This is AAR is about six months overdue. It was difficult to take great notes in this course because of the pace of the class, and the number of practical, skill-based FoF drills performed. For that reason, and because much of the learning was experiential VS academic, this AAR may be somewhat shorter than others I’ve put up. I will try to capture the essence of the material as best I can.
Mike (Cedartop) invited me to this class for free based my posts and on other AARs I’ve put up. I’m not one to turn down free training. So I gladly took him up on the offer. I invited my friend Jason (Jason) to come along, and offered to split my free class with him. (I paid for half of his class.) This was my first Suarez International class. It is a second or third level class in the Suarez hierarchy. I was able to attend based on previous training experience with other instructors.
The Basics
Course: Suarez International Zero to Five Feet Gunfighting
Date: 4/13/13
Duration: 2 Days
Location: Sand Burr Gun Ranch
Instructor: Randy Harris (Randy Harris)
Assistant Instructors: Mike Swisher (Cedartop), Ryan (last name unknown, not a forum member)
Related Threads
1. April 13-14, 2013 – Zero To Five Feet – Pistol Gunfighting – Rochester, IN
2. AAR, of sorts, 0-5 foot “gunfighting” class, Rochester, IN, April 13-14, 2013
Summary
This two-day class focused on contact-distance encounters. Much of the work was related to gaining an advantageous position that allowed you to access tools and employ them during the fight. There is a short live-fire portion to reinforce some concepts, but the meat of the course is in the skill-based Force-on-Force drills and exercises. Most of the course format was as follows: discuss a technique, try it with little resistance, escalate the resistance, then do it at full speed with resistance. The course culminated in fluid Force-on-Force exercises where the techniques could be employed fluidly.
Details
Day One:
This class started at 0900 on the range at Sand Burr. All of the activities and discussion took place on the range under a small cover with some folding chairs. Randy kicked things off with a safety briefing, explained the physical nature of the class, and reminded us all not to be afraid of bringing up any physical limitations. We also went through introductions at this point. I did not take notes on everyone’s background, but we had a range of ages and skill levels present. There was one student I’d met in other training classes who I know to train regularly in unarmed fighting. Another student was a DNR officer from southern Indiana. Most of the rest were just average joes, older and not-so-old.
As for me, I train and practice with firearms pretty regularly. I am significantly deficient in my unarmed fighting skills. I have been through a few seminars of this nature, and when I was younger I participated in a full-contact style of karate called Kyokushin. There was plenty of contact and I learned a lot from it, but it didn’t impart any ground-fighting skills, and it wasn’t particularly reality based, in terms of the nature of actual street confrontations. It did not make me feel prepared for this course. J
After 20 minutes of safety and intros, the class turned to the lecture portion. Randy talked to us some about the time leading up to a confrontation and managing that situation. There was an acronym for these concepts called PESTE (if I took notes correctly). You’ll have to attend the class to get the details. The gist of it for me was maintaining awareness and creating distance. Distance is time, and time is your friend.
Randy had us do a couple interactive exercises to illustrate the points: the hand-slapping game, and the stomach-touching game. Both were to illustrate the advantages of initiative, distance, and time. We also did a couple of conversational exercises to illustrate how easy it is to get locked up in conversation with someone and forget your surroundings. This was the first place where gaining an advantageous position was explored. Gaining positional advantage would be a primary theme of this course. From the sound of things, it is a primary theme in most Suarez classes. The discussion about pre-fight activities flowed in to an explanation of default cover positions and FASTTT Protocol.
We strapped on Airsoft guns and moved over to the range for some more exercises. We started with a simple drill where we stand across from a partner and attempt to outdraw one another. These drills built up to trying to move off the “x” as the partner attempts to shoot at you. Various types and directions of movement were explored. We were shown the pekiti take-off as the preferred footwork for getting off the line of attack quickly. We worked this a bit, and then incorporated it in to the movement exercises. We would build up from moving off the line to incorporate weapons access and returning fire. These skill exercises would come in to play later during more elaborate FoF exercises. Randy made several notes and comments about body mechanics and body alignment during this time, stopping periodically to point out things that came up for individuals.
We broke for lunch and most people ate on the range. I can’t remember what we brought, but I’m sure I had a pudding cup. I generally always take pudding cups to training classes.
After lunch we were back on the range for additional skill and FoF exercises. The first exercises were knife attacker(s). We worked some basic striking and parrying skills, movement away from the knife, and related skills. As we went on, weapons access and shooting were added to the problem. We worked various iterations of this for awhile until we made our way up to full-speed knife attacks, attempting to incorporate the movement, parrying, and basic striking while accessing weapons and firing at the attacker. After one attacker, we went to two. I got stabbed a few times. Okay, maybe more than a few.
