In 1989 I had the opportunity to train at a shoot house ran by the US Army outside San Antonio, Texas. In the entrance to this shoot house there was a large sign. It states: “No one is coming to save you.” I had some great training and some fantastic times. I got to know an instructor at this facility, Sargeant Major Roland “Rolo” Steward. He was a proponent of “Shoot, Move, Communicate”
Shoot, Move, Communicate is not a slogan. It is a mental framework for operating in chaos. It captures the three core actions required to succeed when conditions are uncertain and pressure is high.
Shoot represents decisive action. It means addressing the problem in front of you with precision and intent. You do not wait for perfect information. You act to gain advantage and create momentum.
Move is about adaptability and progress. Staying still makes you vulnerable. Movement allows you to reposition, improve your situation, and stay ahead of changing conditions. Progress only happens when you are willing to move.
Communicate is what keeps the team aligned. Information shared at the right time keeps everyone effective. It ensures teammates understand what is happening, what is needed, and where the mission is going next. Without communication, even strong individual effort breaks down.
Remember this: The single most important thing you can do in a gunfight is get the gun between you and your opponent
You must be an active participant in your own rescue.
Movement Drills
Let’s consider the primary drill, and then I will explain the logic and finer details. The drill doesn’t require much, just your preferred handgun and holster, two targets and a stick. (You don’t really need the stick.) You can start at the 7- to 10-yard line and place the stick parallel with your target. Standing behind the stick, you simply need to draw and put two rounds on each target, then two more rounds on each target, all while simultaneously stepping over the stick. The effort should be one continuous movement. Your step should begin with the draw, and your finish position should look identical to your starting position. From here, you can do the same thing with a backwards step. Do this several times moving forward and backward over your stick. Once you get the hang of forward and backward movement, turn the stick 90 degrees to practice lateral movements. The same approach applies. You will fire a total of eight shots, all while moving. You should be shooting two shots while transitioning between both targets. The left-and-right, or “side-to-side,” movement drill over the stick is trickier than forward and backward, but once you get the hang of it, this drill will improve your movement for both competition and tactical shooting purposes.
This drill seems simple but it’s a lot like walking and chewing gum at the same time. Simple until you start thinking about it. What are the finer details of what we’re training for. Performing the drill successfully is about stance. A good fighting stance is similar across many disciplines. The point of the stance is to enable you to begin your attack or react to your adversary. Most people can quickly figure out how to get into a good starting stance, but it almost always falls apart during training once we move to a new location. The goal of this drill is to end your movement in your starting stance. Regardless of where you end up, the next time you move, it will be from your starting fighting stance. This leads us back to efficiency of motion.
As we move around and shoot between different positions, people tend to “coil up.” This leads to inefficiency of movement, which means slower times in a competition and potentially a worse outcome in a tactical situation. By ensuring you start and stop in the same position every time, you can prevent that “coiled up” feeling. This also allowed us to start moving to the next position faster, while also engaging targets accurately. It is a common myth that has seeped into civilian training from the military and law enforcement sectors: Don’t cross your legs while moving tactically. I suspect the concept stems from martial arts, where crossing your legs could lead to being forced off balance and into a poor fighting position. If you lose your gun in a fight, you can worry about not crossing your legs then. Everyone successfully walks around, crossing their legs while walking every day, most of us without tripping at all. You’re not going to suddenly forget how to walk because you’re holding a rifle or pistol. After all, you can probably walk and chew gum at the same time.
Once everything starts to click with you mentally, the fundamentals of these drills will apply to any situation that calls you to shoot while moving, even when you’re simply moving to the next target. Efficiency of motion helps to beat the bad guy. There are a few more points to keep in mind as you practice these drills. Don’t forget to focus on the target. As you start training, you’ll instinctively want to slow down when it’s time to shoot to focus on the dot or to align the iron sights. Focusing on the sights may cause you to overshoot the target when transitioning, meaning that you will lose time and efficiency while trying to reposition the sights back on the target. Finally, consider the pace of fire when shooting. For most of us, we would engage the first target with two shots, then there would be a slight pause during the transition to the second target. Then, another pause while moving back to the first target, and a final pause with the last two shots on the second target. In practice, it sounds incredibly fast, but it is not. With a continuous, steady pace of fire without pausing while transitioning between targets it was three-quarters of a second faster than if you allow even a slight pause. These movement drills are so practical because they can be done with minimal space, yet they have unlimited application to shooting scenarios.
Learning to move while you shoot and continue to engage at target, or targets, is one of the most valuable skills you’ll learn for a firefight. Moving gets you to cover, in position to engage, and helps in transition from cover to cover. You may not need this skill for self-defense, or you may need it. It’s better to learn it and not need it, than to need the skill and not have it.
Remember, no one is coming to save you.
Semper Paratus
Check 6
Burn
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