I had a guy email me recently asking me: “Is it really that bad that we need to own all these weapons and train to protect ourselves every weekend?” “Our parents did not do this stuff, why are we?” “Are we getting duped into thinking that this TERRIBLE EVENT everybody is talking about is going to happen to us at any minute, so we better be ready and spend hard earned money on training and weapons that could be going into an IRA or our Kid’s vacation fund??..WTF???!”
It was an intriguing question, I must admit. It was intriguing to me personally, because honestly, I have never thought about it… it has always been my lifestyle to train….yeah at first it was a hobby, then it became my career, then it became a way of life; And that my friends is the rub I think. Thats the key to really understanding the mentality behind this sub-culture of “tactically minded civilians”…it has to become a lifestyle, if it is anything else, you will lack the drive and fortitude to continue with it….you will become a “tactical tourist” a “tactical golfer”…one of those guys that is a member of every cool “Warrior” forum out there, that attends every tactical/how to shoot a gun/how to be a mall ninja class imaginable..one of those guys that likes to argue why one instructor is better than another or why one instructor’s platform is superior….blah, blah blah…..you see, you started down the right path, the path to becoming a true warrior, but you slipped off and started following a trail very similar, a trail that petted your ego alot and made you feel good, but in the end was a waste of time and money. It is a sad tale with many victims.
OK, so you know when you make a statement like this there is one finger pointing at you and three back at me….The bottom line is you have to STOP talking and START Training..YOU have to develop goals of what you want to learn, find QUALITY people to teach you and GET TO WORK! Get off the tactical forums and get out of the “cult of personality” circus that many trainer’s fall into. When I first started, I had no ideal of what I needed to learn, so I learned a little of everyhting…modern technique, point shooting, krav-maga, sambo, filipino knife, combative knife, systema, tomahawk fighting, how to pick a lock, how to bypass a siphon block, etc…and as time went on, I developed COURSES OF FIRE for each weapon system..of course your skill sets need to be all encompassing, not just weapon oriented, but FIGHT oriented. Your dry to live fire ratio should be like 70/30. This is something that can be done anywhere, so jot down a quick run thru and do it 10x a day. Your drills should change frequently,”Never get stale or satisfied” was a motto I once read on a gym wall, and I try to remember it frequently. Adapt your training to what your enemy is doing..for example, in the military, if VBIEDS (Vehicle Born IED’s) are on the rise, then “How to Assault a moving or static vehicle” becomes priority on the training calendar…we need to do the same, if Active Shooter or Home Invasions are on the rise, we need to hit that head on with REAL WORLD type drills.
So bottom line guys, let’s stop arguing about the best way to do something and just find what works for us and go with it. Develop your own courses of fire and stick to a live/dry fire program religously. Stay away from Forums except for good information and even then, filter it through the bullshit strainer. Monitor the time you spend arguing about a topic and the time you spend actually training on that topic.
Stay Dangerous.