I was twelve years old when I walked in on a friend of mine who had found my brother's handgun underneath of the bed and was trying to pull the trigger. She couldn't accomplish this task because the firearm was equipped with a manual thumb safety on the side of the firearm that she didn't know how to disengage. I stopped her, helped her unload the pistol and showed her how to use it. I loaded it back up, put it back under my brother's bed and no one was the wiser. I didn't think of that day again until I went to buy my first handgun.
That experience left a huge impression upon me and I insisted on buying and carrying a firearm that had a manual safety.
"Who knows what would have happened had that gun not had a safety," I used to tell people. "I could have lost my best friend."
Because of that singular experience I carried a 1911-style pistol for years, operating under illusion that it and its two manual safeties made me safer and that it would somehow protect against negligence. I also was under the impression that it was necessary in order for me to be safe.
"I just feel better having it," I would say.
As my training progressed and my comfort with all types of firearms expanded I started to learn some valuable lessons regarding what makes a firearm safe and unsafe. My husband and I also started talking about wanting children and suddenly I was faced with a question: Should I own and carry a firearm around my children that does not have a manual safety? Does not having a manual safety make me irresponsible?
I also had to come to terms with what had happened in my brother's bedroom over a decade ago and what that meant for me and for parents everywhere.
Firearms Are Only As Dangerous As We Make Them
A firearm has the potential to be dangerous but I do not believe them to be inherently dangerous. Unloaded they are no more than intricately-working paper weights. Even loaded they don't spontaneously fire. They don't orient themselves to a target and they do not operate of their own accord. It is the action of their handlers that make them a potential danger.
What made the situation in my brother's room so dangerous was not the firearm. It was the access to it. There should never have been a fully-loaded .45 under a bed with easy access to it. Especially with children in the house who did not know how to safely operate it. That action (or inaction, depending on how you want to look at it) is what made the dangerous situation.
That being said, the safety on that firearm only delayed her ability to make that firearm fire. I have no doubt that given enough time and enough button pushing she would have figured out that the safety lever could be disengaged and that a hole could be put through my brother's dresser.
What ultimately ended that situation was not the presence of a safety, it was the presence of a twelve-year-old girl who knew how to safely handle that firearm and had a healthy respect for it.
I took it from her. I unloaded it. I told her not to point it at anything she didn't want to shoot. I told her to keep her finger off the trigger. I showed her the features of the firearm. I then safely reloaded it, reengaged the safety and put it back where she'd found it. Knowledge and proficiency did far more to neutralize that situation than a safety could have ever done.
Had I been an ignorant child who was just as curious as to the workings of the firearms as she was who knows what kind of an ending I would be writing about today, or if I would even be here to write about it. Which makes me believe that far more than any safety feature on any gun should be a drive to teach your children in your home how to safely handle every firearm you own.
Safeties As A Crutch
It doesn't happen all the time but every now and then I get someone who will use the safety feature on their firearm as a crutch to do something negligent with said firearm.
I was in a pistol class not to long ago where a man thought his firearm's safety was engaged. I told him it was not. He did not believe me. To attempt to prove me wrong he pointed the firearm at the ground and pulled the trigger. The whole class jumped about two feet in the air when there was a rather large, "BANG!"
The instructor screamed, "WHAT WAS THAT!?!"
The man sheepishly mumbled, "I thought it was on safe."
He learned some valuable lessons that day. 1) Never use a safety as an excuse to break the rules of safe gun handling and 2) don't let your ego get the best of you.
At least no one was hurt.
That event should never have happened. But situations like it happen every day. And they happen in homes with children. People leave their firearms unattended where children can access them and think it's okay because the firearm has a safety. They put their finger on the trigger or point it at things they aren't willing to destroy or generally act a fool because, "Hey, man, what's the big deal. It's on safe!"
The rules of safe gun handling are universal, safety feature or not and if you treat every firearm as though it has no safety at all you are going to save yourself at least the embarrassment of putting a round in something you didn't intend to shoot or, at most, a life.
A safety feature is not a replacement for good gun handling. Period!
The Benefits of a Safety
All of that being said, there is a benefit to having a safety feature. It does delay the firing of a handgun.
Notice I said "delay," not "prevent."
Children who have the time and inclination to figure out how to make a firearm work will eventually try to flip that little lever down (or up.. or in.. or over, depending on the firearm) and when they do there will be no stopping them unless there is someone there with a little more knowledge and proficiency to stop them or guide them in what they are doing.
The Drawbacks of a Safety
Other than a safety being used as justification for poor gun handling, a safety can also be a road block to winning a gun fight. Just like a safety delays a gun being fired when you don't want it to be fired it can also delay someone firing a gun when they want to shoot it.
Most advocates of manual safeties say this is a training issue. It can be. Lots of people do not train with their firearms enough whether they have a manual safety or not. But those who have manual safeties need to put in a few extra hours of practice to make sure they disengage it consistently on the draw. Even then, it's not always guaranteed.
Anyone who's been shooting with a manual safety long enough and regularly enough will admit to missing the safety at least once. Even if they didn't forget it there's always that time that your finger slipped off the safety while you were trying to disengage it and you had to try again. Could that mean the difference between life and death? Perhaps.
Or, you could have my bad fortune and have your manual safety break.
Many moons ago, while I was still carrying a 1911, said 1911 fell out of my shoulder holster I hadn't secured like I thought and impacted on the back side of the grip. The force of the fall actually racked the slide beneath the manual safety about a quarter of an inch and bent the safety out of the frame. It basically pinned the slide out of battery and the safety on. I did not notice it until I got it home to check it over after such a hard fall. It took almost my whole body weight to disengage the safety from the slide and allow the firearm to return to battery. Had I needed that firearm between the time it fell and the time I got home I would have been in for a very rude awakening when I went to thumb off that safety and it never budged.
Lastly, the safety can be a giveaway.
Even with all of the drawbacks I listed above and my broken safety, I continued to carry a firearm with a manual safety on it. I did not even begin to question my decision until I read the first hand account of a man who was caught up in a gun fight with his 1911.
He was in a meeting and carrying a 1911. The perpetrator came in and ordered everyone onto the floor. The man drew his gun from his holster and laid on top of it anticipating having to use it. But when he flicked off the safety the perpetrator heard the noise and came to investigate. A gunfight ensued and thankfully the goodguy won even though he did end up getting shot a few times.
A one-in-a-million happenstance? Absolutely! But it happened non-the-less.
That was the beginning of the end for me and my personal obsession with manual safeties.
I finally realized that manual safeties don't actually make a firearm more safe. They gave an illusion of safety, which, in the end, could prove to be more dangerous.
I came to the conclusion that there was no real advantage to requiring a safety on my carry firearms and I was only limiting myself, my shooting experiences and training. Was I ever going to be faced with a true drawback of having a safety? Probably not. But why limit myself? Getting rid of the safety crutch freed me to embrace and carry many more firearms I've greatly enjoyed getting to know.
I also realized that I did not need a manual safety to be a safe handler.
The manual safety continues to prevail in many agencies and in many homes.
Do I think that manual safeties have their place in the gun industry? Absolutely! And I will never criticize anyone who demands their firearm have a safety feature.
I think it's important, however, to realize what a manual safety is and what it isn't, how to use it, and to use it appropriately. And to never use a safety as an excuse to be negligent or in the place of common sense.
For the last several years I've carried firearms without a manual safety. Glocks, M&Ps, revolvers, the list goes on and I've continued to have the safe handling and accident free record I had before I lifted my ban on non-manual-safetied firearms.
When it comes to carry, the most important aspect is the holster and ensuring the trigger guard is completely enclosed in a well fitting holster. When it comes to storage the most important aspect is being attentive of the firearm, where and how it is stored and securing it in a way that children cannot access it. Better yet is teaching children to handle a firearm so that if they do come across it they do not handle it negligently.
You Are The Safety! Be safe. Make your gun safe with or without a manual safety.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
New Boundaries And Kubatons
Over the weekend our Krav instructor was at the Tactical Defense Institute getting a brush up on his technique in impact weapons such as batons, kubatons, canes and other striking instruments.
Whenever our instructor goes out to train we can always expect to go over that same material when he gets back. When he went to a ground fighting class he came back and we did ground fighting for a month. When he went to a knife class we spent a few classes on knives. When he went to a personal control class we were doing joint manipulations and submissions. So, I was very much expecting some impact weapons when showing up at class.
I was not disappointed.
He walked into class carrying a handful of foam paint brushes. These would be our trainer kubatons. He also had an armful of foam wrapped PVC pipes for batons.
Just as we were getting started a fourteen-year-old girl and her family came in and our instructor asked her if she wanted to participate. Even though she shied away from the idea at first, he convinced her to come and join us.
