How to Train? - Gabe Suarez

[esrice]

Recent email from Suarez International. Again, I don't work for SI and I'm really not even promoting them. But I do like to post these topics in hopes that some interesting debate can be had here in the Tactics and Training forum. If you receive similar mass emails that are relevant and you would like to post them, please do.
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HOW TO TRAIN?
Recently we completed the first session of our Zero To Five Feet courses. Many guys learned a great deal about what a real fight (guns or no guns) will be like. As it happens anytime a new area of study opens for a student, there are many questions. This event was no exception.

One question that immediately came out was about training. How should we train?

Traditionally, the gun community has trained by loading several cases of ammo into the back of the family SUV and headed out to the range to bust caps. After a few thousand empty fired cases lie on the range, a trainee felt that he had, well, trained. Sadly, this is not the best way to spend your training time.

Much of what goes on in the fight deals with positioning, movement, weapons deployment and weapons management. Things like getting off the line of fire dynamically, drawing and getting the gun on target, clearing stoppages, etc., are often of far greater importance than a trainees' ability to fire an accurate group on a target at the range.

Similarly, the ability to perform against a live adversary is more important than how much ammo you go through in a given day. Everyone is a "Shootist" or a "Combat Master" against an inanimate piece of cardboard. Not so much against another man who is fully intent on shooting you without being shot. So in addition to a great deal of non-shooting technical practice ( also known as dry firing, or weapons handling ), a trainee must spend a certain amount of time in force on force drills of varying pressure and intensity.

So how much do we really need to shoot? Very little. If you spend your training time in weapon handling drills, and in periodic force on force exercises, I would say you only need to shoot once a month in order to keep your marksmanship skills and recoil control ability up to speed.

Most of your time, probably up to 75% of your time must be spent in weapon handling and force on force. This does not require the firing of a single shot, but it is the only thing that will make you a better fighter. Why don't more guys train like this? It is a matter of discipline. It is entertaining to go shoot at the range and requires little expediture of energy for most guys. Drilling gun handling in the garage for an hour three times a week is alot like work. But work, and not leisure, is what produces gold. Look at it this way - dry drills and weapon handling only costs time, not money spent on ammo.

The next aspect, force on force exercises should take up about 15-20% of your time. And not every force on force exercise needs to be as intense as a UFC fight. You can vary the intensity as needed, going full force and full pressure occassionally to proof-test your skills. The more you do force on force, the more combat effective your gun handling exercise will become and then subsequently the better you will perform in force on force.

The final aspect, live fire, is there almost as an after-thought. Maybe 5-155 of the time should be spent at the range actually shooting. Live fire at the range is akin to a boxer punching the heavy bag. He has to do it, but it does not comprise more than a small amount of his time in comparison to to other things. Most "defensive minded" shooters could stand a great deal less range time and a great deal more gun handling time.

I would put any of my Suarez trained students, who use this method, against any students from other schools who spend all their time shooting. If your goal is to be a better fighter (in this case a gun-fighter), try this method out for six months and see how good you get.

[jdhaines]

Great article. I'm in a position right now to not have money for "fun" guns and rifles, and can't afford to buy cases of ammo or reloading gear. I saved for a glock, good holster, belt etc. and have been getting every DVD I can get my hands on. So far all of the best videos, articles, and thoughts about REAL gunfighting / self defense have been from Gabe. I can't wait till the day I can take a real class from him. I'm young and don't have any bias towards style or name, and I've been talked down by old school shooters a few times already but I'm banking on the skills Gabe teaches rather than shooting out a bulls-eye from 50 feet away.

I'm watching his die less often DVDs now for about the 10th time. They are fantastic and I feel like I get a little better each time I watch them.

[Shay]

Good article.

[shooter521]

Gabe has it mostly right this time. Much less butt-hurtedness.

How many of us here include dryfire as part of our daily/weekly/monthly routine? I know I don't do it nearly as much as I could... or should.

An acquaintance of mine is a traveling salesman; every week, he flies from his home in Phoenix to his office in California, then on to whatever client location he's going to be at for the week. Flies back to Cali on Friday, then home. He takes a gun with him (usually his GLOCK 26) everywhere he goes, and practices drawing from his ankle holster and dryfires 200 "rounds" per night in his hotel room. He only shoots live ammo at an actual range maybe once every other month, but he can draw and put rounds on target faster and more accurately from his ankle rig than I could from an open-top OWB holster.

[JimFloyd]

Practice, be it dry fire, airsoft, blue gun, or whatever methodology right for you is extremely important, as is visualization. However, that is only a part of the success equation. I absolutely agree with Gabe that force-on-force (FoF) training is essential. Static target shooting, and participating in the various shooting competitions (e.g. IDPA, etc.) are great ways to enhance/improve skills, but it is very different when a live, moving target is shooting back at you, albeit (hopefully!) with airsoft BBs, simunition (r) rounds, or some other type of non-lethal technologies.

Gavin De Becker, who wrote the outstanding book "The Gift of Fear (yes, I know he is anti-gun, but getting past that it is still a great book information wise!), heads up the premier protective security agency for Hollywood stars. All of his protective agents undergo extensive FoF drills wearing a tee shirt so that the training projectiles are painful and leave marks. The purpose of this is to de-sensitize the agent to pain so they continue to respond in an "attack on principal" event, even if they are shot, wounded, etc.

You may have heard the statment "practice makes perfect." However, I submit that is incorrect. "Perfect practice makes perfect" (or at least a lot better!)

This thread has me reminiscing... when I was younger we used BB and pellet pistols for FoF training. Those damn things hurt, but, like De Becker's method, you sure learned to move your !

Regards,

Jim