Defense Training Articles | Personal Defense Network

The Myth of Situational Awareness

January 24, 2011 By Grant Cunningham & filed under All Articles, Defensive Training Concepts.

Over the last several decades, it has been fashionable to teach defensive handgunning from the premise of “awareness.” From color codes to misinterpretations of Boyd’s OODA loop, the idea persists that awareness allows one to see a threat coming farther out and prepare to face it. This supposedly gives the defender time to deploy the…

Top 5 Bad Habits

January 5, 2011 By Mike Seeklander & filed under All Articles, Defensive Training Concepts.

I painfully watched my student get shot. The rounds impacted his upper chest area in perfect placement, even though the bad guy was shooting from a grounded position with only one hand. The bad guys have all the luck. Fortunately, this was not a real fight, only a simulated one during a class I was…

Practicing in the Resource-Constrained Environment

November 30, 2010 By Claude Werner & filed under All Articles, Defensive Training Concepts.

Physical skills cannot be learned well by reading a book or watching a video; they need to be physically practiced. We firearms instructors would like you to do three practice sessions of 200 rounds each week working on various marksmanship, movement, and tactical drills. However, that’s not a realistic expectation. Most people, myself included, live…

What Makes a Teacher?

November 27, 2010 By Robb Hamic & filed under All Articles, Defensive Training Concepts.

Is it the certificate on the wall, the training to get the certificate, the mindset, or our actual knowledge of tactics that work for self-defense? Knowing tactics doesn’t make an instructor, of course, and it’s a shame that most of the training organizations that provide credentials for instructors don’t stress actual teaching of the material.…

How To Host a Training Course

November 22, 2010 By Rob Pincus & filed under All Articles, Defensive Training Concepts.

I get a lot of email, Facebook messages and forum comments from people asking when there’s going to be a Combat Focus® Shooting course in their area. I usually tell them to check the calendar at the www.icetraining.us website to see where we’re going to be. You’d be surprised how many people go to the…

Deadly Force Decisions: The First Step

November 9, 2010 By Lt. David L. Williams & filed under All Articles, Defensive Training Concepts.

We live in a violent society. When I first became a police officer, I carried a six-shot revolver. Portable radios were bigger and heavier than bricks. There were no cages in the patrol cars, and the patrol cars had a red light and a blue light on top. At least I had TWO lights on…

Prioritize Your Training

October 25, 2010 By Chris Fry & filed under All Articles, Defensive Training Concepts.

None of us can predict what, where, when or how a critical incident will occur. The only elements we can control are mindset, training and gear. Everything else is unfortunately up to our potential attackers and luck. Because of this, true personal protection training should include a variety of different skill sets based on the…

Survival Shooting Techniques: Why Train With One Hand?

September 5, 2010 By Mike Seeklander & filed under All Articles, Defensive Training Concepts.

What is the real reason we should train to use only one hand to manipulate and shoot the firearm? Lots of people might say, “Because it is common to get shot in one of your extremities and lose the use of one hand.” While I agree, and the statistics confirm this to an extent, over…

How Should You Practice After Training?

August 31, 2010 By Claude Werner & filed under All Articles, Defensive Training Concepts.

Once we finish a personal defense training class, a question that should remain in our minds is, “Where do I go from here?” We trainers almost universally say that you have to practice after a class to ingrain the skills you learned in order to achieve the unconscious competence necessary to prevail in a critical…

Training Conferences: Bang for Your Buck

August 30, 2010 By Rob Pincus & filed under All Articles, Defensive Training Concepts.

Training conferences represent an outstanding opportunity to learn and network at an affordable price. Every year, I participate in several conferences in various places around the United States. In 2010, I will attend at least seven. Some, like the New York Law Enforcement Expo, are more focused on vendors and the exhibit hall while others,…