We worked some strikes and simple techniques with our foamish kubatons and then we worked on each other. There was only two of us in class besides the girl since my husband injured his hand and so I was paired with the girl for the first part of the class. It was no surprise to me that she was very timid and it took a lot of encouragement to get her to do any kind of striking but she was willing to learn and apply herself. She did very well for her first time.
Later on we switched partners and I got paired with the biggest guy in our class. A former wrestler who is probably on the plus side of 250 lbs and somewhere north of 6'3". But he knows how to spar. His seventeen year-old daughter comes to Krav with him often and he doesn't let up on us little gals. He'll make me work for whatever I get which is great.
After a while our instructor introduced a scenario. He was trying to explain to the girl that someone trying to take her to another location was meaning her great harm and it was time to go nuts.
He started circling her asking her to go to a party. She curled her arms to her chest and was saying no but he persisted. Finally he reached out his hand and grabbed hers and started dragging her away. She laughed the sort of nervous giggle of someone who doesn't know what to do and made a few attempts to hit around his hand but he was able to drag her off the mat with little effort.
Then he turned to me.
"You want to come to a party with me?"
"No!" I answered.
He was circling me and staying deliberately outside of my striking distance.
"Come on. Come to a party with me."
"No! Get away!"
"Come on. It's a really cool party. Come with me."
He wavered on my striking boundary and when he leaned forward to cross it I plowed into him, striking his chest with my open hand and bringing my trainer kubaton down on his neck and collar bone. Over and over again I smashed his chest and collar bone area in what he called a recurring hammer first.
I drove him back and disengaged, stepped back, got back in my fighting stance and said, "I don't want to fight!"
He laughed, "I was trying to show her what you would do if I grabbed you but you didn't let me get to that."
Everyone laughed. My husband, JD, sitting on the side lines just smiled and said, "BIG difference from just a couple of months ago! Good job."
So as our instructor approached me again he said, "Let me grab you this time."
I let him grab me by the throat, took my kubaton and got control of his arm and when I had it he said, "Now what are you going to do?" And without much thought I delivered a pretty good kick to the groin. Perhaps just a little harder than I had meant. Even with a cup he fell to the floor with a look of discomfort on his face.
"I meant TELL me what you were going to do."
We had a little more fun after that. Every great once in a while we abandon all structure and just play and which ever student our instructor is playing with ends up on the floor in some strange ball of pain-induced submission. Every GREAT once in a while we students can keep the upper hand and get him to tap out. I was laughing as I tapped out, laying on the floor, with my feet out in front of me and my arm twisted in ways I'm pretty sure arms are not supposed to twist.
When we left class JD told me again what a big difference it was watching me from just a month ago when I would let him and others get far too close to me.
I told him I had that "ah-ha" moment and realized that if someone is getting close to me and I tell him no or to get away from me that his continuing to get closer to me is an overt threat and I will attack when he crosses my strike boundary.
He was pleased with this. It took me a little bit to finally get it but now that it's there it's pretty set.
And I am LOVING working with a kubaton. I've carried one for years and have always liked the idea of a striking weapon (of course, mine also has pepper spray in it so it's even better) but I've never had much training in one. I was always told that I could use a kubaton similarly as to how I would use a knife and that was enough for me, but seeing all the other fun stuff that can be done with it makes me that much more happy to have one on my person. The kubaton is my new best friend and I hope we continue to work with it for some time.
I know eventually we are going to be moving on the the baton and I'll see what there is to see there but I'm thinking the kubaton and I are going to be special friends for quite some time.
Whenever our instructor goes out to train we can always expect to go over that same material when he gets back. When he went to a ground fighting class he came back and we did ground fighting for a month. When he went to a knife class we spent a few classes on knives. When he went to a personal control class we were doing joint manipulations and submissions. So, I was very much expecting some impact weapons when showing up at class.
I was not disappointed.
He walked into class carrying a handful of foam paint brushes. These would be our trainer kubatons. He also had an armful of foam wrapped PVC pipes for batons.
Just as we were getting started a fourteen-year-old girl and her family came in and our instructor asked her if she wanted to participate. Even though she shied away from the idea at first, he convinced her to come and join us.
We worked some strikes and simple techniques with our foamish kubatons and then we worked on each other. There was only two of us in class besides the girl since my husband injured his hand and so I was paired with the girl for the first part of the class. It was no surprise to me that she was very timid and it took a lot of encouragement to get her to do any kind of striking but she was willing to learn and apply herself. She did very well for her first time.
Later on we switched partners and I got paired with the biggest guy in our class. A former wrestler who is probably on the plus side of 250 lbs and somewhere north of 6'3". But he knows how to spar. His seventeen year-old daughter comes to Krav with him often and he doesn't let up on us little gals. He'll make me work for whatever I get which is great.
After a while our instructor introduced a scenario. He was trying to explain to the girl that someone trying to take her to another location was meaning her great harm and it was time to go nuts.
He started circling her asking her to go to a party. She curled her arms to her chest and was saying no but he persisted. Finally he reached out his hand and grabbed hers and started dragging her away. She laughed the sort of nervous giggle of someone who doesn't know what to do and made a few attempts to hit around his hand but he was able to drag her off the mat with little effort.
Then he turned to me.
"You want to come to a party with me?"
"No!" I answered.
He was circling me and staying deliberately outside of my striking distance.
"Come on. Come to a party with me."
"No! Get away!"
"Come on. It's a really cool party. Come with me."
He wavered on my striking boundary and when he leaned forward to cross it I plowed into him, striking his chest with my open hand and bringing my trainer kubaton down on his neck and collar bone. Over and over again I smashed his chest and collar bone area in what he called a recurring hammer first.
I drove him back and disengaged, stepped back, got back in my fighting stance and said, "I don't want to fight!"
He laughed, "I was trying to show her what you would do if I grabbed you but you didn't let me get to that."
Everyone laughed. My husband, JD, sitting on the side lines just smiled and said, "BIG difference from just a couple of months ago! Good job."
So as our instructor approached me again he said, "Let me grab you this time."
I let him grab me by the throat, took my kubaton and got control of his arm and when I had it he said, "Now what are you going to do?" And without much thought I delivered a pretty good kick to the groin. Perhaps just a little harder than I had meant. Even with a cup he fell to the floor with a look of discomfort on his face.
"I meant TELL me what you were going to do."
We had a little more fun after that. Every great once in a while we abandon all structure and just play and which ever student our instructor is playing with ends up on the floor in some strange ball of pain-induced submission. Every GREAT once in a while we students can keep the upper hand and get him to tap out. I was laughing as I tapped out, laying on the floor, with my feet out in front of me and my arm twisted in ways I'm pretty sure arms are not supposed to twist.
When we left class JD told me again what a big difference it was watching me from just a month ago when I would let him and others get far too close to me.
I told him I had that "ah-ha" moment and realized that if someone is getting close to me and I tell him no or to get away from me that his continuing to get closer to me is an overt threat and I will attack when he crosses my strike boundary.
He was pleased with this. It took me a little bit to finally get it but now that it's there it's pretty set.
And I am LOVING working with a kubaton. I've carried one for years and have always liked the idea of a striking weapon (of course, mine also has pepper spray in it so it's even better) but I've never had much training in one. I was always told that I could use a kubaton similarly as to how I would use a knife and that was enough for me, but seeing all the other fun stuff that can be done with it makes me that much more happy to have one on my person. The kubaton is my new best friend and I hope we continue to work with it for some time.
I know eventually we are going to be moving on the the baton and I'll see what there is to see there but I'm thinking the kubaton and I are going to be special friends for quite some time.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Train Your Young Kids for Security
This isn't so much about guns as it is about security of young children in or around the first grade or younger category.
If I had a nickle for every time my son called me a mean mommy I'd have somewhere around a dollar or two. I am strict. I demand obedience. When I don't get it, I discipline. I don't negotiate with my children when it comes to matters of keeping them safe.
Some think I'm too strict. They think I don't give enough leniency to my children. I don't let them be kids.
I do let my children be children. They can go outside and play and make noise and throw toys and be the children they want to be... in certain venues.
When it comes to places I have not and cannot secure, however, I become mommy-bodyguard. And when a bodyguard takes on a client that client has certain rules he needs to follow in order to be secured. Even the president gets ordered around by Secret Service when it comes to security and so my children (son, 4 years old; daughter, 1 year old) have sets of orders they are expected to follow as well.
