I spent yesterday taking KR Training’s AT-2: Force-on-Force Scenarios class. That’s the one thing I’m “behind” on in my training is FoF training. I’ve been wanting to take more, but there’s always been scheduling or other issues that have prevented it. So while I’ve done some FoF training, nothing has been as dedicated as yesterday’s AT-2 class (e.g. other FoF has just been a component of some other class).

For those that don’t know what force-on-force is, think of it like sparring and role-playing for self-defense. There is no live-fire, but through the use of tools like Airsoft guns and inert pepper spray containers, you can actually act through self-defense situations. Some people in the scenario are “good guys”, some play “bad guys”, and some people are just innocent bystanders. Some situations can be solved without ever having to fire a shot, some situations will only end in a gunfight. The bottom line is you have to use your wits and training to solve problems in whatever way you can. Sometimes things work out, sometimes things don’t. The key is to put you through situations now. If you’re going to make mistakes, make them here where cost is minimal. You also learn what may be the right thing to do in such a situation, and what’s right for you may not be right for someone else. The key hope is by going through this, if you ever find yourself in a situation you’ll now be able to say “Hey, I did this before” instead of freezing with an “Oh shit, what do I do now?”

From the class description:

About scenario-based training: Our philosophy is that scenario based training is the only way to fully experience all the variables present in a real confrontation, most notably live opponents that talk, move, think and shoot back. The goal of our scenarios is not for students to have paintball wars or for our staff roleplayers to boost their egos by defeating students in impossible-to-survive situations. The training is like sparring: during the first half of AT-II, and during the prerequisite courses, students have learned the skills and responses required to ‘win’ the AT-II scenarios. Just as in real life, the best response may not always be to use deadly force, which is why students must make decisions more complex than ‘shoot/don’t shoot’. They must decide whether to talk or run, what to say, where to run, where to move, when/where/who to shoot (and in what order), and what to do after the incident is over. Unlike many schools who stop the clock when the last shot is fired, we test our students’ ability to deal with injured family members, bystanders, arriving emergency personnel and unexpected incidents.

Our goal is to challenge students to use what they already know, under time pressure. We expect students to make mistakes. Each scenario is de-briefed and students typically get the opportunity to repeat scenarios to correct errors. The purpose of scenario based training is to give the student experience in winning – but winning must occur as a result of doing the right things, not as a result of the roleplayer throwing the victory to the student. Most of us, when asked to give an important presentation, will prepare and rehearse before the actual event, so as not to make a terrible error onstage. The price of making a mistake in a real world confrontation is high, and live action scenario based training provides a venue for students to make (and correct) potentially fatal errors in less hazardous environment.

While force-on-force is primarily a “gun world” thing, it really is a concept that ought to be applied to any sort of self-defense training. To be in the dojo practicing one-step sparring techniques or other randori isn’t a bad thing, but consider the context you are working for. If you’re truly working to provide self-defense training for people, then provide self-defense training for people. Put people in real situations, role play it out. Yes, you still have some level of control, some degree of restriction, but done right you can get surprisingly real. For instance, even tho we use Airsoft guns, there’s still something about seeing a muzzle pointed at you and projectiles coming your way that is most disconcerting.

The Class

AT-2 starts in the classroom with lecture. The lecture discusses the realities of self-defense situations, before, during, and after.

The “before” component is discussing what can and should happen before a confrontation. The main thing? Mindset, which includes awareness. The best way to win a fight? Don’t be in one. If you can see a potential bad situation before it happens and avoid it? That’s the way to do it.

There’s a discussion of the Jeff Cooper Color Codes. You can read the linked article if you’re unfamiliar with the concept. One thing I appreciated hearing was Karl’s take on condition white and condition yellow. For many that espouse the color codes, they find yellow is the only condition acceptable to be in, except when you’re asleep. The reality is, this is difficult to do. Ever had a time at work when you really needed to focus on the task at hand? If so, you just slipped into condition white. Is that a bad thing? It depends. If you know your environment is fairly secure and there are ways to be notified should something start, going white could be OK. For instance, the Starbucks may have free Wi-Fi, but if you’re head-down in your laptop computer or iPhone checking email, you’ve gone condition white… and while you may still look up and keep an ear perked, while you read that email you probably slipped into condition white for a moment. Perhaps it would be better to wait to do that email from within your office? The reality being, we will slip in and out of white and yellow all day, it’s how life can be. Instead of saying “going white is unacceptable”, realize and acknowledge it happens and take steps to deal with it.

