THE FIGHTING FIREBIRD The authorized newsletter of Action Fighting Arts
- By - Harry Wigder, President, Action Fighting Arts

THE FIGHTING FIREBIRD

By

Harry A. Wigder, Director, AFA, PPCT IT

PPCT ADOPTS DYNAMIC TRAINING CHANGES

Director of Training
Seeks To Standardize, Upgrade
Programs.

Every two years since the mid-nineties, I have packed my shit (for those of you whom I have had the privilege to train, you know the joke. For those of you who don’t know, but would like to, just ask---) and dutifully trekked to St. Louis, Missouri, or, in one case, Snowtree, Colorado to be re-certified as an Instructor Trainer. Usually a stressful yet pleasant and mostly unremarkable experience. Last I went, I lamented that the conference gave me little to take back that would make me a better IT, that would make my training programs even more relevant.

This conference was different. Larry Frye, the new Director of Training, took the class of Instructor Trainers through a series of refresher workouts in all instructor programs (DT; SKD; GAGE; CQC; SHARP; VPM and DSM) revealing some refinements and additions to each program. A key objective is to get all Instructor Trainers and instructors training from the same page.

Some of the most important training system and refinements include:

• Forearm Stuns: Almost every time I do a Defensive Tactics Instructor course, I am asked why the forearm stun is not in the system. Truth is, I had always thought a good angled or straight forearm to the torso was a pretty good deterrent to a Bad Guy’s forward momentum. The forearm stuns will be taught in two forms: The forearm driven into the torso at a 45 degree angle and the stun delivered straight up into the center line of the torso.
• Accelerated Touch Pressure: I counted 7 instructor seminars this year so far when I was asked about Quick Penetration. QP used to be one of the three Methods of Application, and, if you ask me, one hell of an effective mental stun. QP is back, Frye told the conference, but it is referred to now as Accelerated Touch Pressure. ATP should be used against Active Aggression, or high level Defensive Resistance when lower forms of empty hand control (Pressure Points, Joint Locks, Distraction Techniques) fail to control the subject (or, for whatever reason, the officer reasonably believes lower forms will not be effective). For those who were not around for QP, Accelerated Touch Pressure consists of applying a Pressure Point (Touch Pressure) and creating a powerful mental stun by aggressively stabbing with the digital tip.
• Long Gun Retention and Long Gun Disarming: I am very excited about this addition to the DT (and, of course, Weapon Retention and Disarming) Instructor Program. LGR and D will be a component of all my future DT training courses. As usual, the retention and disarming techniques are simple and easy to retain and based on the age old equation of Stabilize (LG Retention) the Weapon; Pull To Center and Release (Lateral Forearm Release and Lateral Forearm Strike), and, of course, Distract (Front Kick), if the Release (technique) fails. The system for LG Disarming varies a bit from the conventional formula of Move the Target and Parry the Weapon; Secure the Weapon; Disarm and Stun (the officer steps in slightly and aggressively twists the trigger housing area so that the butt of the rifle is rotated out of its seating in the Bad Guy’s armpit), but only slightly. The Front Kick Distraction is a key element in a successful disarm, and, in both the retention and disarming technique the butt of the long rifle is driven hard into the Bad Guy in a devastating move designed to end the deadly force encounter swiftly and in the officer’s favor.
• Refinement of the Conventional Disarming Technique: Although there are more changes than these in the WR and D Training System, I will address two of the refinements in the Disarming Technique. I know I have been training officers to parry or tap the assailant’s gun hand in the initial move (Step and Parry). Instead, officers should be trained to Step with same side appendage, but, instead of hitting, or tapping, the gun hand, officers should be trained to step away from the gun and keep their hands up, allowing the support hand and firearm to make contact with the assailant’s gun and gun hand, and, then, to secure the gun with the support hand over the rear sight and strong hand under the trigger housing. Once that Catcher’s Mitt Grip has been established and the weapon is secured,
  the officer can slide his or her strong hand down toward the muzzle, under the barrel, and complete the Inside Strip. Frye also demonstrated a great refinement to the Rollover Strip. Up until a few weeks ago I was training officers to roll the front sight and the tang of the weapon over the web of the attacker’s hand, the muzzle ending up pointed up, at an angle, somewhere near the officer’s face. Although this was and still is an effective disarming technique, every officer to date who has been able to disarm is temporarily blinded and injured by the ensuing and inevitable blast as the gun is rolled over the Bad Guy’s trigger finger. When training the Rollover Strip, I have always admonished officers to turn their heads away from the muzzle of the gun. Mr. Frye demonstrated the new Rollover Technique, using the same analogy that I had always used of Breaking The Stick (the motion of pushing the muzzle over the top and driving the Bad Guy’s hand and gun butt simultaneously down and under is the same as one would use when trying to break a stick), but the key difference is that this time the “stick is broken” into the abdomen of the attacker. Using this technique with great speed and commitment, the officers hands end up pointing at the Bad Guy’s abdomen, the gun powder and blast is nicely absorbed by the Bad Guy’s shirt and there is no need for the officer to concern him or herself with turning the head away (which may prove problematic anyway under survival stress and the accompanying SNS). Frye also noted that the Inside Strip is the stronger of the two disarming techniques and that, whenever possible, the instructor (trainer) should encourage the officer to do whatever it takes to regain some space so he or she can perform the primary disarming technique in the system (Inside Strip).
