Today’s Prepared To Defend Drill Of The Day is… OFF THE X.

During a critical incident many people tend to lock up, only able to focus on a single task at a time. This drill teaches us to move laterally, and preferably toward a position of cover while simultaneously engaging our target. The distance that we start this drill from our target isn’t all that important.

Pick a distance that you are comfortable with at first and then you can always back up to increase the difficulty. Here we also have this board to represent a piece of cover that we are going to move to about 10 feet away. As we begin, we are going to start moving laterally toward our cover while simultaneously drawing our Byrna and firing three rounds. As we reach the cover we reassess our target at this point.

So here is a Pro Tip. Point your toes the in the direction you want to travel and allow your torso to stay squared up with the target. This way your shooting platform from the waist up doesn’t change and you’re far less likely to trip. Targets moving laterally are harder to track by a would-be assailant, and putting a hard object between you and your attacker is always an advantage no matter what they are armed with.

So get out there and train early and train often so that if the time comes you’ll be Prepared To Defend.