Randy must have thought we’d been stabbed a sufficient number of times and we moved on to ground fighting drills. We started with assuming the attacker was standing, just trying to keep our legs between ourselves and the attacker. We moved to some basic mount defenses and we gave the aggressor a knife just for good measure.
The ground drills concluded day one. We all went back to the hotel for a shower and met for dinner at Pat’s Landing in Rochester after class.
Day Two:
Day two started with an intro to basic striking. Knees, elbows, and palm strikes were done on focus mitts. We moved to some basic grappling, working some underhook techniques. We also did some additional knife parry/evasion drills. After the individual skill drills we moved to some blind skill-based FoF drills. Basically the student faces the berm while a scenario is set up behind him. On the go, the student turns around and has to deal with the problem. The problem could be an attacker with a bat, a take-down, a knife, etc. First it was one attacker, and then it was two.
The morning included a 30 minute discussion on different types of knives and carry methods. Several knives were brought out for show and tell.
After the knife demonstration we went back to FoF drills including accessing a knife in the clinch and on the ground, accessing a folding knife, and accessing the gun. Somewhere around this time people started getting stabbed in the taint. I’m not sure when taint stabbings became cool, but several people got one. We did a few more blind scenarios in here as well. The blind scenarios were done one student at a time. After everyone went through the rotation we broke for lunch. I ate another pudding cup.
The afternoon session for day two was the live-fire portion of the class. We started working the types of movement we learned on day one. We moved in to shooting from retention, contact shooting, off-hand draw, shooting from inside/through our shirt (we had shirts for this purpose), and shooting off our back in various positions. Most of the things we had previously worked with Airsoft guns and real people were done here with live-fire to the extent possible. The live-fire drills were the last part of the class.
My Thoughts
I really feel I got a lot out of this class. Contact-distance fighting with weapons represents a significant gap in my training. While I’ve heard of many concepts from the class, I had not done much hands-on work with them. Some of the concepts were new altogether. This was the kind of class where the uninitiated can be flooded with new information. It is also the kind of class where students of most any level can learn. The class is very heavy on FoF exercises, and everything you learn is applied in real-time during the class. While we did learn some specific techniques, we also learned some over-arching principles. These are things that can be remembered and applied to situations even if the specific techniques cannot be worked enough for mastery.
One of the best parts of the class was Ryan. I didn’t catch his last name, but he was basically the designated role-player, aggressor, and subject matter expert on combatives. Ryan really did a great job with the aggressor role. He has a fantastic ability to throttle the speed and difficulty of the exercise to the individual. I think this is really important for Force on Force exercises, especially skill-based exercises like these. This allowed everyone in the class to feel challenged and to learn something about themselves. I have experienced other combative Force-on-Force exercises where this was not the case, and more experienced students were not challenged. In my view, FoF is the place to be challenged and pushed, and to learn about yourself. I think everyone in class felt they were pushed the right amount and that is very much due to Ryan’s ability to throttle himself effectively in the situation.
I am not knowledgeable enough about the topic to say how this training stacks up to other combative/contact-distance training. I do wonder how some of the techniques would work in a confined or cluttered area where there was not so much room to move. Some of the things we did required explosive movement, the ability to create distance, and having movement in certain angles available. Of course, I think the principles taught would apply to any situation. But they would be most effective in the open where this movement is possible. What I should do is set up the scenario and test it. I have not done that.
The class also made no or very little, mention of background and foreground issues around the target. Many classes don’t mention this in a lot of detail. However, this class teaches rapid movement around or at angles to the adversary, which would create a rapidly changing target background and foreground. At the speed of these encounters, and with how quickly that background changes, I think it would be worthwhile to have some treatment of those issues in the class. This is not a big drawback. Just a small note on the course material on which I feel qualified to comment.
My final note is about the safety gear. Students were required to bring their own safety gear and Airsoft guns for use in class. Most students brought paint ball masks which worked well for the shooting portions of the class. They did not work so well for the combative portions of the class. The class did not include any full-contact striking to the head, so that was not the main issue. However, during some of the light striking or grappling, the mask would slide up or down around my eyes. At some points it would press in to my eye socket in a most uncomfortable way. It would really be best to use a FIST helmet or boxing-type head gear with a clear plastic face shield. It should be something where the face-shield is supported around the face rather than around the ocular area. Since most students do not keep this kind of gear on hand, it would be helpful if Suarez would provide those for classes.
Overall, I really thought it was a good class. Everyone there seemed to learn something regardless of experience. For most people it highlighted a large hole in their training, and also their physical fitness level. For some it refined techniques or widened their view of things to include in H2H training they are already doing. I would not hesitate to recommend the class as a valid take on the 0-5 foot fighting problem. This is an area where most shooters don’t do nearly enough work. They think the gun will solve the problem for them, when in reality; the problem may be just getting access to the gun.
