We have all seen shooting from a static position...
We've probably had some exposure to that method of training...
We've hopefully been exposed to moving and using angles to prevent us from being harmed...
We all (should) know that moving offline at an angle is superior to forward or rearward movement more often than not and usually superior to linear left/right movement as well... can this become a weapon in and of itself?
To understand this concept, you must understand how the human brain and the human body work together during a high-stress encounter like a fight.
The process was best codified by United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd as the "OODA Loop." which is broke down as a four stage process, with OODA being an acronym for the stages themselves.
OBSERVE:
What you see, hear, smell, feel, and (I guess it's possible) taste that alerts you to an unfolding situation.
Typically, see and hear will be the senses that observe the threat indicators for our purposes.
ORIENT:
This is the processing of the information observed...
For our purposes, "Orient" will more likely than not involve turning to face the Observed threat indicator along with processing it's specific threat level and the legality of available options to deal with it.
DECIDE:
Cut and dry right?
Based off the orientation, we choose the best possible choice to render the threat insignificant.
ACT:
Carry out the decision
Repeat as necessary.
When we move or change an angle, it resets our attacker(s)'s OODA Loop while ours is still in motion. This in effect "short circuits" them very briefly, which may well amplify our advantage or at least reduce our disadvantage.
Now... In addition to the OODA Loop, there are some lessons I've learned through the study of various martial arts from boxing to taekwondo to hapkido to Kali/Escrima/Arnis at work here as well. All of these systems teach heavily the values of distance and angles.
Let's look at boxing... When a fighter moves straight in one line what usually happens? Either we step straight forward into our opponent's punch (which hurts, by the way) or we wind up out of range... While them not being able to hit us is a very good thing, not being able to win the fight because we can't reach them either is a very bad thing.
What about taekwondo? I don't mean the stupid point-sparring bulls**t you see at the Olympics or worse yet a tournament of the Taekwondo organization I used to belong to... The Olympic stuff is great if you like to play games and the other stuff I mentioned is fine if your an overgrown 12 year old who doesn't want to know what getting hit feels like... No, I'm talking about what taekwondo was in 1993 when I started wherein if you moved straight forward you got drilled with a hard body shot, you got shuffle side kicked in the jaw and knocked out if you stepped straight back, and caught a real hook (or worse yet spinning hook) kick in the head or ball-of-the-foot round kick either in the gut or up across the side of your grape if you went straight to one side of the other.
Hapkido is a different animal... Hapkido is all about using your opponent(s)'s energy against them... to do this, one must move WITH the opponent. Remember the "hap-ki" (or "ai-ki" for those who prefer the Japanese side... they translate the same) part of things comes from the combining of energy between yourself and your opponent... Which ties into the Filipino martial arts by using a concept they refer to as the "Zero Pressure Angle" wherein you are moving with and allong the same angle as an opposing weapon/strike to minimize the damage it causes and cause the attacker to overreach and off balance themselves.
Again, there's where angles and distance come together...
--DISTANCE--
How do we use distance to our favor?
We've all heard the "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight." line... and most of y'all know that while the gunfight is best fought with a gun, it's all of us at TFTG's opinion that you should always have a knife... Period.
Now... What about the other way around? What if you bring a gun to a knife fight?
Well... The only way THAT particular idea is going to work is from a... distance.
I promise you, no... I flat out guaran-f**kin'-tee you that if you try to fight a knife fight inside the range knife fights happen at with your pistol you are flat out GOING to get cut to shreds and get some extra holes punched in you! Now with that said... If you try to fight a man with a firearm at 50 feet with your knife you're also going to have a VERY BAD DAY!
When we are using our firearms, the idea is to create as much distance as possible from our attacker. This is because in close contact the weapon is easily taken from our custody and can even more easily be knocked out of battery and rendered useless (OK revolver nuts... if your cylinder gets grabbed tightly it won't work either!!!)... this in addition to giving us room to use our sights and thereby hit smaller, more vital targets...
So... What if they have a firearm and we don't?
GET CLOSE ENOUGH TO GRAB IT!!! Look, it's a hard choice, but when faced with life or death what other option than you have when doing nothing only leads to your unopposed death? I for one oppose the hell out of someone killing me... and if they're going to do so then they're certainly going to have to work for it! Close the gap. Use cover and concealment if available and use erratic movements avoiding patterns to make yourself harder to hit, close the distance, and engage in hand-to-hand combat or use a contact distance weapon... Period.
Well... Say I have my firearm and they surprise up close with a contact distance weapon (knife/stick) or such a violent empty-hand assault that I'd be justified in shooting them?
Well, with the empty hand, you need to create distance... More on that when we get into playing with angles...
