Remember that feeling as a kid when you were scared to go down a dark hallway in your house? Now imagine that as an adult, but instead of a hallway, your whole house is dark and someone is breaking in; or even worse, is already inside. Safety is your priority. Do you secure yourself then your loved ones? What is the most likely route these people will take through the house? Oh wait, you’re so overwhelmed with the adrenaline flooding your body that you forget the layout of your house. Yes, that all sounds overwhelming and yes it can be. But there are people out there that can help you prepare for instances just like that: this is one man CQB training.
One Man CQB Training
I had an incident where I was home alone. I had just taken a shower and I heard something fall and break. My dog started growling and she only growls when she sees a person. Not gonna lie, I was somewhat terrified but I knew I needed to clear my house to get to my dog downstairs. As soon as I came upon a corner, I realized this wasn’t going to be easy.
There are way too many blind corners to cover for one person. I cleared the house, and it turned out that the wind had knocked over multiple plants. Then I realized that I needed help. I did not know the first thing about room clearing, I had no idea where to even begin.
So I reached out to my good friend Imri Morgenstern, owner of Prime Combat Training and one of the lead instructors for Tactical Rifleman. He came out to Phoenix to give me the mental and physical breakdowns of CQB(Close Quarters Battle)…and even better, to show me how to clear my own house.
Piece Of Pie
Let me preface this by saying this is only an introduction, this is not something that you will be proficient at within a few days; it is complex and requires a high level of proficiency over numerous skill sets. Due to schedules, we crammed a five-day course into two days at my home range, Cowtown, in Peoria, Arizona.
The first day was spent on the static range honing both pistol and rifle skills to make sure that shooting and safety were not a concern when we stepped into the shoothouse the next day. The guns we used were my competition Glock 19 with an Overwatch Precision TAC trigger and a Cobalt Kinetics BAMF Pro Pistol with an 11.5-inch barrel sporting a Primary Arms SLC 1x microprism with the ACSS reticle and a Sly Tactical TR1 sling (designed for and by Tactical Rifleman).
Imri ran me through drills that taught me how to shoot more comfortably and accurately and from compressed positions. Obviously, shooting your pistol within 6-12 inches of your ribcage versus your normal presentation is going to feel completely foreign for a while, but there is a reason for it.
I even caught a little frag to my left eyebrow during those drills and got a nifty scar…you know what they say…chicks dig scars…I’m sure dudes do too HAHA. After a few hours, we brought out VTAC barricades to simulate a doorway; this was where Imri showed me his hybrid version of pie-ing doors.
Reality Bites
Often in movies and on tv, we see “dynamic entry” by the SWAT teams. Dynamic entry comes fast and flashy, but in a single person situation, it can kill you. You are trying to quietly clear your home in a tactical manner without alerting others of your position as well as not putting yourself in undue danger.
In Imri’s version of pie-ing a door, you give less of your body away while quickly and efficiently clearing the dead space behind the “event horizon.” An event horizon is a boundary beyond which events cannot affect the observer.
In our case, the event horizon is the edge of the doorway and the dead space is what is unknown and we must clear. Once you understand your position in relation to the event horizon, you can also figure out how much of yourself you’re presenting to the enemy. …
Read the full story on training up for one-man CQB tactics in the June-July 2022 issue of Personal Defense World magazine. Get your copy today at OutdoorGroupStore.com.
