"Range Kata"

[rob_s]

In this thread the OP asks about taking imaginary cover during a training course and then identifies it as potential "range kata". I like this term, even though I typically can't stand all this ninja/samurai crap we see in the shooting world.

Wikipedia defines kata as

Kata (型 or 形 literally: "form") is a Japanese word describing detailed choreographed patterns of movements practised either solo or in pairs. The term form is used for the corresponding concept in non-Japanese martial arts in general.

So, in order to not hijack the other thread about a particular issue, I wanted to start a thread on the broader topic. This isn't about "training scars", and if you don't understand the difference please either don't post or ask for clarification. We're not talking about brass in a pocket or any of the "why I don't shoot competition" excuses, this is particularly about things done in a training environment, as directed by the instructors, that seem to be "form" (or, "kata") for form's sake.

Another example, IMO, might be the (sometimes elaborate) scan and assess that we see at classes.

So what others have you seen, or questioned? Please respond from experience actually attending courses, not based on photos or videos you've seen online. Photos, or short snippets of video, can easily be take out of context. However, you may post links to videos or pictures that demonstrate what you've experienced first hand.

[M4Guru]

The exaggerated scan-and-assess is one of my least favorite range-isms.

I certainly understand it as a concept, but on a flat range firing drills it is movement for movements sake. Pat McNamara has a great explanation for it relating back to safety at NRA ranges or something, and that the phenomenon isn't really tactically based anyway. I think it's kind of silly to do the 360 look around as a means of driving home situational awareness for a couple reasons: 1. You're teaching people to look around but it becomes a finger drill, so they're not paying attention anyway and 2. I never did more than scan my target, and yet in combat my teammates and I are aware of our surroundings even though we didn't train on it at the flat range specifically, because it is an inherent part of all our activities, although that certainly may not be true of all gun toting people out there. There's also the very valid argument of taking your eyes away from a known threat to look at an area you already came through.

I usually ask guys that do it where they got the concept and I get one answer universally, then I ask what they're looking for, then I ask what the threat they engaged is doing. Never has one answered "I would have already assessed that threat as neutralized before doing my larger scan", but most often "I don't know" is the reply. I think it fits your "range kata" topic pretty well.

[rob_s]

Yep, Mac's take on the scan and assess was an eye opener for me. That along with his "check your work through your sights" and Randy Cain's "is he down? is he moving? does he need shot again?" drove home to me the idea of doing what you're doing first and foremost and then worry about what else is going on.

(combining concepts from different instructors is what keeps me going back to different classes, FWIW)

Which, as I think about this, may be the crux of the range kata, which is related to subconscious competence (I don't like "unconscious" anything), which was also a takeaway from Mac, as well as from high level USPSA shooters. The shooting should be second nature, as should be the reload, the moving, etc. What we want to be able to do is make the decision "that thing there needs shooting" to initiate an action, then decide "that thing there has had enough shooting", and be able to deal with malfunctions, movement, reloads, transitions to secondary, etc. without consciously deciding to do any of them so that between deciding to shoot and deciding to stop we can be processing the situation. If another target appears while we're engaging target 1, we need to be subconsciously competent in our "Combat Triad" so that we can be making decisions about what to do with target 2.

If we are lost in the gun, or lost in our kata, then we really aren't processing the situation.

A good USPSA shooter doesn't approach a stage with a 6" plate at 15 yards and think "man, that's going to be hard, I hope I hit it!" but he thinks "as I come around this corner to engage that target I know that I need to plant, take the shot with this sight picture and this trigger press, and move on". Hitting it is not negotiable.

I'm sure there are other examples of the Range Kata. Hopefully some others will weigh in with more. So far the "move to (phantom) cover" and "scan and assess" both seem to fit the concept well.

[Guns-up.50]

So what I am gathering is, the reference to UN-necessary and excess movements shooters do on the range?

If so, would the hands high stance for drawing a pistol (simulating transition from a carbine) qualify as "Kata"?
Thanks

[rob_s]

If so, would the hands high stance for drawing a pistol (simulating transition from a carbine) qualify as "Kata"?
Thanks

You're talking about a drill or a COF that requires the shooter to hold a phantom rifle at and the fire command "drop" the rifle and draw the pistol? To simulate a transition?

