Close Quarters Contact with a Non-Threat

Here's another important video from the Personal Defense Network. When you talk about contact shooting we're not just talking about shooting while we're in contact with the person that we need to shoot. So we looked at what would happen if we were in contact with someone we needed to control or we were trying to keep out of the harm's way maybe a wife or a bystander or someone we were trying to control because they were trying to hurt us. And then we had to shoot off to the side or even shoot behind us to defend ourselves in some other situations. Whereas that could also happen when we're on the ground. Another way to think about shooting while in contact is gonna be thinking about whether or not you would be in a crowd. What if you were in a crowd maybe an active shooter response or you were in a public environment when someone attacked you or attacked your family and you wanted to defend yourself? Understanding that you might need to be stopping that person from bumping into you who has no threat whatsoever towards you. The person is not trying to hurt you they're just trying to get away from the person behind them is trying to shoot you or them or anybody that they can. And as they run by you understanding if they're gonna bump into you and affect your ability to shoot or maybe it's just that crowd pressure from either side. All of those things are going on so if you're fighting and straining against someone who's in contact with you or bumping into you you need to have that much more deviation control as much as you can. You might be able to use two hands and just get bounced around a little bit, you might take one hand off the gun and decide you're better off trying to control those people who are bumping into you as you extend touch press and engage your threat. Let's take a look at this drill. This drill is our shove and shoot drill. And the shove and shoot drill we do is you're shooting, your training partner is shoving you around. Now, it's important to understand the safety controls. So everybody take a look here at what John and I are gonna do. If John's here on the line as he gets ready to shoot I'm not going to literally shove him. I'm not gonna push him to where he might go in front of someone else's muzzle or fall down. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to use hip and shoulder control to move him around but not let go. So I'm gonna stay in constant contact so that if he were to say trip on this rubber mat and start falling forward I could grab him and pull him back. So if someone has a duty belt or body armor this is a great way to hold on to them. If not, if they're just a self-defense person who's interested in training this technique that's fine, that's great too. We wanna make sure we just keep control of them whether by their belt, by their shirt, by putting our hands in front of the shoulders as we push and pull around. We move sideways, we move back and forth but we're always in contact. We're not pulling and letting go we're pushing and letting go. Everybody understand that from a safety standpoint? Yes. Okay, want everybody to get in front of the targets. Every other person starting with Peter just take a step back. So Peter is gonna step back, step back, Mike step back, step back and stand behind your training partner. Here your training partner when we start this drill we're gonna go to the high compressed ready. So go ahead and go to the high compressed ready. The range is hot. On the command up you're gonna fire two to three rounds into the area that you believe is gonna be combat accurate on your target. Okay, the target in front of you will represent a threat from the moment I say up after you fire your two to three rounds you'll visualize that threat stopping and then you'll come back into the high compress ready. What I want you to understand is what your training partner is gonna do is move you around. Now, I want the guys to start out on this first round at about 10% of the energy that you think is appropriate. And then we're gonna go to 30%, 50%, 80% and then we're going to go up eventually once we get comfortable with the concept of the drill to the maximum safe level that you can move them around. The people up front need to understand that based on that interference your balance of speed and precision is gonna change. You may be firing very slowly with a lot of external cognitive deviation control. When you're being moved around a lot you may fire very quickly when you're only getting 10% of that maximum safe energy. Everyone clear? Standby for your command to fire. Up. Remember, you're responsible for your hits. You wanna get good combat accurate hits on your target. Integrate lateral movement. If someone's coming towards you you're gonna laterally move out of their way. So integrate your lateral movement into this drill. Up. Two to three shots. Training partners start moving it up a little bit. As the comfort level increases you increase the amount of energy. Up. Switch. Front row holster, second row move up. Same thing. Now, the normal human behavior is you just finished at a high level of energy. Make sure you remember to go back to that 10% level. Start out slow. Don't start them out at the same level of energy that you just finished at. Everyone's clear? Go to the high compressed ready position. Standby for your commands to fire. You should be on new targets. Make sure everybody's on a new target. Up. And remember by integrating your lateral movement you're naturally gonna get into that compressed lowered center of gravity combative position. So if you're standing up perfectly straight your shots aren't gonna be as controlled as if you get into that good combat efficient, natural neutral stands. Up. Much better. So you took your group size and cut it down to 20% of what it was just by stooping a little bit and getting into that natural position and really resisting with good body balance and good position. Now up the ante move a little harder. Up. Two or three shots per presentation. Remember mix it up. Don't shoot a pattern. Up. During the reload keep up the energy. Pull that gun in for retention, rack the slide, decocker shoot. Excellent. Now, what I you to do is let's go to the place where this person really is clinging to you. Let's say that this person is really scared of the threat as they should be and they're clinging to you. They're trying to get you to help them. They don't understand they're interfering with your ability to address the threat with the appropriate lethal response. So what I want you to do is just cant your body, use your off hand to try to grab them back and control them. You're certainly gonna keep your firearm oriented towards the threat. You're gonna extend with one arm, use balance and speed and precision principles to control your deviation. Make sure that you're getting combat accurate hits but I want you to do at one-handed. You're probably gonna find this a little easier to put some force back into that threat while you're extending and shooting. Up. Make sure you're slowing down the pace of your shooting. Without slowing down the pace if you're shooting you won't be able to compensate for the one-handed need for control. Up. Good, and now holster. And finally that'll be the last growth point for this particular drill. This will be the last evolution where now you're gonna start with your hands off of your training partner. Your training partner is gonna do lateral movement and reach to present from the holster. As they're presenting from the holster you'll make contact and you'll start effecting their ability to smoothly shoot. Everyone clear? Clear. Standby. Up. Keep it up during the reload. Keep the motion up during the reload. I wanna try to maintain consistency. Holster, go ahead and switch positions. The first group is now gonna go to the high compress ready and do it one-handed. Understanding the importance of mixing up your drills, making them as realistic as possible and making sure that everyone gets a chance to do it is obviously very important when you're on a training range. Contact shooting is not just about shooting the person you're in contact with it might mean compensating for other forms of contact when you need to address a separate lethal threat. Check out more videos just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.