• Shoulder Pin Restraint System: Once again, refinements. Instead of training officers to stun the attacker by driving the bony part of the hand and wrist under the R-Angle of the jaw (to begin the Shoulder Pin Neck Restraint), instructors should teach a Palm Heel Strike to soften up the assailant to begin the Pin. Makes sense since striking with the bony part of the hand violated our own Levels of Control, which suggests Hard Empty Hand Control, not Deadly Force, against Active Aggression. Not only that, the Palm Heel Strike is consistent for our need for universality of technique. Frye simplified the Shoulder Pin Restraint Takedown by advocating (and demonstrating) a simpler version. Officers now need only to step directly backward a half-step with the inside foot (the leg closest to the Bad Guy) and kneel straight down on the same inside knee. This is a simpler technique and should eliminate much confusion in training, and, more importantly reduce the incidents where “officers” get confused and fall on top of the “Bad Guy” during takedowns. The Recovery Drill (the technique used by the officer when he or she “loses” the assailant during the takedown, or when the Bad Guy doesn’t go out during the seated application of the restraint, or, in many cases, when the officer applies the Shoulder Pin when he or she is in the Top
  Mount position during ground fighting and “Drops, Locks and Rolls” off) has also been simplified. Instead of the system where the officer kicks his or her strong hip through the post and “tightens the tourniquet,” officers will be trained to establish the Pin and immediately pivot to a ground position where their (the officer’s) head is perpendicular to the Bad Guy’s. One final note regarding the PPCT Shoulder Pin Restraint and the Val Salva Maneuver (Physiological Factor), Frye pointed out a fact of which I was unaware: The Val Salva Maneuver does not become effective until the Bad Guy is dropped into a seated position, because of the additional stress and compression caused by the takedown and the Bad Guy fighting for air. As a matter of fact, Frye pointed out, the Shoulder Pin is more effective in a real “combat” situation on the streets because of the Bad Guy fighting and resisting, thereby creating more pressure on the respiratory system.
• Injury Report Form: Frye urged Instructor (Trainer)s to be clear and complete when filling out this form. Some requisites on the form include:
  • The injury must be PPCT training related.
  • What technique was being applied when the student was injured? What exactly happened? When did it happen? Where?
  • Did the student miss any days/hours of work?
  • Did the student pursue/receive medical attention? What did the Dr. say about the injury?
  • It is not an “injury,” if it occurred outside of the classroom unless the “injury” occurred during the class and/or the “injury” occurred outside of the classroom and was re-injured during the PPCT class.
• Impact Weapon and the Straight Arm Bar Takedown: More of a thoughtful suggestion rather than a refinement. An officer who has struck an assailant with the baton now needs to perform a SAB Takedown to ground the resistor and place him or her into handcuffs. Frye pointed out that using the edge of the baton , which requires re-gripping, is a complex motor skill. He advocates keeping the baton grip intact and performing a SAB Takedown using the wrist and forearm (Hick’s Law and Singularity of Technique).
• The Dynamic Simulations Instructor Program has temporarily been pulled from the system. It will eventually reemerge as an improved 5-day instructor course.
• Cross Body Escape/GAGE Weapon Retention: Perry Harris, a PPCT Instructor Trainer working out of the Johnston Community College in Smithfield, N.C., is mainly responsible for this simple but ingenious retention system when a Bad Guy is in a Cross-Body position, his or her hand on an officer’s gun. Harris suggests that the officer traps the Bad Guy’s hand on the gun using his or her dominant hand (Stabilize) while simultaneously planting the support foot (left foot for a right handed officer) as close to the officer’s buttocks as possible, bridging powerfully, hipping away and “shrimping up (hipping away is really sliding the hip toward a right handed person’s left-away from the Bad Guy- and Shrimping Up is more of an anology for making oneself smaller),” while always making sure that he/she (the officer) is rolling on the holster (Pull To Center). A key here is driving the support arm/hand into the elbow and creating a powerful and dynamic Straight Arm Bar technique simultaneous with the Hip Away, bridge and Shrimping, which will allow the officer to leverage up and out of the Cross Body attack with his or her gun still safe (Release). As always, officers should be directed to drive the Bad Guy off using the lower leg, not the top leg. Frye pointed out that using the top leg could give the Bad Guy a convenient handle with which to take control of the officer and turn him or her over.
  