1. They should be quiet.
Not in the "children should be seen and not heard" sense but in the "no screaming and making unnecessary noise" sense. I love talking to my son and chattering with him when we are out and about but if he's screaming and making unnecessary noise he is a huge distraction from everything else going on. The same is said for my daughter. She's still quite young to understand being quiet but we're working on her. My son does very well.
If he wants to take a toy with him places it is a toy that doesn't make noise. When he talks, I expect him to use a conversational voice unless it is a true emergency. And then he is expected to scream bloody murder.
2. The busier the environment the closer they stay to me.
Again, my daughter is still young. She's walking now and enjoying her freedom but when out and about she still is mostly confined to a carrier, a cart or stroller. When not crowded I will let her walk around but only if she's holding her brother's hand. She doesn't always like her big brother holding on to her but I prefer it that way. Then they are together and I'm not having to split my attention in several directions.
And as it gets busier I will take my daughter and my son is told to stay with me. If he's having a hard time with distractions that will mean holding on to the shopping cart, my shirt or bag. Disobeying is met with discipline. I cannot risk the lives of my children because they couldn't obey me when I told them what to do.
3. They should leave if I tell them to leave.
After reading the article Are Your Instincts Putting Your Child In Danger by Greg Ellifritz I realized that the instinct to collect your children to yourself may not be the best one. If in a confrontation you may be the one that is drawing violence that you do not want your children caught up in. At very least you may need mobility to move and act without your children hanging on to you or under your feet.
I know the idea of sending your child away when there is danger is completely opposite of everything a parent feels and I struggled to accept that concept as valid. But there is a logic to it that cannot be denied and it's imperative that your judgement in the matter be clear.
Are you being targeted or your child? Are there multiple attackers that could collect the child and use him or her as a human shield depending on which direction you send your child?
Something that has been talked about before is the difference between running from danger and running towards safety. A young child might not be able to distinguish the difference and so you may have to be very specific in your instructions to him or her.
If you have older children this might not be so scary. You can sit down with a fifteen year-old and explain what you expect of him or her and even trust him to look out for himself to a point. Telling a young teen to run out the back of the store and to lock himself in the car is not an unreasonable request nor should it be too difficult for him to accomplish. A four-year-old, however, or those with developmental delays can be a different story.
Young or delayed children may be confused by commands or too frightened to act on them. What we have practiced with our children is creating short distances. If you are in a store and pushing a cart or stroller, push the cart away from you and tell him to go to the cart or stroller. Pick a place in a store that the child knows and loves like the toy department or, in the case of our local grocery store, the bakery with the Thomas the Train cakes on display. While I would be loath to send my young child out of my sight it's better than him getting caught between me and a bad guy, especially if guns might be coming out.
This can become even harder for those of us with little ones still in arms and though I've consulted with Ellifrtiz on this topic we both drew a blank without more trial and error and I've come to the conclusion that some things don't have good solutions. You wouldn't want to drop your baby to fight as dropping a child can be just as damaging to him or her as any incoming violence. If you carry your baby in some sort of carrier you will likely not have time to remove him or her. If in a physical altercation your child will be in the middle of it.
My personal recommendation for people with babies in arms would be to increase your personal space and heighten your suspicion of those who get inside that space. I'd also recommend carrying a non-lethal tool such as pepper spray that is particularly easy to access. Clipped right to the baby carrier is a good start. In hand when possible is even better. This allows you at least to have a non-lethal option of some distance that will allow for some sort of defense that doesn't require physically tangling with someone with your baby in the middle or going to lethal options like guns.
I carry a combination kubaton/pepper spray canister on my keys which I keep in hand whenever I'm carrying my daughter. Even though I have a gun on my hip I already have a defensive tool in my hand. Even if approached with lethal force I can immediately pepper spray and buy myself a moment to get out my gun (if it's still needed) and/or get out of there.
And when it comes to guns, work, work, work your one-hand drills.
4. They should get into car seats quickly and through the same door.
We all know parking lots are common attack points. And mothers loading kids into cars are pretty prime targets, especially if she has more than one and has to move around the car getting all of her kids into it. All the doors are typically unlocked and some open. You don't have to look hard to see stories or videos of criminals plopping themselves down in the passenger seats of unlocked cars while the owner pumped gas, loaded groceries or sat there surfing on a cell phone.
I prefer to have one location in which my children enter our vehicle so that I can funnel the access to the vehicle. When we approach our vehicle I unlock it with the key fob. Once all doors are unlocked I open the door through which my children will enter and then I immediately lock all of the doors. That way, should I have to slam the door I know my children will be safely locked in and no one can enter the vehicle through another door or even the door my kids just entered. I then clip my keys to person, mainly because I don't want to put them down on the backseat while strapping my kids in their seats and end up locking them in the car and myself out of it (been there, done that).
When the kids are in the car I check around me before diving in to snap buckles. With only one child or a larger vehicle you can get in the car and shut the door while fastening straps as well, for those with multiple children or smaller cars that might be more difficult.
As my children age and are able to master sequences like getting into the car, locking the door and putting on a seatbelt this might change, but as they are young and still need a lot of help I prefer to keep access to the car as limited as possible. It also keeps me from having to worry about my kid running off into a busy parking lot while waiting for me to buckle in his little sister.
5. Talk to Strangers
WHAT?!?!
You heard me!
I teach my children to talk to strangers. Because if I'm on the floor, tangled up with some bad guy, I want my child to be comfortable approaching someone for help and identifying himself (more on that later).
Police officers are strangers. EMTs are strangers. Firefighters are strangers. Nurses are strangers. Doctors are strangers. And these are all people that I hope my child would be comfortable talking to if in need. So the key here is not to teach him not to talk to strangers but to talk to the least risky ones and what conversation is appropriate and inappropriate.
High-risk stranger: solo guy taking pictures of kids at the play ground.
Low-risk stranger: Mom pushing two kids in a shopping cart.
Appropriate conversation: Where's your Mom? Let's go find her!
Inappropriate conversation: Want to help me find my puppy?
While down in Tennessee these last two weeks I had opportunity to go out to a lot of kid-friendly places like the zoo and different stores and eateries. The level of distraction and lack of control of some parents absolutely astounds me, not from a parenting stand-point (that's their own business) but from a security stand-point. If those parents needed to suddenly act in defense I can see little less than disaster ensuing.
Thankfully, having to defend yourself around your children is pretty rare. But that's what we're good at preparing for, isn't it?
Stay Tuned for Part 2: Other Things To Consider In Child Security
If I had a nickle for every time my son called me a mean mommy I'd have somewhere around a dollar or two. I am strict. I demand obedience. When I don't get it, I discipline. I don't negotiate with my children when it comes to matters of keeping them safe.
Some think I'm too strict. They think I don't give enough leniency to my children. I don't let them be kids.
I do let my children be children. They can go outside and play and make noise and throw toys and be the children they want to be... in certain venues.
When it comes to places I have not and cannot secure, however, I become mommy-bodyguard. And when a bodyguard takes on a client that client has certain rules he needs to follow in order to be secured. Even the president gets ordered around by Secret Service when it comes to security and so my children (son, 4 years old; daughter, 1 year old) have sets of orders they are expected to follow as well.
1. They should be quiet.
Not in the "children should be seen and not heard" sense but in the "no screaming and making unnecessary noise" sense. I love talking to my son and chattering with him when we are out and about but if he's screaming and making unnecessary noise he is a huge distraction from everything else going on. The same is said for my daughter. She's still quite young to understand being quiet but we're working on her. My son does very well.
If he wants to take a toy with him places it is a toy that doesn't make noise. When he talks, I expect him to use a conversational voice unless it is a true emergency. And then he is expected to scream bloody murder.
2. The busier the environment the closer they stay to me.
Again, my daughter is still young. She's walking now and enjoying her freedom but when out and about she still is mostly confined to a carrier, a cart or stroller. When not crowded I will let her walk around but only if she's holding her brother's hand. She doesn't always like her big brother holding on to her but I prefer it that way. Then they are together and I'm not having to split my attention in several directions.
And as it gets busier I will take my daughter and my son is told to stay with me. If he's having a hard time with distractions that will mean holding on to the shopping cart, my shirt or bag. Disobeying is met with discipline. I cannot risk the lives of my children because they couldn't obey me when I told them what to do.
3. They should leave if I tell them to leave.
After reading the article Are Your Instincts Putting Your Child In Danger by Greg Ellifritz I realized that the instinct to collect your children to yourself may not be the best one. If in a confrontation you may be the one that is drawing violence that you do not want your children caught up in. At very least you may need mobility to move and act without your children hanging on to you or under your feet.
I know the idea of sending your child away when there is danger is completely opposite of everything a parent feels and I struggled to accept that concept as valid. But there is a logic to it that cannot be denied and it's imperative that your judgement in the matter be clear.
