Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Self Defense. Fighting under duress.



I'm definitely going to see this movie, but a couple of things stood out in the trailers for me.

The first.
"Never shoot a large caliber man with a small caliber bullet."
Quite honestly that made me pause.  I'm a 9mm fanboy to the core.  I believe its the ideal sized round for most applications...but that quote sung to me.  I don't know if thats a real quote said in the Teams or not, but if it is then good on them.

The second thing that caught me was when one of the SEALs asked another if he could fight.  The second SEAL said that he was shot and Wahlberg replied "we're all shot, can you fight?".

That simple quote made me sit straight up, swallow hard and think.  How many of us even consider fighting under duress.  By duress I mean injury.  I don't follow MMA as much as I used to because I'm definitely NOT liking some of the moves being made by management, but I did hear the news about Silva kicking a guy so hard that he broke his leg.

On the street the fight would continue.  The aggressor would simply take advantage of that infirmity and pound the other guy into serious injury or death.  I don't have the answer on this one but its something to consider.  Continuing the fight after you've been shot, stabbed, had your nose broken...whatever.  I've never had to do it.  MMA fighters do it on a limited basis, but in a deadly force encounter I don't even see Professional Law Enforcement (I'm talking about the guys that are good solid pro cops) training for such a scenario.

Research continues and when I get it I'll pass it along. 

20 comments :

  1. I think their may be two main reasons why we tend to overlook training for this. First, we tend to like to win, and most training seems to be designed so that we 'win' in the end. After four years in the army, I still have not seem an attack fail to the point that the 'good guys' have been eliminated or forced from the field. Getting shot, especially a "we're all shot" scenario just doesn't seem to fit with the training culture.

    Second, its one thing to say "you've been shot in your strong arm" and make people shot with their support hand. I've never been shot, but for some reason I think that actually being shot may have, you know, more of a psychological and physiological effect on the body then that. I am not sure how to effectively recreate the stresses which would come from fighting under duress.

    How would you propose to effectively train for this?

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    1. @Plato2.

      i have absolutely no idea of how you would train to do this. the closest i've ever come to "learning" to fight under duress was during pepper spray training when we had to just do 3 minutes of fighting a guy in a redman suit after getting sprayed.

      that was not my best training day (or anyone elses) but it did teach the lesson that even blowing snot bubbles and having trouble breathing you could still hook and jab....but you're already ahead of me on this. i hadn't pieced together why it we weren't training for this scenario all along. there really isn't a way to simulate the trauma and the shock from having broken bonds or flesh being pierced by hot metal.

      i'm gonna have to chew on this one awhile.

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    2. read between the lines on the above paragraph. i'm tired.

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    3. If you was forced to fight "under duress" then you didn't trained well enough and made some stupid mistake.

      Ofc special forces is another story.

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    4. i don't think that's necessarily true. when talking about civilian self defense, you're not able to initiate action on your own terms. at best you're going to be able to get inside the bad guys decision loop and react quickly to the aggression. when it comes to combat, i can tell story after story of small unit actions where units did everything right but still got a bit beat up.

      and using the military as an example what happens to a conventional unit when they're hit? you get shot in the leg and the call goes out for "Corpsman up!"...or "Medic up!"....same with special operations....do you know how many Corpsmen go to be Basic Recon Course? Special Forces have people that are trained to near doctor standards and every other unit has Corpsmen/Medics assigned so fighting under duress isn't something that most units whether conventional or special ops will train for (i'm talking on an individual basis).

      what i'm talking about really applies only to street cops and citizens. even SWAT Teams have medics assigned to them.

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  2. These man displayed the quintessential quality of special force operators: the impossibly strong will to succeed and the ability to main composure under extreme stress. They did not break apart under heavy fire, totally outnumbered, and they literally fought to the last man. I hope this movie will do these guys justice.

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    1. i think it will Wahlberg is a rebel but he's also (in my opinion) a pretty patriotic guy. i heard reports of Lutrell advising on the movie and he was real hard on the actors to make sure they got the attitude right without going into "brag" mode.

      for some reason i'm more open to this movie than i was to the "Navy SEALs movie" that the big navy went all out for....i have to admit, i'm mixed on SOCOM. i like Special Forces, have never met a jerk from that organization, like Rangers...they soldier hard, MARSOC to me is a waste because we need Force Recon strong and part of the MEU and SEALs...except for Lutrell and a few others just piss me off....especially the current BullFrog. that guy is a glory hound. i figure they're like the Marine Corps. in serious need of new leadership.

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  12. It is different than training to break a bone during a fight, or fight to pure exhaustion where shooting someone is the only thing left to do. I've been through both and it sucked, but had to keep going until someone got there to help. Luckily the adrenalin dump kept the pain down from the broken hand.
    Now the big one would be a broken rib once weakened it would suck to keep getting punched or kicked.
    In training they did try and get it through to us that WE WILL BE HIT FIRST, WE WILL BE SHOT FIRST, and WE WILL BE STABBED first its how you react that determines if you will survive the attack.
    At min I figure as an officer I have 5 to 10 min before help arrives if I can get a call for help out.
    I don't know how to train for that kind of duress. For stress shooting we did sim rounds so you had a nice pain response. Also for shooting you could set off flash bangs and have fireworks shot all around you.

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  13. The book "Stress Fire" by Masood Ayoob is very good.

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