Mike (Cedartop) invited me to this class for free based my posts and on other AARs I’ve put up. I’m not one to turn down free training. So I gladly took him up on the offer. I invited my friend Jason (Jason) to come along, and offered to split my free class with him. (I paid for half of his class.) This was my first Suarez International class. It is a second or third level class in the Suarez hierarchy. I was able to attend based on previous training experience with other instructors.
The Basics
Course: Suarez International Zero to Five Feet Gunfighting
Date: 4/13/13
Duration: 2 Days
Location: Sand Burr Gun Ranch
Instructor: Randy Harris (Randy Harris)
Assistant Instructors: Mike Swisher (Cedartop), Ryan (last name unknown, not a forum member)
Related Threads
1. April 13-14, 2013 – Zero To Five Feet – Pistol Gunfighting – Rochester, IN
2. AAR, of sorts, 0-5 foot “gunfighting” class, Rochester, IN, April 13-14, 2013
Summary
This two-day class focused on contact-distance encounters. Much of the work was related to gaining an advantageous position that allowed you to access tools and employ them during the fight. There is a short live-fire portion to reinforce some concepts, but the meat of the course is in the skill-based Force-on-Force drills and exercises. Most of the course format was as follows: discuss a technique, try it with little resistance, escalate the resistance, then do it at full speed with resistance. The course culminated in fluid Force-on-Force exercises where the techniques could be employed fluidly.
Details
Day One:
This class started at 0900 on the range at Sand Burr. All of the activities and discussion took place on the range under a small cover with some folding chairs. Randy kicked things off with a safety briefing, explained the physical nature of the class, and reminded us all not to be afraid of bringing up any physical limitations. We also went through introductions at this point. I did not take notes on everyone’s background, but we had a range of ages and skill levels present. There was one student I’d met in other training classes who I know to train regularly in unarmed fighting. Another student was a DNR officer from southern Indiana. Most of the rest were just average joes, older and not-so-old.
As for me, I train and practice with firearms pretty regularly. I am significantly deficient in my unarmed fighting skills. I have been through a few seminars of this nature, and when I was younger I participated in a full-contact style of karate called Kyokushin. There was plenty of contact and I learned a lot from it, but it didn’t impart any ground-fighting skills, and it wasn’t particularly reality based, in terms of the nature of actual street confrontations. It did not make me feel prepared for this course. J
After 20 minutes of safety and intros, the class turned to the lecture portion. Randy talked to us some about the time leading up to a confrontation and managing that situation. There was an acronym for these concepts called PESTE (if I took notes correctly). You’ll have to attend the class to get the details. The gist of it for me was maintaining awareness and creating distance. Distance is time, and time is your friend.
Randy had us do a couple interactive exercises to illustrate the points: the hand-slapping game, and the stomach-touching game. Both were to illustrate the advantages of initiative, distance, and time. We also did a couple of conversational exercises to illustrate how easy it is to get locked up in conversation with someone and forget your surroundings. This was the first place where gaining an advantageous position was explored. Gaining positional advantage would be a primary theme of this course. From the sound of things, it is a primary theme in most Suarez classes. The discussion about pre-fight activities flowed in to an explanation of default cover positions and FASTTT Protocol.
We strapped on Airsoft guns and moved over to the range for some more exercises. We started with a simple drill where we stand across from a partner and attempt to outdraw one another. These drills built up to trying to move off the “x” as the partner attempts to shoot at you. Various types and directions of movement were explored. We were shown the pekiti take-off as the preferred footwork for getting off the line of attack quickly. We worked this a bit, and then incorporated it in to the movement exercises. We would build up from moving off the line to incorporate weapons access and returning fire. These skill exercises would come in to play later during more elaborate FoF exercises. Randy made several notes and comments about body mechanics and body alignment during this time, stopping periodically to point out things that came up for individuals.
We broke for lunch and most people ate on the range. I can’t remember what we brought, but I’m sure I had a pudding cup. I generally always take pudding cups to training classes.
After lunch we were back on the range for additional skill and FoF exercises. The first exercises were knife attacker(s). We worked some basic striking and parrying skills, movement away from the knife, and related skills. As we went on, weapons access and shooting were added to the problem. We worked various iterations of this for awhile until we made our way up to full-speed knife attacks, attempting to incorporate the movement, parrying, and basic striking while accessing weapons and firing at the attacker. After one attacker, we went to two. I got stabbed a few times. Okay, maybe more than a few.
Randy must have thought we’d been stabbed a sufficient number of times and we moved on to ground fighting drills. We started with assuming the attacker was standing, just trying to keep our legs between ourselves and the attacker. We moved to some basic mount defenses and we gave the aggressor a knife just for good measure.
