Training Beyond Techniques

Much has been written on officer safety and survival training. It seems that we have almost reached a point of diminishing returns when it comes to finding new topics to talk about. Maybe the answer is that we need to revisit some long accepted (or overlooked) training principles from a slightly different perspective instead of always looking for something new under the sun, attempting to repackage or searching for the latest and greatest theory on all things tactical.

Let’s illustrate this by viewing how we train our young officers for a physical confrontation with a potentially violent, combative and dangerous suspect. We can view this as being broken down into pre-assault (before the fight), assault (the start of the fight) and transitions during the assault (i.e. the fight itself including how it ends). Let’s exclude, for our purposes here, a complete ambush even though that certainly speaks to the mindset of always being “switched on” and always being in pre-assault mode. Keep you head on a swivel, yes but keep your mind on a swivel and your head will follow….but that is a topic for another day.

Many times, during the pre-assault phase, there was some kind of verbal or non-verbal indicators or cues that may have keyed us in on the possibility that something bad was about to happen. Following this, the attack comes and then the fight is on. Big deal, nothing new, right?  It does not matter whether the attack involves a gunfight, empty hands or some other weapon.  The point of this topic is simply to suggest that in training we need to focus our attention on the “before the assault” (how did we get here) and the struggle after it ensues (‘how do we get out of here after the initial attack’ and ‘things are going to crap in a hurry’ phase), rather than just the technique or skill itself we use in defending against most primary attacks. Zeroing in on the takedown defense, the weapon grab or the moving to cover while shooting is fine but we need to do this in the context of the violent and unpredictable nature of a real fight.

We will consider the benefit of working these so called transitions in the context of training to increase officer safety and survival only. It does not matter whether you believe in a technique driven or a more conceptual based approach to training. Your personal, unit or agency tactics are not in question here but rather we are looking at, how do you get the opportunity to use your tactics and where do you go when that tactic does not look like it did when the instructor did it on the range or in the mat room. Now, back to transitions.

Transitions can be viewed for our purpose, as going from a broken or failed technique, tactic or movement to another while staying in the fight, that’s it! An example is, you attempt to block a haymaker type punch, partially deflect it but still get caught enough to throw you off balance and ring you’re proverbial bell a little. You are still in the fight but are a little dazed maybe and are rapidly needing to employ plan B. Sound like a realistic possibility?

Too often during training, instructors teach solutions and techniques for specific problems (like a specific knife attack, tackle, weapon malfunction, door entry etc.)  and have students practice until they get it “just right”. The goal seems to be to perform up to some predetermined and sometimes almost arbitrary standard. The problem is that in real life, things rarely go as planned so why don’t we apply that truth in training and bring that concept beyond theory and into practice for our students in a tangible way?

The best way to illustrate this point is by some examples before we get too far into what I like to call “ the theory weeds”.

One example is our approach to ground defense for officers.  Many instructors begin, appropriately, with an awareness phase, consisting of starting on your feet and picking up on pre assault indicators like the opponent stepping back with one foot and glancing down at your legs, leaning his weight forward to a starters position etc. I know that everyone reading is saying “ yeah, yeah, we already do that” but how often do we really take the time to break it down and incorporate that into our training before we jump right to stuffing the tackle, sprawling or working various ground positions?

In addition, when we practice ground positions, do we just start from lying on the ground or are we starting from our feet and working the transitions before you end up on your back? Add things like preventing takedowns, weapon retention, off balance striking or standing grappling because the bad guy was too fast or strong and plowed you over a car hood. Would practicing a progression to ground defense in context like that be better, rather than just doing ground positions? What comes first, the chicken or the egg, meaning that you can do ground positions to develop individual skills separately then blend skills but you need to eventually let people work through the problem from non verbal cue to bouncing around the ground scrambling for the loose gun…Make sense?

How about some other transitions from broken or failed techniques or movements?  Let’s look at edged weapons defense as another example. Everyone should be adhering to the “don’t practice until you get it right, practice until you get it wrong” adage which implies pushing the limits of our training. It is truly the only way to get better. How often though do we see a technique taught, say from a ice pick stab, where an instructor demonstrates a slowly rehearsed off-line parry or X-block, controls the knife wielding hand and then does some joint lock or takedown move that would make even Steven Segal proud? Forget for a moment, whether you teach your edged weapons defense that way or not, because that is not the point here, even though it is a separate problem for a follow on write up. The question is simply, are we still having students do dozens of repetitions until they flow smoothly and effortlessly through the technique in a sterile mat room, tell them good job and move on? What happens if (or what happens when, I should say) that technique goes bad on the street and they have to transition to a back up plan that is violent, fast and ugly for the first time? Why not experience that failure moment, which is not a failure but an opportunity, in a training environment where the penalty for a less than perfect outcome is a few bumps and bruises to the body and ego, instead of multiple life threatening shanks to the chest, abdomen and side. Remember, so called failing in training is most often success in a fight and success in training can sometimes lead to scars that cause us to fail in a fight.

Many of us have seen a situation when a student does not perform a movement, technique or skill properly in a class or exercise and the trainer will tell him to stop and reset and try again (over and over) until he gets it right. This often coincides with a long dissertation on what the student did wrong, which is fine to some extent assuming you can stay awake for it. Are they always going to get a chance to reset, get corrected and try again in the street or are they gonna have to take what they are given, no matter what it looks like, and fight through it?

I am not suggesting that training should be a free for all brawl session, like the dinner table in my big Italian American family growing up. Skills and strategies must be taught, developed safely though practice with controlled oversight but if that is all we are doing then we are selling ourselves short and setting our young officers and soldiers up for failure in a street encounter or battle.