The other key component of the lecture was discussing the “after”. This includes things like the psychological effects, both immediate and long-term, as well as dealing with things like when the police show up on scene, and lawyers. One advantage of this lecture is another instructor, Justin Galindo, is a member of the Houston Police Department, so Justin was able to give some insight into that aspect of the situation.

The Scenarios

After lunch we got suited up in Airsoft gear and headed out. We started divided into two groups. One group went outside to do Airsoft-based scenarios, the other group stayed inside to discuss building techniques. My group started inside. The discussion was introducing “building clearing” techniques, but the reality is this class is not for SWAT or Police but private citizens. As private citizens we are not going to be clearing buildings. Why should we, especially since if we did any sort of building movement likely we’re going to be alone. It’s just dangerous and asking for trouble if we have to do it, but on the same token there’s rarely going to be reason or need to clear things.

For instance, if you’re home alone and hear a bump in the night, is there really any good reason why you should go through your house to figure out what that bump was? It’s unlikely. If it’s a serious enough noise (e.g. you heard your door being kicked in), better strategy is to hunker down in your safe room (likely your bedroom, in this case), arm yourself, dial 911. The reality is you don’t know what’s out there, and it could be worse than you can imagine. Do you really want to go into the unknown? Well, maybe. The question is: is it worth your life? Is it worth dying for?

To answer that question, perhaps there is something out there. Maybe I’m not home alone, maybe my child is sleeping in their room and the noise sounds like it’s coming from that direction. In that case, yes I probably will need to move and thus building clearing technique comes into play.

Two techniques were discussed: slow clearing, and fast clearing. Slow clearing is what you typically associate with clearing, moving slowly around corners. Unfortunately if I hear my child scream down the hallway, I don’t have time to do that. Thus we come to fast clearing. Fast clearing is just what it sounds like, but to make it truly effective you need to do your homework. That is, this is your home and you ought to know it well. Thus on a Sunday afternoon when you have nothing else to do, you should go through your house and slow-clear it. Learn the angles, learn the hiding places, learn where you may have blind corners. This way when you must fast clear your house you can do so and know where to look and what to look out for. As well, you may want to take steps to aid your clearing ability, such as putting up decorative mirrors to help you see around corners or into tight spots.

After this discussion and practice, my group went outside for our first series of scenarios. These were set up as home-defense situations, and they ran the gamut, from totally innocent situations to serious problems. The key was to pay attention and be prepared. In one situation I was in, I was in my bedroom with a host of options (cell phone, gun, pepper spray, baseball bat). I hear this crash at my front door. Of course, initial reaction is “WTF?”, I grab my gun and hunker down, dial 911 and start talking to the operator…. but as the event went on it was evident the intruder was drunk and confused and likely no harm. I reached back out from my location and grabbed pepper spray and resumed my hunkered-down position. It was key and important to listen.. communication, from the “bad guy”, by me the “good guy”, it’s really a key element in these scenarios. Yes often we’re taught to not engage the “bad guy” in conversation, and there’s something to not being drawn in, but on the same token we must listen to what they are saying, watch their non-verbal communication, and decide what is right to do because that is so key in successfully defending yourself.

After the “in home” scenarios, we went inside and worked with “restaurant” scenarios. The key here? It’s you as a CHL-holder in a public place. A key lesson? Do you always know what’s going on? And are you going to get involved? I mean, if someone comes in and holds up the cashier and runs out, are you going to get involved? If that hold-up guy points his gun at you, does that change things? Self-defense situations at home may be one thing, but out in public it’s certainly another.

