https://independencetraining.square.site/product/schoolhouse-focus-courses/92?cs=true&cst=custom&fbclid=IwAR0MtALw2G6J-NcemHNif5Jj_XjEYlHZVK5Tmg2s0jL5vzmYqrFbkjuWFmI

Due to overwhelming demand, I, along with Glen Stilson of Independence Training will be teaching a 3 hour workshop on carry, deployment, and use of a defensive knife. We will look at optimal carry methods, as well as either using MUC skills to ensure you have time and distance to draw the knife, or you have the grappling skill to do so in close (both of those are sadly overlooked by most knife instructors and users and are the most important part in actuality), and using the knife for the most reliable and replicable results while still following the legalities of self defense. We will have samples of different knives and carry methods for students to handle, as well as training blades to loan for class. If you have your own training knives, feel free to bring them. While only 3 hours long, we will be hitting some high efficacy skills, and we will give you tips on sustainment for your own continued education and performance. Cost is only $95.

It seems like that whenever I get a request to do an interview on a podcast, I get multiple ones in a short amount of time, and then go a month or two with zero. It is odd.

In that vein, I recently did a string of different shows and they all were fun. The hosts had good questions and we got into really good conversations. Here are links to them:

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/thedistinguishedsavage/id/18791327

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ldm9zZWMubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M/episode/ZjhkY2M2MzYtNzhhNi00YTQwLTg0OTQtY2M0MjM2ODYyZmY1?hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwjU5tnFk67wAhUUFTQIHdfDDO8QjrkEegQIBRAF&ep=6

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-35-martial-arts-for-armed-citizen-cecil-burch/id1532606787?i=1000519302390

What would be exceptionally helpful to the world at large would be that before someone posted something mean, or toxic, or angry, or insulting, or self-importantly lecturing online, they would stop and realize that their micro does not always match the macro.

What I mean is that just because something situation or context fits you; it does not mean it applies to everyone.

Case in point is what occurred a few years ago on a great discussion forum, a gentleman made the statement that if you don’t carry at least a Glock 19 for your EDC, you are stupid or lazy. Now this person was a cop, who was physically on the large side of average. In his world, his statement made perfect sense. He had zero issues if he was caught carrying off-duty, even in an NPE for the most part, because his status as LE would generally cover him. Moreover, he had no problem running a Glock 19 since it “fit” him. What I gently tried to point out to him was that a) not everyone could use LE status to deal with the fallout of getting caught carrying and b) that not everyone was built like him. I told him about a specific person who could run a G19, but it was on the ragged edge of practicality due to the fact that while she was average size, she had short fingers. So doing any manipulation with the Glock was very tough, and doing it under stress put her under a high risk of failure. For her, a better answer, both for concealment and for successful shooting was a gen1 Walther PPS with the mag release mounted along the trigger guard. Her need for that did not change his ability to utilize a different gun and a different carry method, but you would have thought I said that communism was good in his reaction. He insulted this person, as well as me, and refused to consider that his situation was even slightly different.

Another example was a last year I made a post where I stated that for part of my life, ankle carry of a snub was super smart and appropriate. Again, you would have thought I said that guns should be banned based on the level of butthurt. Not once did I say my need was anything more than my personal context and I never advocated ankle carry for anyone else, but people lost their fricking mind. I had people going to the range to film video to “prove” that their method of carry was better than mine even though I never said it wasn’t! I also had people writing to me to tell me that my situation was not what I thought it was even though they knew nothing about my environment. I even had someone tell me that I shouldn’t worry about ankle carry at the office since I work from home. The problem with that statement is that I DON’T WORK FROM HOME! Never have. I work in a regular office outside my home that has visitors and vendors coming by. But someone assumed that they knew my exact life.

Currently, it is popular to either signal that you are for or against getting Covid vaccinations, with sometimes people being virulently angry in their preferred narrative. It is absolutely cool for you to believe a certain thing, but that does not meant everyone should share your thought process. Again, another case in point is that last year when my mother was fighting for her life for four months with surgery after surgery, and stays in multiple hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, I chose to pause doing jiu-jitsu. I decided to err on the side of caution and not possible introduce another disease vector in her already fragile state. If the vaccine was available last year at this time, I damn well would have gotten one, not because I am worried about me, but because I would have wanted to do everything to protect her, even against something that may not have hurt her.

Do I think that people should get vaccines now? It is irrelevant what I think. It is my personal opinion. If you want to get one, cool! If you think they are dangerous “gene therapy” and refuse, cool! But either way, your decisions/actions/belief may not fit anyone else’s. so don’t think yourself superior. Walk a mile in their moccasins, or at the very least try to understand how to walk in their moccasins before condemning anyone else.

I’m excited to announce my first webinar, March 21, covering halfguard in self-defense.