If so, I personally think it's a pretty good example. I've never been a fan of that movement when asked to do it because I don't think it's relevant. I'm not going to just drop a carbine and wait to see where it ends up while I go for my pistol, but at the same time with no actual carbine in hand(s) I'm not going to mime guiding it down before I go for my pistol. If you make me start with my hands up and then give me a "beep", I'm going for my pistol in the most efficient way possible. The way I learned to do transitions was with empty guns at home, but it never even occurred to me to not have one gun or the other when trying to learn it.

When teaching people to transition to the pistol for the first time I've usually begun by working on the draw alone, then add empty carbine, then add carbine with one round in it and no magazine, and then built on the drill from there (multiple rounds, on the move, around barricades, etc.). I don't think I've ever had anyone start with a phantom rifle.

I do, however, think that there's benefit to teaching folks like LE to start from an interview position prior to the draw if they have one. But it should also be done, in that case, with their full duty belt on as worn when working. All the batons, tazers, lights, magazines, pepper spray, etc. and then when the most likely draw has been covered, start to work on getting the pistol out when in compromised positions. I have seen duty belt setups on cops and I can't help but wonder if they've ever had to draw under a time constraint from that setup at all, from drop-legs worn down around the knee to having obstructions all along the clear path from hands in front to getting a grip on the gun.

So that, to me, would be the opposite of a kata.

[rob_s]

In re-reading my post before clicking "submit", I realize that I keep coming back to the word "phantom". Maybe that's the point here. phantom cover (in the malfunction/reload). phantom people (in the scan & assess). phantom rifles (in the transition).

I think there may be more to it, relative to the kata idea, but it will be interesting to see if the phantom test applies in all cases. Even in the martial arts where the kata idea comes from you're dealing with a phantom opponent as you dance around the mat.

[5cary]

For me at least, the scan and assess is an important drill as part of the *holstering* routine rather than the post shooting routine, if that makes sense. Assessing damage to the target post-shoot is far different and a separate action completely from assessing your environment before re-holstering your weapon. For most people in most situations, the latter might be less useful, but that does not make it movement for movement's sake.

Much of what we train for is based on anecdotal/what-ifs, but in this instance I've been in one situation where there was no way I was going to re-holster until I let every body know I was watching them.

If so, would the hands high stance for drawing a pistol (simulating transition from a carbine) qualify as "Kata"?
Thanks

For many of us the "hands high" stance is taught as "field interview" stance when you are talking to someone and then need to draw - hands folded up near your chest. I see the utility in this, although I've never drawn from there in the field.

[The_Swede]

Rob: The scan and asses is a very good example. The bullet of the last fired shot has barely left the barrel and people start turning their head without actually realising what they are doing. I've put some of those guys through our shooting house and although they do all they're turning and flipping they still don't see a malfunction or think "I just cleared two rooms, maybe I should switch mag". Because they just do the kata.

I also think you put the part where shooting is second nature so that we can make decisions instead very good. That's what muscle memory is good for. This is also why I oppose the sidestepping. Just as "he needs shooting again" this must be an active decision. "my buddy is over by that wall and is ok so I'll go over to this wall and cover this sector" Not just routinely looking left and right and sidestepping. The kata is good for laying the foundation and making people grasp the concept but you need to move into a more realistic scenario to build this further.

[rob_s]

The kata is good for laying the foundation and making people grasp the concept but you need to move into a more realistic scenario to build this further.

Yes! I see, and have been to, too many classes that stop at the kata! I have also been exposed to techniques and told it's faster/stronger/better but then not given the opportunity to prove it.

Give me "chop onion" but then also let me "cook dinner", or at the very least "make soup". If we always stop at "chop onion" suddenly that becomes the end-state and the whole exercise becomes about chopping the damn onion, and we lose sight of making dinner.

I try to incorporate things into our training that require people to think. A number as a fire command such that the number is the number of rounds they are to fire, or using command targets and calling a color or shape and requiring the shooter to fire the number of rounds on that color or shape, etc. Offering a direction of movement as the firing command as well. Things like that. If you give people "fire three rounds on the command. Fire!" you give them time to start to program.

