Physical Fitness For Gunfighters by Gabe Suarez
I spoke with a man today who wanted to attend classes, but said he was too old (55!) and out of shape to do anything but "target shoot", and didn't think he could take being "banged around". I asked him what he was expecting out of training and he replied, "to be a better shot". He also admitted to already being a very good shot to begin with.

There is a myth prevalent in the shooting community that all the physicality one needs to win a fight is the ability to pull a trigger. This notion was promulgated by certain gun gurus who scoffed at, what they called, "the cult of the body", as they sat on the couch and sipped their sixth scotch of the day.

Listen folks, if all you want to be is a "shooter" you probably don't need any training at all. Just buy a little bit of ammo and go out and burn it until your accuracy makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over. Or better yet, go to an Olympic shooting coach and have him tune you up to put them all on top of each other at 25 yards. But don't for one minute think that type of skill alone will help you at all in a real street fight.

If you are interested in winning an actual fight, then read on. Everything we teach is for fighting, and only coincidentally has to do with shooting.

I think in many shooters there is a "laziness factor", and an "ego-gratification factor". Its easier to go to the range and fire controlled pairs between puffs of the cigarette and bites of the doughnuts. But I ask, how will that "shooter" do against a 25 year old that grabs him by the collars and throws him against a brick wall? Or how will his "ticker" handle the alarm reaction when, and if, he is able to get his pistol out and he has to shoot for blood?

One of the preeminent concepts in our Combative Technique is the complete arsenal. This means that the individual should have developed his physical abilities as far as his age and medical condition will allow. Now that doesn't mean that you can say, "I am 45, and now I don't have to do anything anymore because I am old". To the contrary, it means that as much as your true physical condition will allow, you need to keep up with your physicality now more than ever.

Let me put something on the table for your consideration - if you are too out of breath to fight, or too weak to fight, or whatever, you will not do yourself, nor anyone else any good...least of all those for whom you are responsible. And before anyone starts reaching back for their canned "can't" excuses I will bring out two gents as examples of guys who would be more justified than anyone in saying "I can't", who had it worse than many reading this, and yet managed the fight.

One was a man nicknamed "Geezer" (a regular at my online forum warriortalk.com until he went to the Lord earlier this year). This guy had bad legs, walked with a cane, and to top it all off had a pacemaker of all things! Hardly the young, power lifting stalwart, yet he attended AMOK knife training, and multiple force on force classes. And he did very well I might add. He could not get off the x to, well, save his life. Yet he didn't fall back on the "target shooter" mentality. He realized that he needed to improvise with what he still had left. He devised and refined a way to use his cane as a distraction. He would launch the cane at the target and a blink of an eye later, the same target would be peppered with bullets.

He caused me a little concern one day when he launched his cane at a young lad working as his "aggressor" at a force on force class and nearly flattened him. He never complained about being old, frail, or weak, and would have taken offense at anyone even suggesting such a thing.

Another was a young man in Memphis, TN. We will call him Caleb. Caleb is challenged by having only one hand that works, the other one and his legs are totally inoperative. He lives in a motorized wheelchair.

He came to a force on force class (a FORCE ON FORCE CLASS!!??). I will admit to being daunted by him when I saw him, but I simply asked him what he could do. He advised me and showed me that he had a really fast draw, and that he could maneuver the motorized chair faster than most men could walk or maneuver. Thus we worked out a plan.

In his first force on force evolution, he managed to move off the line of attack in his motorized chair as the knife man was charging at him to the cheers of all the watching students. The cherry on top was when the knife man lost his footing and fell down only to receive a volley from the would-be victim's Airsoft pistol.

The softest and least physical among you is probably in better physical shape than he is, yet he came to class and tested himself! So as far as I am concerned, excuses are just a substitute for laziness.

There is a third gent. This man is a good friend of mine, but he rarely trains. He is 7 years younger than I and weighs close to 300 pounds. He is a good man, a family man, and just had his third child and his first heart attack. He can shoot a one hole group with any of his handguns in slow fire, but just walking forward to tape targets winds him like a set of burpees.

