There are two kind of handguns that we can use for self-defense – Going to Trouble guns, and Getting Out of Trouble guns. While we would all prefer to carry full size duty guns with multiple spare magazines (Going to Trouble guns) as our EDC set up, the fact is that most of us cannot 100% of the time. Because of various restrictions – whether legal, social, or environmental, we often have to defend ourselves with gear that may not be the best when we are shooting fancy drills on the square range (i.e. Getting Out of Trouble guns). Instead of bemoaning that truth, we need to spend the time working on being able to run our actual carry to the best of our ability. That is what this course is all about.

In this class, we will look at how to effectively shoot and manage the smaller handguns that are typical of a non-permissive environment – i.e. snub revolvers and small autos like the G43 or LCP. We will learn to maximize our performance in shooting as well as accessing and drawing these guns. We will also integrate the shooting with understanding how to recognize and deal with impending violent criminal assault, and how to use OC spray and physical responses alongside our firearms. Most importantly, we will put these practices into actual use the exact same way we will have to use them in the real world; NOT the artificial constraints of a flat range.

Students should be ready to work hard, but everyone can go at the most appropriate pace they need. This is not a class for “operators”. This is a course for everyday folks who want to defend themselves and their loved ones from realistic threats, and your physical condition or experience level does not matter.

Students will need their carry gun, as many spare ammo carrier/loader set ups as they can manage, a quality holster (no SERPAs or FOBUS rigs allowed), 300 rounds of ammo, one blue gun and holster for the blue gun, notebook and pen, and an open mind. Also, this will be an opportunity to try different carry positions such as pocket or ankle. There will also be time and opportunity to try out other small guns that the student may not have the chance to run before.

Friday – Intro to pre-assault cues, pre-fight threat containment and MUC, OC use, and live fire safety briefing

Sat – 1st block: live fire, familiarity with drawstroke from various carry positions, tricks with small guns

2nd block: MUC and reactive or proactive physical response

3rd block: OC usage drilling and integration with verbals and movement, congruency with physical responses

4th block: live fire

Sunday – 1st block: live fire

2nd block: defending against the entanglement

3rd block: moving in crowds with a gun in hand (blue gun)

4th block: final drill/test

My Latest Podcast Appearance

June 21, 2023 Cecil Burch

https://evosec.libsyn.com/ep-116-cecil-burch-iv-new-jiujitsu-academy-and-npe-counter-robbery-course

Discipline

June 16, 2023 Cecil Burch

I’m a believer that words mean things. To communicate with others we have to be precise with our language. To do otherwise leaves room for misinterpretation, argument, and misunderstanding. While some people might accuse me of being pedantic, I prefer to have clarity in what I say.

A while ago a lot of people got really upset when I pointed out that the term “stress inoculation”as used in the training community is incorrect. Many of the offended people went after me, including friends who I had never done anything negative to, but they wrote some pretty crappy things.. Nobody could argue my exact point; they just preferred to attack me and my audacity in trying to provide clarity.

Well I’m going to do it again. Today’s term is discipline. and I’m going to quote the Great Inigo Montoya when he said “I don’t think that term means what you think it means”.

In the self-preservation training community we love to waive the flag that we have discipline. We point out all the training we may do and say “see I’m disciplined”. The problem is that every example tends to be us doing what we like to do. and that is not discipline at all.

If you are a shooting instructor or even just an enthusiast, bragging about how you dry fire 5 days a week and spend two hours a week at the range firing 500 rounds has zero to do with discipline. If you are heavily into fitness, and you like to talk about how you are lifting heavy 5 days a week or are getting in multiple hard cardio workouts per week, you are not telling me you are disciplined. If you love jujitsu and perhaps even own an academy (Incoming fire!)telling others that you are disciplined because you are on the mat five to six days a week has exactly zero to do with discipline.

Here is the dictionary definition (or at least one of them) of discipline: To train or develop By instruction and exercise self-control. Doing what we enjoy has no elements of requiring self-control. That will only come into play when we’re doing something we don’t enjoy. It takes no self control to eat a giant bowl of Braum’s Butter Pecan Ice Cream. It takes enormous self-control to NOT do so.

