This is the Anchor Drill, and although it is a high-speed drill, many things are happening inside it that occur simultaneously. If you cannot explain all that to someone, you should not be teaching it.

The drill in the video is a single-threat drill, but you can also adapt it to a maximum of three threats, with the drill modified accordingly so that you keep the “anchor” sustained. In the video, the anchor is the target.

• There is a reason WHY the forearm comes up to the threat’s neck or throat.
• There is a reason WHY the three initial movements are done simultaneously. If they are not, the drill fails.
• There is a reason WHY the shooting stance has to be different from your normal shooting stance.
• There is a reason WHY your stance is non-aggressive before you engage the threat.
• There is a reason WHY  you don’t take a sidestep.
• There is a reason WHY you lower your gravity base.
• There is a reason WHY your head is below your forearm.
• There is a reason WHY you use a chainsaw draw.
• There is a reason WHY the pistol points at a 45-degree angle.
• There is a reason WHY you shield the pistol so high on the side of the chest.
• There is a reason WHY the pistol does not present or protrude past the front of the body.
• There is a reason WHY the thumb knuckle of the firing hand is so important.
• There is a reason WHY you execute the drill from a concealed carry platform.
• There is a reason WHY the firing hand wrist does not “cock” and point straight at the threat immediately before firing.
• There is a reason WHY the drill is based on the “minimal movement” of the firer.
• There is a reason WHY the firing arm does not chicken wing.

If you do not know the WHY – you shouldn’t be teaching it.

Not only is this drill fast and aggressive, but there MUST be an understanding of WHEN you can use it, along with the impact and consequences of using it for the shooter.

Please check your instructor’s credentials and experience before allowing yourself to be taught this kind of training.

For Christmas, I’d really like it if people stopped teaching stuff from YouTube videos that does not work in real life.

Thank you, Santa!

Tactical Firearms Training

If you’re a “tactical” shooter and you train in a tactical way, then the drills you go through on the range need some realistic tactical context incorporated into them.

If you’re a “competition shooter,” then you don’t. Unfortunately, instructors regularly teach competition shooting techniques as tactically sound, which they are not.

I sometimes wonder if the reason for that is because too many firearms instructors are competition shooters. Maybe not enough firearms instructors are instructing from an experienced-based background, i.e., they don’t know how to add that tactical context because they’ve never experienced it in real life. They are not always teaching others to do the right thing in real life, which should worry everyone.

Adding tactical context to your firearms training changes everything about that training. You quickly realize there are things you cannot do and some that don’t work.

Moving backward or up range with a firearm pointing downrange is not an operationally sound drill in a million years. It is a safety drill designed for the range ONLY. It provides no operational training value because you would never do it in real life.

You can be super-fast on the draw and run up and down a range all damn day. Still, unless you’re adding the appropriate tactical context that compliments the specific purpose or situation that you’re training for (armed robbery, carjacking, close-range engagements, close protection contact drills), then your training will never be realistic for the purpose you’re training for in the first place.

Mag dump pouches and Oakley gloves, hanging from a belt kit, flapping around like two squirrels fighting in a hessian sack, does not a gunfighter make.

Tactics are subjective, and tactics depend upon blah de blah blah. I’ve heard it all, and I’m sure some of you guys have too.

Basic Defensive Tactic Fundamentals

But, as much as I agree with the statement that “Tactics depend upon blah de blah,” some basic fundamentals of tactics should never be screwed with in any way, shape, or form.

Get Away From the Line of Fire (move). Get off the X!

These are probably the two most disregarded or poorly applied aspects of tactical firearms training, and ironically, they are probably the two things that will help you survive a gunfight or armed criminal encounter.

And yet, within the firearms training industry, speed and accuracy seem to get everyone’s attention and get the most “likes” on TikTok. It’s that Tacticool mindset.

Speed And Accuracy Are Important, But

Before there is a collective explosion of heads, let me clarify: I agree that speed and accuracy are important. It’s just that I don’t think they are the two MOST important skills to have in a contact or gunfight.

Neither should cancel out the simple fact that getting out of the line of fire and taking cover behind something will ultimately save you quicker than standing still and giving your potential killer a higher percentage of success.