He is certainly not in the physical situation the previous other guys were in. There is no medical reason for him to be as he is. Heck, with his size, he could be an NFL animal that hardened convicts would cross the street to avoid! What made him how he is? Laziness, self-indulgence, complacency, and lack of discipline.

Can he protect anyone? Unless he is able to ambush an attacker without having to physically exert himself, the answer is no. No matter how good a shot he is. And even if he were to prevail in the fight, will his body even be able to handle the adrenal dump of a life and death fight??

Does that describe you? Why would you choose that for yourself?? Set down the TV remote, throw out the doughnuts and cigarettes, get your rear-end out on the street and get to training...physical training. Start off slow...BUT START OFF!!

I think the most important issues are as follows:

1). Do something physical...every day.

2). Stay fresh on your exercises. Don't push beyond what is reasonable (this idea is from one from Pavel Tsatsouline). 3). Variety rules. Run one day, lift weights the next, go for a hike the third day, swim on day four.

4). Cut the smokes, sweets, and the excess beer.

5). Depending on your age and physical conditioning, prioritize Anaerobic, Strength, and Aerobic training as needed.

6). Eat like a Warrior and not like Jabba The Hut.

Remember, the adversary, your enemy, who will administer your "final exam" on the street will not be some out of shape stock broker, or a pimple-faced punk. He will be a capable criminal or terrorist, a warrior for evil who is training right now to kill you and your whole family.

Will you be up to the fight?
Gabe Suarez

Carrying In The Non-Permissive Environment
Note: Apparently this article upset some Us vs. Them types so I am bringing it back to do it again.
Nothing in this article is to be construed as an advocating of violating any laws. This is presented for those who may be interested in the academic nature of such studies and for education purposes only. There now that we got that clove of garlic out in the air, let’s get into the meat of the material.
This will be controversial, but I think it needs to be written. I have students all over the world, in some very dangerous areas. In many of those places, there is no NRA, CCW Laws, Second Amendment , or even recognition of Human Rights. The danger is real and I’m regaled with stories of brutality from infant rape to post-kidnapping dismemberments and other grizzly stories that would drive any sane man to carry weapons, regardless of the local laws, and be prepared to use them violently at any moment. The danger is even more real if you are a pale-faced American in our current age of drug wars, terror wars, and renewed anti-Yankeeism. Can this info be misused? Anything from beer to baseball bats can be misused. The bad guys already know this material, and it is part and parcel of their bad guy skill sets. Heck, who do you think we learned this from? Our friends who were once on the opposite side of the legal lines.
The most important point to consider is that nobody other than you is responsible for your safety. NOBODY. To those who would advocate discarding guns and relying on the government for protection, they are welcome to do so, but we will not. I wonder how many victims in Virginia Tech would have traded their next "Straight A" report card for a Glock at that moment of truth? Remember...when seconds count, the police are minutes away.When Operating and Carrying Weapons in A Non-Permissive Environment:
First of all, be low profile. Try to fit into your environment. Don’t dress like a Yankee. Avoid loud clothing with bright colors or patterns and instead go for muted earth tones. Avoid the scruffy look as well. In general, neat, clean people get overlooked, dirty scruffy unshaved people get a second look. Avoid American brand clothing such as things with flags or slogans. Again, the entire idea is to dressed in a way that you can easily be overlooked.
If carrying a weapon, dress to hide it. No one looking at you should have any idea that you are carrying a weapon. Photographer vests from Royal Robbins may look and be the rage on the cover of Bitchin Guy Magazine, but you may as well carry openly because everyone knows its covering a gun. Same goes for baseball hats representing American tactical companies such as Glock or “certain shooting schools”. If it marks you as an armed American, do yourself a favor – get rid of it! Real operators are invisible, not poster boys for the American gun industry.
A note about weapons. Pistols of course are a fine choice if you can have one. If not, at least have a knife. Either bring one with you, or get one locally. If you cannot find a knife, get a screw driver a nice sharp Phillips screw driver. The idea is to have something with which to fight. Usually someone will bring up the idea of O.C. Spray. Well, here is my opinion on it. In the USA , that may be a fine idea due to various social issues, but with or without it, you must have something to back it up. You cannot OC three guys wanting to “stomp the Yankee”.
In this environment the idea of less lethal is secondary to having the ability to inflict instant and overwhelming damage on those who attack you.
With regard to firearms, there are some choices which are better than others. Avoid extremely expensive or “personalized” guns. Carry Mexican style. That is holster less. Why? Because if you need to discard you pistol to be instantly unarmed and not one to be paid attention to, the empty holster is as telling as the gun that it carried.
Something that is often done by those who venture into such environments routinely is to wipe all fingerprints off the cartridges and reinsert them into the magazines with gloves on. It is also interesting to note that polygonal bores such as found on certain pistols do not mark the projectile as do standard lands-and-grooves barrel. The end result is that it is more difficult to determine from which pistol a certain bullet came.
With regards to knives, they should be very very sharp and not used for routine day to day chores. They should be hidden and remain hidden until they are needed. I’ve seen guys whip out a $300 custom folder when some soccer mom asks if anyone has a knife to open a box of cookies. Stupid.
The knife should be inexpensive and easily replaced. The idea that you may have to ditch your knife should be remembered before you choose between that high dollar custom and the Spyderco Endura to carry in the NPE.
Finally, above the software and hardware is the background work. Have a plan, and follow it. If something goes wrong it should not surprise you but rather you should have thought of it before and planned for it. Be smart, be low profile, but be ready. Your safety and that of those around you whom you care about is in your hands alone. No one else will come to help you at such times. Gabe SuarezSuarez International USA, Inc.One Source Tacticalinfo@suarezinternational.comOffice 928-776-4492Spaniard by HeritageCuban by BirthChristian by GraceAmerican by Choice

