(Video Below)

You just left the last covered and concealed position moving to the breach point. After a short pregnent pause your breacher has set the charge on the door and the commander has initiated the breach. If the clanking sound of all you equipment didn’t wake up the house you are pretty sure the water impulse charge packed with det chord and c-4 did. As you move through the smokey threshold where the door used to be you catch a look at the HVT (high value target) he looks at you as you look at his hands to see if you can end this operation with 5.56 millimeters of lead and hate, unarmed he turns and runs out the back and your team pursues. In his man-jamas he clears a 6 foot wall no problem the breacher stands on a planter and can clear the far side from where he is and you get the order to follow; what is going to get you over that wall? Your strength? your cardio? Is it something about you military fitness?

Military Fitness Has Three Major Parts

We have all talked about the compromise between cardio and strength training when we are trying to hone in our military fitness but, I think those are only two pieces of the puzzle and without the third you may be missing the boat. The third part of military fitness IMHO is movement training. Functional strength is all the rage these days and you can’t talk about fitness without someone saying “Crossfit” but the fact of the matter is you are never going to power clean on the battle field but, you may have to climb a wall or pull yourself out of a burning humvee. This is not a hit on functional training which is super important, but if you have a greater respect for movement training when you are done reading this post and watching the video (below) I think you will have gained something for your time.

Military Fitness Chart

As you see here for military tasks it was the finding of this group that mobility was of the highest priority

The term Mobility refers to your ability to move your body and negotiate it in space and time I like the term movement better because for me mobility means driving.

What is Movement Training for Military Fitness?

Movement training should contain bodyweight drills like push-ups and pull ups, but a regimen in movement training like you will get from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Yoga can not be replaced. Obstacle courses can also offer a huge training value for movement but,  it can be difficult to get out to a real obstacle course often enough to get some advantage from it. You can train your movement and agility just using your environment from trees and walls. The video below was built to give an example of some functional movement training while adding a specific technique to clear walls for CQB and CQC.

In the above video it is clear that strength and cardio is much less emphasized and in its place is flexibility, agility and technique to accomplish the task. By having the movement skill to get over the wall you require much less energy and strength plus as a bonus you can keep a lower silhouette that provides a much smaller target to the enemy than a very difficult press up would make.

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Your situational awareness is how closely your perception reflects the reality of the environment you find yourself in. Situational awareness for the tactical athlete is not only your environment, but also your effect on the environment and the danger or opportunity of that environment. For a military member it is often frustrating when we have to deal with civilians because of their inherent lack of situational awareness (like when they walk around with their face in the phone texting). The mere fact that we recognize that we are annoyed by them is again a part of situational awareness.

Developing Situational Awareness

Last week I had the honor of lecturing for a group of Air Force Special Operations CCTs and Tac-Ps and one conclusion we made was that situational awareness starts at the operator and radiates out. When you think about guys who need to have the SA switch in the up position there are few who need it more that CCT and TAC-P types. You mastery of situational awareness also will be affected by your ability to apply discipline to your attention, because attention is a limited resource you need to learn to prioritize that attention. When I am developing FNGs I give them what I believe to be a priority spectrum for paying attention and situational awareness and it is as follows:

1. Threats; always prioritize your attention to threats before anything else
2. Mission Requirements; If you don’t fulfill your mission there is no sense in leaving the wire, so resolve to accomplishing the mission or just stay in the rear.
3. Opportunities; As you kick down doors and fulfill missions every so often a little bread crumb is dropped by the bad guys that we can use to potentially increase advantage so, if the tactical situation allows be sure to capitalize

The above is more a guideline of how to focus your SA but it doesn’t really give you a skill that you can use to develop your SA better. So when I talk to operators in my interviews and at the bars over a few beers I have found that there is a system that many of them use to get great SA in every situation and I want to share that with you guys. What I have seen guys use is an OCOKA analysis and here is a real quick overview of what that is.

