Five Dynamic Weapon Positions. Each one meant for a different use. But no matter which one you happen to be in, you need to learn how to mount the rifle from that position, quickly.
The grand-daddy of all training scars, the Flinch, is the bane of shooters across the country. SMT has a system that we call "Flinch Remediation" that has taken shooters with massive flinches and dialed them in to perfect 2-6" circles with fast splits hundreds of times. In this week's Handgun Drill of the Week, I'll show you just one of the drills in that Remediation sequence.
There are two ways that SMT teaches a rifle Emergency Reload. Check them out, try them out, and see which one works best for you.
This week, let's put a few skills together. Stay focused with this drill and remember that any advanced tactic is depentant upon the mastery of the fundamentals.
For a long time, Europe has been a favorite travel destination for Americans, but on May 1st, the State Department issued a Travel Alert to all Americans traveling in Europe to be on the look out for possible terrorism "with little or no warning."
While that's concerning, you may have booked this trip for months or even years in advance. So what do you do? Do what top level protection and security professionals have been doing for years and bring your LADDER.
Getting a single shot on target, unless perfect, will probably not stop your home invasion threat. Being able to get multiple rounds on target in a rhythmic, fast, means, will stop the threat. So let's start with Hammer Pairs.
Speed vs. Accuracy, it's a game that you need to play every time you run your handgun. With this drill of the week, you'll learn SMT's method for enhancing speed and shot placement together.
Every week I read a story about a home invasion or a robbery. They've become so widespread and common, that in every radio or television program I take in, there's at least ONE advertisement for a security system.
Now security systems are good, but really, they're designed to help you AFTER the threat has made their way into your home. The hope is, that the security system will mentally deter the threat by scaring them into thinking that the police will quickly be on the way, but when you take into account average law enforcement response times....the threat really has a fairly useful amount of time to take action before fleeing.
What if instead of relying on the security system to get police response, we instead made our homes simply harder to break into? You don't have to turn your home into Fort Knox, but with a few simple steps, you can really make a big difference in how easy it is to break into your residence. Better still, as most burglars will case their target homes before robbing them, these simple actions can act as a major deterrent in themselves, meaning that you may get the burglar to say screw it, this house is too hard.
If you'd like the full lecture on house hardening, that's available in Sealed Mindset Training's DVD: Home Defense Rifle. You can get your copy here. So here are a few steps you can take to harden your home right now:
The most common form of entry for a burglar is an unlocked door or window. So do the simple things, don't leave exterior portals open! But Beau, it gets hot in my house and I need to leave a window open. Then make sure it's a window that is off of the ground floor and if the window doesn't come with a open lock, make one out of a simple wooden dowel you can buy at any hardware store.
If you have cheap doors on your entry portals, get either solid core wood doors or a metal one. These doors will be able to take a lot more abuse than cheap doors. Next, harden the contact points between the door and the frame with Doorjamb Armor. This simple product will quickly make your door much more sturdy. The company, and my own experience, says it makes a door "kick-proof." Now nothing is absolutely impenetrable, but you will definitely be giving yourself a lot more time with this set up. Finally, replace cheap deadbolts with high quality ones. If you go to your local hardware superstore, you will quickly see that not all deadbolts are created equal. The better the deadbolt, the stronger, more durable, and harder to pick the lock will be.
Lots of crimes happen at night. Burglary is not usually one of them, they're often done during the day when the victim is off at work. That's where your good home security system comes into play. With that security system, we decrease the time the burglar may spend in the home to only a couple of minutes, because they know that the police will be notified and be on the way to check out the alarm. However, home invasion or robbery, where the intended victims are the people living in the home, not just their stuff, often happen in dark or low light conditions. The robber or invader doesn't want to be seen nor identified, if possible. By setting up motion lights 360 degrees around the house, such that the threat cannot approach the house without setting off a light, can act as a powerful deterrent. Pro-tip here, every month, take a walk around the house to make sure all of the lights come on, as it is not unheard of that the would-be robber or invader, may have cased the house and disabled the lights in the avenue they had intended to approach the house.
