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Skill Set: Firearms As A Martial Art?
By Tiger McKee
Ask someone to list some martial arts and they'll reply with karate, judo, jujitsu, and a host of others. Rarely will they list firearms as a martial art, even if they are a shooter. In my opinion fighting with firearms is just as much a martial art as any other combative skill - in feudal Japan it was named hojitsu - and should be approached as such.
The goal of any martial art is to defeat your opponent as efficiently as possible. Firearms allow you to achieve this goal better than any other weapon, and allow you to reach out to strike your threat without having to get close to them. With any other weapon, other than the bow, you have to be in range of that weapon's capabilities, putting you close to the threat.
The majority of martial arts can take years to perfect to the point you can use them effectively to fight with. While learning to fight with firearms is a never-ending process, you'll never reach perfect, it doesn't take long to become proficient with a firearm. With a few days of training, and continued practice, one can become familiar enough to use a firearm to defend themselves in their home.
Firearms negate the size and strength issue. As the old saying goes, "God created man, but Colonel Colt made them equal." A woman weighing one hundred pounds can use a firearm to defend herself against a three hundred pound muscle man.
The key with any combative art is to begin with the basics. With firearms this means learning how to operate your weapon properly. This includes marksmanship, manipulations, and mindset - Jeff Cooper's "Combative Triad" - which are learned on the square range. Once these skills are squared away you learn to apply them under a variety of different conditions such as low-light situations, against multiple threats while moving and using cover. Eventually you'll need to step up to training with force-on-force scenarios where you are facing living thinking threats, using air-soft or some other type training weapons. This is where you truly begin to understand the rhythm of combat, and how to apply your skills under conditions as close to reality as possible.
Finally you get to the point where you realize that to fight effectively, regardless of the weapon, you must be fluid, reacting to the situation as it unfolds, using whatever is necessary to defeat your opponent. As Bruce Lee said, you must become like water. Water is soft and flowing, or it can come crashing down on you. Pour water into a cup and it becomes the cup. Fill a bucket with water and it becomes the bucket. This is the "Way" of any martial art.
The ultimate application of martial arts is to defeat your opponent without having to use your skills. The interesting thing about studying the martial art of firearms is that the more you learn the less chance there is that you'll have to use it. This is a good thing.
Tiger McKee is director of Shootrite Firearms Academy, located in northern Alabama, author of The Book of Two Guns, a staff member of several firearms/tactical publications, and an adjunct instructor for the F.B.I. (256) 582-4777 www.shootrite.org
