Never A Victim
Marksman
The Complete Combatant-January 23-24, 2016-Marietta, Georgia
This is a course review for The Complete Combatant taught in Marietta, Georgia on January 23-24, 2016. This was a 1.5 day course taught at Fusion MMA. The primary instructor was Brian Hill with assistant instructor Sean Brogan. Damon Lusky of Alfa-Knife was not only a student in this course but also gave a knife demonstration on Sunday. Gear used for this course was Glock 19 in an NSR LLC-4 IWB holster, Glock 26 in a Galco ankle glove holster, Kershaw folding knife, Surefire E2D Defender flashlight, and SOE EDC belt.
I first heard of this course through Reid Henrichs of Valor Ridge and have been following The Complete Combatant ever since on social media. At the beginning of January 2016, I received a message from Shelley Hill on Facebook telling me there were open spots in this course. I did a minimal amount of research about this course, only knowing that it was ground fighting related. That’s it.
I knew nothing about fighting on the ground. I have never taken any substantial amount of martial arts training aside from my firearms training. I always knew this was a weak link for me and something that I had to change. This year I have devoted myself to stepping outside of my comfort zone when it comes to training that is related to shooting. I walked into this course hoping to have my ego crushed and my expectations destroyed. And that’s exactly what happened.
I arrived to Fusion MMA on Saturday in the late afternoon. Saturday evening consisted of practicing the draw stroke and shooting from unorthodox ground positions. As it became darker we transitioned into low light shooting. Starting off doing the same draw stroke drills we did in the light, except we incorporated drawing our flashlights as well as our pistols. The low light portion of this course was nothing short of amazing. Brian put on a good demonstration of how just visually observing a person is nothing in comparison to being able to identify that person. During this portion of the course I learned that my flashlight is not powerful enough to identify someone. At 15 yards I could see Brian holding his hands up, but I couldn’t see the pistol in his right hand. Getting a more powerful EDC flashlight is in order after this demonstration. I also learned that a flashlight can be used as a distraction for a punch or kick, an idea I had never considered before.
Day two was really the “meat and potatoes” of what I hoped to learn from this course. We started the day with a knife demonstration from Damon. Damon had wrapped a wooden dowel rod in pork and Saran wrap which simulates the same toughness of human skin. We then took turns slicing the pork with our knives. The Kershaw folding knife I was carrying did a decent job at cutting through the plastic wrap and getting deep into the pork. However, when Damon put just one layer of denim over the pork, this task became much more difficult. After this, we went right into ground fighting which made up most of the second day.
The biggest lesson taught about fighting on the ground was quite simple: GET UP! We didn’t learn any fancy techniques on how to pull guard or put our attacker in an arm bar. The lesson was quite simple; use your feet to put distance between you and the bad guy, then get to your feet. If you were able (and legally justified) in drawing your pistol from the ground, that was an appropriate response as well. Another big reality check I found out pretty quickly was that even if I was justified and willing to draw my pistol, most of the time I wasn’t physically able to do so. I learned that appendix carry has many advantages when it comes to fighting on the ground and I also learned that never once was I able to draw my back up gun (carried on the inside of my left ankle) when I was fighting on the ground. Sunday also covered weapon disarms, individual scenarios, grappling with a knife, and trying to disarm each other while blindfolded on the ground. All of these opened my eyes to how fluid a ground fight is, and how important it is to be well rounded and not rely only on the firearm you carry.
I would also like to address gear in this review at a higher level than I normally do. I will be the first to admit that nothing turns me off more than a training course that promotes specific gear or puts heavy emphasis on the newest cool piece of kit. That being said, I saw a lot of gear failures on Sunday. Before we hit the ground, Brian cautioned everyone to not take a gear failure personally, but rather look at it as a learning experience. I think this was great advice due to how much of their ego people invest in their gear, myself included. The very first drill on the ground we had our first holster causality-an Alien Gear IWB holster. The Alien Gear holster snapped off two of the rivets that held the kydex to the ever so comfortable backing. Someone else had an IWB holster with clips to secure the holster to your belt and these clips came unattached from the belt and the holster started working its way off of the student. I saw a 1911 style pistol fall out due to poor holster retention. I was on the ground with another student working on a drill, when his plastic clip holding his IWB holster to this belt snapped off. Snapped the **** off. These types of failures are unacceptable and were a learning experience for not only myself but the other students. I had no gear failures and for this was very thankful.
This course is worth your time. But not only your time, but this course is worth your money. As I was driving to Marietta, GA in a late 90’s Toyota Camry I hit a pretty severe snow storm. A few hours later I got a call from Shelley asking if I was ok and if they could do anything to help. Brian and his wife Shelley are good people who teach these classes not to get rich but to give their students lifesaving skills to win the fight. Take this course.