The last house upgrade that you could take that is relatively easily is to instal is 3M Scotchshield Safety and Security Film on your ground floor windows. This clear plastic film adheres to the inside of your windows and will significantly increase the strength of the window against forcible entry. Here's a video of that 3M film in action. This is probably the most expensive of the home hardening upgrades, but it does take one of the weakest links, the glass of a window, and upgrade it's defensive capabilities, considerably!
Whichever of these steps you take to harden your home, any of them will give you more time to take action to defend yourself and your loved ones if a home invasion or robbery does occur. And remember that you can get the full instruction on home security in our DVD series, Home Defense Rifle.
Next week, I'll go over the three plans you must have in place in your home if you want to protect yourself and your loved ones from the three most common disasters that befall families in the United States.
Get it ready! Here's how.
If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times from the Gun Ninja. "When you're attacked, get off the X!"
Yes, but how?
There are lots of different options: linear movements left and right, going forward, going backward, angled left or right, but I've always sort of wondered...have ANY of these guys actually tried this in SIM scenario?
SMT did. I can tell you from experience, linear movement didn't work. What works is circular movement. Flanking. This week's Drill of the Week will show you a drill you can use to practice this critical skill.
Do you ever wonder if your life's work actually makes a difference?
I'm fortunate that I have evidence that the curriculum I've developed and taught truly produces results. Almost two years ago, we released Sealed Mindset Training's first DVD series, the Concealed Carry Masters Course and I take great pride in this training series because I know the methodology works.
I recently got another confirmation of its effectiveness from a woman named Amy from Ohio.
She told me over the phone that she lived alone, had troubles with an aggressive neighbor, and had left an abusive husband only a few years earlier. Trying to start her life over again, she found she was riddled with fear. But instead of being thwarted by that fear, she decided to do something about it and reached out for the Concealed Carry Masters Course.
Amy emailed an update the other day, saying:
"I am writing to let you know that I went to BASS(shooting competition) tonight and I was really surprised at how my skills improved. While I don't have the official results yet, all the guys (at BASS) were really impressed, so I guess I've improved. (I) think the dry fire stuff has made a difference."
Amy's now regularly involved in local shooting competitions, carrying her defensive firearm with confidence, and living a life without unnecessary fear. If Amy can gain these results and this peace of mind, anyone can.
Developing your personal security is about simple things, a journey of a thousand little footsteps toward confidence that you are ready for whatever life might throw at you.
You can get your copy of the Concealed Carry Masters Course here, and start your journey >>>
While the DVD series is the most convenient way to improve your skills from the comfort of your own home, we offer training every Thursday night at Osseo Gun Club, in Osseo, MN, and we hope to expand our in-person training opportunities in the near future. The students who learn the Sealed Mindset method gain firearm skills that are absolutely astounding. Click on this link to learn more and sign up to join us.
Beyond large-scale training series and in-person classes, I enjoy producing content to help you gain solid self-defense skills. You can access this content for FREE online and stay connected. Check out:
I'm looking forward to helping you gain results, just like Amy did.
Happy Friday SMTers!
I wanted to get this posted on Tuesday, but ill kids kept me from getting it filmed and edited on time.
But no illness stops a good Defender! So here's the next Rifle Drill of the Week.
Mounting is the skill necessary to bring the rifle from any ready position to sight alignment. SMT typically works from the Two Hand High Ready position vs other options. The reason is that we're training for home defense, odds are good that the threat is extremely close to you. You have to keep in mind that the rifle isn't simply a shooting tool, but a DEFENSIVE tool. If you can't shoot it, it makes a great club. From that muzzle up, two hand high position, you can deliver a fast mount and shot, AND you can deliver a quality muzzle strike if the threat gets into close range.
I'm a little behind this week, so I present the DotW without comment.
Roughly two weeks ago, a homeowner in Oklahoma was awakened to the sounds of the glass on his front door being shattered. Startled, he grabbed his home defense tool and confronted the threat, which turned out to be three men, all in black and masked.