For example, I despise pure cardio work. I simply hate it. It’s boring, repetitive or it’s incredibly draining on my energy. So for me to hit my three to four cardio workouts a week requires a great deal of self-control and effort and willpower to do it. it’s far easier to make an excuse to miss the workout or to say I’ll get cardio just from being on the mat. Those are excuses and rationalizations which means I’m not enjoying what I’m doing.

If you are an incredibly enthusiastic shooter, but are morbidly obese you don’t need discipline to shoot. You need discipline to eat like an adult. Is that fun? No. it is much more fun to eat Twinkies and fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies and butter pecan ice cream from Braum, but that’s not healthy, it’s not good for you and so we have to refrain from going overboard. Not to say we can’t enjoy it at times but we have to exercise discipline to make sure we’re not taking in more calories than we’re burning. We are literally 10,000 times more likely to die from metabolic dysfunction issues (heart attack, stroke, diabetes, cancer), and a good deal of that can be prevented simply by eating with a bit of discipline.

So please don’t try to virtue signal that you are disciplined by showing how hard and how often you do your favorite hobby. Show discipline by putting blood, sweat, tears, time and money into doing something you don’t like but you know is necessary, important and needed to actually practice self-preservation.

Survival Position video

June 15, 2023 Cecil Burch

I am releasing a series of videos on my foundational approach to grappling in a weapons based environment (to use Craig Douglas’ excellent terminology). They look nice and professional no thanks to me, but to my friend Seth who does a great job of making me look smarter than I am.

This is the second one and it is all about building a survival ability when we find ourself on the ground through no intent of our own.

AAR Confined Space Combatives

June 7, 2023 Cecil Burch

An AAR of one of my courses, Confined Space Combatives, by an antendee.

I was happy that he picked up on the key element of all my courses – that we are starting at a worst case scenario point, as opposed to most seminars/classes where it it all about best case scenario and everything is going your way. I prefer to know in my heart of hearts that I can handle the worst potential situations, because anyhting less drastic becomes a piece of cake.

IAJJ Confined Spaces Combatives After Action Report (2021)

Just Start

June 6, 2023 Cecil Burch

I tend to be overly passionate about trying to help people become more – more safer, more capable, and more dangerous. I realize it sounds a bit too self-righteous, but I cannot think of a better description than I feel it is a calling to teach functional fighting concepts and do it in a way that anyone can benefit from them. Not only does every single person deserve the right and the capability to defend themselves purely for their own intrinsic worth, but also because it makes society as a whole better. When all the good guys can defend themselves from the bad guys, the bad guys lose their power.

I know it can be done. I am living proof. I have no special abilities. In fact, I have a long list of things that hold me back, and they are things that I have lived with all my life. I was born with severe asthma for one. I have been hospitalized for it numerous times, and at least three of those I was close to death. I have a thyroid that from all medical tests say has never worked my entire life. And on and on. We all have excuses, but we also can ignore those excuses and plunge on. It can be done if you do the work.

One thing that continually comes up though is this idea that you “have to get in shape for X”. I hear these things all the time – “I will take a few months to get in shape for BJJ” – Why? Nothing will get you in BJJ shape like actually doing BJJ! Or this one – “I need to spend a couple months working my shooting before taking a pistol class” – again, why? You know how you get better at shooting? Taking a training class! Here is a classic – “I need to get prepped for ECQC” – no; you need to go through ECQC so you can know what you need to do to prep for a fight.

Generally there are two reasons for these excuses.

One, the person genuinely thinks he needs to have some kind of preparation before doing one of these things. This person is afraid of not being able to do something during the training, or looking bad, or not doing well. Guess what? All those things will happen regardless! And who cares? Its training! There is not one legitimate instructor who expects a student to do everything perfectly after being told once. That is not how this works at all. Show up in whatever condition/capability you are currently at, and work to get better. It is a simple process.

The other reason for excuses like these is because the speaker is trying to get himself mentally ready to go and make the commitment. It is easy to put it off – “I need to lose 25 pounds so I am going to start eating right next month” – that is the path to failure. The commitment happens on a daily basis. It is not a thing in and of itself. Each day you say to yourself “I am going to do this” and the next day you have to repeat it. Your mind does not acclimate and make it easier. There is no magic line in the sand where it just happens. YOU have to make it happen, every day.

So what do we do? JUST START. TODAY. I don’t care what, or how much, but start right now. Don’t know how to start? Cool. Here are some suggestions.

