Top reasons why you NEED force-on-force training
Would you be comfortable competing in a pro boxing match without ever having sparred during training? How about performing in a concert at Carnegie Hall without ever having played in a recital? Most of us would rather see ammo prices skyrocket even higher than to find ourselves in either situation. So why do most gun owners feel totally comfortable with their defensive firearm skills coming from just their time shooting at a range (and lets be real, some less than that)? Is shooting at paper or steel really all you need to prepare you for a gunfight? Or is there an element missing to make a defender’s skillset complete? Let’s discuss.
Now before people begin to think I am discounting quality tactical firearms courses from reputable companies as “useless”, know that I believe quite the opposite. Such classes are essential to becoming proficient with a firearm. Not having such training would be a mistake which is why we, as well as hundreds of other companies across the US and abroad, teach tactical firearm courses on the range. What I’m referring to is a specific aspect of firearms training that always seems to be less prevalent than its range-time counterparts: Force-on-force training.
Often called “scenario-based training”, force-on-force training is one of three essential pieces of “pie” that represents a balanced defensive firearms education. The other two pieces are classroom and range training. All three are equal in their importance and work together to make us more prepared, effective, and ethical defenders. To understand the importance of force-on-force training, we have to also understand what the other two slices offer us.
In the classroom, we learn firearm safety and have a controlled environment to learn our weapon system. Our first dry-fire sessions and learning how to break down our guns often happen first in an administrative environment. We also learn the basic mechanics of our firearm there. But there are a few other reasons why the classroom is so important: We learn our respective firearms laws there as well as honing and developing our defensive mindset; solidifying the reasons we carry a gun in the first place.
The weapons range is where we focus on the individual skills needed to operate our firearm and hit targets. The basics of shooting such as stance, grip, sight alignment, trigger-squeeze are often mastered on the range. In more advanced cases, we perfect skills such as shooting from cover, reloading, and firing fast at tactical courses. And that is not to say effective pressure testing does not happen on the flat-range. Pre-exhaustion and timed shooting drills are proven ways of programing deep muscle memory responses.
Force-on-force training is the third slice of pie. To make it digestible, I’ll list the 5 most important things it provides to the shooter.
1. Social Nuance: Shoot/No shoot drills are becoming standard at most tactical courses. It forces us to decide under stress if we should or should not shoot a target. Now because we don’t want to end up serving serious prison time, it is impossible to do this with live rounds and our classmates (unless you’re a Russian SOF guy). In real life, knowing when to and when not to shoot can be a very gray affair and a piece of paper or steel can only do so much to keep you guessing. They can’t give off telegraphed movements or set off alarm bells in your head with leading dialogue. Even a turn-target can only mislead you to a point. Only a human can provide these little nuances and in reality, a seconds difference in your reaction time can get you smoked or locked up.
2. Controlling Emotions: For most of us normal people, confrontations are an emotionally charged event. Our nerves get fried, we get tunnel vision, and we react using our most base instincts. It can be overwhelming when people are yelling, crying, screaming, and shoving a mountain of information at you that you MUST process in order to stay alive. Not controlling emotions during a crisis can adversely impact your speed, accuracy, and decision making skills. Well crafted, realistic scenarios with quality actors can get very close to reality. A good coordinator can mold a scenario to elicit certain emotions from students. Force-on-force gives students the reps needed to acclimate to emotional stress and learn how to control it.
3. Practicing Multiple Skills: Training against role-players forces students to use multiple skills at the same time, unscripted, unchoreographed. It makes the student do an inventory-check of other important skills such as communication, hand-to-hand, evasion, and situational awareness. When looking at self-defense numbers, shooting is statistically a much less common outcome compared to verbal and empty-hand responses. Not every scenario within a quality force-on-force class should include a shooting solution. Students should be forced to use their words and wit to resolve a confrontation as well.
4. Safe Mistakes: THE WORST time to make a mistake using your firearm is in a self-defense situation. We are legally responsible for every round that leaves our firearm, birth to death. If one of those rounds happens to find itself lodged in an innocent person, you will be held responsible regardless of your intention. Having a firearm for self defense carries huge responsibility and the danger that under stress and fear you could make a mistake, is very real. Force-on-force training allows you to work out these kinks in a safe, repeatable environment. The scenario can be paused, altered, and you can go through your mistakes with an instructor after the exercise is complete. People do weird things when reacting to an immediate threat and we can’t count the times we have seen even highly-trained military and LEO guys shoot the wrong person in our courses.
5. A Reality Check: The first time stepping into a force-on-force scenario usually serves as a reality check for most students. Stance, draw, sight alignment, and grip. We drill them to be perfect, crispy, and sexy at the range. On paper, we train to put holes in holes. We use shot timers to get that draw time lightning fast and search and assess for threats after the steel has rung. While these are all vital skills for gunfighting they should be seen as very specialized; individual, compartmentalized sections of the whole picture.
How people perform at the range usually differs greatly to how they perform when they fight. Being startled and seeking cover from gunfire is a very unsexy picture of ourselves, but it is a real one. Not being able to get in that solid isosceles stance or even get two hands on your pistol could happen when fighting a real person. My favorite comparison comes from a martial arts perspective: Range-time can be compared to “forms” or techniques while force-on-force training should be seen as sparring. Sparring is where you apply your techniques to a threat under stress. We caution you to not allow your first sparring match to be in the real world. The results will be permanent.
So how do we know this stuff? I could just be regurgitating material that is certainly available to the public to fill blog space, after all. The reality is we see these repeatable occurrences in the training we conduct. We take note of it and adjust our courses accordingly. Let’s take a look at two examples from our Reactive Handgun: Foundation class.
In the first video, we see a convivence store being robbed by two experienced robbers. Without a shooting solution that wouldn’t end up with him being shot, the student wisely complied. It was after the robbers left that his scenario took a turn. Already on edge, he reacted without assessing who the last person entering the store really was. This led to a short gun battle with a police officer in which both were shot. Suffice to say, this could have resulted in jail time or death for the student if this were real.
In the second video, we see another student responding to an active shooter in a movie theatre. Having learned from his previous mistakes in early evolutions, this student positioned himself in the darkest corner of the room which gave him enough time to assess every person coming through the door. You can clearly see him take aim at the doorman bursting into the room without shooting only to finally engage and neutralize the gunman shortly after.
We hope this helps to illuminate just how vital force-on-force training is to any shooter’s training schedule. Whether you do it with Simunitions, UTM, or airsoft, it all works to tie together the theory and drills we spend our time on. Most importantly, those who do take this kind of training (not just through us) tend to be more confident, ethical, and effective self-defenders. But just like any skill, it’s perishable and costs repetitions to keep sharp. I’ll leave you with my two favorite quotes on the subject:
“No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
“Everyone has a plan ‘till they get punched in the mouth.”