Learn how to do it right but don’t stop there, keep going past it! Don’t look for a hundred new techniques; explore every facet and limitation of the ones you already know through a series of drill progressions. Train to transcend techniques and better, more complete skills will be borne from that.

We have a saying in our company for combatives that goes “technique is good but violence rules the day”. This is why we should be sure to incorporate these transitions in training for the first time rather than when a sociopath, who missed his medication for the last month, plows through our high tackle defense and runs us into a wall as he reaches for our gun and attempts to bite our ear off. Speed, violence of action and the will to survive has saved more officers lives than any technique ever taught so we have the responsibility to make sure that our actual training iterations foster this mindset and approach. Be diligent to make training exercises challenging but positive experiences.  With that said, we want hard work and with realism but not resort to a beat down or gang jump so set and control your drills up accordingly.

Again, to be clear, should we stop teaching skills from established best practices and protocols? Of course not, but we should work through what happens when the bad guy does not follow the mat-room or gun-range script, that’s all. This is just as important, and I would argue more important, than what technique OR style you use.

Many approaches to defensive tactics and CQB may work fine most of the time but none of them work all the time. As such, how we train through variables and what doesn’t work, may be what gets us home alive. Continue through the arm-bar dance that doesn’t control your suspect and transition to something else and set your training up the same way! Keep going and don’t quit in training because we will fight as we train. That is the good stuff so doesn’t leave it out!

Take the ego out and realize that in training, seeing the attack before it comes and working through transitions is as good and often more important than the ever so revered technique or tactic in the middle! Yes, smooth is fast, but most real fights are about as smooth as a bag of rocks so don’t look for perfect outcomes in training either.

How about firearms training? We teach students sight picture and trigger pull and spend time debating over Isosceles vs. Weaver stance (Ok maybe that was 10 years ago but you know what I mean). After this, we put students through a qualification course that rewards marksmanship and good scores. I won’t argue the benefits or need for agency documentation of skills but I am merely suggesting that after we do this are we continuing training with the transitions like shooting, reloading and dealing with malfunctions while moving to cover, being shot at (force on force) or on manipulating our weapon the ground after being taken down?

Are we blending defensive tactics, with our shoot house CQB training? It doesn’t matter if I have a dime size shot group from 25 yards if I never practice weapons manipulations and shooting on the move or under stress with some decision-making incorporated. Is the goal officer survival and stopping the threat or a 3-gun competition? I understand safety and range limitations, many of which can be remedied by using non-lethal training ammunition (NLTA) as a supplement to live fire, but the point is to push the limits of your student’s skills, as well as mindset and physical/psychological endurance in training.

How about before officers draw their weapon, during arrest techniques exercises? Are we role-playing using stress inoculation and blending our empty hand skills at close quarters. Do we test our duty gear position, function and condition by seeing if we can draw from various standing, sitting and ground positions with what we carry on duty or only how fast out of the holster we are from a static range line with the retention on our holster unsnapped to be quicker and score better? (Come on, don’t lie and tell me you haven’t seen students do that one before).

How about tactics? When we do door entries and room clearing are we working through the transitions when things go wrong or are we just doing it dozens of times so that it is flows smoothly shooting bad guy targets?

Let’s say that a 4-man team works door entries and then clears a room. They work on timing, pace and footwork over and over which is good but are you stopping there because you are a “well-oiled machine?” What if we use some NLTA with safely converted weapons and put a role player in the room that grabs the muzzle of the gun if it comes through the door too soon or starts throwing rounds off the door frame after the first man breaks the door threshold.

How about if we have one of the team members role play and simulate a malfunction, taking rounds, being grabbed, tripping, or whatever else as he enters? Does the rest of the team pick up the work and keep moving, logjam, back out? Would those less desirable, yet realistic variables not add value to training instead of only live fire on static targets? We are not talking about doing full scenarios here, just adding variables to individual drills or pieces of a possible scenario or situation, something we call fragmentation drills.

A great tool for accomplishing this safely, as stated previously, is to use some form of non-lethal training ammunition so that the interactions in training are more realistic than “red guns” and safer than just live …You can now incorporate role players or “OPFOR” as variables shooting back or using blanks to create stress or a small pain penalty which cannot be done with live fire.

What is the point of all this?  To summarize, simply that in most close quarter encounters whether empty handed or armed, there is a beginning (pre), middle (technique or concept) and end (when the fight happens, transitions through failed techniques and ends). I suggest that we should take a hard look at what we are teaching and focus enough training effort and time to the things other than the “ABC’s” of technique and tactics.   Understand the concept and then incorporate drills and skill builders that let us practice the ugly stuff that doesn’t go as planned. We cannot do this by performing rehearsed techniques repetitively until they are “perfect” then stop. This creates a training scar that is only revealed sadly, in a real fight or battle.

A final point (which is an another entire article) is how working through variables, broken techniques and challenges in training promotes a warrior mindset to keep going no matter what happens in a fight rather than being set up for failure because what you did hundreds of times in training did not go so well during a violent and unpredictable encounter.

Train to adapt and overcome.  Peak performance in training should not be the goal; training is only a means to an end, survival and winning. “Perfect practice makes perfect”, ok I get it, but perfect practice doesn’t mean that it is pretty so don’t be afraid to get dirty, struggle and get humbled a little in training and see it as a positive experience when you walk away after battling through.

Bottom line: There is nothing wrong with practicing good technique and skills but make sure that you are incorporating what happens in reality and when things do not go as planned in your training. Take the ego out and again put the reality and integrity into your training because at the end of the day, increasing your survivability and getting home to your family safe is all that matters.

Stay safe and train real!

Author: Rob Lambraia, UTM Director of Training