Threatened with his safety, the homeowner used his defensive tool and thwarted the intruders plans with a few well placed rounds.
When Law Enforcement arrived, the scene was pretty clear. Three men with bad intent had broken into the home. The homeowner, outnumbered, quite reasonable in his fear for his safety, stopped the threats from coming any further. With that information, the Law Enforcement decided that no charges would be filed against the defender.
In a situation where lethal force was to be applied, this was a pretty darn good outcome for the defender.
But if you've noticed, I've mentioned the "defensive tool," but I haven't said what that tool was. In this Oklahoma scenario, that tool was a Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR), also known as an AR15.
Using a tool like an MSR can give anyone a pretty solid tactical advantage in a home defense scenario. This is actually why SMT spent so much time and energy developing the Home Defense Rifle video training series. That rifle is the best home defense tool option and we wanted our students to be able to use it to the fullest.
But just having a good tool, doesn't equal a good home defense plan. So for the next few weeks, I'm going to go into how to set up your home for defense, but if you want a shortcut, just pick up your copy of Home Defense Rifle here.
If you'd like to read the story yourselves, click here.
This week's Drill of the Week is focused on working Cover and Concealment. Learning to utilize the world around us to place barriers between us and a threat will increase our chances in defeating them. Check it out.
Last week I took you through the structure and physiology of the human eye, and how the eye goes through physical and chemical changes when we go into low light conditions. This week, we're going to talk about how we can utilize the light of our environment to gain a tactical advantage over a threat.
First, we have to give up using our eyes the way we want to, and use them how they were designed. Remember that when your eyes go under that low light change, we produce Visual Purple. That chemical makes the Rods in the eyes more capable of functioning in the low light. The Rods are located to the periphery of the eye, that means, the sensors of our eyes that work best in low light are not the ones located right where we'd normally focus our gaze. To see better at night, give up trying to look directly AT the target or threat and scan the periphery of that target. This is a Diamond Scan.
Look to the top, side, bottom, other side, and back to the top, like a diamond shape, to better see your target/threat in low light. By doing this we run the image over our Rods, which function better in low light than the Cones, and allow ourselves the best opportunity to see and identify anything in front of us in the darkness.
Next, protect that night vision! It takes anywhere from 5-7 minutes to gain even the most basic of night vision, up to 40 minutes to be fully adapted. That means that once you have your night vision, you want to guard it from being destroyed by light. One of the ways to do this is to use the Pirate Technique.
Pirates are often portrayed as wearing eye-patches, but not because they were missing an eye. You see, if a pirate had to go from the deck, where it was light, to the hold, where it was dark, the pirate would simply uncover the patched eye in the darkness and viola! instant night vision. Once the pirate returned to the deck, he'd recover the eye in order to protect that night vision for the next time he needed to run into the hold.
We can do the same thing with our eyes, by closing one eye and placing the palm of our non-dominant hand over the eye, we have blocked out the light. Now if we have to cross from an area where we had night vision, through the light, and back into the dark, we never lose our ability to see.
Finally, positioning. Our eyes are more effective than the most expensive cameras you can possibly buy. A really good camera has a dynamic light range capability of about 5 out of 20, but your eye has a dynamic light range capability of 18 out of 20! Why this makes a difference is that whenever a photographer sets up for a shot, they must determine what the brightest light is and gage their camera settings to it accordingly. If they don't the image will be too dark to see, or everything will be blown out be cause it was too bright. Your eyes do the exact same thing.
If you place yourself in areas that are bright, you will have a hard time seeing into the shadows, but if you place yourself in the shadows, everything in the shadows AND in the light will be visible. This means, that if possible, you want to control the dark places and force your threat into areas that are light. It will be hard to see you and yet you will see the threat without effort.
All of this material is part of my DVD series: Avoid-Deter-Defend. Quite honestly, it's one of the most important products I've ever developed. This training series is designed to give you the situational awareness and low light skills you critically need to identify any threat and to start taking action quickly to avoid, deter, or defend against that threat.
