It’s All About Timing
By: Ryan Mayfield
In a world where firearms, Tasers, gas, impact rounds and other “at-distance” tools exist for the LEO, it can—on the surface at least—appear as though we’re losing the need to rely on empty-hand skills to get the job done. Most officers can see that we’ll still need some basic handcuffing skills, but a great majority feel that they can rely on their tools to carry the day and if for some reason they start to lose control of a situation, their firearm is always there to lend the ultimate, decisive resolution.
Representing a smaller segment of officers, there are those that also realize they may need some empty-hand weapon-retention skills in the event that someone tries to rob them of their duty-weapon. But what about the empty-hand skills needed to access our tools in the first place?
Introducing a tool into the fray of a violent struggle is above all else, about timing. It is about creating and capitalizing upon Timing Windows that allow us an unobstructed presentation-path of our selected tool; coupled with the means to deliver its payload on-target.
Decisions made by an officer with regards to drawing a tool are almost always made based on the officer’s perception of danger and his or her reflexive-response to that stimulus. In other words, if the officer perceives a potentially lethal threat, he will most likely respond with lethal force options of his own and do so as quickly as possible. In a ranged affair, this is almost always the proper response; however when the officer is within a certain distance envelope to his threat, his instincts can prove fatal in some cases.
The problem arises when we use that perception as our trigger to immediately draw and have no training basis from which to temper it. At first, this seems counterintuitive: “Well, OK…I sense danger, when else would I draw a tool to up my chances for success or survival?” Again, it is range-dependent. To further complicate matters, it becomes increasingly more dangerous as the range collapses into Contact Distance.
If the average officer requires +/- 2 seconds to draw his weapon and fire accurately at close-range, then we need to know how much ground we can cover in that amount of time (it may be a better option to close the distance and engage empty-handed than it would be to attempt to draw and fire, for instance). This is an example of how training can affect our response to a given threat. If we have a general guideline of how long it takes us to close on a threat, then we can train to make that decision under stress instead of always defaulting to the “draw and shoot” response that is all we know. It of course goes without saying that the ability for us to make a good decision here in the first place is dependent upon our having trained to do so. But this is only Phase One of how timing decisions can—and should—affect our tactics and strategies.
Equally important is the realization that our ability to draw is directly proportionate to our ability to ensure an unobstructed path of presentation for a specific tool. Once we do this, we can look to capitalize on that moment by making proper timing decisions to ensure that the “moment” has not passed or was never “opened” in the first place. We accomplish this goal by practicing and establishing dominant position over our opponents in training. Hand and wrist control, under-hooks, over-hooks, arm-drags, duck-unders—these are all critical empty-hand combatives techniques that help us to control our opponent’s limbs and prevent him from fouling our draw or producing a tool of his own. The skill it takes to pull this off against a resisting opponent is directly dependent upon and relative to the amount of time we spend on the mats working such things out. It is also in this training and skill-enhancement phase that we will learn to identify and anticipate where we stand in terms of going ahead with a draw-stroke. If we’ve trained a given tie-up dozens of times and learn to anticipate when it will “lock in” or equally important, when we’re starting to lose it, we will know when the timing is right or wrong for us to make our move to access a tool.
Without knowing the difference between a “good” timing decision and a “bad” one, we are destined to introduce a tool into the equation at a time that may result in a complete backfire of our original intent. At best we may end up fighting over our own tool; at worst, our enemy can use it against us because we offered it up as a resource for him.
Knowing how to fight is not all about going “dukes up” with an opponent. It isn’t always about protecting your gun or handcuffing someone. Sometimes it’s about ensuring that we have the ability to use the tools that we rely on to manage threats. Sometimes it’s about regaining or maintaining the initiative. Sometimes it’s standing, sometimes it’s on the ground. Sometimes it’s about all of these factors and much more, as they all come crashing down upon us at once.
Knowing how to fight is not about segmenting and compartmentalizing our skills, but about how well we can assimilate our skills into a given segment or context. Developing the timing to do so and ability to recognize opportunities for capitalizing on those openings is perhaps the most critical attribute we can develop. There’s only one place where these skills can be garnered: On the mat!