Are you being targeted or your child? Are there multiple attackers that could collect the child and use him or her as a human shield depending on which direction you send your child?
Something that has been talked about before is the difference between running from danger and running towards safety. A young child might not be able to distinguish the difference and so you may have to be very specific in your instructions to him or her.
If you have older children this might not be so scary. You can sit down with a fifteen year-old and explain what you expect of him or her and even trust him to look out for himself to a point. Telling a young teen to run out the back of the store and to lock himself in the car is not an unreasonable request nor should it be too difficult for him to accomplish. A four-year-old, however, or those with developmental delays can be a different story.
Young or delayed children may be confused by commands or too frightened to act on them. What we have practiced with our children is creating short distances. If you are in a store and pushing a cart or stroller, push the cart away from you and tell him to go to the cart or stroller. Pick a place in a store that the child knows and loves like the toy department or, in the case of our local grocery store, the bakery with the Thomas the Train cakes on display. While I would be loath to send my young child out of my sight it's better than him getting caught between me and a bad guy, especially if guns might be coming out.
This can become even harder for those of us with little ones still in arms and though I've consulted with Ellifrtiz on this topic we both drew a blank without more trial and error and I've come to the conclusion that some things don't have good solutions. You wouldn't want to drop your baby to fight as dropping a child can be just as damaging to him or her as any incoming violence. If you carry your baby in some sort of carrier you will likely not have time to remove him or her. If in a physical altercation your child will be in the middle of it.
My personal recommendation for people with babies in arms would be to increase your personal space and heighten your suspicion of those who get inside that space. I'd also recommend carrying a non-lethal tool such as pepper spray that is particularly easy to access. Clipped right to the baby carrier is a good start. In hand when possible is even better. This allows you at least to have a non-lethal option of some distance that will allow for some sort of defense that doesn't require physically tangling with someone with your baby in the middle or going to lethal options like guns.
I carry a combination kubaton/pepper spray canister on my keys which I keep in hand whenever I'm carrying my daughter. Even though I have a gun on my hip I already have a defensive tool in my hand. Even if approached with lethal force I can immediately pepper spray and buy myself a moment to get out my gun (if it's still needed) and/or get out of there.
And when it comes to guns, work, work, work your one-hand drills.
4. They should get into car seats quickly and through the same door.
We all know parking lots are common attack points. And mothers loading kids into cars are pretty prime targets, especially if she has more than one and has to move around the car getting all of her kids into it. All the doors are typically unlocked and some open. You don't have to look hard to see stories or videos of criminals plopping themselves down in the passenger seats of unlocked cars while the owner pumped gas, loaded groceries or sat there surfing on a cell phone.
I prefer to have one location in which my children enter our vehicle so that I can funnel the access to the vehicle. When we approach our vehicle I unlock it with the key fob. Once all doors are unlocked I open the door through which my children will enter and then I immediately lock all of the doors. That way, should I have to slam the door I know my children will be safely locked in and no one can enter the vehicle through another door or even the door my kids just entered. I then clip my keys to person, mainly because I don't want to put them down on the backseat while strapping my kids in their seats and end up locking them in the car and myself out of it (been there, done that).
When the kids are in the car I check around me before diving in to snap buckles. With only one child or a larger vehicle you can get in the car and shut the door while fastening straps as well, for those with multiple children or smaller cars that might be more difficult.
As my children age and are able to master sequences like getting into the car, locking the door and putting on a seatbelt this might change, but as they are young and still need a lot of help I prefer to keep access to the car as limited as possible. It also keeps me from having to worry about my kid running off into a busy parking lot while waiting for me to buckle in his little sister.
5. Talk to Strangers
WHAT?!?!
You heard me!
I teach my children to talk to strangers. Because if I'm on the floor, tangled up with some bad guy, I want my child to be comfortable approaching someone for help and identifying himself (more on that later).
Police officers are strangers. EMTs are strangers. Firefighters are strangers. Nurses are strangers. Doctors are strangers. And these are all people that I hope my child would be comfortable talking to if in need. So the key here is not to teach him not to talk to strangers but to talk to the least risky ones and what conversation is appropriate and inappropriate.
High-risk stranger: solo guy taking pictures of kids at the play ground.
Low-risk stranger: Mom pushing two kids in a shopping cart.
Appropriate conversation: Where's your Mom? Let's go find her!
Inappropriate conversation: Want to help me find my puppy?
While down in Tennessee these last two weeks I had opportunity to go out to a lot of kid-friendly places like the zoo and different stores and eateries. The level of distraction and lack of control of some parents absolutely astounds me, not from a parenting stand-point (that's their own business) but from a security stand-point. If those parents needed to suddenly act in defense I can see little less than disaster ensuing.
Thankfully, having to defend yourself around your children is pretty rare. But that's what we're good at preparing for, isn't it?
Stay Tuned for Part 2: Other Things To Consider In Child Security
Saturday, April 13, 2013
A Funny Thing Happened At Partner Tactics
In May of 2012, my husband and I loaded up our gear and took the longish journey down to the Tactical Defense Institute (TDI) in West Union, OH. We'd taken the trip a few times before for Handguns 1-3 and for Defensive Knife but this was the first time we were going to do some training for the collective us. We'd wanted to take a partner's tactics class for years and we were finally doing it.
TDI's Partner Tactics class is hailed as one of the funnest classes to take. I can't speak for everyone but it was a lot of fun, very relaxing, enjoyable weather and some great company. We got to see old friends and meet new ones or meet old friends' better halves. While the class is designed for any kind of partner dynamic, be it military, police or otherwise, the majority of the students were husband and wife duos which made the class a sort-of pseudo marital retreat. Many couples had been to the class several times, making a sort of romantic holiday of it.
The three day course consists of partner movement drills while also communicating with him or her both verbally and non-verbally. Something a lot harder to do in practice than in theory. We learned partner room clearing, up and down stairs, around corners, through hallways, etc. We learned escaping vehicles, cover, concealment, group settings, partner rescue, leap-frogging and all sorts of other great tools for partners who need to work together with guns.
Attending the class for a second time was an older couple we will call Bill and Jane. Bill was in his late seventies and Jane in her late sixties. She was about as hyper as I am and three times as talkative. No matter where she went she left a sea of smiles behind her because of her propensity to suddenly jump off a flight of stairs or say something completely off the wall but hilarious. At the same time she was deathly serious about everything making it that much more entertaining and endearing.
They were dressed far more for comfort than for any semblance of style. They both wore large frame glasses and she wore a blurred patch over one eye to help her with eye-dominance issues. Their hat wear looked as though it may have come from an advertisement for an African Safari and they both wore tan shooting vests with more pockets than military utilities. But not to be threatened with appearing average, she would don a different colorful scarf or otherwise bright and colorful oddity to remind the world she was still very much young at heart.
While doing stair-clearing drills with unloaded firearms she had us all cracking up with her "PEW! PEW!" sound effects. While doing the walk through of the shoot houses, you could find her skulking around corners, crawling around obstacles and using her finger as a pistol while things were being explained.
Her husband was a quite a bit more serious and took her shenanigans in stride. Always by her side he rarely opened his mouth unless they were on the firing line and needed to communicate as that fighting team. At which point, he communicated ceaselessly...
"Firing! Changing! Moving! What's the condition of your gun?! Check your world!"
The couple had their own lingo they had brought with them to the class ("green" meaning the individual had a loaded and functioning firearm in the fight, "red" meaning the firearm was not functional and needed his or her partner to cover) and it worked well for them. They were both so serious about everything and seemingly completely unaware of the joy they spread to the rest of the group.
On the second day we all went up to the upper range to practice shooting our way out of vehicles and then using partner tactics to get to safety.
The scenario starts with the partnered pair sitting in an old, beat up van, seat belted and doors locked. On the command of "fire" or "gun" the pair was to engage a number of targets on both sides of the van (and hidden around other cars), egress from the vehicle and move to safety.
Everyone had their turn and next up was Bill and Jane.
Jane got in the driver's side and Bill got in the passenger's side. They strapped themselves in, shut the doors and waited. The instructor yelled, "GUN!!!" and it was on.
Except nothing happened.
We were all sitting a few yards to the rear of the van, waiting for gunfire, the doors on the van to bust open, anything!
Nothing. The van didn't move. The doors didn't open. There seemed to be absolutely nothing going on. The instructor, who had moved to the rear of the van to stay out of the way, peeked around the corner with the same look of confusion as the rest of us. He took a step forward, presumably to see what the hold up was and the driver's side door flew open.
Jane rang out a long, blood-curdling war cry, "DIE!!!!!!!"