However, I acknowledge that standing your ground and engaging from where you already might be is the best choice in a confined space or zero-distance engagement. Particularly with multiple threats, because as you try to move or create distance, it might cause more problems than it solves.

Competition Shooting vs. Tactical Shooting

In addition, if you’re a competition shooter, where tactics play no part in the competition, then yeah, speed and accuracy are all that matter. Still, competition shooting styles, applied in a tactical environment where people shoot back, don’t work.

Applying tactics is HARD, but they’re supposed to be hard. They are hard for a reason.

The chances are that everyone who has gone through basic training in the military will have had tactics constantly drummed into them, particularly in using cover.

Using Cover Correctly Isn’t Easy – It’s a Ball-Breaker

From personal experience, using cover correctly is a ball-breaker. It is an ass-kicker. It is not a place to sit back and rest, nor is it a place from which to rest your weapon system. Using cover “correctly” (regardless of what kind of cover it is) requires constant movement from behind that cover; it’s the ball-breaker.

Bullets generally go in straight lines, yes? So why do so many people stand still? Why do so many people walk forward in a straight line? Or worse still, walk backward in a straight line? Either option keeps you in that line of fire.

Static Firearms Training

Personally, I do very little static training or static shooting because I don’t feel that it helps me achieve what I want, which is to stay alive.

Don’t get me wrong, I still group, and I still practice my draw, but I do it from a platform that more realistically reflects

• the situations I’ve been in and
• what I’m likely to be facing in the future.

Some people seem to have stuffed tactical firearms training in the closet under the stairs. I wonder if the reason is that it’s just easier to “train” without adherence to any tactical procedures to create a false positive of achievement.

Sound harsh? Yeah, I know it does, but when you apply realism to firearms training, the tactics required to survive whatever it is you’re training for start to become pretty clear.

Tactical Firearms Training Will Show Your Weaknesses

Injecting tactics into firearms training is a leveler. It humbles the person and acts as a magnifying glass into the soul of what you’re actually training for, and, more depressingly, it highlights the flaws in our firearms training, which results in the horrendous realization that we’re not as good as we thought we were.

When called upon to use that training, I cannot think of anything worse than finding out that we’re not as “trained” as we thought.

Applying a tactical framework to your training forces you out of your comfort zone. It forces you to confront that crappy realization that what and how you’re training might not work when faced with a real-life encounter.

Too many people claim to understand the importance of tactics without applying them.

Gunfights and armed criminal encounters are messy, and, at some point, your training has to reflect that messiness. Applying tactics that reflect WHAT you’re training for helps identify WHY you’re doing what you’re doing.

Response options have GOT to work for you. Applying tactics when you train will show if it does or doesn’t. Training with no adherence to tactics sets you up for failure, and we should never train to achieve failure.

Have you thought about how you train? Do you train with a purpose?

Do You Train for Concealed Carry?

Have you ever asked yourself WHY you’re training or WHAT you’re training for? Because until you do, your training won’t fulfill its purpose.

HOW and WHY you train has to reflect WHAT you’re training for. If it doesn’t, then your training is not functional.

Training Needs Analysis (TNA)

How many of you have heard of the term Training Needs Analysis (TNA)?

A TNA is a HONEST procedure that most training providers should go through before delivering training to any client. It doesn’t matter what the subject is. A TNA has to be conducted so that the trainer understands the client’s needs and requirements, what the client is capable of achieving, and, more importantly, what the client wants the training for, i.e., what is the aim of the training?

A TNA can be conducted in several ways. However, it will involve asking the client many HONEST questions to understand their training needs, allowing the trainer to develop a suitable training program. Pretty simple, right?

Conduct an Honest TNA on Yourself!

• What are your needs?
• What do you want to achieve?
• What is the purpose of the training you are currently doing?
• What are your current capabilities versus what you want them to be in six months?
• What is the aim of your training?

Generic Self-Defense Training

We see many people on instagoogletweetbook, who are undergoing self-defense training, which is excellent. However, their training doesn’t always look as if it correlates with WHAT they’re training for.

We still see twenty students on a static firing line, with two instructors, running a self-defense shooting class (a horrendous student-to-instructor ratio), where it is clear that no TNA has been conducted by either the trainers or the students themselves.

Whether you’re a new or seasoned concealed carrier, conduct a TNA of your own personal training.