1) Find a video on how to do basic BJJ movements (I have a number on my my YouTube channel). Learn how to do a hip escape or a hip lift and do it for one minute. Tomorrow, do it for one minute. And the next day. When you feel up to it, add time or moves.

2) Watch a video on how to do a burpee. Then do it for a minute. And every day repeat. No equipment, no gym membership, no travel.

3) Spend a couple dollars on the e-book version of Annette Evans Dry Fire Primer book. Then dry fire tonight for one minute (are you starting to see the jist?).

There are tons more you can do. The point being to just start right now, and do what you can, with what you have, for as long a time as you can, and don’t quit.

Snub Revolvers – An Expert’s Gun?

June 5, 2023 Cecil Burch

I was recently listening to a podcast with a couple of gun writers and they were talking about snub revolvers. They were hammering on a particular point that gets a lot of play in the gun community and that for the most part I don’t have any issue with. However there is some Nuance there and said nuance rarely gets addressed, so I’m going to take a couple moments and bring that to the forefront.

The point they were making is that a snub is an expert’s gun, and looking at their simplified view they are correct. The problems typically brought up to support that argument is that the sights are suboptimal, the guns are difficult to grip well, the triggers tend to be awful, and punishing recoil makes them unpleasant to shoot. All of these tend to be true IF we are only looking at a select and specific type of snub. Without a doubt for the last 20 to 30 years the most prolific, most used and most encountered snub is one of the Smith & Wesson j-frame 38 specials airweights, usually typified by the 642, 638, for Model 36. Stock out of the box and coming directly from the factory, all the above criticisms are manifestly expressed in these guns.

And while these guns for a long time were the most ubiquitous, they by no means today are necessarily so. Moreover, all of the above criticisms have already been addressed or can easily be addressed by the end user if they expand their view of snubs.

A few months ago I wrote an article talking about how easy it is to find a perfect aftermarket grip that can be installed in minutes by anyone. This is one of the easiest fixes to a snub, and some of the newer ones come from the factory with better grips anyway. While it can be a pain to try to shoot a typical out of the box grip, it is dead simple to make monumentally better.

As well, many of the newer snubbies have either better sights as is (for example the Kimber K6) or have sights that are pinned and are as easily replaced as grips. On my personal Ruger LCR I replaced the front sight with the green fiber optic and it took me less than 5 minutes and only one punch and immediately the sight picture was exponentially better and more functional.

Most factory triggers are not great on any gun (not just snubs) produced today. While there are exceptions these tend to be just that: exceptions. But on many of the snub revolvers produced today the triggers are substantially better. Again, the Kimber k6 is a standout example of this, and while my LCR had a reasonably okay trigger out of the box, with a bit of dry fire and live fire it has smoothed out to the point where most people who shoot it ask me what gunsmith I sent it to and are shocked when I tell them that’s the factory trigger.

As far as recoil, there’s not much that can be done to a small airweight in 38 Special. It is just not pleasant. My preferred carry load in that situation are 148 grain wadcutters at standard velocity, but even they are not fun to shoot. They are merely tolerable. The great news is however that we are not stuck with only 38 Special as the only caliber available. We can drop down to smaller calibers and with modern loads such as Federal Punch or Buffalo Bore combined with well placed shots we lose very little and functional power, but what we gain more than offsets that little loss.

One hugely important thing we gain is that they become enjoyable to shoot, and the dirty secret of practice is that a gun that is enjoyable to shoot is a gun that we go out of our way to shoot and practice with again and again. And that extra and focused work leads to mastery in performance, so even if the caliber we’re shooting is a third less effective than a 38 special or 9 mm, we are far more likely to put the bullets exactly where they’re supposed to go. Which equates to a substantially greater chance of the rounds doing what we need them to do when we need them to do it.

For those with physical issues such as extreme arthritis or hand injuries, we also gain the ability to shoot the gun effectively in a way which we can never do with the larger caliber guns. Again, shooting something that we enjoy and does not bring pain or extended discomfort means we will spend far more time shooting and practicing.

Another important game is greater capacity. The Smith & Wesson J frame in 38 Special is a five shot. My Ruger LCR in 32 holds six rounds, and many 22 caliber snubs hold as many as eight rounds. A substantial Improvement in capacity in the same size package means I have more options and versatility in my carry plan.