[Chameleox]

Rob, from the other thread: "I'm a big believer in understanding WHY we do a thing as much as what we are doing. To that end, as I mentioned above, I think there are ways of explaining what the students are doing and why they are doing it to make it more clear rather than seeming simply like seeking phantom cover."

This is key for me. When I used the term in the earlier thread, I was talking about movements or drills, may of them well meaning or possibly beneficial, that are done without any thought or discussion as to why the tactic is beneficial, or whether or not its 100% applicable.

Here are some examples that I could think of:

-The scan and assess example is a popular one, and was the first one I thought of. What are we scanning and assessing for? The threat in front of you may be reduced, but is he still a threat? So, we scan side to side, and sometimes 180 or up. Again, not a bad thing, but how often do we do this, and encounter a second threat? I think it was Dave Smith, from Caliber Press, that wrote about conducting a range drill where he instructed the line to fire, scan, and assess. He stood behind the line with a small sign that instructed the shooters to fire 3 more rounds. Only a few shooters picked up on it. Hence, the scan was more of a kata for most of the shooters involved. Good training concept, telling example. Corollary thought: why am I scanning 180 degrees? I'm going to see the area that I already cleared, or see my partners behind me. Breaking tunnel vision? Sure, but like the drill above, actually scanning and finding a second threat isn't done enough in training for a lot of folks to grasp.

-Sidestep on draw, etc. Again, good concept, but this also can't be done "just because". In the earlier thread, I mentioned some scenarios where I, a lowly street cop/part time door kicker, might not want to have an automatic sidestep response: in traffic, moving in a stack, partners on flanks, already behind cover. Yesterday, after writing that, I ended up conducting and participating in some low level building search/search warrant training in our sims house. 5 of us did searches while the Sgt. acted as bad guy or checked angles. On one run, I was point, and picked up a target after the breach. Target went down but was still in the fight. He presented another deadly threat, and I addressed him again. Scanning would have meant missing a deadly threat (I admit that I know the sims house pretty well, so I can cheat it a little). Next run through, I'm farther back in the train as the T/L. Breach on another door, guys go in, and encounter a threat. Pointman shoots, bad guy does down behind a doorjamb, then officer sidesteps right. In doing so, he pushes his partner to the right, into BG's LOS. In the AAR, BG went down without taking effective hits, and so he was playing possum. So, in this case, sidestepping caused more harm than good. As these were the only two looks we got with sims, and we had limited time, and no one likes to get butthurt, many of the automatic responses that came into play yesterday didn't get discussion time.

-The "Muzzle High tactics" thread touches on another range kata concept: do we automatically equate "muzzle in a safe direction" as "DOWN"? Its similar, in my opinion, to the safety circle. Done shooting, get that muzzle down, as if that's the only way it can be safe.

Rob, your comment about SUBconscious competence vs UNconscious competence mirrors my meager experience. As opposed to ingraining an automatic response which may not be universally appropriate, I'd rather cultivate the ability to assess the situation rapidly, and select a reasonable response out of a few that I've trained. At the risk of copyright infringement, it makes me thing of Travis Haley's "Thinkers before Shooters" concept.

Now for the dreaded "ninja/samurai crap":
When I was younger, and practiced kata and forms for hours, I always imagined what the originator was doing when they came up with the form. Fighting 30 unarmed men? 1 guy who's moving around a lot? I came to the conclusion that kata got passed down as 50% tradition, and 50% method. It was a way of handing down the methods that were used, presumably in combat, many generations ago, but it was also a how-to, as in "this worked for us back then, so its still good". But then, take a guy who practices kata, and a guy who spars, who wins?

One of the advantages of being a cop, and a cop trainer, is that I have access to sims gear, ammo, and time to watch some of these kata evolve, and see how they fall flat when they become a universal method. Problem is, as a cop, and a cop trainer, I have precious little time to expose students to a more cerebral approach, and explore new methods. In L/E circles, range kata is the time and cost effective substitution for getting shooters the reps they need to think on their feet.

Ah, shit. The twins just woke up, so I have to stop rambling on and on.