Well it’s not every day that I have the opportunity to say that I learned A LOT over the course of a single day. It just so happens that about two weeks ago, I had that opportunity. Below is a brief review about my experience with Jon Payne’s, an instructor through Suarez International, “Zero to Five Feet Gunfighting” force on force class.
I woke up “early” on Saturday October 15th just like many other people in Baton Rouge. As I was heading to get my butt kicked in the middle-of-nowhere Zachery, everyone else was heading out to LSU for a day of food and drinking. I get there right before 9 AM and find out that I am the youngest guy there by quite a bit (with some near 40 years older than me), so that gives me a little bit of hope that the butt-kicking won’t be too bad (I was wrong).
We start off the day by meeting each other and learning a little bit about Jon’s history, followed by a brief overview of what the 7 of us would cover throughout the day. After the introductory briefing, Jon goes into extensive detail on the safety requirements that would be followed all day. He ensured that we would all come out of the day in one (slightly bruised up) piece.
After concluding the safety discussion, we get right into the course by starting with a “drown proofing” drill that gets everyone used to being pushed and shoved by the different attendees. Shortly thereafter we start working on redirecting the force and achieving flank. Having taught martial arts for a few years and wrestling for a few, this was no problem and quite a lot of fun.
Next we cover the “Matt Dillion” drill with airsoft pistols and learn that draw speed is not nearly as important as moving off the “X”. With that in mind, we roll into drills on getting off the X and getting out of the way of a muzzle pointed at us. After a little practice (20 minutes or so), we start practicing the same drill, but drawing and shooting. This part was still fine and dandy and wasn’t too incredibly challenging, though it definitely reinforced my previous classes on force-on-force and how to move out of the way of a muzzle.
The next part is where the day got fun. We moved back to hands on drills focusing on being grabbed and what not. This part quickly moved into you being knocked (or thrown) onto the ground and then ground fighting.
So we move into ground fighting and I am like, “hey, this is my atmosphere, I did Brazilian Jui Jitsu for years! This should be easy!” Well, it turns out BJJ didn’t prepare me at all for advanced weapon retention techniques while on the ground. At one point I had one of the participants in my guard and he reached forward towards my face (which I thought was an awful idea on his part). I immediately caught the most beautiful arm bar ever. It was absolutely perfect. The only problem was that he knew I would go for that and he seemingly (I learned) wanted me to do that. The second I swept my leg around, he reached down and pulled my own pistol from my holster and proceeded to shoot me in the face with it. Twice. That was a major eye-opener for me that great BJJ skills don’t trump someone having a weapon (or your weapon) while on the ground.
Later we moved into more ground fighting type scenarios, but with two people coming at you. I am in much better shape than most of the guys, and am at least 10 years younger than all of them, so I thought that would help me somewhat. It might have somewhat, but it didn’t matter and I still got my butt-kicked repeatedly. We then turned those drills into learning lessons for proper (or better) techniques to follow if you end up in a situation like that. One thing that I had never done before is shooting from the ground or shooting while standing up. Learning the proper techniques for those two skills was great and definitely helped later in the class!
Skipping forward a bit, later in the day we covered “hold-up” type situations with both a gun and a knife. I had done these before in my martial arts training, but never with the option of drawing your own gun (when applicable). I learned a good bit while honing my previously learned skills.
After a short break, we moved from airsoft rounds to live-fire training. Here we worked on some of the techniques learned earlier as well as a few new ones. One thing that we covered that I had never really practiced much was drawing with a non-dominant hand and various ways to engage after that. Some of the techniques were truly interesting. And I learned that definitely should practice my accuracy with my non-dominant hand a little!!
The very last part was shooting from the ground and shooting while moving. Both were fun and a great conclusion to an awesome day!
After cleaning up, we participated in a brief summary discussion of what we learned throughout the day as well as a few tips to practice later.
All in all it was a great experience. I learned way more than I initially expected I would and honed many skills that I had learned previously. I was re-reminded that bring younger and in much better shape is not always an advantage. Oh, and I also got a few lessons in weapon retention from some of the LEOs there. Seriously, those guys had me completely beat in that area, but I definitely learned a lot (and learned that I need to practice more!). Jon was incredibly professional throughout the class and ensured that we all stayed safe and didn’t rough up on each other too badly. I would highly recommend the class to anyone looking to expand their knowledge or to refine their current skill level.
