ITOG Urban Conflict Resolution 2006

"Without training, we are nothing but a liability." - Pat Rogers

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The International Training and Operations Group (ITOG) is an effort by Duane Dwyer and Mick Strider of Strider Knives to provide a "one stop shop" for tactical training. ITOG offers courses ranging from prisoner handling to pistol/carbine to IED recognition, at a variety of venues around the country.

I attended the Urban Conflict Resolution course, held April 3-5 at the Boone County Sheriffs Dept. range in Lebanon, IN. The ITOG web site describes this course as "A must for those concerned with their ability to handle real-world threats within ranges of less than 15 yards, this course provides the training solution necessary to ensure your personal safety in the event of your involvement in a life threatening situation. This outstanding program provides the essential training elements of surviving close quarters fighting in an urban environment. Scope of study includes handgun (CQB training), impact and edged weapons training as well as ground survival techniques at extreme close quarters."

Pat Rogers and Steve Tarani shared the teaching duties, with Capt. Ken Campbell serving as our affable (but rather busy these days!) host. During the summer, the BCSD plays host to a number of well-known instructors, offering classes in all manner of armed and unarmed self-defense disciplines. BCSD is a progressive department that recognizes the value of a trained police force, and, equally as important, a trained citizenry. Capt. Campbell is currently running for Boone County Sheriff; winning that office would mean nothing but good things for the future of tactical training for citizens of central Indiana.

There were 12 students in the course, including several members of the 10-8 Forums (myself included). As is typical of open-enrollment classes, all ages, professions and physical descriptions/conditions were represented. The students' overall proficiency coming in was fairly high, with many having taken courses from other notable instructors, and some having previously trained with Pat and/or Steve as well.

What follows is a breakdown of each day, as best I can recall (I didn't do much note-taking during the course itself):

TD1
Driving rain and gale-force winds prompted a change in the schedule - Defensive Tactics (DT) in the morning, and dry-fire training indoors in the afternoon instead of live-fire range time. Pat and Steve started by introducing themselves and giving some basic credential-type information ("if it's a federal agency with three letters at least one of which is a vowel, odds are we've done training for them"), as well as some background on ITOG itself.

Steve then took over, delivering a brief lecture and Powerpoint presentation on such topics as the Reactive Triangle, contact vs non-contact distance, scale of injury, graphic depictions of various injuries from contact weapons, and options in a confrontation (get out or get in - if you choose the latter, what's the safest place to be relative to the BG?). After that, it was time to go to the mat.

Mat time included drills for contact vs. non-contact distance, getting out vs. getting in, red/green zones, solid fighting stance, 45deg. movement off the line of attack, and reponses to an attack with a contact weapon (deflecting down/away, blocking and pushing away, creating distance, and a "slap the butt" move that used mechanical compliance to get the knife out of the BG's hand).

Following that, Pat took over for the "range" portion, which included application of the solid fighting stance to gunfighting, 5 steps to an efficient drawstroke, the retention shooting position, contact response (strike to the BG's face, then step 45deg. off and shoot from retention), static turns and pivots, and tactical & speed reloads.

Pat and Steve present their material in a building-block manner, which is necessary to get students of varying skill levels on the same page and keep them there. For instance, each Defensive Tactics skill Steve teaches is broken down into conceptual, instructional and sustainment drills, which serve to start the students down the road to the 3000 repetitions needed to make the skill reflexive. I found some of the very early DT conceptual drills (such as illustrating the difference between contact and non-contact distance, or the difference between the "red zone" within reach of the BG and the "green zone" out of his reach or behind him) to be a bit silly. Between that and having been exposed to some of the shooting portion in Pat's carbine course a couple years ago, I found TD1 to be a bit disappointing.

That all changed come the morning. :-)

TD2
We assembled on the range just as the sun was coming up. As soon as the lead started flying, nobody seemed to mind the cold wind or the early hour. We started by perfecting our drawstroke and getting in some single shots to the brain box. This quickly progressed into controlled pairs, hammer pairs, failure drills (standard response), non-standard responses, shooting on the move, ID'ing and engaging targets to 90 deg. left/right and 180, shooting from retention, and strong hand & weak hand only (using a new technique that really seemed to work well). Distances went from contact back to 10 yards.

After a lunch break, it was back on the mats for a grueling round of DT. We began with a review of Day 1, then went into counter-retention (disarming) of a drawn gun using a great universal technique, counter-retention of a gun at the BG's waistband (with variations), retention of our own gun from a grab attempt or an actual grab (with variations), and sustainment drills in the ironically named "ring of happiness", where each student gets to practice the techniques against every other student, both as attacker and defender. This was great because it allowed us to see how the techniques worked against opponents of vastly different builds/heights/etc, but it was a physically exhausting process. TD2 also included a fantastic knife/karambit demo from Steve, with yours truly having the "honor" of being the Meat Puppet. :-P

TD3
Mat Time kicked off with a review of all the skills learned in the prior two days. We were all a little sore, slow and sloppy after the previous day's thrashings, but got back in the groove pretty quickly. Then we went into Ground Fighting, including a grounded version of the stable fighting platform, how draw & fire from the ground without flagging yourself, supine to kneeling in three steps, contact-distance defenses from supine, creating distance as you get up, supine to standing with a failure drill in less than 3 seconds, and pushing a BG in front, then turning to ID/engage target to rear.

Range Time after lunch was a direct application of the skills learned on the mat, and included live fire from the supine, supine to kneeling and supine to standing. Pat then coached us through engaging multiple assailants at close range, applying "Roadhouse Rules" w/ singles & hammers, and the box drill (failure drill on 2 targets). We also covered techniques for indoor movement forward and back, shooting with indoor movement, and 3 kneeling positions (braced, speed and double-knee).

After a debrief and brass call at the end of TD3, we were presented with free ITOG T-shirts, and the chance to buy some cool Strider gear at greatly reduced prices.

Overall round count: ~600
Bruises, scrapes & sore muscles: too numerous to count (fortunately, I'm still fairly young and I heal quickly). ;-)

HIGH POINTS

• Learned good techniques that integrate well with prior training, as well as some new techniques that will *replace* ones learned in prior training.
• Very efficiently run class - done by ~4:00 every day, with little wasted time.
• Pat and Steve are excellent instructors and are a lot of fun to train with and just be around (would anybody here NOT pay money just to hear Pat tell war stories and off-color jokes?)

• No printed course material provided for future reference.
• No time spent on employing knife for contact defense (review of an early UCR course in SWAT mag referred to this; obviously the curriculum has changed since then)
• No time spent on weak-hand or one-handed weapon manipulation (again, mentioned in the SWAT article)
• Insufficient Strider products & ITOG T-shirts supplied (not everybody got their correct size in T-shirt even though that info was solicited on the course registration, and only a few models of Strider knives were sent)

IN CLOSING
ITOG Urban Conflict Resolution is not a "fun" course that I'd take multiple times, but I thought it was a great training experience from the perspective of rounding out my defensive skill set. The shooting portion was a good refresher if not new (Pat also covered most of the techniques in the carbine course I took in 2004), but the Defensive Tactics side was exceptional.

Thanks to Pat, Steve, Ken, Mick and Duane for making this course available!