And all hell broke loose. Gunfire broke out from each side of the van as Bill and Jane fired and everyone else broke down laughing.
They moved down the sides of the van screaming at each other ("MOVING TO THE REAR!") and their targets.
When they finally made it to the back we were nearly in tears from laughing so hard.
Jane got in what was fast becoming her classic squat. Legs wide spread, squatting down until her butt nearly touched the ground, arms stretching her gun out in front of her leaning from side to side like some skinny, oddly dressed creature out of a Lord of the Rings movie with a gun. She was screaming, "GREEN!"
Bill, standing more erect, was comical only in the absence of his wife's erratic, bouncy and sometimes sporadic movement answered with, "GREEN! Are you alright?"
"I'M ALRIGHT! GREEN!" she answered.
"CHECK YOUR WORLD!"
"CHECKING MY WORLD! CLEAR ON THE RIGHT!" Her body bounced right to left like some strange ape while he stood over her merely looking side to side.
"CLEAR ON THE LEFT! TAC RELOAD! RED"
Jane, "GREEN!"
But no matter what, we could not get over the hilarity that was this sixty-some-year-old woman, dressed in a safari hat, colored scarf and tactical vest, throwing open the car door and screaming, "DIE!" at the top of her lungs.
Even though I wouldn't be laughing if I had to face the both of them in a gun battle. They were an effective pair!
TDI's Partner Tactics class is hailed as one of the funnest classes to take. I can't speak for everyone but it was a lot of fun, very relaxing, enjoyable weather and some great company. We got to see old friends and meet new ones or meet old friends' better halves. While the class is designed for any kind of partner dynamic, be it military, police or otherwise, the majority of the students were husband and wife duos which made the class a sort-of pseudo marital retreat. Many couples had been to the class several times, making a sort of romantic holiday of it.
The three day course consists of partner movement drills while also communicating with him or her both verbally and non-verbally. Something a lot harder to do in practice than in theory. We learned partner room clearing, up and down stairs, around corners, through hallways, etc. We learned escaping vehicles, cover, concealment, group settings, partner rescue, leap-frogging and all sorts of other great tools for partners who need to work together with guns.
Attending the class for a second time was an older couple we will call Bill and Jane. Bill was in his late seventies and Jane in her late sixties. She was about as hyper as I am and three times as talkative. No matter where she went she left a sea of smiles behind her because of her propensity to suddenly jump off a flight of stairs or say something completely off the wall but hilarious. At the same time she was deathly serious about everything making it that much more entertaining and endearing.
They were dressed far more for comfort than for any semblance of style. They both wore large frame glasses and she wore a blurred patch over one eye to help her with eye-dominance issues. Their hat wear looked as though it may have come from an advertisement for an African Safari and they both wore tan shooting vests with more pockets than military utilities. But not to be threatened with appearing average, she would don a different colorful scarf or otherwise bright and colorful oddity to remind the world she was still very much young at heart.
While doing stair-clearing drills with unloaded firearms she had us all cracking up with her "PEW! PEW!" sound effects. While doing the walk through of the shoot houses, you could find her skulking around corners, crawling around obstacles and using her finger as a pistol while things were being explained.
Her husband was a quite a bit more serious and took her shenanigans in stride. Always by her side he rarely opened his mouth unless they were on the firing line and needed to communicate as that fighting team. At which point, he communicated ceaselessly...
"Firing! Changing! Moving! What's the condition of your gun?! Check your world!"
The couple had their own lingo they had brought with them to the class ("green" meaning the individual had a loaded and functioning firearm in the fight, "red" meaning the firearm was not functional and needed his or her partner to cover) and it worked well for them. They were both so serious about everything and seemingly completely unaware of the joy they spread to the rest of the group.
On the second day we all went up to the upper range to practice shooting our way out of vehicles and then using partner tactics to get to safety.
The scenario starts with the partnered pair sitting in an old, beat up van, seat belted and doors locked. On the command of "fire" or "gun" the pair was to engage a number of targets on both sides of the van (and hidden around other cars), egress from the vehicle and move to safety.
Everyone had their turn and next up was Bill and Jane.
Jane got in the driver's side and Bill got in the passenger's side. They strapped themselves in, shut the doors and waited. The instructor yelled, "GUN!!!" and it was on.
Except nothing happened.
We were all sitting a few yards to the rear of the van, waiting for gunfire, the doors on the van to bust open, anything!
Nothing. The van didn't move. The doors didn't open. There seemed to be absolutely nothing going on. The instructor, who had moved to the rear of the van to stay out of the way, peeked around the corner with the same look of confusion as the rest of us. He took a step forward, presumably to see what the hold up was and the driver's side door flew open.
Jane rang out a long, blood-curdling war cry, "DIE!!!!!!!"
And all hell broke loose. Gunfire broke out from each side of the van as Bill and Jane fired and everyone else broke down laughing.
They moved down the sides of the van screaming at each other ("MOVING TO THE REAR!") and their targets.
When they finally made it to the back we were nearly in tears from laughing so hard.
Jane got in what was fast becoming her classic squat. Legs wide spread, squatting down until her butt nearly touched the ground, arms stretching her gun out in front of her leaning from side to side like some skinny, oddly dressed creature out of a Lord of the Rings movie with a gun. She was screaming, "GREEN!"
Bill, standing more erect, was comical only in the absence of his wife's erratic, bouncy and sometimes sporadic movement answered with, "GREEN! Are you alright?"
"I'M ALRIGHT! GREEN!" she answered.
"CHECK YOUR WORLD!"
"CHECKING MY WORLD! CLEAR ON THE RIGHT!" Her body bounced right to left like some strange ape while he stood over her merely looking side to side.
"CLEAR ON THE LEFT! TAC RELOAD! RED"
Jane, "GREEN!"
But no matter what, we could not get over the hilarity that was this sixty-some-year-old woman, dressed in a safari hat, colored scarf and tactical vest, throwing open the car door and screaming, "DIE!" at the top of her lungs.
Even though I wouldn't be laughing if I had to face the both of them in a gun battle. They were an effective pair!
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
My Freeze: Boundaries
Over the last couple of days there's been a little spike in the conversation about "the freeze." This in part due to the questions that were born out of my post: Abuse, Abduction, Self Defense. Questions like, "Why didn't she call for help?" "Why didn't anyone help?"
Kathy Jackson over at Cornered Cat did a fantastic job covering the topic so I won't try to reinvent her words. Her blog, Fear And The Freeze Response is a must read. So, go.. read.
A Girl And Her Gun also talks about the aftermath of the freeze and how it can have an effect on self perception.
The sad fact of the matter is, many (dare I say, most) people don't even know that the freeze response exists. If they are aware of it they somehow think it will not happen to them. Or, they may have experienced it but in such a low-stress-level environment that consequences of the freeze were negligible or at most, embarrassing (freezing up at a business meeting). If they experience it on a tragic level it is in a non-violent environment: a car accident, natural disaster or major injury. In these environments it seems understandable that one would freeze. Often times there is nothing that could have been done even if there were no freeze so the freeze is rather inconsequential to how events unfolded.
People who do experience the freeze response when faced with violent crime, however, are suspect. If not outwardly questions as to why they froze they often find themselves looking inward and questioning their own sense of preparedness and worth. If they survive, the looming question can often be, "What was wrong with me? Why didn't I do something?"
I could watch surveillance videos of violent crimes almost all day. I have a strong stomach for it. I find analyzing them to be fascinating and as long as I can slow things down I can catch things that some people miss. It's a lot different than watching a movie where you are shown exactly what you are supposed to see and understand. In a surveillance video you are often questioning everything and discovering what you are supposed to see and what investigating what is important.
What can I learn about how the attack started? Where did the attack come from? Were there pre-attack indicators that were missed? When was the weapon presented (if at all)? Was there a freeze? How/when was the freeze broken? What for knowledge isn't in the video such as relationship between victim and attacker? How does that play into the dynamic?
One thing I have universally noted is that in almost every single video, if you know what you are looking for, is a freeze. A moment of disbelief, a moment of hesitation while the brain wraps itself around the reality of the situation, even moments of paralysis where victims or bystanders stand stock still throughout the entirety of the crime.
The freeze is there. It is hard wired in us. It can and will happen to you. It's nothing to be ashamed of or to question. It happens! It's time to stop beating ourselves up about it and learn to embrace it and/or minimize it when necessary.
I'm in the middle of reading Rory Miller's Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected. In it he dedicates an entire chapter to the freeze and ways you can eliminate some types of freezes and minimize others and even tactically use other types. But he makes it very clear that you will never do away with the freeze 100%.
But, you may be like me and think, "Okay, I'll admit. The freeze will be there. How do I find out where my freeze is and how do I train it out of me or at least minimize it?"