ROLE OF THE SHOTGUN

Let me begin by saying that I have used shotguns against live fighting adversaries several times. Moreover, I received the classic training in this weapon at the academy which birthed the "modern technique" of the shotgun.


Training and reality sometimes conflict. While the so-called “modern school” of the shotgun seeks to equip the weapon like a rifle (sights and slugs, and choking), and promote its theoretical versatility due to ammunition types available, these notions are foolish. I will show you why.


The shotgun comes into its niche in "expected" very close range fights, often in reduced light where the tempo of events does not favor traditional rifle marksmanship principles, and where devastating damage needs to be inflicted in as short a time as possible with minimum number of shots. An additional asset of the shotgun is that the nature of buckshot, and its pattern of impact, lends to hitting adversaries in time frames and in situations that might otherwise not allow hitting with a single projectile weapon such as a rifle. The rapidly decreasing velocity and low penetrative characteristics of the ammo tends to minimize collateral damage that may result from rifle fire. That, my friends, is what the shotgun is for, and what it has been used for since the first shotgunner picked up his smoothbore to go kill other men.

The current trend has been to say the shotgun is a versatile weapon. In truth, in combat it is not versatile at all. That you can load it with a myriad of ammunition types is uninteresting since for shooting human adversaries there are really only two choices – buckshot or slugs. We have all heard the issue of using birdshot for home defense at some point. That may be an option for those who live in thickly populated urban environments surrounded top to bottom with neighbors, or for use on the training range so target systems are better preserved. But bird shot is a horrible choice for anything else.

Similarly the police issue of using less-lethal or gas rounds has little to do with anything outside that special purpose. Agencies that use such munitions now have specialized dedicated shotguns for them. For the private citizen (for whom this is intended) gas rounds, breeching rounds, and/or less lethal rounds are typically useless. Why would you “bean bag” a man who is trying to shoot you? Even the police only use this sort of thing because of forced policy changes…and even then, only when accompanied by another officer armed with a real firearm.

My biggest point of contention is the over-choking of the shotgun barrel. This is usually done in hopes of tightening the pattern’s impact at longer distances. The trade-off is that one will have in essence the same problem as if he was firing single projectiles. Rather than a fist-sized pattern impact at 25 yards, what we need is uniformity of pattern, and that does not require over-choking the barrel. It can obtained with the purchase of high quality ammunition.