OCOKA Use This Acronym And Make Super Human SA

A number of  you are familiar with the acronym OCOKA (OCOKA-W) and if you have a land warfare background you are rolling your eyes because it is such a basic tool but, for the rest of us I am going to define it:

• O – Observations/Fields of fire; when you see an area and want to determine the value if any often the first thing you look for is whether you can use your weapon systems and optics to cover the surrounding areas.
• C – Cover/Concealment; Standing on top of a van can give you great observations and fields of fire but provides no cover or concealment making it undesirable. (note for the record, Cover stops bullets and provides protection, Concealment just makes you unobservable to the enemy)
• O – Obstacles; When a patrol is compromised because of a goat herder and a decision is made to let the herder go, be sure you aren’t backed against a terrain feature that will stop a hasty exfiltration. Obstacles are man-made and natural objects that will slow or stop progress of personnel or material
• K – Key terrain features; A key terrain feature (which is often of less operational import in asymmetric war) is a man-made or natural feature that can provide an advantage to the force that occupies that feature. In an empty room a knocked over refrigerator can on a small-scale be a key terrain feature.
• A – Avenues of Approach/High Speed Avenues of approach; Generally speaking an untrained opposition force will approach an objective from the most accessible convenient route. The fact that the enemy can arrive at a high rate of speed can be a force multiplier and give advantage in an otherwise equal match (though I often prefer stealth to speed)
• W – Weather; The addition of weather to the acronym seems fairly recent to me but maybe it was there all along and the guys that taught me just decided to keep it from me but I think its impact is self-explanatory

How Does This Help Situational Awareness?

OCOKA-W doesn’t provide all the information that relates to your environment but if you use it as a guideline to analyze any situation you are in you will be amazed how much more info you gather. So walk into a bar and in a split second decide where the most desirable tactical position is:

• O- Where do I have to sit to see the most attractive people?
• C- If a person I am avoiding walks in are there features I can use to mask my exit?
• O- Is there a plant in a location between me and the plasma screen that will stop me from seeing the game?
• K- The jute Box will have the highest number of females walking up to request lame 80′s music, is that desirable or annoying
• A- If my spouse shows up where is that going to be from, I better keep an eye there

Now it may sound goofy but just that simple regimented approach to sitting in a bar can en grain skills that can save your life on operations overseas or even just playing airsoft with your buddies. Give it a shot and tell me how it works out for you. Be sure to put your email in on the right side to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss any future posts, thanks for stopping by.

Today I got to talk to a great buddy of mine who is a real expert in nutritional supplements and helping Special Operators to achieve higher levels of tactical performance. I thought it would be fun to try something different and try and upload an audio file instead of writing a long post so we could get our Friday off to a great start.

So just as a recap

1. Multi joint movements

2. High volume training

3. High intensity workouts

4. Proper nutrient timing

5. Don’t avoid Cholesterol

6. Rest as hard as you train

7. Keep your stress low

8. Avoid overdoing it with alcohol

We talked about a few supplements like protein and Fish oils to round out the program. I hope you enjoyed this post and if I get some good feedback you may be seeing more of these in the future.

Can Clothing Really Increase Performance?

Compression Clothes To Increase Military Fitness

As tactical athletes we definitely put the time in at the gym, for the most part we keep an eye on nutrition, we could do more with our supplements, but we wear clothes made by the lowest bidder. I get pretty upset when I go to a fitness convention or professional sports team for work and notice that as a group we tend to be like 5 years behind the power curve. I think compression tops and compression bottoms are an area that we will see much more in the future, but until then it is up to us to educate ourselves.

Fact or Fad?

The benefit you will notice first when you wear a compression top or shorts is they have a tendency to keep the muscles warm in cool environments and cool in warm environments. The garments achieve this by wicking away moisture and providing a convection effect that decreases the time it takes for muscles to warm up.Doen et al. found a scientifically significant improvement in not only athletic performance but also injury resistance when the athletes utilized compression wear on the lower body and specifically increasing extension and flexion torque in exercise.

Aside from the increase in power during exercise Kraemer et al. found a significant decrease in perceived soreness as well as increased recovery in athletes who utilized compression therapy to decrease tissue damage brought on by exertion. compression tops and bottoms have been attributed with increased removal of lactic acid during exercise because of increased blood flow and that should also significantly improve performance.

 How does this benefit a Tactical Athlete?

I have compiled a listing of researched attributes of compression clothing and have decided to include them as they relate to the tactical athlete.