Thanks again to Jon for the great day! Y’all let me know if you have any questions!
Austin
I woke up “early” on Saturday October 15th just like many other people in Baton Rouge. As I was heading to get my butt kicked in the middle-of-nowhere Zachery, everyone else was heading out to LSU for a day of food and drinking. I get there right before 9 AM and find out that I am the youngest guy there by quite a bit (with some near 40 years older than me), so that gives me a little bit of hope that the butt-kicking won’t be too bad (I was wrong).
We start off the day by meeting each other and learning a little bit about Jon’s history, followed by a brief overview of what the 7 of us would cover throughout the day. After the introductory briefing, Jon goes into extensive detail on the safety requirements that would be followed all day. He ensured that we would all come out of the day in one (slightly bruised up) piece.
After concluding the safety discussion, we get right into the course by starting with a “drown proofing” drill that gets everyone used to being pushed and shoved by the different attendees. Shortly thereafter we start working on redirecting the force and achieving flank. Having taught martial arts for a few years and wrestling for a few, this was no problem and quite a lot of fun.
Next we cover the “Matt Dillion” drill with airsoft pistols and learn that draw speed is not nearly as important as moving off the “X”. With that in mind, we roll into drills on getting off the X and getting out of the way of a muzzle pointed at us. After a little practice (20 minutes or so), we start practicing the same drill, but drawing and shooting. This part was still fine and dandy and wasn’t too incredibly challenging, though it definitely reinforced my previous classes on force-on-force and how to move out of the way of a muzzle.
The next part is where the day got fun. We moved back to hands on drills focusing on being grabbed and what not. This part quickly moved into you being knocked (or thrown) onto the ground and then ground fighting.
So we move into ground fighting and I am like, “hey, this is my atmosphere, I did Brazilian Jui Jitsu for years! This should be easy!” Well, it turns out BJJ didn’t prepare me at all for advanced weapon retention techniques while on the ground. At one point I had one of the participants in my guard and he reached forward towards my face (which I thought was an awful idea on his part). I immediately caught the most beautiful arm bar ever. It was absolutely perfect. The only problem was that he knew I would go for that and he seemingly (I learned) wanted me to do that. The second I swept my leg around, he reached down and pulled my own pistol from my holster and proceeded to shoot me in the face with it. Twice. That was a major eye-opener for me that great BJJ skills don’t trump someone having a weapon (or your weapon) while on the ground.
Later we moved into more ground fighting type scenarios, but with two people coming at you. I am in much better shape than most of the guys, and am at least 10 years younger than all of them, so I thought that would help me somewhat. It might have somewhat, but it didn’t matter and I still got my butt-kicked repeatedly. We then turned those drills into learning lessons for proper (or better) techniques to follow if you end up in a situation like that. One thing that I had never done before is shooting from the ground or shooting while standing up. Learning the proper techniques for those two skills was great and definitely helped later in the class!
Skipping forward a bit, later in the day we covered “hold-up” type situations with both a gun and a knife. I had done these before in my martial arts training, but never with the option of drawing your own gun (when applicable). I learned a good bit while honing my previously learned skills.
After a short break, we moved from airsoft rounds to live-fire training. Here we worked on some of the techniques learned earlier as well as a few new ones. One thing that we covered that I had never really practiced much was drawing with a non-dominant hand and various ways to engage after that. Some of the techniques were truly interesting. And I learned that definitely should practice my accuracy with my non-dominant hand a little!!
The very last part was shooting from the ground and shooting while moving. Both were fun and a great conclusion to an awesome day!
After cleaning up, we participated in a brief summary discussion of what we learned throughout the day as well as a few tips to practice later.
All in all it was a great experience. I learned way more than I initially expected I would and honed many skills that I had learned previously. I was re-reminded that bring younger and in much better shape is not always an advantage. Oh, and I also got a few lessons in weapon retention from some of the LEOs there. Seriously, those guys had me completely beat in that area, but I definitely learned a lot (and learned that I need to practice more!). Jon was incredibly professional throughout the class and ensured that we all stayed safe and didn’t rough up on each other too badly. I would highly recommend the class to anyone looking to expand their knowledge or to refine their current skill level.
Thanks again to Jon for the great day! Y’all let me know if you have any questions!
Austin