AAR: Southnarc ECQC - Pittsburgh, 4/29/11 - 5/1/11
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ShivWorks:
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Grey Group Training:
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Course: Extreme Close Quarter Concepts
Instructor: Southnarc
Location: Beaver Valley Rifle & Pistol Club
Date:April 29 – May 1, 2011
Cost: $450
I don't post much and never did a course review before, but this class is so important I felt it was necessary. Pictures are problematic since some identities need to be protected. Someone took lots of pictures and will obscure faces.
Training Day One:The course began at 6:00 PM with introductions and a bit of everyone's personal background. The class was about half law enforcement, which Southnarc said was above average. Two students were repeat attenders.
Southnarc believes in an honest assessment of yourself and avoiding focusing your training on what you are good at. The next two days would reveal and address plenty of weaknesses, both natural and trained.
The criminal paradigm and managing unknown contacts was covered. Distance equals time. The distance would be close and the time would be short the rest of the weekend. Keeping alert, maintaining distance and keeping your hands high and compressed in a defensive posture were stressed and then illustrated with drills. We then we moved outside for some additional drills. We were sort of chased out by a lady training boy scouts.
When we moved towards scenarios (unarmed) the importance of being able to maintain a dialogue while focusing on positioning and awareness became apparent. Southnarc used the illustration of having your commands on your mental ipod so you can just press play and focus on staying Upright and Conscious, his two primary objectives. Having to talk slows down your ability to do other functions. A drill to prove this is to be engaged in meaningful conversation while being timed on a shooting drill. We focused on moving in arcs, into your peripheral vision, to maintain distance. Southnarc was a wealth of real world knowledge and it showed. His understanding of pre-fight indicators and his ability to demonstrate them is uncanny. He could be an actor, and was in a way I guess.
When we moved to physicality those with a wrestling/jujitsu background caught on quickly. Initiating is important. This was apparent in the evolutions that we did the next two days. If you can't initiate or didn't initiate then you need a Non-diagnostic Default Reaction, meaning you need one reaction that will work for a wide variety of attacks. Southnarc teaches a weak side vertical elbow shield and a strong side horizontal elbow shield, combined to protect your head and allow you to strike, clinch or disengage. Again, the goal is to stay conscious and upright, not go to the ground.
We ran the mountain goat drill which is two opponents pushing against each others foreheads. This illustrated the importance of posture, keeping your hips square and also allowed us to see the difference in body types. This drill also resulted in many of us having silver dollar sized skinned spots on our foreheads. I will bring a lightweight skull cap next time. This would also be useful for wearing in the FIST helmets.
We then added the underhook/armtie gang to the drills. This would be used throughout the weekend. Southnarc stressed relying on the congruence of techniques across situations. Many BJJ skills transfer, but in a weapons based environment some things are better then others. He says it is about a 15% tweak.
Training Day Two:We began on the range with a basic assessment of proficiency. In all the class was pretty good. Although this was not a marksmanship class, it was addressed and several people stated their need to improve when they saw the proficiency of others in the class.
Southnarc teaches a four stage draw that is adjusted for the potential of a close quarters encounter. I asked how much time he thought the adjustment added to the draw. I guessed 0.2 secs and he said that sounded about right.
Stage 1: Clear garment posting support hand flat and high on center or chest with strong hand grasping grip high with thumb flagged against body.
Stage 2: Draw high with base and tip of thumb tracking your body as the gun rises. Without turning torso and the thumb still flagged and the gun at about a 45 degree downward angle this is the retention hold. The strong side trap muscle should have noticeable tension when this is done correctly. The details are important so that you can shoot from this position without hitting yourself while engaged with an assailant. Hits will be consistently low and right on target in the pelvic area. This is the arms length shooting position.
Stage 3: The hands mate and the gun enters your peripheral vision with the upper body still compressed. Shots are now impacting close to center mass. You can shoot pretty accurately back to 7-10 yards (although that is not was he expects to be done). If shooting one handed and moving to two handed shooting we moved to stage 3 to mate hands.
Stage 4: Pressout to full extension. The ingrained habit of doing this for years resulted in many gun grabs in scenarios. Full extension is asking for problems at close quarters. This seems obvious but it is so engrained that you will naturally do it if you don't train not to. We saw this in the evolutions.
The second half of the day moved back to physical drills. We would always start consensual, and then increase the pressure to about 30%. When sims guns were used we ran the drill cold first. We learned how to disengage using a duckunder and also a wrist drag.
Training Day Three:We spent the first half of the day working forwards and backwards shooting throughout the horizontal line of presentation. We also shot with the support side in a vertical and horizontal elbow shields. This is where having a rock solid number two position is critical.
We shot a drill from and around the car. Here again congruence of techniques was apparent. Hip escapes translate well into just about everything we did in the vehicle.
We also shot a drill from a picnic table with three people crowded around the sides and back of the shooter. This emphasized the importance of separate vertical and horizontal parts of the drawstroke while the thumb tracks the body both on the draw and reholster.
The second half of the day involved three evolutions.
We did a two on one evolution with only one gun. Distance was critical. This was a gasser. Fighting two people changes things. Also the duty rigs with retention showed their value here.
Next was a one on one with two guns in a vehicle. Getting your hips turned and taking up space was the key. This was an eyeopening exercise. There is a lot of room in even a small car if you move right.
The final evolution was a grounded gun on gun. This brought in the disarms. We had to squeeze this one in as we were in overtime.
All three showed in Southnarcs words that “the operative word in gunfight is fight.” If you lost your gun he wanted you to get it back. If both guns were dead you needed to improve your position. If you were in a dominant position you needed to shoot or disengage.
All in all this class is beyond great. This class is a must take. It definitely is a missing piece in the training pie for anyone who hasn't taken it. Although we didn't spend much time on blades, their usefulness was apparent, both in disarms and in fight.
The only drawbacks/criticisms was that the club was not optimal for the course. There was near constant close gunfire that made hearing the instruction portion of the course difficult at times. The grassy area was nice for the grounded portion of the class.
Southnarc's real world experience is apparent without going on and on through “war stories” and he can tie theory to reality with ease. The drills were safe while still allowing basically full force in the grappling and a enough striking to distract or make the person aware of the danger. There was even some biting thrown in, although Southnarc put a quick stop to that.
This class will also motivate you to get in better shape. To me this gets far too little attention relative to the next new piece of cool gear to buy.
The bottom line is that this class will do more for you than can be explained in this review. I will take it again.