If you don't have your copy, I'd encourage you to pick one up. It'll be one of the best investments you'll ever make in your security. Get your Avoid-Deter-Defend here.
After many requests, SMT is going to start delivering Home Defense Rifle Drills of the Week. Just like the other Drill of the Week, these drills will be designed specifically for the Defender. The Modern Sporting Rifle, or AR15 is the home defense weapon of choice for SMT. We felt so strongly about this that we built our own DVD training series just on using the MSR for home defense.
This first Rifle Drill of the Week will be focused on a principle element of using an MSR for home defense, the skill of Hold of Sights. Because of the way the bullet flies in an arc, but our visual acquisition of the threat through our optics is a straight line, there's a conflict of where the bullet will hit versus where we are aiming everywhere along the trajectory of the bullet flight except for our Zero. By mastering Hold of Sights, we can confidently mount our rifle and place the round exactly where we want it to go whether we're ten feet or fifty feet from our threat (think about the biggest room in your house) getting that threat to stop immediately. Check it out.
Home Defense Rifle: Vol. 1 is more than 10 hours instruction and guided practice, divided into 10 sessions, featuring over 60 live and dry fire drills along with a free 100+ PDF Guide that you can use to harden your home, develop solid defense plans, and learn to use your rifle defend your home and your family. If you don't have a copy of HDR, something I'm very proud of making, you can get yours here. There is nothing else like it out there.
Sometimes bad things happen in the dark.
This is where criminals find sanctuary to hopefully commit their crime and flee the scene before help can arrive. This means that we as Defenders need to understand the dark and have strategies to either use it to our advantage, or take away the advantage of the darkness for our Threat.
Last week we went through the five light levels and talked about some of the different actions Defenders need to take to utilize those low light levels effectively. Tools like flashlights, the night sights on your handgun, and movement techniques, can all give you an advantage in dealing with a threat in low light conditions.
This week, we're going to dive a bit deeper into low light, and we're going to understand the physiology of the eye, how you acquire low light vision, and how you can destroy it.
In your eye there are two basic structures, Rods and Cones. The Cones are designed to see color and sharp detail. The Rods are designed for the perception of movement. Cones don't work well in low light conditions, but the Rods do. Keep this in mind.
When your eye goes into a low light condition there are physical and chemical changes that happen. First, the pupil will dilate. These tiny muscles that restrict the flow of light into your eye during bright conditions, now relax and allow in as much light as possible, to give your Rods and Cones the best chance to capture the light they need to send useful information to your brain.
The second change that will happen with the eyes is chemical, they will develop a chemical called Visual Purple. This chemical activates your Rod's ability to function in decreased light. Visual Purple doesn't develop immediately, it takes time, roughly 5-7 minutes for your initial amount and up to 30-40 minutes for a complete dosage. This development process takes longer with age.
Conversely, it takes only seconds to remove your Visual Purple once it is exposed to bright light. Remember the last time you went to turn on a light in the middle of the night after being in the dark for a while? Like getting slapped in the face, isn't it? What's happening is that the eye is set up for low light, not bright light. If you are suddenly flooded with light, the pupil must contract and the Visual Purple must be removed, transformed into Vitamin K and absorbed into the body.
So what does this all mean? If you need night vision, it takes time to build. Once you have night vision, protect it! And, if your threat already has night vision, take it away with bright light.
Next week, I'll take you into utilizing light and darkness, to gain a tactical advantage over a threat. We'll talk about the Pirate Technique, a Diamond Scan, and how to position yourself in relation to light and shadow to have the best vision possible.
Watching the nightly news or reading the crime section of the newspaper reminds me why training for all conditions is so critical. Crimes like robbery, assault, rape, and murder are happening in U.S. cities every night and yet the vast majority of self-defense training is happening in daylight conditions.
