Buddy Up!

Tactical Defensive Institute: Partner Tactics

TDI was founded by John Benner, a 45-year veteran police Lieutenant and Vietnam Veteran. John spent 25 years with the Hamilton County Police Association Regional SWAT Team and is the author of the FASTER Saves Lives program and the co-author of the nationally used CQPC Program.  He saw a need for training both for the police and armed civilian.  The Partner Tactics is one of many and I finally managed to fit it in my schedule.

TDI's Force-on-Force house and staircases.  If staircases don't alarm you, you don't know enough.

If there was one sentence, no, if there was a two-part sentence to describe TDI’s Partners class it would be, “Communicate with your partner and take over the functions they can’t perform.”

(Sorry!  No action pictures were allowed.  I blame it on secret squirrels being present.  That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.)

Many of the drills were skill building not tactical.  The simplest was the reloading drill.  What could be simpler than reloading or topping off your handgun?  Let’s follow Mike and Willy as they work through some of the drills.

One drill is variation of the slide-lock reload.  At slide-lock Mike needs to refill his gun, right?  Even as Mike starts the reload he shouts to Willy, “Changing!”

Willy was busy engaging his share of targets but now needs to help his partner.  He responds with “Cover,” indicating he is picking up the slack and engaging targets as needed.  “Picking up the slack,” is another popular TDI expression.  I like it too.

When Mike has reloaded he shouts “Up!” informing Willy that he is back in the fight.

But Mike isn’t surprised if Willy counters with “Changing!”  as Willy has expended rounds on Mike’s behalf.  This cycle continues until the goal is accomplished.

The next little step up is the tactical reload in which you want to replace a partially depleted magazine with a full one.  It initially starts the same way.

“Changing!” but now, because Mike still has rounds, Mike waits for Willy’s response “Cover” (or the variation “Covering!”).

Mike responds with “Changing!” and starts his tactical reload.  (Make sure you stick the partial mag in your pocket.)

The sequence ends with “Up!” when Mike is back in business.  This sequence can be also used in preparation before moving to a better piece of real estate or before starting to clear any room.

This evolved into weave drills in which Mike and Willy combine moving around people and each other and engaging forward targets while switching positions from right to left.  Good tactics?  I doubt it.  Good base level skill set practice?  You bet!  Mike and Willy start almost shoulder to shoulder, but Mike is a step behind Willy.  He’s in charge at the moment.

Why?  Because Mike has a view of where Willy and the obstacles are.  The obstacles are lawn signs cut into people silhouette that are spaced just enough to allow Mike and Willy to pass like ships in the night.  The difference, both have to drop their muzzle as not to point loaded firearms at each other or the lawn signs people.

At the front of the drill, Willy drops his muzzle, crosses while Mike crosses in front of him and continues to engage targets.  Willy is now in the rear position and orders “Back” and the two of them continue to fight their way back out.

Partners trades off roles as the relative positions of the team changes.  Why trade off?  The person with the better view of the situation is the leader.  This is an invaluable concept.

This is further amplified by the square drill in which team leadership changes with direction and view of obstacles.

All of which culminates with ‘Move and Set’ in which the team moves one person at a time to or from cover.

Willy gives the command from a position “Set!” followed by telling Mike to “Move!”  The better response, we found out is, “Moving to (mailbox, barrel, car wall ect.)” When Mike starts to move, he shouts, “Moving!” 

When Mike reaches the object, he provides cover for Willy and announces “Set”.

Mike and Willy may need to reload so we are back to “Changing,” “Cover,” and “Up.”

Still with me?  Reloaded?  Okay.  The person with the best view makes the call.  It may be to their location, it may be to a new location, it could be to stay.  And to complicate it, you may see things your partner can’t see.  It may turn out he doesn’t have a better view after all.  You have to inform him you’re not doing something, or the reverse, something different then what he expects. And while you are doing this you need to divide up the conflict so each has an area or responsibility.

Shoot House No. 1  We used houses 2 and 3.  The story told, John was concerned that Hillary might win so he delayed building shoot house 3.  The day after Trump won, John called the contractor and said "get to work!"

The commands aren’t universal.  We were treated to a half a dozen silent hand signals and frankly it was confusing.  Verbal commands carry farther and can alert other people to what you’re doing, but they are clearer.  And PO departments, families, even wives and husbands can work out their command/action words.

Confusing?  Yeah, it is.  Don’t try this at home or your favorite range unless you’re using finger guns.  Pew, Pew! 

There were tactical drills too.  How to pie a door with a partner.  How to clear a room.  How to deal with T-intersections.  All of which are heart-racing, mouth-drying, sphincter-tightening exercises.  But the worst, hands down, is clearing stairs up or down.  Take the class if you want to find out more.  But I will tell you, it cleared up several complications in my mind.  And above all, learn to communicate with your partner.

Looking into shoot house No. 1.  The newer ones have roofs.  There is a shortage of shoot houses in Ohio making training difficult to get access to new floor plans and lay-outs.

We spent a great deal of time in vehicles.  Cars are bullet magnets.  You need to get out of the car.  There are few things worse than the urgent need to bail out of your car, only to be entangled and trapped by a seatbelt.  TDI will show you several ways to cleanly disengage your seat belt. 

Our instructors pointed out the one or two good positions of cover built into a car and two or three of the better “you-got-what-you-got” kinds of cover.

Working around vehicles is difficult and requires practice and for most of us that means air soft at our home ranges.  We can’t afford to accidentally skip a round into a roof top or a window.  Finger guns work well, but don’t practice in the Walmart parking lot.

We spent two hours on guns in ‘restaurants.’  The first part was about picking the table and chairs.  Booths with their bench seat and confined area on a raised platform are death warmed over.  But if you have to use one, get an end seat.  Then there’s dining with your armed friends.  Here too, the need to communicate your initial plan as soon as you suspect something is supremely important. 

And that plan maybe to go out the kitchen door and call 9-1-1.  Maybe just being a good witness is your best option.  Lastly, you may have to tell your non-gun friends how to get out of the way and stay put.

By the third day we had made a handshake with basic team techniques.  This course isn’t going to turn you into a functioning team.  It will give you some of the communication skills and some basic skill sets that could keep you alive.   Your shooting and gun handling will be improved, but now it will be up to you to maintain it.

In my opinion there wasn’t enough ‘force on force’ scenarios.  I was always taught never approach a person you’ve shot, especially to take a gun away.  In clearing a building, it could be necessary.  There’s a technique for that and your partner helps.  TDI shows it to you.

At a gun course, I want to use the gun to solve my problems.  Many times you can solve a team problem by walking way.   I tend to focus too much on the immediate problem in front of me and not enough on where my partner is.  I also tend to cycle down to a conflict mode too fast when doing nothing is sometimes the best thing to do.  Force-on-force helps me see aspects of the non-shooting solution.

Part of any course is sharing tribal knowledge.  There was time to listen to stories, tall tales and improbable facts.  All the instructors bring years of experience to the table and all of them are willing to share their knowledge, experience and background.

There was also a little philosophy there from all the instructors.  The one that strongly struck me was from the founder, John Benner: “Some people elect to be sheep.  You feel bad for them, but you can’t feel responsible for them.”

Check out their training at https://www.tdiohio.com/.

Note:  The course ask you to brings a 1000 rounds per shooter.  Mike and Willy, who were shooting Kahr P-9s with 7 round magazines shot less than most.  Together they ran through 1200 total and have the calluses to prove it.