There are a few people besides myself that have been playing with this concept the past few years. Darryl Bolke of Hardwired Tactical, Chuck Haggard of Agile Training, and Rhett Neumyer of Demonstrated Concepts have all been working on this paradigm and we all have similar conclusions, including the realization that with these smaller caliber snubs, even novices can become good and functional defensive shooters fairly quickly, and enjoy the experience. If you select the right snub in the right caliber, they are no longer “expert’s guns”.

Entangled Weapons Fight part 16,985

May 16, 2023 Cecil Burch

I spend a great deal of time teaching people how to defend themselves in an entangled fight with the possibility of weapons being present or involved. These events happen a lot, whether the good guy is armed with a handgun or not, so I will continue to teach the important skills needed to survive these attacks. I have lost count of how many videos or documented stories along these lines I have posted or talked about in the last 20+ years, but I will doubtless keep showing new ones, since they come across my feed on a weekly basis.

Today’s video is a fascinating one, because it illustrates quite clearly how these events happen. This involves an off duty cop so it is a perfect equivalent of a private citizen encounter. Unlike an uniformed officer whose occupation puts them into situations that a citizen should never have to copy, this video would just as likely happen to a regular person carrying a concealed handgun.

As you can see, while there is plenty of room to move, the idea of “breaking contact” or “keeping distance” even in an open space is extremely difficult because if you can move freely, so can the bad guy! And they have the initiative when they begin their aggressive drive so it is far easier for them to close on you than it is for you to keep away from them.

Also note that there are no preparatory motions or actions by the bad guy. As soon as he gets a favorable angle, he rockets into action. Too often we envision that we will have plenty of time to recognize what is happening when the reality is we are more likely to have no time to act preemptively.

The bad guy purposefully made contact because somehow he knew the good guy had a gun, whether there was a tell of some kind or he got lucky. The point is that he drove in to make the entanglement happen. It did not just occur.

The good guy made a number of mistakes in her countering skills. If she had ever worked this grappling skill set, it was not a whole lot of time based on her actions. She got lucky because the attacker was less skilled than she was. That is probably not a good plan for future situations.

One key teaching point (and super positive thing she managed to achieve) that I want to harp on, is an action she did. I can’t be sure if it was intentional or she got lucky and it happened, but she managed to square her hips. That is one of the two key things to do with your hips and it puts you in control of the dance, and this is obvious from seeing it here. She gained massively superior control and won the encounter because of that key movement. It allowed her better access to her gun, and it enabled her to restrict the bad guy’s access. If she had not been able to do this, the chance she would be able to get her gun out and on target would be incredibly remote.

This had a good outcome, but it was a close run thing. Learn from this. Be prepared and understand how to deal with it.

The Remainder of 2023 Schedule

May 3, 2023 Cecil Burch

I know I have been ridiculously slow getting this out to the public, but between family medical issues and getting my Academy up and running, I have not had much free time. In fact, I had to postpone a number of seminars because I was so swamped. I am finally getting things to where they should be, so I managed to get this all listed. Fortunately, I am not on the road again until late August, so there is plenty of time for everyone to see where they can attend. If anyone has any questions, please reach out to me at anytime. Hope to see you on the mats or the range!

August

18-20

IAC

Dearborn, MI

To register: hildegardtraining@gmail.com

September

1-3

NPE Counter Robbery

Escondido, CA

(can use the code “DEPOSIT” to put 50% down)

8-9

Entangled Handgun

Terre Haught, IN

Contact: TBA

22-24

Combatives Summit

Auburndale, FL

October

6-8

IAC

Lacey, WA

Contact: avalancheadventures@pm.me

13-15

NPE Counter Robbery

Grandview, TX

(use code “DEPOSIT” to put 50% down)

November

17-20

Revolver Round Up

Gunsite AZ

December

1-3

IAC

Yadkinville, NC

Use the code “DEPOSIT” to put 50% down

New Student Issues

May 3, 2023 Cecil Burch

One of the banes of an instructor’s existence is the less experienced or newer student who insists after being given a piece of advice or a correction, ” I’ve got it”, when the fact is they probably don’t. This goes for the martial art side as well as the shooting side. and in fact in any endeavor or when any instructor is teaching.