Another point is the use of slugs. When Jeff Cooper began promoting the shotgun at his school in Paul den , AZ , he sought to convert the “erratic” shotgun into a weapon he understood better, the rifle. On came the ghost ring sights, in went the slugs and the chokes…even a shotgun shooting sling, all in the hope of reaching farther and hitting with greater precision…like a rifle. But no matter how you seek to equip a shotgun, it will never do as well at the mission of a rifle, as a real rifle. Eventually someone will ask the very pertinent question – “Why not just forget all of this and simply use a rifle?”


Why not indeed?!

Any attempt to make a shotgun do the rifle’s job makes for a poor rifle and a useless shotgun. Even the poorest rifleman can outshoot the best shotgunner in a rifle problem, and any off the rack shotgun can match the “modern technique” shotgun for true close range shotgun problems. So again…what is the point?

The only viable reason for this forced metamorphism would be for the poor cop whose agency has denied him the ability to have a rifle and must make do with the only long gun permitted, the shotgun. Or the similar situation of some oppressed subject living in a nation or state where rifles are prohibited, but shotguns are allowed. But I would say that those two situations are rather special cases. Unless they are the only folks interested in shotguns, we have left a great number of interested parties out of the discussion.

For those with access to rifles, there is no need to so modify the shotgun trying to build a rifle. Doing so is akin to putting a Ferrari body on a Unimog chassis.

The natural choice in ammo for the shotgun is buckshot. Buckshot’s pattern impact allows you to hit adversaries in time frames and situations where you would probably miss with any other weapon. Usually right about now someone will bring up the issue of errant pellets. The liability-fearing police world demands that every single shot fired hit its intended mark. Yet this rarely happens in anything but a police ambush. It is in fact impossible in anything resembling a reactive gunfight. The hit ratio, by the way, in spite of the ongoing "guarantee every shot mentaility, is still only 51% hits. Its not that cops are bad shots, its that gunfights are vastly vastly different than range training and no matter what the desired results are, you can't ignore nature of the dynamics of conflict.

Anyone who would dispute this is either trying to push an agenda or has never been in a gunfight in the dark, close in, against men who were actually trying to kill without being killed themselves.

So if it is impossible to do with pistols, rifles, and submachineguns, why would we think it could be done with a shotgun? Rather than seeking to customize the shotgun to fulfill an impossible demand, we should focus instead on how to use it well and center the bad guy in the pattern of buckshot.

Again, this allows you to hit him when you would otherwise miss. That, my friends, is what the shotgun is for. Can you do that with slugs? No.

Disagree with this statement? Show me. And if are a shooting machine, and you can, then show me what the ability to do so will give you that the same great skill with a regular rifle will not also give you.

What is important with a shotgun???


1). Know tactical advantage and Liabilities of Shotgun and their ammunition
2). Develop sound Firing Positions, Ready Positions as well as Ready Carry positions
3). Learn Reality Based Marksmanship that takes advantage of the standard shotgun pattern
4). Learn tactically appropriate Gunhandling Drills & Transition to Pistol if suitable.
5). Learn CQB Responses to any point along a 360 arm's length to 7 yards. Its important to focus on fast close shooting because this is where you will use the weapon, not at the mythical rifle ranges some schools are suggesting..
6). Learn the ability to retain/recover/and fight with the weapon in body to body fight (including alternative force issues)
7). Learn Shooting in diminished light and the use of assisted lighting, as well as the use of Tactical Point Shooting.
8). Learn Shooting on the Move (in anything but firing from ambush you must move or get hit).
9). Learn Reality Based Multiple adversary responses (not simply shooting at five pepper poppers).
10). Learn YOUR natural body speed and shoot as fast as YOU can guarantee the hits (not on how fast some "master" shot with his souped up $3000 Benelli back in 1990).

Develop these attributes and you will do well with your shotgun in any fight. Isn't progress wonderful?!


Gabe Suarez
Suarez International USA, Inc.
One Source Tactical
info@suarezinternational.com
Office 928-776-4492

Spaniard by Heritage
Cuban by Birth
Christian by Grace
American by Choice