  *As with all the technique changes and refinements described in this newsletter, I caution officers and instructors to consult with an Instructor Trainer and/or first try these changes during a training session with an IT present.

• TOP Mount Escape (DT/GAGE): To simplify this difficult escape, instructors should now train officers to escape from a Top Mount ground attack by blocking incoming punches using both hands in front of the face, palms turned in toward the officer’s face (harder for the Bad Guy’s punches to get through an officer’s forearms if the hands are turned inboard). At a moment advantageous to the officer (for instance: the assailant rearing back to punch may be particularly off balance at that moment), the officer should Hip Up (plant both feet close to your butt and simultaneously buck the hips up and back), causing the attacker to lurch forward (make certain to use both elbows to clamp above the knees so the BG cannot mount the chest area), his hands on each side of the officer’s shoulders to catch him or herself. The officer should quickly Trap the Bad Guy’s dominant arm with his or her support side arm (hook the elbow area from the outside-in or outside-in technique) and pull it in close to his or her chest while trapping the assailant’s same side foot. Without hesitation, the officer hips up (buck and roll) and rolls to his/her weak side, exploiting the training image of rolling his or her belt buckle hard into the ground. Once the officer has rolled the Bad Guy into this position, he or she can either escape by applying the Shoulder Pin, rolling off and going perpendicular. In the past, I have taught officers who found themselves top mounted by a Bad Guy to go into the Shoulder Pin using the Inside-Out arm technique, dropping the Bad Guy “into the slot,” locking him in and rolling him or her off and enhancing with the Recovery Drill. Officers can still do this, but the GAGE Top Mount Escape is encouraged and suggested in order to standardize training and because it is not possible for all officers to achieve an effective Pin from the down position. The following is a possible escape from a dangerous and likely scenario which may result from an escape from one of the Top Mount attacks. It is not trained as part of the PPCT GAGE System, but it is noted here as a reliable remedy for a nasty situation yours truly has found himself in:
  

  Passing The Guard: Often the officer will end up in the Bad Guy’s Guard Position after successfully performing a Top Mount Escape. If the Bad Guy is stunned, which is highly possible, or is not an accomplished ground fighter, escaping the guard position can be relatively easy. An Accelerated Forearm Stun, a series of Palm Heel Strikes to the torso, etc, can soften the Bad Guy up and the officer can either disengage or go to the Pin. However, what happens when the subject is a savvy ground fighter and vices the officer inside powerful legs and/or raises one leg straight up to prevent the officer from rolling off to enhance the Shoulder Pin?

  Officers can Open the Gates (legs) and Pass the Guard by grabbing the Bad Guy’s belt with his or her support hand and sitting straight back (sit up with your back straight), pulling the Bad Guy toward you. When he or she tries to sit up to fight, drive a palm heel strike into the solar plexus with the dominant hand. This will knock a little air out of the subject and lay him or her back down. Now, simply place the elbow, the hardest area of the body, into the subject’s Femoral Nerve Motor Point and lean into it. More likely than not, the Subject will moan in pain, and, if the “gates” are not totally open by now, drop the knee into the same Femoral NMP and lean in hard. I guarantee the Opening of the Gates will follow. From here, the officer can simply disengage, or, if the Bad Guy is still feisty and in the fight, finish him or her off with a good Shoulder Pin.
  There are other changes and refinements that I will go over with my future classes. There is not enough room in the limited venue of a newsletter to outline them all. I think the Bottom Line is that PPCT, and most specifically, Training Director Frye, has read your evaluations and made many of the changes you have been asking about for years. I believe there will be changes to the SHARP program which will reflect many of the suggestions many of you have made in the three programs I conducted in the last year or so.
  

Anyone interested in a further amplification of these and other changes are welcome to contact me at harrywigder@rcn.com or 484-542-0040 or you can contact Larry Frye at lfrye379@aol.com.