Some freezes you may never find until the time comes. Some freezes you may be able to find in training. Sometimes those freezes are nothing more than a training issue. You're in a shoot out and your firearm jams. Because you've never practiced clearance drills you stand there staring at a non functioning gun because you haven't trained yourself what to do in that scenario. Establishing a trained and regular response (tap, rack, bang) to that particular scenario (an jammed gun) can eliminate that freeze.
But other freezes are not so easy to identify.
Just recently I discovered a big one in myself and if you want to see if, watch this video:
Watch between :04 and :11 seconds in the video. There is a threatening presence. He has cornered me. He is within my striking distance. At one point he even threatens me by saying, "I'm not letting you leave." And I still don't act. I'm stuck in a frozen loop of repeating the same command that he's clearly demonstrated he's not going to obey.
You would think I learned my lesson. This video was taken almost three years ago. I can't make the same mistake twice, can I?
Enter last week:
Due to weather we had a very small turn out in Krav class and it was just my husband, myself and our instructor. Because it was just the three of us our instructor let us decide what we wanted to work on and my husband volunteered some of my issues. Such as my freeze.
It can be easy to know you need to attack when you are being attacked, but the fact of the matter is that is far too late in many scenarios--including the scenario above. Recognizing this, our instructor set up my husband as my attacker and started working some drills to get me to attack him when he got within striking distance.
And then he messed everything up.
After resetting the scenario my instructor walked up to me and asked if I had any ID. I looked at him, confused. Why did he need my ID? I've been in his class for months. He knows who I am.
"Hey, let me see your ID!" he said and it hit me that this might be a set up to distract me from an attack from the side by my husband.
While trying to keep my husband in my peripheral my instructor got closer. I began to feel myself getting overwhelmed by his closeness and demanded he get away from me, EXACTLY as I did in the video from almost three years ago.
He got closer and closer and eventually my husband did rush in and attack me and I fought him off as I'd been taught. But once the scenario ended both my instructor and my husband pointed out that I let my instructor break the boundary we'd been working on all night and get FAR too close and I failed to act as I'd been trained. The newness of the attack with the change in attacker and him presenting with a seemingly innocuous question completely froze my trained response until I could identify a clear threat: my husband rushing me out of the corner of my eye.
We reset the scenario a few more times and I no longer froze, having recognized my error and trained past it.... at least for that day and in that environment.
Boundaries are my freeze. I need to set clearer boundaries that I do not allow people to cross.
Does that mean I'm going to hit anyone who gets within three feet of me? No, but my intuition told me something was off about that scenario and I wasted time questioning myself and trying to figure it out instead of acting on my training. And, again, I gave him a command to get away from me and instead of complying he continued to move in. As before, I froze myself in a loop of wasted commands. Such an act should have been an immediate trigger that told me it was time to act. Instead, I froze, just like I did three years ago.
Greg Ellifritz (incidentally, the man I was fighting in the linked video) wrote a very nice, short article about boundaries. Rory Miller also talks about boundaries (though he uses a different word) that should be triggers for you to act. If this happens, I respond with this! You won't think of everything, of course, but it can and will help minimize some of those moments of freeze.
Set boundaries!
Kathy Jackson over at Cornered Cat did a fantastic job covering the topic so I won't try to reinvent her words. Her blog, Fear And The Freeze Response is a must read. So, go.. read.
A Girl And Her Gun also talks about the aftermath of the freeze and how it can have an effect on self perception.
The sad fact of the matter is, many (dare I say, most) people don't even know that the freeze response exists. If they are aware of it they somehow think it will not happen to them. Or, they may have experienced it but in such a low-stress-level environment that consequences of the freeze were negligible or at most, embarrassing (freezing up at a business meeting). If they experience it on a tragic level it is in a non-violent environment: a car accident, natural disaster or major injury. In these environments it seems understandable that one would freeze. Often times there is nothing that could have been done even if there were no freeze so the freeze is rather inconsequential to how events unfolded.
People who do experience the freeze response when faced with violent crime, however, are suspect. If not outwardly questions as to why they froze they often find themselves looking inward and questioning their own sense of preparedness and worth. If they survive, the looming question can often be, "What was wrong with me? Why didn't I do something?"
I could watch surveillance videos of violent crimes almost all day. I have a strong stomach for it. I find analyzing them to be fascinating and as long as I can slow things down I can catch things that some people miss. It's a lot different than watching a movie where you are shown exactly what you are supposed to see and understand. In a surveillance video you are often questioning everything and discovering what you are supposed to see and what investigating what is important.
What can I learn about how the attack started? Where did the attack come from? Were there pre-attack indicators that were missed? When was the weapon presented (if at all)? Was there a freeze? How/when was the freeze broken? What for knowledge isn't in the video such as relationship between victim and attacker? How does that play into the dynamic?
One thing I have universally noted is that in almost every single video, if you know what you are looking for, is a freeze. A moment of disbelief, a moment of hesitation while the brain wraps itself around the reality of the situation, even moments of paralysis where victims or bystanders stand stock still throughout the entirety of the crime.
The freeze is there. It is hard wired in us. It can and will happen to you. It's nothing to be ashamed of or to question. It happens! It's time to stop beating ourselves up about it and learn to embrace it and/or minimize it when necessary.
I'm in the middle of reading Rory Miller's Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected. In it he dedicates an entire chapter to the freeze and ways you can eliminate some types of freezes and minimize others and even tactically use other types. But he makes it very clear that you will never do away with the freeze 100%.
But, you may be like me and think, "Okay, I'll admit. The freeze will be there. How do I find out where my freeze is and how do I train it out of me or at least minimize it?"
Some freezes you may never find until the time comes. Some freezes you may be able to find in training. Sometimes those freezes are nothing more than a training issue. You're in a shoot out and your firearm jams. Because you've never practiced clearance drills you stand there staring at a non functioning gun because you haven't trained yourself what to do in that scenario. Establishing a trained and regular response (tap, rack, bang) to that particular scenario (an jammed gun) can eliminate that freeze.
But other freezes are not so easy to identify.
Just recently I discovered a big one in myself and if you want to see if, watch this video:
You would think I learned my lesson. This video was taken almost three years ago. I can't make the same mistake twice, can I?
Enter last week:
Due to weather we had a very small turn out in Krav class and it was just my husband, myself and our instructor. Because it was just the three of us our instructor let us decide what we wanted to work on and my husband volunteered some of my issues. Such as my freeze.
It can be easy to know you need to attack when you are being attacked, but the fact of the matter is that is far too late in many scenarios--including the scenario above. Recognizing this, our instructor set up my husband as my attacker and started working some drills to get me to attack him when he got within striking distance.
And then he messed everything up.
After resetting the scenario my instructor walked up to me and asked if I had any ID. I looked at him, confused. Why did he need my ID? I've been in his class for months. He knows who I am.
"Hey, let me see your ID!" he said and it hit me that this might be a set up to distract me from an attack from the side by my husband.
While trying to keep my husband in my peripheral my instructor got closer. I began to feel myself getting overwhelmed by his closeness and demanded he get away from me, EXACTLY as I did in the video from almost three years ago.
He got closer and closer and eventually my husband did rush in and attack me and I fought him off as I'd been taught. But once the scenario ended both my instructor and my husband pointed out that I let my instructor break the boundary we'd been working on all night and get FAR too close and I failed to act as I'd been trained. The newness of the attack with the change in attacker and him presenting with a seemingly innocuous question completely froze my trained response until I could identify a clear threat: my husband rushing me out of the corner of my eye.
We reset the scenario a few more times and I no longer froze, having recognized my error and trained past it.... at least for that day and in that environment.
Boundaries are my freeze. I need to set clearer boundaries that I do not allow people to cross.
Does that mean I'm going to hit anyone who gets within three feet of me? No, but my intuition told me something was off about that scenario and I wasted time questioning myself and trying to figure it out instead of acting on my training. And, again, I gave him a command to get away from me and instead of complying he continued to move in. As before, I froze myself in a loop of wasted commands. Such an act should have been an immediate trigger that told me it was time to act. Instead, I froze, just like I did three years ago.
Greg Ellifritz (incidentally, the man I was fighting in the linked video) wrote a very nice, short article about boundaries. Rory Miller also talks about boundaries (though he uses a different word) that should be triggers for you to act. If this happens, I respond with this! You won't think of everything, of course, but it can and will help minimize some of those moments of freeze.
Set boundaries!
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Why Aren't More Women In Advanced Classes
Kathy Jackson asked a question on her Cornered Cat Facebook Page. The conversation and subsequent question went like this:
There certainly could be validity to those claims and many more. Just because I am a woman doesn't mean I have special insight into what motivates every woman out there (as I said in my blog I Can't Help Your Wife.)
