Movement Exercises for Carbine Fighting

The concept of training for fighting with a carbine is an interesting one. For most, its simply shooting, on a flat range somewhere, stationary, and being satisfied with hitting the target. Everyone has to start somewhere, and those foundational skills are critical. For the more advanced, this may include drills that transition between targets, forcing the shooter to think beyond the tunnel vision that the inexperienced get in that first gunfight.
And they do.
But there’s one other reality that is frequently lost in training: the realities of movement.
We do not stand still in a fight. Just like in combat sports such as boxing, wrestling, and MMA, which ensures you’re going to get your ass kicked if you don’t move, fighting with a weapon is exactly the same. This is a concept I first heard described by Kelly McCann many, many years back with his Kembatives program and he’s every bit as correct then as it is today. As I cover in the fighting carbine course, the first step is to recognize that shooting and fighting are not mutually exclusive concepts as they’re quite often considered. They are one in the same. We live, work and fight in a 360 degree sphere, not a linear world. And your training needs to reflect this reality.
Recognizing this, we train our bodies to move in two distinct ways- horizontal and vertical displacement.
Horizontal displacement is movements we make to get us to cover, transitioning from your opponent’s axis of attack to either side. This throws him off- he has to immediately lead the target (you) in one direction or another. But either way that you move, the goal is to maintain your sights on him.
Training for horizontal displacement begins with the hip flexors and knees. The shooter must be able to step off dynamically, similar to how a boxer or a football lineman trains to push in one direction or another. Specifically, the foot movement drills found in Pekiti Tirsia Kali, listed above. One thing I do is use these foot drills, slowly and working up the speed, as a warmup before doing any work on the range.
Vertical displacement is going to the ground- either taking a knee, into the proper prone position, squatting or laying on one’s side in an effort to shoot underneath obstacles in our environment, such as cars. At worst, we end up on our backs, usually after getting knocked there by something unpleasant, ie Kyle Rittenhouse-style. Vertical displacement gives our adversaries a smaller target to hit. This, coupled with training to not just stay in the fight but get back to our feet and move, is what wins that fight.
Training for vertical displacement takes quite a bit more work. The primary focus here is the core, lower back and legs. Leg strength, and specifically built through isometric exercises, is absolutely critical. It is the same muscle groups we use to generate power when training wrestlers to shoot on an opponent or execute a standing switch, except relying on them to get us back up from the ground and into the fight. One very simple and safe exercise that goes a long way to building this muscle group is the kettlebell clean and press. Kettlebells in general are great exercise tools for building multiple movement strengths, and the great thing is that the functional strength that’s gained is not normally as injury-prone as freeweight isolation exercises can be. Hindu squats are great as well, and if you want a real challenge, work your way to Turkish Getups with a lightweight kettlebell or dumbell.
The most important thing to understand is that the critical component of weaponcraft has nothing to do with the weapon itself- it comes from the proficiency of the weaponeer and his ability to fight. Before buying a bunch of gear, or even if you’re re-evaluating your own EDC or combat setup, as we all do with every training evolution, sit back and evaluate the underlying capability of movement first. Simply hitting a target is fine, all things considered, but marksmanship is one piece of the equation. Fighting with a weapon is a physical task and your training should reflect this reality.
-NCS
 
 
 

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About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

18 Comments

  1. VAdeputy February 2, 2021 at 08:15

    Can’t wait to take one of your fighting rifle courses in the late spring/summer time frame ! Most of what I have done has been on static range, with the notable exception of my agency’s Patrol Rifle course.

    • Johnny Paratrooper February 2, 2021 at 09:32

      Practice dry now. Otherwise you are just gonna be firing wildly and exposing your weakness that could have been corrected months, or even years, ago. In the last carbine course I realized my biggest weakness was my sleep system, reloads, and my ground game.
      Funny lessons for an AK course. But that’s what happened. I don’t even own an AK; Which is why I took the course.

    • NC Scout February 2, 2021 at 18:07

      You’re gonna love it brother.

  2. Wyogrunt February 2, 2021 at 08:16

    Great article. Too many folks live on the square range and never learn how to work a piece of cover. Gun fights are a thinking mans game so being able to see your environment and identify cover, threat areas and escape routes takes practice. Love the old rice paddy prone quick to get in and out of behind cover. Course was a lot younger then. Shoot move communicate

  3. Anonymous February 2, 2021 at 08:46

    5

  4. Matt Bracken February 2, 2021 at 10:19

    Great article. Something any number of friends can do to simulate these drills might be something like “dodgeball” where the participants try to hit each other with balls, sticks or pebbles. Airsoft of course will work where the gear is available, but even just tossing sticks at each other can help to hard-wire movement and “getting off the X” to avoid being hit while still being coordinated enough to hit your opponent.
    You just can’t learn this on a square range, where all the focus is on putting nice groups on paper.
    “Carbine classes” and other live-fire-and-maneuver opportunities are few and far between for most of us. But the gist of these drills is sideways moving and dodging, while keeping your eyes on your adversary, and being able to hit him…..while not tripping on your own feet or ground obstacles. Backyard “stick drills” might help. Just wear eye pro and you are good to go.

