got a a new daughter on the way at two weeks from now. So it was great to be able to practice those skills. I really appreciate you joining us. Yeah. Well, and it's great when you have that. That's why some people advocate like a sack of potatoes or something, or like a bag of kitty litter. You don't get the arms. The limbs. Yeah, it changes everything. And you don't get the floppy head that you get. And, you know, I can't take full credit. Dan out in Ohio, Kathy , even Greg has kind of given me some great tips on kind of working these angles and stuff. But yeah, if you want to this kind of stuff on the range, get yourself a dummy baby like that that actually has limbs. A substitute would be the sack of potatoes and so at least you get the weight. We did kettlebells out there. Kettlebells, right. Yeah, so the weight does help because even that does change the mechanics of things, but I think it was great practice for everyone. Yeah. I really appreciate it. Now, if you can't get to one of these classes with me or any of the other Personal Defense Network training tour contributors, and there's 10 of them teaching all around the country for another two months, definitely check out PersonalDefenseNetwork.com. We've got all kinds of information, including the information for one-handed shooting and shooting in defense of others, and you can take a look at this video, combine it with some of the other tips that you see at PersonalDefenseNetwork.com and figure out how you might go about protecting that small child or that infant that you're carrying around while you're armed. Melody, appreciate the work you do. Thanks for coming to class. Thank you for watching the Personal Defense Network training tour update. Be sure to keep an eye on PersonalDefenseNetwork.com. Sign up for our free newsletter or become a premium member and learn even more from the exclusive material available to that group.