I strongly believe that what might stop one women from attending an advanced class might not be what stops another. One might find money her tether to hold her back while for another it is lack female friendly (whatever that means) instructors or not having a girl friend to go with her.
Personally, I love advanced training and I keep going back for more. And, to share my dirty little secret, I don't mind that I'm the only woman in class. In fact, I avoid women-only classes and do not generally invite other women to come with me to trainings unless they feel they are ready.
Kathy asking this question made me ask myself, "Why?"
I had to think back to my own experiences. What has made me willing to do advanced classes? What makes me okay with being the only woman? Why don't I actively encourage women to come to classes with me?
After weeding through a few theories that didn't seem to logically pan out I fell on one experience that I think was a pivotal key to my breaking out in both my training and my mindset: my first time going to the range by myself. One of the most nerve-racking things I'd done to that date. It was the day I not only decided but actually took the step to take an individual responsibility for my training and to not let anything (including my fear, lack of confidence, appearance or lack of support or sexism) stand in the way of my training goals.
I would ask other women with mindsets like my own to confirm if they felt the same way, but, unfortunately, there seems to be relatively few of us around (as evidenced by our numbers in advanced trainings).
I believe the problem may be confidence or the lack thereof.
1) Some women lack the confidence to step out on their own and try and even fail.
Men and women can both have this same hangup but it seems to be more prevalent in women. We can tend to take it pretty personally when we make a mistake. When we take that shot and miss it's not just that we took a shot and missed it's that we are failures. We aren't good at this. It was a mistake to come here. He's looking at me like I'm a total idiot. He's probably wondering why I even bothered coming to this class. I'll never get this right. I shouldn't have even gotten out of bed this morning. My life is over!
Brushing off the small stuff and carrying on can be very hard, especially if you feel you are being scrutinized to a greater degree. It's very easy to feel an added scrutiny if you are an anomaly in the class--the only woman, perhaps? Being in a class of all women can make women feel like they can blend in and mistakes won't be so closely scrutinized because the woman does not feel singled out. Sometimes having only one other woman there can lessen that feeling of a spotlight being on your back.
2) They lack the confidence to be okay in an all male environment and let any perceived sexism go.
Another little secret: there isn't a single class I have attended where I am the only woman that I haven't felt that spotlight I talked about above. And it's not as though I can say it doesn't make me nervous or feel some kind of perceived added scrutiny. But the fact of the matter is that most of the time it's total bull crap. The guys don't care a VAST majority of the time and in a matter of minutes we're all laughing together and training together like there is no gender gap. Sometimes they even like having a woman because it gives them a chance to get used to sparring with or fighting a woman. Sometimes, when it comes to sparring I'm still treated like a little doll or I get the guy who says, "I can't hit a woman" or he's afraid he's going to hurt me because I'm so small. But when I start hitting him he eventually gets the clue or I just keep hitting him harder until he does. Yep.. I'm THAT mean.
Sometimes there's some sexism though. I've been in classes where men have made it very clear that they are upset that a woman is there. I've had men tell me some very sexist things that have made me very angry or embarrassed. Most of the time, if the instructor is worth his salt, he or she will put a stop to that before it even starts. But, unfortunately I've even had instructors say some very sexist things and it certainly has made me doubt myself. But what has kept me moving forward and going back is the fact that I am not doing this to get any kind of approval from men or any given instructor. I am doing this to learn how to fight. Period. Instead of letting my feelings get hurt I take what I can learn and I run with it. I leave the crap and am better for it.
3) They lack the confidence to be okay with getting dirty, ugly and having messy hair.
I bet there will be a few people who will scoff at that. Does it really matter to some women that they might get their makeup smudged while in an advanced class?
Absolutely!
Without going into a lengthy explanation of why, the truth of the matter is there are women who care more about their hair than their training and no amount of discounts or female support or accommodation by the instructors is going to get them to risk smudged mascara and a broken nail. Sure, you can get these women into basic classes where there is little risk of getting roughed up, but until they are willing to smudge some makeup for sake of training you won't have much success in getting them to turn out.
Does that mean a lady shouldn't care about her appearance? Of course not. I do my hair and makeup before almost every class I attend. That being said, of late, there hasn't been a class I have come out of where my hair hadn't gone through 100 different renditions after being tossed, pulled, rained on or stepped on. I lose most of my makeup on the shirts of people I am sparring with, sweat it off or, yes, get it rained off. I like going into the class feeling pretty because, yep, I am that girl. But I'm not there to look pretty. I'm there to learn and train and once the class starts pretty goes out the door. And I actually get a big kick out of how alerted my appearance can be at the end of a particularly good training. If I don't have a black eye, it's a good day!
And what happens when a woman (or man) who lacks confidence attends a class? She needs more time and attention. People and instructors spend more time trying to build her confidence than training.
There's nothing wrong with this. Anyone who has taught any kind of class from Yoga to firearms to basket weaving knows that there are those who need more attention and support. There are students who are genuinely frightened of a firearm who need to literally have you there and talking them through every single step of the firing process.
Men seem to get over that fear a little faster than women and can leave a basic class feeling pretty confident in their ability and ready to go try something new and a little more challenging. A woman, on the other hand, may not feel ready. She may feel better but she might never describe herself as being confident in her new skill. The idea of going on to more advanced training makes her protest that she's not ready for it. She's afraid she's going to hold back the rest of the class and be looked at negatively because she's going to be the one who's going to take time and attention away from other students. Especially if she was that student (or felt like she was that student) in a basic class. What she may not realize is that most instructors (if they are good) are prepared for all types of students and will help push them forward in a safe manner.
A woman who determines that she is confident in her ability to handle herself and her firearm is unstoppable. If she's determined to learn there should be nothing that can keep her back.
So, how do we get women to attend more advanced trainings? I don't know. I don't know what it takes to convince a woman she can do something she may not feel confident in doing. I know it wasn't easy for me to take that first step either but the first step was the hardest and they keep getting easier the more confidence I build.
There's nothing quite like the feeling of walking through a door and facing a group of men made primarily of police officers or military personnel and thinking, "I belong here. Me, the housewife and mother, I belong RIGHT HERE! Kicking the shit out of and out-shooting these guys." I may not always out-shoot or out-fight the guys, but one thing is always true... I belong there.
And, ladies, you do too!
"Sitting at dinner last night with several other well-known defensive firearm instructors, the conversation came around to women & firearms training. ... The instructors each had their own theories about why more gun-owning, gun-carrying women don't want to learn more about how to use a gun more effectively. After all, having better skills would be safer for them, their families, and any bystanders.That's a pretty hard question and she got a lot of possible answers. Some suspected that it was because the classes weren't feminine enough or didn't cater to women enough or that there weren't pairs of women to make the other women feel more accepted in class, that it was a matter of finances, etc.
If you had been sitting there, what would you have told these guys? Why do you think more women don't sign up for the intermediate to advanced handgun classes?"
There certainly could be validity to those claims and many more. Just because I am a woman doesn't mean I have special insight into what motivates every woman out there (as I said in my blog I Can't Help Your Wife.)
I strongly believe that what might stop one women from attending an advanced class might not be what stops another. One might find money her tether to hold her back while for another it is lack female friendly (whatever that means) instructors or not having a girl friend to go with her.
Personally, I love advanced training and I keep going back for more. And, to share my dirty little secret, I don't mind that I'm the only woman in class. In fact, I avoid women-only classes and do not generally invite other women to come with me to trainings unless they feel they are ready.
Kathy asking this question made me ask myself, "Why?"
 |
| Starting a Shoot from Surrender |
After weeding through a few theories that didn't seem to logically pan out I fell on one experience that I think was a pivotal key to my breaking out in both my training and my mindset: my first time going to the range by myself. One of the most nerve-racking things I'd done to that date. It was the day I not only decided but actually took the step to take an individual responsibility for my training and to not let anything (including my fear, lack of confidence, appearance or lack of support or sexism) stand in the way of my training goals.
I would ask other women with mindsets like my own to confirm if they felt the same way, but, unfortunately, there seems to be relatively few of us around (as evidenced by our numbers in advanced trainings).
I believe the problem may be confidence or the lack thereof.
1) Some women lack the confidence to step out on their own and try and even fail.
Men and women can both have this same hangup but it seems to be more prevalent in women. We can tend to take it pretty personally when we make a mistake. When we take that shot and miss it's not just that we took a shot and missed it's that we are failures. We aren't good at this. It was a mistake to come here. He's looking at me like I'm a total idiot. He's probably wondering why I even bothered coming to this class. I'll never get this right. I shouldn't have even gotten out of bed this morning. My life is over!