I am confident that it will accomplish a multiple number of things in one compact and easy to watch package :

1) for those who don’t know anything about grappling, it will be an easy to grasp set of techniques and concepts to give the new person a bit of a bigger picture on how taking the fight to the bad guy on the ground can look

2) for those who have some BJJ, it will be a focused look at an excellent game plan for attacking and being aggressive from guard that is less attribute dependent than some other guards

3) for those who are not familiar with using a weapon in an entangled fight, this is about as good a place to start to learn as anything out there

4) for those who have some idea of fighting in a weapon based environment, it gives a good solid look at one of the most useful set of moves that there is

All of that is a tall order for a single two hour webinar, but I know I am not promising something that I cannot deliver.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/webinar-grappling-in-a-weapons-based-environment-halfguard-tickets-136853284859

I tend to be a “go against the flow” kind of guy in the self-defense training community.

Not because I am being contrary for contrary sake, but because I straddle multiple arenas in said community. Certainly I am a martial artist/combatives/hand-to-hand focused person, but I am just as much a firearms centered person. Throw in a nerdy need to know all there is to know about the human condition so I spend much research time looking at history, sociology, human performance, stress, vitality and fitness, and throw in my degree in psychology, at times I come at problems or scenarios from different angles than tend to be the norm when commentators have a more narrow prism to view things.

Case in point is the accompanying video. It has been making the rounds in the training community and most of the comments about it typically begin and end at “well, he should not be carrying a snub revolver against multiple opponents” with the blatant implication that if he had a full size pistol the end would have gone differently. That is not my take away. If you have not seen the video in question first, watch it here and then think about it for a moment before reading further.

 I am sure after seeing that then you understand why so many people keep their commentary centered on the idea that the good guy was outgunned because he ran a 5 or 6 shot revolver against three attackers. It is an easy conclusion to draw. After all, he was killed and all three of his attackers were armed with semi-autos. And this leads to the easy answer of “he should have had more gun”.

Except that misses everything that actually happened. Re-watch it and take note at the: 18 second mark where everyone is. The bad guys spread out and try to flank the good guy, but he brilliantly uses the nearest car as a form of cover. He has some protection from the two guys to the outside left, and has his gun out and firing at the closest bad guy on the right. Then watch what happens in the two following seconds – as he opens fire from cover ALL THREE BAD GUYS RUN AWAY! It is hard to see if the robber he is aiming at took any hits, but it is a secondary matter because all three broke off their assault and tried to escape. At that point, the good guy is fine, and the bad guys are leaving. It does not matter how many rounds the good guy has left in his gun, because at that point he is safe. Unfortunately, after doing literally everything correct and at an exceptionally high level (he sees the attack coming way ahead of time, instantaneously reacts, moves to a superior position, gets his gun out and makes the mental switch to “I am in a fight for my life and I will not fail” – all brilliantly executed), he makes a grievous error. As the bad guys flee, he leaves his superior position with some protection against incoming fire and presses the counter assault. At that moment, all three bad guys slow their attempt to leave and return fire. Now, in the open and without cover against multiple opponents who think their only hope is to fight back, the limitation of the snub become apparent.

From everything in the video and from what the reports after state, the good guy took the first hits when he was out away from the car in the middle of the sidewalk after the :20 second mark.  But at that point if he had stayed behind cover and let the bad guys leave, he would not have suffered that. Moreover, and probably more important to the overall discussion is that it is pretty much irrelevant then what gun he was firing. Standing in the open against three different attackers, he could have had a Glock 17 with a 33 round magazine and the outcome would have most likely been the same. His gear did not let him down, his final tactic did.

This is no way diminishes what this brave man did, nor does it diminish the tactically superior actions he took early in the fight. But we need to learn from mistakes as well as copy successes.

Nor should anyone take this as “Cecil says all you need is a snub against multiple opponents”. That is not what I said at any point. I think assuming that any and all bad guys you face in the future will always run away at the first sign of resistance is foolish, and can lead to other catastrophic results, so just because these attackers broke off does not mean any other future attacker will follow suit. But, it also does not mean all multiple opponents will stand and fight like they are the Mongol Horde either.

So please, let’s stop looking mindlessly through our own personal prism with our own confirmation bias’ and start talking about nuance and context to determine best practices rather than lazily falling into a type of solipsism based on what we want to believe, rather than what actually exists and happens.

One of the biggest misconceptions with defensive handgun use is what is appropriate extension and compression of the gun in relation to the attacker. Unfortunately, in 99% of square range live fire work we are taught to automatically extend the gun and our arms to their maximum all the time without any thought to what the bad guy is doing and how close he may be. That is a good way to get your gun fouled up in a fight, and we see this not just in Force-on-Force training, but in the real world as well. There was a case just a couple of weeks ago where a private citizen confronted a burglar and had his gun taken away because he did not understand this critical issue. In this picture from a recent Close Contact Handgun class, you can see the student fairly close to the outstretched arm of the bad guy so she has the gun compressed and can put rounds on target and keep control of her weapon. This is something that cannot be done without proper instruction and a decent amount of training