First Strike

When we are working concealed carry we discuss the importance of various hand positions prior to and leading up to your drawstroke. To put things into context, you may not have your hands in the ideal position. In fact, you may be starting from a huge disadvantage or liability. The reality is you may not have the time and space to even attempt a draw when you are in such close proximity to the target. Instead, you will need to consider first strike capabilities.

Relax and Breathe

Hand position in the beginning of your training is not as important. There is so much information coming at you we want you to be relaxed. Being relaxed includes your hand placement. Just let them lie at your side as they would if you were relaxed. This helps start building technique from a hand position that offers little interference. What I like about the relaxed position is it is natural and most new students have no problem adopting this position. Since I spend a good amount of my time demonstrating from this position in classes I have to practice the remaining positions on my own time. It is more important for students to observe the specific details of the task or action from a relaxed position that can get wrapped up in advanced considerations.

The Unknowns

At some point we broach the subject of interpersonal conflict. How we manage the unknowns. Much of the strategy has to do with avoidance, but you cannot avoid something if you don’t see it coming so detection is key. From detection we discover we are the subject of a potential criminal act or the precursors to one. If avoidance is no longer on the table then we shift to de-escalation or diffusing the situation. This will occur at close range and be pretty high stress. You have to keep calm, but at the same token be ready for an attack. In preparing for an attack we want to move our hands above our midline to what I call the high line. Keeping them in the high line is one thing, having a reason for them being in them being up is what matters.  Using simple gestures can help disguise their true meaning.

Hold On

The next position has to do with having your hands occupied. You could be holding onto something. We used in the past odd objects, but in today’s world a very common item would be a mobile phone. The question is what do you do with it when you are in the pre-stages of the attack. You have three choices, drop it, fight with it or fight without it. Dropping it if it is a phone is one thing. Dropping something else more precious such as a child makes it more complicated. The other problem is should you be startled by the attack you may not even be able to release the object from your grasp.

There Is Truth In One Hand

Fighting with it means using it as an impact tool or distraction. It takes practice and you need to be committed because you will probably destroy or damage the item. However, it can be a game changer if you can use an otherwise benign object. The next option is to fight without it, but without dropping or discarding. Being able to clear your cover garment with only one hand is an essential skill and it pays off for these situations in spades. It may seem counter intuitive, but it also may be the best course of action. With no deliberation just action.

Tangled On

The last condition is gaining access to your handgun while entangled. You are either in a clinch or something similar. You find the time and space to draw in what will more than likely be contact or near contact shots. The contact position requires a solid understanding of your muzzle direction. When you find yourself entangles you will want to know there is an option. Having these options will go a long way towards staying calm and making good choices. A common mistake is trying to access the gun in an inopportune time. Leading to a negative outcome. Worse case being a gun grab, best case being a fouled drawstroke.

Hand position is important to any type of unarmed combat. You need to practice from these four conditions so you can let the situation dictate.

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Avoid This Mistake

In every Concealed Carry class I teach there is a student who fails to grasp the idea behind concealing. Instead, they often wear a “range appropriate” uniform. You are in a concealed carry class, dress accordingly. Take the time to test not what you always wear. Instead, work on cover garments that are more realistic to your daily clothing requirements. The problem with their range uniform is the characteristics are typically different than what the average person wear on a regular basis. I hear from several students comment how they are comfortable in the uniform they are wearing. I am all for comfort, you need to be comfortable when carrying concealed, but not at the sacrifice of poorly concealing.

Going Heavier

The range uniform usually goes out the window when the cold weather arrives. I love the fall time, such a wonderful time of year. Many will be comfortable wearing heavier shirts or even a light sweater or hoodie. Typically this is great for not so low temperatures or short exposure intervals. The moment it gets to low temperatures or your exposure is increasing you may need to rethink your cover garments. The takeaway should be more about staying warm. Should you be exposed to the environment you become slightly hyperthermic you will not do yourself any favors. Your reaction time will be slower, movements less precise and even your attention will wander.

More Than One

There is no reason you cannot comfortably carry while wearing multiple layers. In fact, this should be an essential skill for the serious practitioner. How many is multiple, well at least more than one. In our classes we get to two and sometime three layers of cover garments. Working your defeat methodology to manage the multiple layers should go without saying, yet so many choose the easy road. They choose the simplest method for carrying concealed, almost the bear minimum. In this condition, defeating your cover garment really doesn’t create much of a challenge. You almost want to push the envelope to the point failures are occurring. Then work your contingencies to manage those failures.

Addressing Reality

Your skill sets are not truly prepared until you have worked through multiple layers of cover garments. Finding yourself in multiple layers because it is cold is not the time to learn. The key is making your everyday technique work across the seasons. The technique should be the same whether you are defeating one layer or multiple. This is where I see so many methods fail. They rely almost exclusively on defeating the one cover garment. Add a couple and now it is more about luck.

Don’t fall into this trap. Use a defeat technique that transcends not just multiple layers, but just about any type of cover garment.

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Trust the arrow

When I’m working with beginner students who claim their sights are off, I will do a quick visual inspection. I’m looking to see anything grossly out of place. I have seen loose, missing and visibly misaligned sights so I need to eliminate those from the possible culprits. After they have been eliminated it invariably points to the shooter and mistakes they are unaware of causing their rounds to miss the target. I know it is frustrating, imagine if you had solid skills and yet still see something off. It is beyond frustrating at that point, but there is still a process you need to perform before you can conclude it is a mechanical and not technical error.