A Little Story To Illustrate the Importance of Knowing When To Move on
By Sgt. Thomas Gallagher,
Manchester Police Dept., Manchester, Connecticut

Funny Stuff happens in police work. In training and on the streets and sometimes both at the same time. This is one of those times a funny incident helped me make some serious and important points during and even after trainings. I had just finished teaching a basic DT class, and, as I always do, I encouraged the students to keep me posted if and when they used any of these techniques and had any success, or, for that matter, problems.

Well, it wasn’t long after that that Officer Ken Loui had a chance to use the knee strike to the Common Peroneal. Ken had mastered the technique in class, but this was the first time he had done it in the field. Ken struck the subject not once, not twice, but three times. And after each blast, Ken got the same response from the Bad Guy: Zilch, as in nothing. Although a little taken aback, he remembered his training and transitioned to another technique and eventually took the suspect to the ground and handcuffed him.

Officer Loui told me that for a few minutes he was a little discouraged and had started to lose confidence in the knee strike technique. That is, until he was about halfway through the body search and discovered that the guy had a prothesis from his hip to his foot. Imagine that: The first time you try a technique outside the training room and here you are driving perfectly good knee strikes into a prothesis; and the suspect is probably looking at you like, ah, what are you trying to do?

I use this incident in class to illustrate the importance of moving on to another control technique when something is not working.

THE PLATFORM
Training Tips, Observations and Drills
By Harry The Hammer Wigder
(Any officer and/or instructor who wishes to contribute one or more training tips, anecdotes, success (or even failure) stories or professional thoughts regarding use of force training is asked to submit them to harrywigder@rcn.com or the web site at www.ActionFightingArts.com. Also, anyone wishing a directory of my training tips, drills and exercises (I am putting together an E-Book) can contact me and request it)

TRAINING COMMAND PRESENCE

I believe that no matter how well an officer has mastered all the hard core skills and techniques (arrest techniques ;building entry; tactical handcuffing; defensive counterstrikes, et al.), without Command Presence (CP) his or her repertoire of skills is incomplete. Briefly put, CP is an officer’s ability or power to command respect by virtue of his or her ethical and tactical presence in any situation or scenario. How that officer carries him/herself; how he or she mirrors calm and how he or she communicates with others on the scene, all (among other elements) add up to CP. I like to point out (in trainings) that CP comprises 97 to 98% of all use of force interactions (Verbal Judo, Inc.) and is really the sum total of the first two levels of control on our Resistance Control (Use of Force) Continuum – Officer Presence and Verbal Direction. That’s right. Three per cent, maybe less, of all interactions require physical resolution. Let me take this thought, or axiom, to its natural conclusion, then: Training officers in the elements of CP would enhance officer safety, minimize the need for higher levels of control-specifically Defensive Counterstrikes, Intermediate Weapon and Deadly Force actions – and would concomitantly reduce officer and agency (vicarious) liability.

The primary goal of my Advanced De-Escalation Techniques training is Officer Safety. There are several nice sub-goals, such as reducing citizen complaints; increasing professional image; reducing personal/professional stress; improving relationships with fellow officers, family, friends and others and increased courtroom power, but the course was created and taught primarily because it can either delay aggression or eliminate it entirely. I believe that the ability to de-escalate is tied in closely with Command, or Professional Presence because, simply put, if an officer can learn to maintain calm when all others are going out of control, he or she has CP.

I call De-Escalation Techniques An Unnatural Act because in order for an officer to reverse the powerful gravity pull of chaos and calamity on a scene, the officer (officer can refer to any criminal justice, security, military, Health Care Professional, teacher or social worker) must first overcome his or her natural feelings (fear, hatred, prejudice, rage, embarrassment, a sense of entitlement or resentment of having his/her authority questioned) and implant what I call artificial feelings, or a Professional Face. The Professional Face is what the officer must show on the scene. And as I noted earlier, it is a skilled but Unnatural Act because the demands of safety and survival – for everyone on the scene – calls for the officer to be a skilled actor. The more disrespect he/she feels, the more respect he/she shows (displayed disrespect is an escalator/Displayed Respect is a sure fire reducer). The more fear she/he feels, the more he/she shows courage.

I think one of the many acronyms I use in Advanced De-Escalation – DEFUSE – can illuminate some of the keys to teaching your officers some of the key principles behind Command Presence:

D epersonalize and D epreciate the Verbal Icon.
E go Suspension.
F ind out the Facts.
U nderstand Feelings.
S uggest Solutions.
E nd on a Positive Note.