    • Johnny Paratrooper February 2, 2021 at 13:40

      Recurve Bows build strength and coordination.
      They are also completely silent, absolutely deadly, and indispensable skills.
      Bows make sense around horses, and animals like working dogs, that aren’t trained for firearms.
      Shadow Drills, like shadow boxing, with cleared weapons are also useful. But that’s up to the individuals of the group.

    • NC Scout February 2, 2021 at 18:02

      The stick drills are very common in Pikiti Tirsia Kali. I first learned about the movement drills LOOONG ago from Kelly McCann and then Sonny Puzikas was integrating similar concepts in his training. Way back when, being a young trigger puller fresh off his first deployment, the idea of combining martial arts with the fighting carbine was an almost revolutionary concept. Until then, all of the training I experienced in the Army treated shooting and combatives as mutually exclusive- a stupid training paradigm.
      The stick drills you mentioned are not just spot on, they’re a must. Its something I very briefly demonstrated in the last Fighting AK course when explaining / demoing horizontal displacement for the students. And a force-on-force class in the fall is certainly in the works, should overt training remain permissible at that point.

      • Matt Bracken February 3, 2021 at 08:28

        Reminds me of “If it ain’t raining, it ain’t training.” Northern NC in the Fall, folks better have good “fighting raingear.” I think an article just on the subject of being operational in cold, wet woods would be extremely valuable. Most training is done in a few uncomfortable hours outside in the weather, then back into the warm, cozy, dry cabin to recuperate.
        This is NOT reality. Reality is spending several days straight never being under a dry roof for a minute, making your bed on the ground. If you are a “drowned rat” after a few hours of training, hypothermia is going to kill you over night. You don’t need to travel to “snow country” to discover how important it is to be able to operate in cold-wet weather. Even 50* temps can kill you if you are soaking wet and can’t build warming fires for tactical reasons.
        One problem is that no living student (including me) wants to practice this, it’s just too miserable, unlike running and gunning then heading back into a dry warm cabin or even tent. Living like hunted partisans is HARD. It can be done, but it takes a real shift in mindset and a lot of new skills, as well as some gear items. For a partisan to survive even in the fall and spring, living in the woods, rain or shine, with just what he can carry and maybe a few hidden and cached “temporary base camp” items, takes real training and effort.
        Never mind enemy bullets, mines, or drone strikes. Hypothermia will kill you first if you don’t have the training, gear, and mindset.
        Just announce a “primitive partisan conditions” carbine course, which might include days and nights of cold rain in the woods, and see how many folks say, “eh, not so much.”
        But in reality, we used to call this, “Good operating weather,” because wet woods are very quiet, and nobody else is likely to be out patrolling. It all comes down training, gear, and mindset. I think an article on this topic must be considered, maybe I’ll write it, but my operational time was very long ago. I think Scout would be the best for this. Hell, “gore-tex” was new and high tech back in my era.

        • BePrepared February 4, 2021 at 07:01

          Gore-Tex was new, it was “Allowed” but not issued and you had to buy it yourself. And even then, not all commands would let you wear it ‘cos you would look “non-standard”. Nice and dry at the range tho, I never took a poncho again.

  5. Garand69 February 2, 2021 at 10:41

    Training options that can have zero ammo expenditure. Are you fit to fight???
    Great post

    • NC Scout February 2, 2021 at 17:56

      Thanks bro!

  6. Brad February 2, 2021 at 13:11

    I like thrown some uneven ground into each time out. Seems to make you flow a lot better once back on the flat stuff.

  7. SOG February 3, 2021 at 15:38

    https://atlanticfirearms.com/products/lynx-12-ak-shotgun
    NC whats your take on these AK pattern 12ga semi auto’s?

    • Johnny Paratrooper February 3, 2021 at 16:15

      NC is out training some folks.
      The 12 Gauge AK’s are full of problems. You cannot leave the mags loaded, or it crushes the rounds and they won’t chamber. Also, they have a lot of quality control problems. You can easily put $1,000 into one trying to get it squared away.
      A regular AK is best. I wouldn’t waste to much time flirting with the 12 gauge idea. The x39 is the way to go.

    • NC Scout February 3, 2021 at 16:16

      Junk.

  8. Anonymous May 14, 2021 at 05:35

    4.5

  9. FTB May 14, 2021 at 05:39

    Great article.
    Gabe Suarez and Sonny Puzikas was teaching this over a decade ago and I’m glad this skillset is being revisited.

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