• Enhanced Blood Circulation to peripheral limbs to delay fatigue
• Reduced Blood lactate so the athlete can exert maximally for longer
• Enhanced warm up to increase training time for increased fitness gain
• Increased vertical height
• Increased repetitive jump power
• Reduced muscular oscillation which can help protect athlete from injury and focus power output
• Reducing muscle soreness so you can train more often
• enhanced recover so that you get the most from you training sessions

How You Should Use Compression Wear

Typically there are specific compression garments that are designed for a particular sport so they can provide the correct application of compression to specific body parts as it relates to your sport. Unfortunately there is no manufacturer that has specifically looked at applying the use of this technology to the Tactical Athlete  so I have done some research and come up with my top choices which I will include later. Compression undergarments should only be used during training due to the fact that there is no provider of flame resistant compression garments and the risk by far outweighs the benefit in combat. Be sure to get the right size garment so it is not overly constraining or overly loose (which defeats the purpose). Do not attempt to wear compression garments on hot days, under ACU, BDU, or Cami uniforms for long periods of high exertion. Ideally 90 minutes in a moderate environment is best, you can wear these on hot days with high exertion but remain vigilant about hydration status and temperature status. Some clothing provides a better package for training and others will give better results for recovery.

My Picks

Note: Below are my suggestions if you are interested in buying some compression garments, of course there is absolutely no obligation I just want to provide a service I wish someone had given to me 10 years ago. These are affiliate links and if you purchase something a portion of the proceeds go to great charities like the wounded warrior foundation and the green beret foundation but, at absolutely no extra cost to you. I appreciate you checking these out and supporting TacticalAthleticPerformance.com.

Pictured at the top and below is the AIM compression top available in both long and short sleeve. This top is designed for the MMA multisport athlete and it most closely meets the criteria required to push the military athletes performance to the next level.

AIM Short Sleeve Compression TopAIM Short Sleeve Compression Top

which are a thin compression short that provides a lighter compression in a more comfortable package. The third compression garment I have found to be an absolute revolution in sportswear technology is the Men’s Juggler Knickers:

Men’s Juggler KnickersMen’s Juggler Knickers

These high performance shorts provide great compression ability combined with pockets that are used to place ice over muscles, after training to increase the recovery effect with ice therapy that has been proven to provide a huge advantage over no treatment or even contrast bath therapy to speed recovery and improve performance. The Juggler knickers also provide knee support which can dramatically decrease damage and injury. I like these so much I am going to give away a set to one person who subscribes to the blog (one the right side) and gives me the most compelling story about how they would use them and how owning these Compression Knickers would help improve their training performance in the comment section ( 50 comments to the drawing). Thank you guys for supporting us and I hope this article has provided you all some value.

Lately we have been taking a look at CQB to try to educate/review some of the basic premises for military operators and tactical athletes. We decided to make a post dedicated to the most basic parts of CQB so in future installments we could delve deeper and not have to catch guys up as we go. This post will seem pretty basic to some of the people out there but, I think a review can do everyone some good sometimes. To win at CQB there are three pillars or principles that should be adhered to. The three pillars of CQB are of course:

1. Speed

2. Surprise

3. Violence of Action

Why discuss the  Principals of CQB?

I am not really sure why a team would want to be this close. How easy do you think it is to "sneak" 8 guys up to a breach point in the day time. If they were moving fast they should have no time to get ducks in a row. What is the number one man waiting for? Plus the last man is covering where they came from instead of the threat corner.

There is some confusion about the three principles and to be honest There isn’t a lot of consensus about what is the exact best way to apply these pillars. Police  tend to have their own play book and the military guys another but, that being said there are definitely places where we meet in the middle. I am going to give you my take on it and as usual I am going to make the disclaimer that these are only the opinions of the TacticalAthleticPerformance.com advisory board and you have to make the determination for your team what is right for you.

Speed

Speed is probably the most misunderstood principal because it does not mean an operator must run from one point in the objective to the next. Speed is a nuanced idea that the team should waste no time and give the enemy as little time as possible to prepare for the assault team. Recently, I was training with a long time friend of mine whose tactical prowess I respect a great deal and when we were doing some training he said: “well let’s just start off real slow, and back it off from there.” The quote really stuck with me because it showed a great deal of insight into CQB training and execution. Often times we get so excited and adrenaline overloaded that we tend to move way too fast and get ahead of our headlights, which in the long run slows the operation.