I have been teaching since 1987, and at this period in my life I’ve taught over 10,000 different students and I feel pretty safe in saying that the above statement by the new student is not a willful disregard of instruction, or intentional disrespect. I believe it boils down to two separate but occasionally intertwined issues. The first is they did not really process everything that you said, and the second is they don’t really know what their body is doing.

What I mean when I say they did not process or internalize what you said is that less experienced students tend to be outcome-centered and are focusing on the end state. For example, in a Jiu-Jitsu submission they are focusing on the final part of the move where they can get the tap, when in reality the important steps are all the waypoints before that. They don’t realize that (because so much of the information you are giving them is brand new and probably unlike anything they have done in the past) and they are focused on the last part where they can feel like they’ve accomplished something. You see that in shooting as well where during a drill they ignore clearing the Garment, obtaining the master grip, proper presentation, getting the sights up, and smooth trigger press and just think of firing enough rounds to finish the drill. The problem is both with the Jiu-Jitsu example and the shooting example is that the end state will most likely fail because of the mistakes on the path (outcome vs process).

I can illustrate this by looking at a classic Jiu Jitsu arm bar. Most people will focus on the final extension of stretching out the arm and getting the tap. Then they don’t understand why the tap isn’t happening. They were concentrating on the cool guy end state, and not each key step of the process until you get to the part where you can stretch the arm. In this case with an arm bar the typical mistakes are not squeezing the knees together, interlocking the feet, not bringing the heels in towards yourself, and/or not keeping weight on the opponent’s head. These are all occurring earlier in the move but are crucial for a successful execution. As somebody who’s been teaching this for 25 years I can tell you when and how the new person is going to mess up. It’s like the insurance commercial – I know a thing or two because I have seen a thing or two.

In my opinion the responsibility for this lies on the instructor. We have to ensure that the new student is focused on the process and we need to be careful and getting across the idea that each step is critical and to not rush through to the end. This is the only way the inexperienced or new student will internalize this concept, and be able to have long term success.

The other area where the student generally messes up is in not having well developed kinesthetic awareness and proprioception. Most people are not born with a great understanding of what their body is doing and where they are in space, especially in relation to other people. The great athletes like a Jordan or an Ali generally have this and that’s one of the reasons they are referred to as phenoms. While they may have other attributes, a truly great athlete most of the time has great kinesthetic awareness and purpose. When the instructor is teaching the student it is crucial that we point out the actual physical movements and get across the idea to the student what they should be feeling as it happens until they are able to viscerally feel it for themselves. This can be a long path for many. It was for me, and I spent many years at jiujitsu stumbling along and not really improving. Not due to my Professor, but to my own inability to understand the physical movement when it needs to occur.

This is where students need to be very careful. Don’t assume that because you’ve learned a technique once or even a few times that you understand it, that you grasp it fully, and that your body is performing the physical action required. The truth is you’ve probably missed a good chunk of those, if not all. That’s not a criticism or an insult. It is just a simple truth. Almost every great instructor was right there at the beginning making the same mistakes and having the same misunderstandings. When we try to tell the student that you are doing something wrong, don’t take it as an attack. We’re trying to help you correct it, and make you better.

Some people reading this probably are going to take this as an elitist talking down. It is absolutely not. It does not affect me negatively if you argue with me when I am teaching, or dismiss my instruction with the “I’ve got it”, or even “well, I learned it this way”. The only person that is hurt is the student. Moreover, in this world of social media, I am trying to save you from making a dogmatic comment online that you will look back later on and be embarrassed about. A few years ago, a person argued with me on Facebook that the Americana (a BJJ arm attack) is a move fit only for white belts. This person writing this was either a white or blue belt and when I pointed out that it is one of my best submissions, and I got it all the time, he wrote that “I must not roll with good people very often”……If he ever took the time to find out who he was arguing with, I am sure he is extremely embarrassed that he wrote that for posterity, and most likely prefers to forget it ever happened. I have had those kinds of interactions for 25 years. Don’t be that guy. It is safer to assume you are wrong than to argue with someone who has depth and breadth of experience and knowledge demonstrably superior to your own.

Hopefully both newer instructors and new students gain a bit of understanding from this so we both can move forward and all get better.

Immediate Action Combatives

NPE Counter Robbery course Ft. Worth Oct 13-15