Tag: u.s. army

What Happens When a Special Forces Soldier Uses Tiga Tactics Combatives Against Other Soldiers

Posted on by Evan Perperis

GUEST COLUMNIST:
EVAN PERPERIS — A U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES MAJOR (RETIRED) & A CHAMPION OBSTACLE COURSE RACER

“LIVE” KNIFE DEFENSE APPLICATION

It should surprise no one that, as a certified Tiga Tactics instructor, I like and believe in the techniques and content that Tiga Tactics has created.  However, I don’t put them all on equal levels. 

The one I had the least confidence with, Knife Defense, I actually had the opportunity to pressure test.  Here’s that story and why I have greater confidence in this program than ever before.

Methodology in Training: 

As part of the military, we like to increase the stress on soldiers through training.  This is done in an incremental fashion, much in the way Tiga Tactics teaches by starting off “slow,” then going to “smooth,” than gradually speeding things up to “fast.”

This is a common practice you will see in all of Tiga Tactic’s online courses; the military calls this approach “crawl, walk, run”.

Situation:

As part of training, we did a “live” (AKA competitive) drill where one person was armed with a Shocknife and the other person had no weapons at all. 

The Shocknife delivers a jolt of electricity — up to 7,500 volts — like a stun gun if you touch the “blade edge.” Clearly, this is the “run” or “fast” phase of training. 

The goal of the unarmed person was to disarm the person with the Shocknife.  The soldiers were taught several self-defense techniques.  One of the options partially overlapped with what Tiga Tactics teaches in their Knife Defense course but with some (what I would call significant) differences.

Each soldier was then required to disarm his opponent in a round robin fashion by grappling over the Shocknife.  For the drill you ended up doing three disarms against three different attackers.

Plan of Execution:

Rather than use the military-taught technique, I decided to use this as an opportunity to pressure test Tiga’s techniques, since I would get to watch other people use the different military techniques around a couple of dozen times.  I was excited to test it out because unlike a martial arts class where everyone is learning the same technique, the other soldiers wouldn’t know my plans and thus would respond more instinctively and naturally.

Furthermore, the group was legitimately trying to shock each other, as is the case when you take competitive soldiers and put them in an environment where people are watching and judging. 

Results: 

So how did the techniques taught by Tiga Tactics in Knife Defense play out? 

Well out of the three disarm drills, I only got shocked once during disarm attempt number two to my forearm/hand area. 

That was three successful disarms using Tiga Tactics techniques against stakes that are about as high as you can get while still operating in a safe training environment. 

Possible Critique: 

I know what you are thinking, were the soldiers actually going hard in this training environment or just going through the motions? 

If you have worked with Type A personalities like soldiers you probably already know the answer.   The more one person gets shocked often the harder they’ll go the next round, creating an increasing level of resistance that just occurs naturally.  If you still have doubts as to how hard we were training, as further evidence I’ll cite that one of the 12 soldiers broke his hand in the scuffle that was part of the disarm. 

Yes…we were going hard. 

Conclusion:

Not surprisingly, Tiga Tactic’s techniques work when pressure tested.  This is what you get when you take real world video, come up with solutions, pressure test it and refine it to the best product.  If you aren’t training at home, now is the time and with how easy it is to conceal a knife, you may want to start with  Knife Defense.

THINK LIKE A BAD GUY, ACT LIKE A GOOD GUY

Posted on by Evan Perperis

GUEST COLUMNIST:
EVAN PERPERIS — A U.S. ARMY GREEN BERET & CHAMPION OBSTACLE COURSE RACER

 

The interesting thing about being a “good guy” is that you need to have the mindset of a “bad guy” to be truly effective at stopping, countering or understanding their tactics.

The big difference between the good and bad guy is what they do with that information. The bad use it to exploit and take advantage of the weak, while the good use it to train, protect and occasionally take up a profession dedicated to stopping the bad guys.

My background is in the U.S. Army Special Forces, therefore I primarily work in the projectile range of combat. Only when things start going poorly do I have to work in the striking weapon, kicking/punching, and grappling ranges.

So despite having almost two decades of training in the projectile range, I still decided to pick up some lessons from Tiga Tactics to help round out my skills. I knew I had found the right place because they were using lessons I had learned from real world combat that they discovered through analyzing actual footage from Closed Circuit TV (CCTV).

During deployments to both hostile and semi-permissive countries I often carried concealed weapons. Sometimes it was a handgun, sometimes a blade and sometimes based off local laws, all I had was my fist. The techniques I was taught to successfully hide your weapon are the same techniques taught in reverse that allow you to identify someone who is carrying.

Tiga Tactics provides these same tips when they are teaching identifying someone who is preparing for an attack in things like “Stab Proof” and “Club Proof”.

The same justification I have for carrying weapons in a semi-permissive environment when stopped by a country’s security forces, is the same justification criminals will use in the United States. Being able to use something you always have on you, like a fist, is a great weapon that requires no justification and one of the reasons criminals use it (that you can learn about in “Punch Proof”).

Furthermore, using a knife, when size/type are legal, is a great option (as you learn about in “EDC Karambit”).

The strikes taught in their “Toolbox 1.0” program are some of the same strikes I’ve been taught for combat.

The palm heel strike is effective and limits the chance of a fracture in your hand. After all, if I fracture my hand in combat it makes operating a gun or driving a vehicle very difficult. The same logic they use for the palm heel I was taught in offensive driving courses on hand position on the steering wheel. The way you position your hands when driving can help prevent finger breaks to allow you to fire your weapon after a car collision.

I share all of this to tell you that their logic is sound and based off the equivalent of several lifetimes of martial arts training. I can recognize the Tiga Tactics instructors’ logic path because I used it overseas but for a different application. During my deployments to Iraq, my platoon was the most effective in our Battalion at finding enemy weapons caches. We would find them frequently without any direct informant tips. The reason was simple, we put ourselves in the enemy’s shoes and said “where would we hide our weapons if we wanted to be able to attack Americans when needed, but reduce risk of being caught red handed when we weren’t in attack mode”.

The same logic I used in combat, Tiga Tactics as applied to everyday life here in America. If you are looking to get functional as soon as possible (ASAP) check out the full suite of Tiga Tactics courses now available.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Evan Perperis is a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran with a cumulative 44 months of combat deployments. He’s currently a brown belt at Shaolin Kempo Karate, has been trained in Modern Army Combatives Program Level I and is currently training in Kali, Jeet Kune Do, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

When not practicing martial arts or working, he’s racing as a professional Obstacle Course Racing athlete with more than 65 podium finishes and helping others as a National Strength & Conditioning Certified Personal Trainer (NSCA-CPT). His website is Strength & Speed, and his biography is available in hard copy/digital and audiobook from Amazon.