 ”Slow is smooth, smooth is fast”

                                           -every tactical instructor on earth

A couple years ago I was training the Thai Special Forces, and when I said "speed" they heard "run." I remember this hit not going so well. LOL

The reality (or at least how we see it) is that slow can be smooth and smooth can be fast, but slow isn’t fast. I recently looked up whether slow was defined as fast and for some reason Mr. Webster didn’t think so. Speed is the end goal, not “FAST”, now this may be a semantic argument but, the principles aren’t: fast, surprise and violence of action; so my suggestion is to just get fast out of your vocabulary (fast happens all on its own). Speed on the other hand is a product of the economy of motion. By moving smoothly and deliberately you will be able to clear an objective much more quickly and efficiently than you could by running through the objective, blowing off threats and generally acting like a spaz (which is my personal pet peeve). A deliberate (not to be confused with deliberate technique) approach that has good economy of motion will maintain the initiative and give the enemy less opportunity to prepare for the assault team. So if you get anything out of this section it would be that your team needs to be methodical, masterful and economical; which will provide all the “speed” you need.

Surprise

I know we have all seen the movies where the SWAT team simultaneously breaches every window of a building by repelling off the roof and putting an officer in a circular perimeter around the inside of the room before the enemy knows what is going on. Aside from the fact that I am not a fan of the circular ambush, the principal of surprise is definitely a big part of the hollywood infil and for good reason. When you are able to surprise the opposition force you can get ahead of their internal decision-making process, which many people describe as the OODA loop. The OODA loop which was first described by Col. Boyd of the U.S. Air Force is the theoretical decision-making process that we all must use before we carry out an action. Observe, Orient, Decide and Act is a constantly moving process the enemy must make to engage your assault force and by surprising the op-4 (opposition force) you can short-circuit the process and gain great advantage. Once we agree that surprise is important we then need to develop a plan that gives us the ability to maintain surprise and though I am not including an exhaustive list we can hit some of the big stuff.

When your team gets to decide what time to attack be sure to use a time that gives you the biggest advantage (and is when the enemy is the least alert). If you know the lights in a target turn off at a certain time I would suggest hitting that target about 45-70 minutes later which gives your enemy an opportunity to not only get to sleep but, to enter the deepest most restful sleep from which he will be the most disoriented when woke up. One problem with night-time is that it generally makes it more difficult to approach the target without being heard ( I can barely walk around my room in the dark without knocking something over). On the other hand peak traffic time may provide the noise pollution your team needs to gain access undetected. Surprise can also be manufactured by the use of flash bangs that create a disorienting effect with percussion, or even an explosive breach can elicit the same response. The police often send a guy in a pizza delivery  outfit to get the door open and quickly make entry, this works because the op-4 has pizza on the brain and the next thing he sees badges and guns in his face totally short circuiting the OODA loop. To use surprise effectively you need to avoid patterns and constantly change your team’s techniques, if the bad guy is in the back room and he hears you bang every room and then make entry; he will be waiting for the bang before he starts firing at the fatal funnel. Change entry points, tempo and tools to keep an advantage. Never get into the mindset that what worked yesterday is going to work today, CQB is a thinking man’s game so get your team able to flex from one TTP to the next. Have multiple tactics that you use and change them depending on the METT-TC. Remember surprise can come from many different aspects of the assault including timing, distraction, misdirection, decoy or any number of other tools, your mind is the only limit so plan a few mock training iterations and make it a point to get your guys thinking outside of the box.

Violence of Action

VoA insures that the team maintains the initiative by kicking in doors and being generally aggressive. Keep both mental and physical momentum through action and combat mindset. Hesitation is the enemy of VoA so drill often to insure that all team members are “switched on” and ready to execute. It is amazing how often the first person to realize they are in a fight, wins the fight because acting first carries a huge prize for the carrier. Violence of Action also can demoralize the enemy and sometimes get them to surrender without the need for a shooter’s solution. VoA is maintained by refusing to let complicated CQB problems bog down the team, I have watched many teams (from the catwalk in training) literally stand in a room planning the way to hit the next room, by the time you are on the objective the planning phase has passed just get out there and execute. If your team has to discuss the correct way to cross a four-way intersection then obviously you need to take it back to the drawing board and et your SOPs squared away before you should spend any time in the shoot house. Remember an average plan well executed is better than a perfect plan, not executed.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading to the end, you are a rock star. I am going to give away a free tee shirt to one person who comments on this post and enters the drawing, here is how to enter:

1. Read post (done). 25% complete

2. Post comment that says “issue me a free tee” (also go to the TAP Store and pick the one you want and include in comment)

3. Share this post on your social network of choice (like or plus or whatever).

4. When we have 50 comments (mine don’t count) I am going to pick one random person and send a Tee Shirt.

Thanks again, and be sure to subscribe by putting in your email in the “subscribe” section to the right so you don’t miss any new posts.