Finally we ended with “7-11” scenarios. So we started with very simple scenarios, and every scenario and situation has grown in complexity, both the situation presented and how to deal with it. I found myself being an innocent in one scenario. I was in such a situation where the robbery went down, “Oh shit! head to the back room…. oh shit, there’s guys shooting each other in there! Oh shit, there’s guys shooting each other out here… oh shit, there’s nothing do to but… damnit ,I just got shot.” On the surface it’s kinda funny, but the reality of the situation was yes, that’s how things could be. I had no idea how the scene was going to play out. I had no idea the chaos that would ensue.

That reminds me of another situation I was in. It was in the home scenarios. I was at home, loud noise of my door being broken in, I hunker down then see some bad dude rushing in at me so I move from my hunkered position and start shooting at the guy. He falls down to the floor and I’m watching him…. tunnel vision kicked in so then I distinctly remember reminding myself “SCAN SCAN SCAN” (you want to break your tunnel vision and scan around you because you never know what might be around you). Sure enough, I start to scan, look out the bedroom door and there comes bad guy #2, our eyes meet, and we shot each other and the scenario was stopped. Not fun, eh? The reality is, you can try to do everything right, but there’s no promise nor guarantee you’ll come out alive and unscathed.

What I Got From This

I maintain that FoF training is sobering. There are people who think it will never happen to them and they do nothing to prepare for bad things to happen. When bad things happen to those people, they freeze and suffer. Then there are people that grant bad things could happen to them and take some steps. These people have a better chance because they’ve probably at least adopted the right mindset. But do they have a plan? Gun folks can be especially bad at this because they may view it as “I’ve got a gun, I’ll be OK”, which is well and good, but a gun is not a talisman. “Oh, but I go to the range regularly.” That’s great. Marksmanship is important… but standing in a bay shooting stationary cardboard at 7 yards only takes you so far. In all the shooting done in AT-2? It was rare that someone looked at their sights and got that perfect sight picture. You were moving, the bad guy was moving, there was chaos all around you. But more importantly, not all problems were solved by shooting. Just because you have the hammer, don’t think everything out there is a nail. FoF training can be very sobering.

That said, FoF training isn’t perfect, but even in that you can find something to learn. For instance, in one scenario I was merely to be “some innocent guy” that went into the store, wanted to buy something, didn’t have the money, goes to the ATM to get money, buys something, then leaves. What happened? I ended up being the guy that got mugged as my cash was coming out of the ATM machine. I was a bit upset with myself for having gotten mugged; I’m not kicking myself too hard, but instead I’m learning from it. You see, while I was role-playing I was doing just that: role-playing. I was told to play this innocent guy. I was having a thespian moment, playing my roll. I recall being into the roll, playing my part. And I obviously played it well enough because I got mugged. So I felt good about playing the roll I was told to play. But on the same token I kicked myself because I felt I went totally condition white (see? it’s that “being focused on your task” thing). I should have been looking around. I should have been aware of my surroundings and situation, especially while standing in line for the ATM. Would this have been not playing my roll? That’s actually debatable. On the one hand I wasn’t told to act in that way. But on the other, role players can have some degree of latitude. For instance, if I had made myself a less-attractive target by being aware that too is teaching something to everyone involved in the scene (during the debrief). So it was a bit of mixed-emotions for myself, but I refuse to kick myself for it. This was about learning and I learned a few things from this one.

Conclusion

If you are serious about self-defense, you need to do Force-on-Force training. This is especially true if you carry a gun for self-defense.

FoF training is nothing to be afraid of. The AT-2 stuff, sure there was some physicalness because you moved around and maybe have to move quickly to react to things, but it wasn’t some serious throw-down. The physicalness was nothing more than any normal person ought to be expected to do should a self-defense situation arise (e.g. kneel down, move, etc.). Most of what you dealt with was mental: your wits, your decision-making. It’s such a vital component of self-defense.

Yes you’re going to make mistakes. Yes, you’re going to mess up. That’s OK. This is where you’re supposed to make those mistakes. It’s better that I made the mistake of being condition white at the ATM here than to be condition white at a real ATM. This is a learning environment, and so long as you learn and grow, it’s all good.

For those curious, KR Training will have an AT-7 with more FoF scenarios on April 17.