The ground drills concluded day one. We all went back to the hotel for a shower and met for dinner at Pat’s Landing in Rochester after class.
Day Two:
Day two started with an intro to basic striking. Knees, elbows, and palm strikes were done on focus mitts. We moved to some basic grappling, working some underhook techniques. We also did some additional knife parry/evasion drills. After the individual skill drills we moved to some blind skill-based FoF drills. Basically the student faces the berm while a scenario is set up behind him. On the go, the student turns around and has to deal with the problem. The problem could be an attacker with a bat, a take-down, a knife, etc. First it was one attacker, and then it was two.
The morning included a 30 minute discussion on different types of knives and carry methods. Several knives were brought out for show and tell.
After the knife demonstration we went back to FoF drills including accessing a knife in the clinch and on the ground, accessing a folding knife, and accessing the gun. Somewhere around this time people started getting stabbed in the taint. I’m not sure when taint stabbings became cool, but several people got one. We did a few more blind scenarios in here as well. The blind scenarios were done one student at a time. After everyone went through the rotation we broke for lunch. I ate another pudding cup.
The afternoon session for day two was the live-fire portion of the class. We started working the types of movement we learned on day one. We moved in to shooting from retention, contact shooting, off-hand draw, shooting from inside/through our shirt (we had shirts for this purpose), and shooting off our back in various positions. Most of the things we had previously worked with Airsoft guns and real people were done here with live-fire to the extent possible. The live-fire drills were the last part of the class.
My Thoughts
I really feel I got a lot out of this class. Contact-distance fighting with weapons represents a significant gap in my training. While I’ve heard of many concepts from the class, I had not done much hands-on work with them. Some of the concepts were new altogether. This was the kind of class where the uninitiated can be flooded with new information. It is also the kind of class where students of most any level can learn. The class is very heavy on FoF exercises, and everything you learn is applied in real-time during the class. While we did learn some specific techniques, we also learned some over-arching principles. These are things that can be remembered and applied to situations even if the specific techniques cannot be worked enough for mastery.
One of the best parts of the class was Ryan. I didn’t catch his last name, but he was basically the designated role-player, aggressor, and subject matter expert on combatives. Ryan really did a great job with the aggressor role. He has a fantastic ability to throttle the speed and difficulty of the exercise to the individual. I think this is really important for Force on Force exercises, especially skill-based exercises like these. This allowed everyone in the class to feel challenged and to learn something about themselves. I have experienced other combative Force-on-Force exercises where this was not the case, and more experienced students were not challenged. In my view, FoF is the place to be challenged and pushed, and to learn about yourself. I think everyone in class felt they were pushed the right amount and that is very much due to Ryan’s ability to throttle himself effectively in the situation.
I am not knowledgeable enough about the topic to say how this training stacks up to other combative/contact-distance training. I do wonder how some of the techniques would work in a confined or cluttered area where there was not so much room to move. Some of the things we did required explosive movement, the ability to create distance, and having movement in certain angles available. Of course, I think the principles taught would apply to any situation. But they would be most effective in the open where this movement is possible. What I should do is set up the scenario and test it. I have not done that.
The class also made no or very little, mention of background and foreground issues around the target. Many classes don’t mention this in a lot of detail. However, this class teaches rapid movement around or at angles to the adversary, which would create a rapidly changing target background and foreground. At the speed of these encounters, and with how quickly that background changes, I think it would be worthwhile to have some treatment of those issues in the class. This is not a big drawback. Just a small note on the course material on which I feel qualified to comment.
My final note is about the safety gear. Students were required to bring their own safety gear and Airsoft guns for use in class. Most students brought paint ball masks which worked well for the shooting portions of the class. They did not work so well for the combative portions of the class. The class did not include any full-contact striking to the head, so that was not the main issue. However, during some of the light striking or grappling, the mask would slide up or down around my eyes. At some points it would press in to my eye socket in a most uncomfortable way. It would really be best to use a FIST helmet or boxing-type head gear with a clear plastic face shield. It should be something where the face-shield is supported around the face rather than around the ocular area. Since most students do not keep this kind of gear on hand, it would be helpful if Suarez would provide those for classes.
Overall, I really thought it was a good class. Everyone there seemed to learn something regardless of experience. For most people it highlighted a large hole in their training, and also their physical fitness level. For some it refined techniques or widened their view of things to include in H2H training they are already doing. I would not hesitate to recommend the class as a valid take on the 0-5 foot fighting problem. This is an area where most shooters don’t do nearly enough work. They think the gun will solve the problem for them, when in reality; the problem may be just getting access to the gun.