Recently we put up a post on 10 Mistakes in CQB and the response we  received was great but, a common response was; well if

those are mistakes then what should we do?” This is a complex question to which there is no universally accepted answer. CQB is multifaceted and dynamic but what will remain true are that TTP (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) utilized should always be METT-TC (Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops/Support, Time available, Civilians) dependent. Unfortunately, as is typical in life, each situation is distinct and will require it’s own best solution. This article is made to help give you the tools needed to develop your best solution for a future CQB. The Tactical Athletic Performance advisory board does not claim to have the ultimate, best solution for every situation; the information presented are helpful tips to help point in the right direction. We are not Jedi Masters and never claimed to be. That being said, we believe there are some “best practices” we find useful. If it brings one soldier home to their wife and children that otherwise wouldn’t, then it would make this entire site and perhaps our entire existence worth it. If you have another opinion, that is great! Disagreement forces us to expand our perspective. Furthermore, it helps us to understand the logic behind techniques and not just techniques in it of itself. In fact, I have received great insight from questions posed from trainees. Therefore, any disagreement you may have will gladly be entered into the comment section and respected as valid. Sorry for the long disclaimer but we want help our brethren, not step on any toes.

The Two Ways To Take Corners

The techniques used in the movies are either okay or down right hilarious

When negotiating corners there are generally two basic categories all techniques fall under and those categories are dynamic and deliberate. Taking a corner dynamically “the way they generally do it in the movies” has advantages and disadvantages but, generally places speed over security. That being said when in a smaller more maneuverable force your speed can help increase your security but that doesn’t mean you can blow off common sense because you are running. A deliberate technique relies more heavily on angles, cover and “slowly” taking on only as much as you can deal with at a single time. Deliberate techniques can be very useful if you are getting ready to enter a danger area that you know can easily require more assets than you have available to provide.

When Would I Use One Over The Other?

Generally speaking the way your team approaches and chooses to take a corner is going to be driven by SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) and METT-TC, though   on my team there is a spectrum of priority that tends to drive the MDMP (Military Decision Making Process). If a smaller element is required to take a corner where time is not a factor and survivability can be increased by a deliberate technique then generally that would be the choice utilized. If a larger element (full stick or complete team) is required to take a corner and any of the following situations are factors then a dynamic technique will most likely be used, those factors are: time sensitive mission requirements may be materially affected by a “slower” approach, if the mission completion is more important than the survivability of the force or if a tactical advantage can be garnered with a dynamic technique.

Techniques, Not Tactics

Unfortunately, because this is an open source I specifically do not include tactics that can provide value to the enemy but I do provide individual techniques that can increase the capacity of the end using operator, which in conjunction with proper training and tactics can be of value. I know that there are plenty of open source tactics out there and the argument can be made that so long as it isn’t classified I can talk about it, but in the interest of prudence we have decided to just not open that can of worms.

Torso Articulation and Slicing The Pie

Torso Articulation is an individual movement technique that allows an assaulter to twist the upper body and place the only the weapon system and the aiming system (operators head and eyes) into a danger zone. Torso articulation can be done both deliberately and dynamically but generally has its greatest value when used in conjunction with a dynamic tactic. A quick torso articulation can be done in a smooth fluid movement that provides the opposition force with very little time to react and the assaulter with the most possible cover and concealment while continuing to move to clear the threat. Slicing the pie or “pieing” is a more deliberate technique that combines many smaller movements and can be somewhat slower but provide with greater control over threat areas when in a smaller unit with limited security assets. Below we have included a short video that should illustrate the two movement techniques.

Slicing the pie

The Video

This Video was made under a tremendous time crunch because I had to get back before my wife got out of bed so you may be required to suspend your apprehension and give us the benefit of the doubt. The engagement sequence you see may be questionable but, the chosen sequences utilized were done so for good reason and if you have a question please don’t hesitate to ask, often though the sequence may seem counter intuitive it was done so for the sake of the drill or due to how the individual technique fits into the over arching tactics which are beyond the scope of this discussion.

You Guys Are Great

I would like to thank you guys who make it worth while to put this site out there, over the past year I have derived great joy from developing this community and appreciate your continued involvement. Please help add to the conversation with your tips and experiences, when I publish some new post I consider it the beginning of the conversation not the final word so get your social network involved with the share buttons on the bottom. As usual I would ask that if you haven’t done so already subscribe to the site by filling out the subscribe button to the right and never miss another post. Just a reminder the links in the right are affiliate links and anything you buy through them will help support great charities like the Green Beret Foundation and the Special Operations Foundation so since you are going to buy supplements and ammo anyway you might as well use these links to bodybuilding.com and Brownells.com for the best prices and service, thanks for reading and we hope to see you again soon.