Write Stuff Down on a Piece of Paper

All the stuff you believe will make you better trained, more responsible, and better prepared to deal with the situations you are concealed carrying for in the first place.

Hell, even if you don’t attend any of our courses, drop me an email or a message in the comments with WHAT you’re training for and WHY. We’ll put something together for you that addresses your requirements.

You have to train according to YOUR needs and requirements, not by copying or mirroring how others train because their needs might differ from your needs.

Your average “self-defense” course might cover carjackings, road rage incidents, or robberies. You need a TNA for you.

Some people call this “moving” backward, but moving can suggest turning and “extracting,” which is something else we teach in our “Street Extraction” course.

To create space? Yeah, ok, but you can do that by stepping left or right, right?

To create distance? Only if the threat is standing still, and we should all know by now that threats do NOT stand still, because if we’re saying that threats DO stand still (and not closing the distance on you), then why are we walking backward in the first place?

These are all questions I pose to students in most of our Street Scene System of Training (SSST) courses.

If something doesn’t make sense, why do it? If something isn’t giving you a tactical advantage, why do it?

4 categories of movement while shooting

Before I get into the weeds of this, I want to confirm the four ways that one-on-one engagements occur:

1. Static Defender vs. Static Threat
2. Static Defender vs. Moving Threat
3. Moving Defender vs. Static Threat
4. Moving Defender vs. Moving Threat

Out of those 4 categories, the vast majority of firearms users only train in Cat 1 and Cat 3 when they visit the range. My personal opinion on why that is because (a) it’s easy and (b) they wanna hit the threat (target).

However, in terms of street engagements, that’s not how these situations go down. The truth is that Cat 4 is the most likely and most probable situation that you will have to deal with when faced with an armed threat.

The “go-to” and trending drill seems to be walking backward while engaging a static threat, and I cannot, for the life of me, think why?

Let me paint a simple picture (helped by Figure 1 below):

In this case, the threat could be a threat standing in the street, or a seated threat, who has been pulled over in their vehicle by law enforcement.

The threat (either seated or standing) opens fire, and you, the Defender, return fire and start to walk “backward,” probably quite vigorously, yes?

The problem with walking backward while shooting

So, what are the problems with this?

1. You’re still in the damn kill zone.
2. You cannot see behind you as you walk backward in a street.

Don’t get me wrong, if you ever come under contact on a football field, the desert, or the moon, then yeah, you could probably walk backward for miles without tripping over anything or bumping into something or someone.

But you CAN’T do that in the street – you just can’t, so why are so many people still training this way? It has absolutely no tactical advantage for you, and it only serves the interests of the “static” threat.

Get Off The X

Would it not be better to step left or right to escape the kill zone (off the X)? Much in the same way, you should get AWAY from your vehicle if you’re getting brassed up, but “away” doesn’t mean backward, in a straight line, because you’re still in the kill zone. It means out to the left or right. (Every infantryman knows this).

For those who haven’t heard the term “brassed up” before, it simply means to be under direct and sustained fire, more regularly used when in a vehicle or behind a piece of cover – it’s like God’s way of telling you to move.

Why move laterally while shooting

The advantages of stepping left or right are:

1. You immediately get out of the Kill Zone. That’s gotta be a good thing, right?
2. You have still managed to create space but have created “tactical” rather than “distanced” space. We often refer to this as a reactionary gap.
3. Being closer to a “static” threat isn’t necessarily a bad thing if we consider that the further back you walk, the greater distance you will be firing at. For example, you might miss and hit someone other than the threat.
4. You won’t trip over something, fall over, or bump into something/someone because you’re not blindly walking backward; instead, you are moving left or right.

Walking backward while engaging a static threat is an easy drill to set up on a range. Still, it doesn’t reflect the reality of how these things happen in the street; therefore, it is not a functional drill. It serves no tactical purpose because walking backward while engaging a static threat will probably cause you more problems than it will solve.

If you don’t believe me, try blindly walking backward from your fridge in your own kitchen and see what you trip over first: kid, dog, bag, mop bucket, grandma…

Now imagine doing the same on a busy street…doesn’t make sense now, does it?

By Neilly Davis

Neilly is the Training Director at Go Noisy USA LLC. Based in Florida.