The Complete Combatant ? Description & Schedule - Fusion Fitness & Mixed Martial Arts
This is a course review for The Complete Combatant taught in Marietta, Georgia on January 23-24, 2016. This was a 1.5 day course taught at Fusion MMA. The primary instructor was Brian Hill with assistant instructor Sean Brogan. Damon Lusky of Alfa-Knife was not only a student in this course but also gave a knife demonstration on Sunday. Gear used for this course was Glock 19 in an NSR LLC-4 IWB holster, Glock 26 in a Galco ankle glove holster, Kershaw folding knife, Surefire E2D Defender flashlight, and SOE EDC belt.
I first heard of this course through Reid Henrichs of Valor Ridge and have been following The Complete Combatant ever since on social media. At the beginning of January 2016, I received a message from Shelley Hill on Facebook telling me there were open spots in this course. I did a minimal amount of research about this course, only knowing that it was ground fighting related. That’s it.
I knew nothing about fighting on the ground. I have never taken any substantial amount of martial arts training aside from my firearms training. I always knew this was a weak link for me and something that I had to change. This year I have devoted myself to stepping outside of my comfort zone when it comes to training that is related to shooting. I walked into this course hoping to have my ego crushed and my expectations destroyed. And that’s exactly what happened.
I arrived to Fusion MMA on Saturday in the late afternoon. Saturday evening consisted of practicing the draw stroke and shooting from unorthodox ground positions. As it became darker we transitioned into low light shooting. Starting off doing the same draw stroke drills we did in the light, except we incorporated drawing our flashlights as well as our pistols. The low light portion of this course was nothing short of amazing. Brian put on a good demonstration of how just visually observing a person is nothing in comparison to being able to identify that person. During this portion of the course I learned that my flashlight is not powerful enough to identify someone. At 15 yards I could see Brian holding his hands up, but I couldn’t see the pistol in his right hand. Getting a more powerful EDC flashlight is in order after this demonstration. I also learned that a flashlight can be used as a distraction for a punch or kick, an idea I had never considered before.
Day two was really the “meat and potatoes” of what I hoped to learn from this course. We started the day with a knife demonstration from Damon. Damon had wrapped a wooden dowel rod in pork and Saran wrap which simulates the same toughness of human skin. We then took turns slicing the pork with our knives. The Kershaw folding knife I was carrying did a decent job at cutting through the plastic wrap and getting deep into the pork. However, when Damon put just one layer of denim over the pork, this task became much more difficult. After this, we went right into ground fighting which made up most of the second day.
The biggest lesson taught about fighting on the ground was quite simple: GET UP! We didn’t learn any fancy techniques on how to pull guard or put our attacker in an arm bar. The lesson was quite simple; use your feet to put distance between you and the bad guy, then get to your feet. If you were able (and legally justified) in drawing your pistol from the ground, that was an appropriate response as well. Another big reality check I found out pretty quickly was that even if I was justified and willing to draw my pistol, most of the time I wasn’t physically able to do so. I learned that appendix carry has many advantages when it comes to fighting on the ground and I also learned that never once was I able to draw my back up gun (carried on the inside of my left ankle) when I was fighting on the ground. Sunday also covered weapon disarms, individual scenarios, grappling with a knife, and trying to disarm each other while blindfolded on the ground. All of these opened my eyes to how fluid a ground fight is, and how important it is to be well rounded and not rely only on the firearm you carry.
I would also like to address gear in this review at a higher level than I normally do. I will be the first to admit that nothing turns me off more than a training course that promotes specific gear or puts heavy emphasis on the newest cool piece of kit. That being said, I saw a lot of gear failures on Sunday. Before we hit the ground, Brian cautioned everyone to not take a gear failure personally, but rather look at it as a learning experience. I think this was great advice due to how much of their ego people invest in their gear, myself included. The very first drill on the ground we had our first holster causality-an Alien Gear IWB holster. The Alien Gear holster snapped off two of the rivets that held the kydex to the ever so comfortable backing. Someone else had an IWB holster with clips to secure the holster to your belt and these clips came unattached from the belt and the holster started working its way off of the student. I saw a 1911 style pistol fall out due to poor holster retention. I was on the ground with another student working on a drill, when his plastic clip holding his IWB holster to this belt snapped off. Snapped the **** off. These types of failures are unacceptable and were a learning experience for not only myself but the other students. I had no gear failures and for this was very thankful.
This course is worth your time. But not only your time, but this course is worth your money. As I was driving to Marietta, GA in a late 90’s Toyota Camry I hit a pretty severe snow storm. A few hours later I got a call from Shelley asking if I was ok and if they could do anything to help. Brian and his wife Shelley are good people who teach these classes not to get rich but to give their students lifesaving skills to win the fight. Take this course.
The Complete Combatant ? Description & Schedule - Fusion Fitness & Mixed Martial Arts
