Self Proclaimed Experts

Defensive Concepts

C

    We all have our pet peeves. One of mine is self proclaimed experts. I recently had the

unfortunate experience of having to attend a seminar in which one was teaching.

Unfortunately, work paid for it so I had to sit through the whole thing. Before I go further

let me just say this. I do not claim to be an expert at anything. I am a serious student of

the martial/combative arts, including the use of firearms, and have been for about thirty

years. Yes, gentle reader, I have had to use what I've learned. Have I won? Sure have.

Have I had my ass handed to me? You bet! Because of my experiences I take a more than

academic view of the subject.

    You can usually spot the self proclaimed experts by a few key statements. Things like

"I am a teacher/trainer of teachers/trainers", "my way is the best" are pretty obvious. Then

there are the subtle ones. I was at a tactical course one time and the instructor who, if you

listen to him is the greatest thing since sliced bread condescendlingly asks "you guys go

to ___ a lot?" and then proceeds to put down both the training group as well as a large

full time team that we also have gotten training from. According to him, he ran a better

program for less money. Funny thing though, while this guys stuff worked really well in

large open rooms, like an empty warehouse, when you went into a house with furniture, it

fell apart pretty quickly.

    Back to the guy who set me on the path to this article.  He created a problem and sold

a seminar on it. Why? To make money of course. The sad thing is that the guy was a

fairly good speaker and if you didn't have some background or your bullshit detector

wasn't working you could buy into what he was selling.

    One of these things was that under stress you won't do as you're trained. If that's the

case then why do we train? Better yet if the training is so poor that it does not translate

into real world applications whose fault is that? The student or the teacher? He went on to

berate an agency for issuing 1911 Colts to it's officers. According to him, under stress

you won't hit the safety and the gun won't fire. He then advocated S&W auto loaders.

Look, ya can't have it both ways. If you can't thumb down a safety (a natural gross motor

motor movement) under stress why do you think you can decock and then flip the safety

off on a double action auto after you shoot someone? Start using some kind of logic

chain. The truth is that if you do not use stress in your training then it won't translate into

reality.

    He then went on to deride people who shoot using the Weaver stance (or as he put it

'bent arm shooters") Let's get something straight, the Weaver is less stress proof if YOU

DON'T PRACTICE WITH IT REGULARLY.  I will confess that I no longer shoot

Weaver. It has nothing to do with stress, however. I have been in several incidents where

I drew into a Weaver stance under stress. The trick is I practiced daily with it. Like the

old samurai said, "If you don't practice, don't face your enemy". I switched because it

was pointed out that by shooting isoceles the bulk of my body armor is toward the threat.

That decision and what led to it is for another article. Does the Isoceles and its variants

have advantages under stress to some? Yes. Will the Weaver fall apart under stress?

Depends on the operator. The bottom line is this. Just 'cause you can't do it don't tell me

that I can't. To quote James Keating "Don't judge the world by your own shitty

standards."

    After talking about how only gross motor movements work under stress even when

you train and that training doesn't seem to work (so what value is it? is my question) He

went on to say that when HE was working the street he carried two S&W autos.

According to him, carrying an auto loader and a snubbie revolver as a back up was a

disaster waiting to happen. He cited an incident where someone tried to insert a SIG

magazine in the butt of a S&W J frame. HE on the other hand had the answer. He carried

two auto loaders.  A full size and a smaller one. The smaller one could accept the

magazines of the larger model. They each operated exactly the same because they were

basically the same gun.  Yo, Mr. Expert, what about that adrenaline induced goat screw

factor? You ever do an emergency re-load and briskly shove the full size magazine up

through the chamber of the smaller gun, jamming it? Again, you can't have it both ways.

Is the large/small pair of auto's that use the same magazines a viable option. Yes, but tell

people the downsides too so they can make an informed choice. The problem with the

guy trying to put a magazine into a revolver is this, he didn't practice with the revolver

the way he did with the SIG. Again, if you don't practice don't face your enemy.

    Which brings up another point. Does the guy teaching give you the full picture. Our

expert loves cross draw and shoulder holsters and would mandate them for his officers

when carrying concealed. Why? Because they are easy to get to if your jacket is secured.

He did show how to draw from a strong side hip holster that's covered by clothing.

However, he didn't show what I call the big What If. You're standing around, minding

your own business, not bothering a soul. It's chilly out so you have a jacket on and it's

buttoned, zipped whatever. You've thought things through and bought a coat that has

elastic at the waist. Bad things start to happen and you need your gun. No problem, reach

across with your weak hand, grab the bottom of the jacket on your strong side, yank it up

hard to clear your gun and draw. Sound good, works well, now comes the What If. Your

off hand is busy with more pressing matters. You're hanging onto something (or

someone) for dear life (literally). Aha, you say, I take my strong hand, pull up the clothing

and draw my gun. That  is the solution, the problem is this. If you've never thought it

through before hand and just taken the 'experts' word for it by the time you do figure it

out someone is probably handing you a harp, or a pitchfork

    The biggest problem I have with these 'experts' is this. They tend to create more

problems then they solve. During this seminar cases were cited about problems with

firearms in off duty settings. Guess what, the problem was not that the people were

carrying guns. It's that they were behaving like buttheads while carrying guns and needed

to be dealt with whether they were armed or not. Again, the problem is with training and

personal responsibility.

    Folks, I'm about done with this one. Let me share my humble opinion with you.

Whatever you are going to do to protect yourself, be it unarmed martial arts, stick

fighting, knife fighting, firearms, what have you. Go to as many different people as you

can to learn as much as you can. Most importantly though TAKE YOUR BRAIN WITH

YOU! Too often we walk in, hear that the guy up front may not be GOD but he's close

and just take everything we are given uncritically. You can't do that. It is your bottom line

on the line. Think things through before nasty, smelly stuff hits the fan. Put stress in your

training. If you work unarmed and you haven't put the gloves on and actually gone at it

with someone you're fooling yourself. Same with knife and stick. Get protective gear and

go at it. You can train realistically and still maintain safety. If you're a gunman get

simunitions or paintballs and see what works and what doesn't. Use different size targets,

not just the big easy to hit silouhettes. (A side note, one of the best books I've read

recently on firearms training is 'Tactical Reality" by Louis Awerbuck from Paladin Press,

well worth the money friends) Train hard and train smart.