Now... with the knife and the stick you MUST nullify the weapon first... same thing if the subject goes to draw a pistol. The ONLY way to do this is to get in close... to amplify your leverage. Kinesiology (the study of how humans move) shows us that we have the most muscular leverage and bone support in tight... the tighter the better. Besides the strength and leverage advantages, the closer we are to the weapon, the attacker has less room to maneuver it... Case in point: The big, looping motions of the knife disarming techniques used by many martial arts are pretty easy for a savvy knife fighter to defeat... I know, I know... Not everyone is an FMA specialist... But a great many criminals have been to prison... and the shank is a, what, again? Knife? Exactly. Think they didn't learn to use one? You may be right, but are you willing to bet your life that this cat doesn't know what he's doing when he tries to stick you with that thing? I for one will not make that bet and will assume that he's a very experienced and very well trained killer with that blade... which if he's not will result in his much quicker defeat. So... Get in tight. Destroy the limb holding the weapon... Don't worry about taking it... Render that which holds it useless... NOW DEPLOY YOUR OWN WEAPON! If that's a firearm, open the distance not by stepping straight back... but by stepping off to a rearward angle (7:30 or 5:30) and shoving the attacker HARD in the opposite direction while you draw then start at the pelvis and "zip them up" all the way... Oh yeah... and KEEP MOVING BACK AND SHOOTING THEM UNTIL THEY HIT THE GROUND!!!
Well, what if we both have guns?
--ANGLES--
We all know the importance of getting out of an attacker's line of fire, or "Getting Off The X" as it's commonly referred to by several trainers I think highly of, and (should know) how to perform this activity...
Oh? You don't know that one? Maybe you just want to hear our take on it... Maybe you didn't, but suck it up, butter cup... Here it comes.
Musashi codified 8 Cuts and a thrust for his method of Kenjutsu... And I look at that as our directions of movement...
Top to Bottom
Bottom to Top
Right Shoulder to Left Hip
Left Shoulder to Right Hip
Left to Right (straight across)
Right to Left (straight across)
Left Hip to Right Shoulder
Right Hip to Left Shoulder
Center Thrust
Lay that down on the ground and what do you have?
Straight to the Rear
Straight to the Front
Forward Right to Left Rear
Forward Left to Right Rear
Left to Right
Right to Left
Left Rear to Right Front
Right Rear to Left Front
Vertical
Any one or combination of these will change your position in space, forcing your opponent's OODA loop to reset.
I am particularly fond of moving to the Obliques as it forces the attacker to change their azimuth while either closing or opening the gap for me.
Vertical displacement can be used to change your sightline and give you a cleaner backstop (Going higher angles the rounds down into the deck and dropping lower angles shots up where they may lesser endanger others in the event of an overpenetration with a less than perfect backstop... which only exist on ranges or where prepared by the way). or change your view and situational awareness... It also is VERY VERY quick and if you have good flexibility does little damage to one's mobility so it does major damage to the attacker's perception of where in his/her/their battlespace. Also, it may allow one to obtain cover or concealment while moving one direction or another to offset your location and further disrupt the opposition's OODA loop.
How do you determine which direction to move?
During the Observe portion of your OODA loop, you should not only be obtaining information to your opponent, their intentions, and armaments (i.e. hands and what's in them), but you should have enough situational awareness that you know where your avenues of escape, your backstop, your own armaments, and your overall capabilities (speed, mobility constraints, etc.) to best determine what direction you should be moving....
Case in point:
Your attacker has as a long gun in their right hand... We all know that the left and right hands converge in the center, thereby we have good mobility with a long gun in shooting posture to the left... You should move to the right if at all possible in this scenario. Whether you go forward or rearward is totally up to you and should be based on variables such as are you responsible for the care of anyone else, are there physical obstructions to the front or back, what side is your firearm on, etc.
When you Orient yourself on the attacker, keep in mind that once you decide to attack the attacker, staying static is only your best option if you are behind hard cover... so you will be moving... As such, when orienting physically you should not lock yourself in position... Dale "Sunshine" Frye (former World Lightweight Kickboxing Champion) and Randy "Big Nasty" Ballard (former NC State Heavyweight Kickboxing Champion), the men who taught me how to box, always said that if your heels touch the ground you're a big tree with roots... which is blown over or breaks in a strong wind... But if you stay on the balls of your feet you're a vine... you remain flexible and bend when the storm comes up. What does this mean? Simply, be light on your feet and ready to change direction in less than an instant. Don't plant your feet and lock yourself in unless you're behind cover or taking a surgical shot.
--CONCLUSION--
Anyone that tells you it's "impossible" to hit a person on the move when you're moving is either lying through their teeth, have too much ego invested in their own shooting and only engage in "marksmen's masturbation" (doing what feels good (what you're good at) but has no effects save making you feel good) instead of doing the hard stuff that they're not good at, they don't know what they're talking about, or they're just too used to accepting mediocrity. Is it difficult? OH YEAH! Is it possible? Very much so.
The key to not getting hit in combat sports is not being "there" when the strike gets there... This is very much true in combat, as those who remain mobile usually prevail. One of my instructors during a school in the Marine Corps stated that "Static is dead and Slow is a Casualty." He was right... This doesn't mean to rush what you do, but it means when you move it should be at such a pace that is as if your life depends on it... because it does.
Force-on-Force training will show that static is dead... and slow's usually a casualty. As my Grandpa used to say when he thought he heard a bobcat in the woods... "Boy, I ain't gotta be fast... I just gotta be faster than you!"
So when you go to the range, work on movement, especially at oblique angles. If the range you go to doesn't allow such a practice... Dry Fire at home does!
I plan on getting a video up on this at some point... finding an "uke" is harder than you would think!
Stay Safe,
Stay Frosty
1*
WY6
-Kenny Smith
Chief Master Instructor
President, TFTG