Brushing off the small stuff and carrying on can be very hard, especially if you feel you are being scrutinized to a greater degree. It's very easy to feel an added scrutiny if you are an anomaly in the class--the only woman, perhaps? Being in a class of all women can make women feel like they can blend in and mistakes won't be so closely scrutinized because the woman does not feel singled out. Sometimes having only one other woman there can lessen that feeling of a spotlight being on your back.
2) They lack the confidence to be okay in an all male environment and let any perceived sexism go.
Another little secret: there isn't a single class I have attended where I am the only woman that I haven't felt that spotlight I talked about above. And it's not as though I can say it doesn't make me nervous or feel some kind of perceived added scrutiny. But the fact of the matter is that most of the time it's total bull crap. The guys don't care a VAST majority of the time and in a matter of minutes we're all laughing together and training together like there is no gender gap. Sometimes they even like having a woman because it gives them a chance to get used to sparring with or fighting a woman. Sometimes, when it comes to sparring I'm still treated like a little doll or I get the guy who says, "I can't hit a woman" or he's afraid he's going to hurt me because I'm so small. But when I start hitting him he eventually gets the clue or I just keep hitting him harder until he does. Yep.. I'm THAT mean.
Sometimes there's some sexism though. I've been in classes where men have made it very clear that they are upset that a woman is there. I've had men tell me some very sexist things that have made me very angry or embarrassed. Most of the time, if the instructor is worth his salt, he or she will put a stop to that before it even starts. But, unfortunately I've even had instructors say some very sexist things and it certainly has made me doubt myself. But what has kept me moving forward and going back is the fact that I am not doing this to get any kind of approval from men or any given instructor. I am doing this to learn how to fight. Period. Instead of letting my feelings get hurt I take what I can learn and I run with it. I leave the crap and am better for it.
3) They lack the confidence to be okay with getting dirty, ugly and having messy hair.
I bet there will be a few people who will scoff at that. Does it really matter to some women that they might get their makeup smudged while in an advanced class?
 |
| Girly going out the window |
Without going into a lengthy explanation of why, the truth of the matter is there are women who care more about their hair than their training and no amount of discounts or female support or accommodation by the instructors is going to get them to risk smudged mascara and a broken nail. Sure, you can get these women into basic classes where there is little risk of getting roughed up, but until they are willing to smudge some makeup for sake of training you won't have much success in getting them to turn out.
Does that mean a lady shouldn't care about her appearance? Of course not. I do my hair and makeup before almost every class I attend. That being said, of late, there hasn't been a class I have come out of where my hair hadn't gone through 100 different renditions after being tossed, pulled, rained on or stepped on. I lose most of my makeup on the shirts of people I am sparring with, sweat it off or, yes, get it rained off. I like going into the class feeling pretty because, yep, I am that girl. But I'm not there to look pretty. I'm there to learn and train and once the class starts pretty goes out the door. And I actually get a big kick out of how alerted my appearance can be at the end of a particularly good training. If I don't have a black eye, it's a good day!
And what happens when a woman (or man) who lacks confidence attends a class? She needs more time and attention. People and instructors spend more time trying to build her confidence than training.
 |
| Shooting along side the guys |
Men seem to get over that fear a little faster than women and can leave a basic class feeling pretty confident in their ability and ready to go try something new and a little more challenging. A woman, on the other hand, may not feel ready. She may feel better but she might never describe herself as being confident in her new skill. The idea of going on to more advanced training makes her protest that she's not ready for it. She's afraid she's going to hold back the rest of the class and be looked at negatively because she's going to be the one who's going to take time and attention away from other students. Especially if she was that student (or felt like she was that student) in a basic class. What she may not realize is that most instructors (if they are good) are prepared for all types of students and will help push them forward in a safe manner.
A woman who determines that she is confident in her ability to handle herself and her firearm is unstoppable. If she's determined to learn there should be nothing that can keep her back.
So, how do we get women to attend more advanced trainings? I don't know. I don't know what it takes to convince a woman she can do something she may not feel confident in doing. I know it wasn't easy for me to take that first step either but the first step was the hardest and they keep getting easier the more confidence I build.
There's nothing quite like the feeling of walking through a door and facing a group of men made primarily of police officers or military personnel and thinking, "I belong here. Me, the housewife and mother, I belong RIGHT HERE! Kicking the shit out of and out-shooting these guys." I may not always out-shoot or out-fight the guys, but one thing is always true... I belong there.
And, ladies, you do too!
 |
| Join Me |
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Yes, My Son, It Is Okay To Hit People
My skin crawled. The scenarios flowed through my head and I couldn't restrain myself.
"Would you tell her that if she was being abducted?" I asked.
The mother stopped and blinked a few times and then stuttered, "Well... that's different."
"Yes, it is," I said. "But you just told her that it was never okay to hit people. That's not entirely true. There are times it's okay to hit people and to hit them hard." And then I dropped it. I already felt I was stepping way over my bounds.
The mother seemed to be lost in thought for a few moments but shortly everything went back to normal.
I do not tell my son he cannot hit. In fact, I encourage him to hit and hit well. I get down on my knees and let him hit my hands or hold up a pillow and let him hit that. I work on proper hitting techniques, using the whole body instead of just his hands. We work on kicking and ground fighting. We don't do it every day, but a few times a week or whenever he tells me that he wants to. He's turning into a good little fighting and I'm proud of him.
I'll be doing the same thing with my daughter when she gets old enough to take interest in such things.
 |
| A messy-headed four-year-old |
Frankly, it's easy to give a child a black and white set of rules such as "It's never okay to hit." That makes it easy for the parent. When the child hits he or she gets in trouble and that ends it right there. It's a heck of a lot harder to teach a child that there are certain times that hitting is appropriate and times it is not. It takes some trial and error. When my child hits I have to find out why he hit. I have to explain the difference between necessary hitting and unnecessary. Hitting someone because they took your toy is not acceptable. Hitting someone when they hurt you is only acceptable if you are defending yourself and can't go and get help from an authority figure. Yeah, try explaining that to a four-year-old.
Yes, we've had some instances of him hitting in day care. Who hasn't? If you have children you know that at some point in time you will find your child hitting another one. Hitting is a pretty natural response to feeling threatened or slighted and it takes social training to work that response out of children. I choose to channel it instead of eliminate it. He is disciplined when he hits for the wrong reasons and that will reenforce the ideals that there are times and places you can hit and times and places you can't hit. But I refuse to teach him that he can never hit another human being.
Why?
Because I want him to know that he not only CAN hit a human being if he needs to and that I EXPECT him to hit a human being if he is defending himself.
I refuse to allow my children to be raised to feel they have no options and are powerless against people who would hurt them. I would feel I failed as a parent if my child was victimized and said he thought he couldn't fight back when that was a justifiable--dare I say, necessary--option.
That being said, I know I have my work cut out for me. I have to train him and my daughter that with strength and power comes a responsibility to use it for good and for defense. Just because you know how to pound on someone doesn't mean you should and that there are consequences when you hurt the wrong people.
We talk about this every time we drop him off to day care. We encourage him to talk to the day care workers about problems he might have instead of dealing with them himself. We try to model proper conflict resolution. We teach him to protect those who are smaller and weaker than he is and to walk away from conflict when he can. We teach him to share and to not get angry or hit over toys or possessions. We reward him for restraint, compassion, sharing and patience. We discipline him for hitting when he doesn't need to or for being cruel and careless with his actions. We are actively trying to mold a child who knows that fighting--that fighting hard and dirty and ruthlessly--is an option in the right context but gentleness, compassion, care and graciousness should be his guiding principles.
I pray he never has to use violence in defense of himself or another but I feel a little better knowing that he will know its an option. When I catch him beating on our heavy bag or a pillow he hasn't been caught doing anything bad or wrong or naughty. He gets a smile and I help him work on his form and technique. He won't have that negative conditioning that says he can't or shouldn't hit under any circumstance. If, however, I were to catch him beating on his sister (which, by the way, I've never seen him do), there will be negative consequences. He's being trained to distinguish between what is acceptable to hit and what isn't and when. When play fighting with me or his dad we give him more lenience and he's doing well.
The road we've chosen as parents is not an easy one but I feel it is the right one. In the coming years he will be enrolled in martial arts. We will spend a lot of time and money teaching him to fight. It might save his life one day.
Or, maybe one day, when a young girl who's been taught it's never okay to hit is assaulted and frozen solid from a lifetime of conditioning she cannot fight back, my son will be the one who unleashes hell to save her.
A mother can dream, can't she?
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