Consistency equals accuracy 

After you do a quick inspection, the next thing consideration is shooter errors. There are so many it is hard to expect the average shooter to process them all. However, the key to this type of process is consistency. If you are consistently hitting in the same spot as you move through this type of diagnostic work you greatly increase the possibility of the issue being mechanical. The hard part is many of these techniques are not practiced enough by the average shooter to generate the accuracy needed to be objective, but that is for another time. 

Safety is free

When conducting slow fire drills off hand you can go through the litany of shooter errors and their associated remedies. Many times with a good instructor you can at the very least identify the problem, the easy part. The hard part is working to correct the problem, something we call corrective strategies. As you progress through these diagnostics safety concerns will surface. Some may not have the skill level, familiarity or safe practices so make sure you exercise all these drills with safety in mind. I will identify an issue by shooting at 25 yards versus an 8” target then once I hone in on the culprit I will do a lot of the corrective strategies at the 10 yard line versus a 3” target. 

Trust the process

Once at the 10 yard line, perform the same course of fire using your strong hand only. A lot of times a common culprit is the weak hand overpowering the strong hand and pulling the gun to the weak side. Shooting a course of fire strong hand only will remove the weak hand entirely. If the group shifted to center you know it was your weak hand. If it is still off target in the same location move on to the next stage. This stage is shooting the course of fire from their weak side using both hands. Typically folks will be challenged with this portion of the drill and you have to recognize your shot group will more than likely expand. Look for the mean of your group and whether it is still consistently off target in the same location. If so, the last diagnostic to perform is weak hand only. Shoot the same course of fire with only your weak hand and if at this point you have seen your shot group consistently in the same location that is about as definitive as I need to make the choice to adjust my sights. 

Moving sights, wham!

Recently I took possession of a new pistol and I struggled with the shot group not being on target. I worked to create hyper focus on the fundamentals and while it helped to shrink my group size, the location remained the same. As I processed through this diagnostic work I continued to see shots impacting in the same location. I try to set the example so rather than assuming it was my sights I went through this process and I’m glad I did as I got definitive proof the sights were off. Granted when I performed my visual inspection I saw nothing awry, but that was to the naked eye. My gunsmith pushed the sights ever so minimally and wham; now they groups are printing where I want them. 

I’m still getting use to this new pistol, but I am relieved I could apply some troubleshooting to my groups in order to make the choice to adjust my sights, something you should not do recklessly. 

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Echo Chamber

I don’t much care what people carry, what I do care about is how they came to their decision. I have beat my head against the wall discussing this issue countless times. Sometimes there is a change in mindset, other times not so much. The decision is as personal as the individual along with what they decide to carry. I believe it is impossible to accurately predict your load-out, there is a fine line between carrying so much you no longer are capable of true concealment. You might not think so, but often times these load outs fail a peer review. Peer reviews should be completely objective, otherwise your bouncing around inside that all too comfortable echo chamber.

Finding balance

If you were to think about scenarios, you either are surprised or see it coming. Really that’s it, if you are surprised getting to your pistol will be far more challenging. If you see it coming you’ll have a higher chance of preparing for the encounter such as drawing your pistol from concealment and I’m betting its those events you’ll stand to gain the most from a larger load-out. If you were to think about it, being surprised means they are literally on top of you. Kind of hard to be surprised if they are across the street. I feel the likelihood of a close fight possibly escalating to a gunfight is a solid probability. My only problem with this rationale is it can create a dismissive attitude towards marksmanship skills. These skills separate us, from good guys and bad guys to experienced shooters and non-experienced shooters.

Enough is enough

How does this apply to our load-out. Some will argue they want to have enough bullets to finish the fight. While others want to finish the fight and be ready for the next. Yet, there is no way to truly break those ideas into a round count. What is enough to finish the fight and what if your next fight is on a whole new level. My point is if you want to carry a  large frame pistol because of capacity, great then do it. Concealing a large frame pistol requires more work to avoid the all to common “covering” versus concealing. If you can’t get away with concealing the large frame pistol then don’t, it is much better to conceal a pistol than cover it. Think of it this way, if you’re thinking your going to blast away at some serious bad dudes and you “need” the larger pistol and reloads these are the same dudes that would spot your weak attempt at covering. Add surprise mentioned earlier, plus their own violence of action and you can quickly be on the losing end of that equation.

Get out of the way

Here’s another issue, the subject of a private citizen having to address targets in a vehicle. Some will begin the load-out discussion by stating they want to ensure they have a capacity and caliber suitable enough to do well against intermediate barriers. I find it reckless to consider this a basis for your decision making process. Seriously, about the only justification we have to employ lethal force is being run over. If you think your going to dive for cover as you return fire in a drive-by just start choking yourself right now. If I have to tell you to move out of the way of a speeding vehicle versus standing there trying to draw your pistol there really is no hope for you. The likelihood of you having to fire into a vehicle is low. Add justifying it in a court of law and the ground you stand on really starts to crumble. This conversation takes an even riskier tone when we discuss target discrimination within the vehicle not to mention additional occupants. Can you honestly justify the reason you are carrying a larger capacity and spare ammunition is for those instances where you might have to light up a car?

I am all for discussions on how to develop your own load-out. Where I find the discussion deteriorating into nonsense is when we either sole source the scenario or we go way out in the weeds.

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