What is Active Rest?

The Idea that you should train on your “off” days may bring a chill up your spine but it may be the missing piece in your training that could push your performance to the next level. Active rest (or active recovery) is the idea that even though you aren’t pushing your physical limitations you are taking some time to get off your rear end and activating you metabolism. A 20 minute moderate to slow swim can be a great active rest exercise that is just what you body needs to help you recover.

What Will Active Rest Do For Me?

Even one day of total inactivity can materially affect how your body responds to insulin and metabolizes sugar. By including a light exercise you are telling your body not to get lazy and just store calories, getting a light training in can kick your metabolism into high gear for hours after training is done. One the best ways to improve your military fitness is just drop useless bodyweight and active rest can help you do that..

One of the big problems with intense training is the development of huge amounts of lactic acid in the muscles that causes painful soreness, lowers muscle ph, and inhibits protein synthesis (muscle growth). A buffer like beta alanine can do only so much to counter act intense training, but active rest will help mobilize and metabolize lactic acid and speed recovery.

The movement of joints and tendons increases the elasticity and blood flow to these weak points in the body. One of the reasons joints are so slow to heal from injury is because of the low vascularity in these parts of the body. A half an hour of light exercise will help lubricate, oxygenate and repair minor tender spots.

Part of military fitness is mobility and mobility is closely related to  flexibility. Recently we were training in some basics parkour exercises to develop the ability to efficiently manuever through urban environments doing cat jumps and spider hangs and the like; one of the biggest obstacles to getting around over and through the environment for my team mates was a lack of flexibility and mobility. A well though out active recovery regimen will incorporate flexibility, enhancing training. You are required as a tactical athlete to be highly mobile if for no other reason than to overcome the cumbersome body armor. Below I have included a military fitness characteristic chart developed by the Department of Defense that probably explains it better than I can.

As you see here for military tasks it was the finding of this group that mobility was of the highest priority

Rules of Active Rest

• Keep it moderate to low intensity (I try to keep my heart rate below 143) a rule of thumb is 60-65% your max heart rate
• Don’t over do it, you don’t need to train for 2 hours to get benefit but ,do at least 20 minutes
• Incorporate movements that develop flexibility and mobility
• Hydrate Hydrate Hydrate
• Form over power, take this chance to refine movement skills and techniques
• Have fun

Examples

I am going to include my favorite active rest exercises in order this in not an exhaustive list but it will give you insight to where my head is at.

1. Swimming
2. Yoga
3. Jui Jitsu/MMA (light, training form and technique)
4. Chiropractor
5. biking
6. Jogging

For all the reasons to do yoga here are two more

 Conclusion

Active rest days don’t have to be a trip to the gym, it can be playing sports or just a nice hike. Use your active rest days to remember how much you like being in good shape and enjoy what got you into training in the first place. Active recovery when combined with good nutrition and training can push you through plateaus. I hope you got something out of this post and if you did be sure to share it on your social network of choice and check out some advertisers in the “Klicks for Karma” section to see if anything captures your attention to the right because half the proceeds from you clicking goes to great foundations like the Special Operations Foundation and other great charities.

To start out, I would like to say I love being in the military. The United States Military is the single greatest force for good, the world has ever known (short of say the divine); anyone who wants to debate that fact can include a comment to the contrary. That being said, there are some things that drive me nuts, so I am going to list a few and ask you if you agree. This is only obliquely related to Tactical Performance but if done properly it should be somewhat funny. I am doing it with pictures so you can get through it quickly.

The Flying Humvee

Really? A Humvee that flies? We have those they are called Choppers. Stop building equipment that solves problems that either don't exist, or could be solved with tactical solutions. Do you really expect the same E-1 who can barely drive a Humvee to now fly a Humvee. Maybe just don't fight an unconventional war with conventional troops. $40 million to invent a concept we already have.

The Robot Doctor

How in the name of all things holy is it easier to make a robotic doctor than to make a robotic soldier. Look, I am no surgeon but it would seem to me that correcting multi system trauma caused by high velocity projectiles and overpressure events is most likely way harder than welding a machine gun on a Roomba and proping your Ipod camera to it. I tell you one thing is for sure the brain trust that came up with this one has a real finger on the pulse of landing government contracts.

