You're the first responder in your fight
For almost three decades, I’ve been teaching ‘weapon protection’ courses. My thought was always that the most dangerous scenario would be when the bad-guy had the weapon. We focused on bat, knife and gun.
Before 9-11, the military discovered my system and I developed several specialty courses for some elite units that included strategies, tactics, skills & drills on how to attack an armed gunman **when you aren't armed**. The drills emerged from a ‘gunfighting course’ and “no room to shoot/no time to shoot” course I originally developed for a group at Ft Bragg pre 9-11 (this picture is actually from one of the classes.) Fast forward.
After the Paris Attack and then the San Bernadino attack, The Blaze released a video on an active shooter response course featuring a #crossfit coach named Aaron Jannetti ( @ajannetti ) A bunch of ex-cops/ex-mil mocked it online because Aaron wasn’t an ex-operator (that's another rant I’ll save for another blog). Truth is, I loved Aaron’s demo. It was effective because it was designed by an athlete and coach and intended for Good Samaritans caught in one of the scariest scenarios one could imagine. The concepts were simple, smart and resonated with my approach. (Of course that he used High Gear, the equipment I designed, made me like him even more.) I called up Aaron right way and congratulated him. Thus began a friendship united by doing what we could to help make good people safer.
A little over month ago I asked Aaron if he’d be interested in presenting at my annual camp. We were working out logistics when the Orlando attack happened. Horrible timing, but after listening to Obama's speech again and learning more of the details, I decided, ‘fuck this shit’ we need people to realize "they are the first responders in their fight!". I finally decided to get involved with the ASR scenario training effort and share our insights. I’m kicking this off by inviting Aaron Jannetti to be a special guest at our camp and he’s going to present one of his Active Shooter Response courses for all the attendees.
I hope you can join us.
Yours in Safety,
Coach B