Getting a Bigger Turn


If you can develop a universal response to any unexpected stimulus, like an aggressive movement from the enemy, you will usually get to at least balance the scales in regard to reaction time. All it really takes to do this is to move in the most efficient manner possible and get your hands up on your centerline. If you move your body you make the opponent react to you. Of that there can be little argument. The most efficient, non-telegraphic way to do this is to move laterally to how your feet are placed right now. Any other movement requires that you start moving your center of balance first, and possibly even reposition your feet. Lateral movement in relation to your feet doesn?t require this telegraphic and slower movement. To move this way, think of the fencer?s lunge. What they do is raise their lead foot off the ground (sometimes several inches), and push with the rear leg. This gives them very fast forward movement without first committing the body, and very flat movement forward without hopping up. You see good boxers throw long range jabs in the same manner. The whole key here is that it doesn't need initial body commitment before the movement has started, and requires no pre-setting if you have a balanced stance.

Since we don't know what direction an attack might come from, like a fencer or a boxer does, we probably won't move into the threat because we won't be positioned that way. Besides, we don't want to have to preset ourselves to move "exactly this way" in reaction to a stimulus, because this takes too long, and we may not have the luxury of that amount of time. Obviously, given the chance to position ourselves, we want our dominant, or gun side, back and away from the potential threat. Coincidentally, this positioning best allows us to use the lunge to close the gap and control an aggressor's weapon. Moving forward at conversation distance tends to be very disconcerting to whomever it happens. The expected, and instinctive, movement should be to freeze or step away. This is what the untrained will usually do. Movement to close the gap is the only way we have found to possibly avoid being shot inside 2 yards (conversation distance) if you must react to another. Even it I'm not close enough to trap/control a weapon, the same movement will get me better inside the arc of the attackers weapons danger zone. It just makes it harder for him to physically track and re-position the muzzle of his gun on me.

By automatically bringing my hands to my Centerline, I get them in a position to: talk to people in a non-threatening way, create a psychological barrier, use hand-to-hand stuff, or initiate the draw. This works best if I carry open front/strong side (vest or shirt concealing the gun on my dominant side hip), because it gives me a universal default position to start from no matter how I eventually decide to respond.

If one combines these two movements immediately as a response to any possibly threatening stimulus, you have a default position that allows you to immediately respond in a non-threatening way that puts you in a good defensive position, and allows you to branch out in appropriate responses from there. This is the most fundamental initial way to get a bigger turn.
Everyone is governed by the OODA loop, both you and your opponent. This is a fact we cannot ignore. But, if you can remove one complete section of this reactionary loop that you are forced to participate in, you make the opponent take a turn in it that you don't have to. This is particularly important in the beginning when you are probably forced to react to him (we don't usually get to proactively shoot first). By not having to participate in the "decide" section you remove the biggest time frame section of this loop. This is how we can negate the 'oh shit' factor in the very beginning of an encounter.

Dave Vaughan