Who Decided To Put The Worst Food in The World In Combat

It is a tough job to turn a civilian who will literally complain about beer being too cold into a warrior. Do you know how much harder it is to get these guy to perform when this is what they eat. Look I am not a crazy person but I have never seen Kobe Bryant sucking the filling out of a Twinkie right before getting on the court. Give military members vouchers to go to Whole Foods Market (that place is expensive).

Inventories For Equipment That Has Been Obsolete For 20 Years

Okay, read that serial number back to me... Yeah 00001 computer, military, one each.

Safety Briefing

Well men, you have done well in combat and your ability to safely navigate mine fields and enemy fire is second to none. You are all adults and most of you have kids of your own and mortgage payments, but I wanna talk to you about swimming; if you go swimming have a buddy and never run with scissors.....

Who Picked The Army ACU Pattern?

In an effort to make someone a ton of money and find a pattern that "works everywhere" they have come up with something that works on this couch, in a gravel pit and on the Moon; everywhere else it is terrible. Please next time turn off the Power Point and actually go outside before putting this albatross around the soldiers' necks.

Every Level of Command an Order Goes Through Requires Time to Be Pushed Up 10 Minutes

Where is everyone? They have a training jump today. When is time on target? 1600. When do they take off? 1530. It is 0300 now! well it is a regimental jump so.....

The Idea that Wearing Body Armor Everywhere is Smart

Okay, body armor is awesome and every time I have been shot at somehow as if by magic it has become weightless. But, when I go to the chow hall and see everyone except congressmen and contractors wearing body armor I get pissed, not because they should be wearing it but because it is dumb and, if it is dangerous then stop eating and pull security. Also I hate it when people think you should wear body armor on a foot patrol in tropical Asia, the guys who tell you to wear it are risk averse, career minded morons who will kill more people with heat stroke than any enemy fire.

Chow Halls With Terrible Food

I know this relates to the above but the point needs to be made. If you want troops to have high octane performance, you need to give them high octane food. In basic I was only allowed one "meat" but, I was told I could eat as much cake as I wanted! It doesn't have to be this way, did you ever get to eat at the D Fac in the Bagdad embassy? Alaskan king crab, waffle bar and yogurt stand. Nutrition is 80% of performance don't screw the troops over. Also side note if you want wars to end; stop feeding the flag officers this well in combat zones.

Do We Need This Many Mandatory Briefings?

Dear Military, By the time you read this I will be gone. Your anti suicide briefing made me hang myself... Thank you for the 4 hour anti terrorism briefing, the E-2 who conducted the briefing gave me huge incite that 10+ years of fighting terrorists and dozens of days on sniper recon/surveillance missions studying pattern of life would never have given me... Hello, 1942? Hi this is A.J. I have been sitting in this anti sexual harrassment briefing for 6 hours and was wondering, did anyone, anywhere, ever, actually call females "toots"?... The only time I have ever had an inclination of being mad at my awesome mechanic who works tirelessly to fix all the vehicles my ODA smashes is when I connected the fact that he may or may not be gay (don't know, don't care, but he has a lisp) with the fact that training we had planned for 14 months got cancelled because someone, somewhere, who I have never met, who was here after I got here and will have left before I am done, signed a bill that forces me to go to a 6 hour mandatory "homosexual training" briefing. My wife: Honey, what did you do today? Me: Homosexual training, can you bring me a beer? Please... My Wife: You sure you don't want a Zima with a jolly rancher?

So I wasn’t sure how to classify this post but I am going to call it “humor” because if I wasn’t laughing I would be crying. I will have new posts back on track this week with more Tactical Athletic Performance. Thanks for reading and please share this with your battle buddies on your social network of choice and be sure if you enjoyed this post to remember us the next time you want to use on of our affiliates because, half the proceeds go to great military foundations like the Special Operations Foundation and all you gotta do is click and check out stuff you would check out anyway. Also be sure to leave a comment if you liked (or hated) this post.

I spent the day with some guys I have worked with over at Magis Group who are without a doubt the leading performance optimization training company for the military and specifically Special Operations. We got to talking about what are some of the differences between a good operator and a great operator. The owner of Magis is a man named Stephen Robinson and it is clear after talking to Steve that there is a lot more to the mental preparation than simply “thinking positively.” The tactical mindset is a deliberate mental state you create through the use of a disciplined mind. Hopefully with some of the info I put down here you can start to develop a methodical approach to increasing you capacity to perform in a tactical environment.

