Competition as Defensive Firearms Training
Ken MurrayDescription
Rob Pincus and Ken Murray, author of Training at the Speed of Life and an industry expert on scenario and reality-based training, discuss whether competition shooting can be considered beneficial training for defensive firearms scenarios. Though competition shooting is useful for developing skills, Murray believes the competition aspect changes shooting into a game. Shooters devolve into the rules of the game and move away from the realities of defensive encounters.
Here with Ken Murray, author of "Training at the Speed of Life", and one of the industry's most respected experts in the area of scenario training, and reality-based training. Ken, a lot of people like to go to the competition shooting, and they need the defensive oriented competition shooting, and consider it scenario training or consider it reality-based training, what are your thoughts there? Well, I have kinda two minds on all of that, that it may be useful for developing some skills but, in a lot of ways I found that the competition shooting changes it into a game, and what you find is that you begin to devolve into the rules of the game, rather than practice for the reality of encounters. There are all sorts of things that with conventional munitions. My controversial self says things like "I would much rather spend time a lot of time off the range, than on the range," because in a range situation you're gonna find that there are so many rules that will actually get in the way of doing things that you can do in a gun fight. For example, I had a law enforcement student one time who had a scenario, he was a wildlife officer, a fishing game officer. And the scenario was he was patrolling a forest and their was a guy shooting at eagles. So he approached the guy, took a good covered position, asked the guy to put down the gun and come and talk to him, and the guy said "Well I can't put down the gun, if I put down the gun you're gonna find out that I'm a convicted felon, convicted felon with a gun, I'm going to prison." So the gun fight's on. So, they got into this gun fight, he found himself up against a tree, malfunctioned his pistol cause he was pressed up against the tree did a reload, dumped the magazine, reloaded his pistol did the exact same thing, went through this with a couple of magazines and very quickly found himself out of ammunition. So now there he is, hyperventilating with an empty pistol against a tree. Looking over going, basically blowing his own whistle, saying "it's over." Well, I say "It's not over, you've got a situation here you've got an empty gun, and a guy with a gun, now what?" So he goes "Well, what should I do? Get on my cell phone and call Domino's and get them to deliver some more ammo?" I said "I don't know, does Domino's deliver ammunition around here? Pretty cool Domino's if they do that." He goes "Well no they don't" "So will that work?" He goes, "No they won't." "Well, what else can we do?" "Well, I don't know." I said "Why don't you take a big deep breath start expanding your options, start look around tell me what you options are?" Well he looks down Rob, and what do you think he sees at his feet? Ammunition? Ammunition. What does he ask me? Whether nor not he's allowed to use it? Can I pack that up? Now where does that come from? Yeah, and I think that's the crux of it and that's the frustration I have sometimes with that environment. We get so tied in to the rules of the game and change our gear, or change our tactics, or change or techniques and the habits, the bad habits, the double tapping and stopping your shooting. The unloading as soon as you finish a string of fire, the something's on the ground so we can't use it anymore, habits that come from that training environment, which really isn't a pure training environment, can really do a lot of damage. I think that this is something that we definitely agree on. Summation competition as training? It might get your skill level up to a higher level of proficiency, but I think that we over mystify gun fighting too much. I think that we should keep things very, very simple. Your Combat Focus Shooting principles for instance are brilliant when it comes to this sort of thing. When is it good enough? I think that with the competition shooting, most people who are gonna get into gun fights, most people who are gonna carry guns, aren't competition shooters. I see people coming down to gun stores, buying a gun, looking at it taking a four hour conceal carry course and then putting a gun on their hip thinking that I'm ready for a gun fight now. Not by a long shot, there's so many things that they haven't even begun to consider. That's your first step, and I applaud that step. But now what? Now where do we go? And to whom do we go? And I think that we need to choose carefully, and choose wisely. Absolutely.
Before all the competition shooters get all upset, you should watch Rob Pincus demonstrate his Combat Focus shooting principles and the way he explains why he trains the way he trains. As a doctor and a person who has been in a number of critical incidents, I can attest that he knows what he is talking about when it comes to physiologic responses during an encounter and his techniques make perfect sense without being overly dogmatic like many firearms trainers. Competition shooting is fun and a good thing; however, if you are focused too much on winning the game and you are practicing techniques that are designed just to win the game rather than be most effective in realistic scenarios, then during a critical dynamic incident you will have a disadvantage compared to if you had been perfecting drills that are designed for more realistic encounters (i.e. "emergency reloads" for real life versus "tactical reloads" for competition). I struggle with that concept personally, because I like to be competitive and have every edge to win; however, I just don't want to ingrain my defensive skills around a set of rules rather than more realistic scenarios. You can play the games using more realistic techniques if you focus and keep your determination on practical self-defense and not the lowest time, but it will hurt your time (and maybe bruise your ego); nonetheless, it is great practice. Ultimately I have to decide if I want to maximize my training towards winning a game or towards being maximally effective at protecting life. I love the game, but ultimately I carry and train to protect life as necessary. To each his own.
In my opinion, competition is a a supplement to training, not a substitute. No, competition is not the same as "force on force", but most of us can't afford to do a "force on force" training every month. Competition has one benefit besides gun manipulation skills: having 9-10 people watching you shoot is, shall we say, "uncomfortable". Having that pressure gives you experience is using your gun under simulated stress...without costing an arm and a leg.
It seems like the defensive side is always accusing competition shooters of using the matches and training as a replacement for tactics. Most that I know do not take that view but I am sure there are some that do. Without getting into a big argument I will say that my opinion is that a regular competitive shooter is miles ahead of the person that just took a ccw class and self trains out on the range. Of course there are things we do in competition that are not wise in a gunfight. The question is whether or not they would do better than the ccw guy and my answer is yes. Gun handling in itself is skill. Presentation, trigger control, sight picture, and several other things are all skills that can be honed with competition shooting. If I didnt work a regular job I could take 4 day and week long classes in my spare time but alas I cannot.
I would rather take a class from an instructor like Frank Proctor (Army Special Forces and USPSA GM), who knows how to mix elements of both to make someone a better shooter overall. The guys who blabber that "competition gets you killed" bullshit are the same guys who show up at a USPSA match and get their ego's hurt, shooting like a D class USPSA shooter. Competition may not teach you to take cover and other related things, but for the acts of shooting quickly, efficiently, accurately, transitions, etc, it can't be beat. Have any USPSA GM run a drill that a typical instructor runs. They will burn that shit down.  They are also not apprehensive about demoing the exact drills they teach.............ummm...
Competition is really no substitute for counter-ambush training. Competition can be fun and get the heart rate up, but it does not take the place of defensive decision making training under stress.
This was by far one of the best and most honest presentations that I have heard. As a defensive shooting instructor myself, I have been preaching this message for years, It is one thing to "be good at the games." it is very much another matter when reality sets in. Great job.
Well I agree on some level, and though I've done some instructing, nothing at these guys' level... but seriously what would you expect? "No, competition won't help, you need to come take my classes." As fluid as a dynamic self defense situation is going to be can you ever REALLY train for it? On the average shooter's budget? What competition does is teach shooting under stress. Stress as great as a life and death fight... not even close, but far closer than standing on a range with perfect footing and a circle target going "bang..... bang..... bang.... ad infinitem". Do you need to take time off from competitions to shoot on open ranges practicing combat techniques and un-learning competition stuff?... you bet, but competitions are fairly easy to find, and they are as close to combat shooting as the average shooter is going to get.