A key to Professional or Command Presence is the ability to disappear. Invoke a Professional instead of Personal Face. Personal face is your natural feelings and natural feelings almost always create chaos and conflict. Depersonalize. The officer is not paid to display personal rage and anger. He represents his agency, department, hospital or court. The only way he or she can truly exhibit CP is by truly representing the agency, their goals, etc., and the only way to do that is to depersonalize. A key trait of depersonalization is the ability to be able to depreciate the verbal icon, which means being able to deflect rather than absorb the inevitable verbal attack (The Art of Deflection is a key component of the De-Escalation course). A criminal justice worker who is able to achieve CP on a volatile scene understands that a verbal attack (“You Assh---!”) is nothing more than two nouns put together to illicit a prescribed response (the response “prescribed” by the Bad Guy is anything involving the officer misusing his or her words or actions in a public scenario. If the Bad Guy can achieve this, he or she owns the officer).

In order for an officer to achieve true depersonalization, he/she must vanish (his/her Personal Face must go), and in order to accomplish this, the officer must first suspend ego. According to the brilliant George Thompson, founder of Verbal Judo, “ego is the most dangerous word in the English language.” It is, in my opinion, ego that creates a sense of entitlement, the feeling of certainty that officers have the right to impose their will, and, concomitantly the certainty that the person with whom they are dealing somehow deserves no respect. Ego, when displayed, is usually an escalator. Ego is also a serious safety impediment. Ego is the mindset that influences an officer, when angered by the taunts of a suspect’s verbal attacks, to turn his/her attention inward so he/she can react with his or her own verbal retort (in order to take part in what Verbal Judo calls the F-You Shuffle) or physical reaction. Trouble is, a lot of times the officer is being controlled by the Bad Guy (I always raise the prickly question in a scenario like this of “Really, who is in control when you – the authority figure – one-ups the Bad Guy is a verbal scuffle? When it is started by the Bad Guy?”) who wants the officer to be distracted before he or she attacks. On the other hand, an officer who has suspended ego cannot be distracted or foot swept by such tactics. He or she is in the Here and Now, has on a Professional Face, and is totally CP.

The factor of Finding Out the Facts requires an officer to ask questions. Seems too simple to be noteworthy? Maybe. But FOF requires an officer to Ask Questions and asking questions can slow down aggression by flipping the ball onto the subject’s court. Make him think. Also, it is just good law enforcement tactics. Find out the facts and test your assumptions before rushing in and reacting to your emotions and adrenaline. “Questionless” assumptions are often based upon faulty information or even bias and can lead an officer into Big Trouble. Besides, the Reductive Question that always worked for me was asking, “Sir/Maam, would you mind if I ask a question? I found that it was a good lead-in question to the key inquiries a standard officer would ask, but it always had the effect of slowing down, even stunning the other person. Another cool Reductive Question that almost always worked was “Sir, is there anything I can say or do that can get you to go along with the program? I really hope there is.” See? Totally depersonalized, all ego has vanished. Just good Professional Face. And it works.

When I ask officers to understand feelings, I am not asking them to become social workers. It is simply this: Empathy might be the greatest reductive skill we have. Ask any hostage negotiator. The negotiator doesn’t have to personally believe or feel empathy. But he sure as hell better show empathy if he or she wishes to save lives, or in the cases of officers who talked EDP’s (Emotionally Disturbed Persons) to lay down their weapon and prone out to be handcuffed, it was more likely than not their ability to convince the EDP that they understood what it was they were experiencing but it was in his or her (the EDP) best interest to lay down their arms.

DO YOU HAVE A STORY, AN IDEA, A CONCEPT THAT CAN HELP OTHERS GO HOME EVERY DAY?

Action Fighting Arts and the Fighting Firebird invited you to contribute a story, article, feature or advertise your training in its monthly newsletter. The Firebird personally knows a lot of you out there who have innovative ideas and/or field experience when PPCT and/or other training programs have either worked or failed. Our readers (and I) can learn a great deal from those experiences. Plus, writing about your experiences and ideas can be fun and fulfilling, just as can seeing your thoughts in print can be.

Send those articles and features to harrywigder@rcn.com, or, Shana Lee Albert, my web master, at www.ActionFightingArts.com.

Thanks to Rachel Goldstein, the founder of Artists Helping Children, for her help on art work and other features.

Thank you for your interest in Action Fighting Arts Training Programs
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