Last month, the Advanced Class at SMT spent 5 weeks doing nothing but studying and practicing firearm manipulation in low light conditions. So for the next couple of weeks, the SMT Training Newsletter is going to go through just a few of the aspects that you need to know to defend yourself in the dark.
Low Light Conditions
Too often people associate Low Light training as this single, monolithic skill, but in reality, there are subtle differences in light levels and light directions that change how we as Defenders should respond. We categorize these light conditions based on light level and the orientation of light on our target or threat. So far from simply one condition, "low light," there are actually five conditions: Full Light, Low Lit Ambient, Front Lit, Back Lit, and Full Black.
Full Light is what we are used to. We do the vast majority of our training in this condition. Here, our eyes have to make no adjustments to light levels, nor do we concern ourselves with the direction that light is coming from. You can clearly see and identify your target/threat.
Low Lit Ambient is the condition where light levels are low enough that you must find and use the night sights on your firearm, but an additional source of light is unnecessary to see and identify a target/threat. In Low Lit Ambient, your eyes will adjust to the light levels both chemically and physically (we'll discuss this adaptation in a future newsletter), but once that adjustment is made you can see clearly enough to function without the aid of a flashlight. The key to training this light condition is learning to find your night sights. When we normally look at the sights on the slide of the firearm, they probably look like black pieces of metal with a bit of white that holds a piece of radio active material called tritium, but in this low light condition, those sights will suddenly glow and look very different. There is usually a drop of in first shot time as well as split times in this condition until the shooter can clearly recognize their night sights without feeling "off" about how different they look in the low light condition.
Front Lit is akin to Low Lit Ambient, but now there is a definitive direction of the light source. The light is behind you, the Defender, and directly on the target/threat. In this case, what we have is a shadow, and we're in it. Since we can see the target/threat, which is in the light, we do not need to add another light source like a flashlight, and since we're in the shadows, we have a distinct tactical advantage: I can see you, but you have a hard time seeing me. What changes here in our training is that when/if we must shoot, any shot will immediately give away our position. Therefore, starting in Front Lit, we have to start applying a Low Light 360 Check and Light Pollution Procedures. The overall gist here is that, once you've emitted any light, you must move from the place that you created that light. Light on - light off - move. If we don't move after generating this light, when it goes off, another threat could still engage us because the light pollution has given away our position and removed any tactical advantage the shadow had given us.
Back Lit is the condition in which the low level light source is behind the target/threat. When this happens the shadow extends through the target/threat and to where we are standing. With the light behind the target/threat we now have a problem, I can't identify whether or not this threat is a potentially lethal one because I can't see them. Back Lit requires us to add in a light source, for Defenders, this is where our tactical flashlight comes into play. With the tactical flashlight, we can now "light up" our target and give ourselves the time and visual capability we need to identify if our target is a lethal one and engage it. With
a Back Lit target, I still don't need my flashlight to get effective rounds downrange. This is where the rubber ring on the flashlight in last week's Newsletter comes into play. Flip the light out of the way, use two hands on the firearm. Then, just like Front Lit, we need to follow our Low Light Procedures. Light on - light off - move.
The last condition is Full Black. In this case, unless I have some form of my own light, I cannot see where I am going or who I am dealing with. There is a lot of physical and chemical changes that occur with the eye when in this low light condition and as such, the tactical flashlight can give us a significant advantage if we know how to use it properly. In this light condition, not only will you need that flashlight to identify the threat/target, but you'll need it to shoot your handgun as well AND to conduct your 360 Degree Check after the engagement. Here those Low Light Procedures become absolutely paramount as you need that flashlight for everything. Light on - light off - move.
Next week, we'll go into the physiology and structure of the eyes and how they change to light conditions. By understanding this physiology, you will not only be better at protecting your night vision, but you'll be more capable of defeating the night vision of your threat.
DMT staff are only onsite during scheduled classes and private training times, but we are available by phone 8:30am to 4:00pm or during training hours, Monday to Saturday.
To best accommodate you, please sign up for classes online at least 12 hours in advance!
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