A Baseline of Normal
One of the biggest problems with the idea of firearms training as a martial art is there is no such thing as a UFC of concealed carry. The best indicators of what we teach actually works or not are things like Tom Givens’ track record with his students, and that’s about it. Sure, there is the Armed Citizens column in American Rifleman and John Correia’s videos about armed encounters, but the standard of training varies so wildly in those two sources, it’s hard to establish a baseline standard of competency. Yes, we can bring in elements of what works in IDPA and USPSA to our classes and pressure-test techniques in a shoot house or ECQC, but because concealed carry is an inherently lethal martial art, the matches and tournaments found in other fighting styles just don’t work.
In addition to this, concealed carry, when done correctly, is a reactionary martial art: It only pops up when someone else initiates violence. We follow things like Massad Ayoob’s guidance on self defense and the law, or we read Andrew Branca’s The Law of Self-Defense, and we begin to understand that legal self-defense means we do not start fights. We react to the violence others have dropped in our laps.
How the heck do you do a tournament based on that? And is a shoot house a REAL pressure test if you know you’re going to proactively clearing the rooms inside of it? How does that make with the counter-ambush reality of concealed carry? If anything, ECQC is as close as I’ve come to this ideal, and I consider it a “must do” for any serious student of armed self defense, and Image-Based Decision Drills is also really good at this.
We don’t have a “Fight Club” to prove what works in actual counter-ambush scenarios. Even at ECQC, we come prepped to roll around on the ground and wrestle for guns, because hey, that’s what Craig teaches. Our mindset is always “Ok, what violence am I going to use in this class?” not “I wonder if I can go the whole class and not draw my gun,” because that skill will do us much more good than a one-second draw.
We can make informed guesses about what techniques are better than others, but can we really say that we’re on to say nothing about which awareness and avoidance techniques are better at keeping you out of trouble? I like to think that by using things like Left of Bang, the Gift Of Fear and the Cooper Color Code in my classes, I’m doing a good job at that last bit, but I lack the actual stats to show that what I teach is working to my satisfaction. How do you track stuff that didn’t happen?
As a result, I keep myself open to new ideas, because I can’t say for certain that I have found The Way.
A good firearms trainer asks themselves what they might be doing wrong and makes adjustments.
A bad firearms trainer believes they have found “The Way” and refuses to change as new and better information presents itself.
And new information ALWAYS presents itself.