After a few hours of talking I asked for one skill set I could use to improve how I perform, and I asked if I could share it with you guys and without missing a beat Steve gave me something pretty cool. He called it the “peak performance state.”

Developing a Peak Performance State

Or as I would say a “Peak Tactical Athletic Performance State.” So here it is sort of simplified but, enough to get us started.

1. Develop a ritual

When preparing for combat or just kitting up for training, do it the same way every time. I have a very specific order that I put on my gear, PCI my equipment and load my weapon systems (*ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, LOAD YOUR SECONDARY BEFORE YOUR PRIMARY) before I am ready to go. By doing it the same way you are using somatic (body movement) markers to train your mind and body to be ready. Just as certain body positions can trigger memories a ritual will prep your body for battle. As an added bonus if you do it the same way every time if you forget something it will feel wrong so you can correct the omission.

2. Eat for the Mission

Before a mission is no time to experiment with new foods or engage in gastronomical adventurism. The time to try new things is when there is nothing on the line and you aren’t required to perform. Bland food made of primarily complex carbos is probably going to be your best bet, avoid heavy protein and fats right before leaving the wire. Don’t worry the horrible chow hall food will be there when you get back.

3. Use a Mantra

A mantra is a few words that embody how you want to operate or what you expect from your self. The mantra doesn’t have to be a complex set of expectations but it should mean something to you and elicit a feeling state that is congruent with the mission. For what it is worth (probably not much) I always tell my self I am going to be “fast and accurate”, “I am going to engage targets fast and accurately”, “I am going to make decisions fast and accurately.” I know this may sound silly or useless for a few guys out there but I challenge you to try it and see if it works for you. Don’t make a huge scene with your team mates just quietly psych your self up.

4.Get in Character

There is nothing I hate more than when I am out training or on a mission and I know one of the guys I depend on is daydreaming or for some reason isn’t 100% focused on the task at hand. When you head out you are one thing and one thing only; you are a warrior on a mission who will stop at nothing to accomplish what is expected of you! You will have time later to worry about your bills, your spouse and whether you closed the garage door. If you can’t leave that stuff behind then you need to figure out who can replace you on the mission, it may sound harsh but in the real world when it gets ugly I don’t need fathers, brothers, or great husbands all I need are mission accomplishing machines who will stop at nothing to do the job and get the team back safe. Actors in Hollywood say they can get in “character” when they have to so I know the men and women who carry the banner of freedom should have no problem. Part of getting in character is your mental state; think about a time you performed at you best and recreate it in your mind, this should help stimulate your senses and get you motivated to go to work.

5. Be Present

Performance happens in the present, past performance doesn’t guarantee future success and the only easy day was yesterday. If you are in a surreal state of dissociation you can not perform at your peak. Studies have shown that Special Forces and SEAL candidates who try to mentally dissociate from selection have a much lower pass rate than those who just endure the moment and don’t save anything for later. Often times a mission can get out of hand fast, when the bullets are flying you can see it in the eyes of the new guy that he is just barely holding on to reality. One trick I use is I wiggle my toes in my boots and take a deep breath, it places me in the present and readies me to be an active participant in the mission. This can also be used to get other team members who have hit a limit get back online, grab a hold of him and ask him if he is ready to move to the next problem , tell him to take a deep breath because you are depending on him to do his job.

Conclusion

These are skills that many of you guys already do to some degree or another, I know that because I have out briefed hundreds of combat vets and they have told me as much. You may use some of these and not others but, I would ask you to try it out before you discount it off-hand. You should be using this stuff both in tactical situations and non tactical for example: When I get home from work I open my safe and put my guns away (ritual) I get out of my uniform or work cloths and change (get in character) I take a deep breath and release any unneeded mental residue from the day (being present) and I tell myself I am going to go upstairs and be the best husband I can be (mantra) then I say hello to the wife and grab a beer (eat for the mission). As I write this I can actually hear your eyes rolling in your head, but I challenge you to take this approach to anything you want to accomplish and I defy you to come back and tell me it hasn’t fundamentally changed that way you approach your job, relationships and life. I would like to thank you for reading this post and spending time on the site and I would also like to thank Stephen Robinson for his permission to use some of his basic skills to help out other operators. Please check out the “Affiliates Section” to the right and proceed to buy things you would anyway from great sites like Bodybuilding.com because half the proceeds go to awesome charities like the Special Operations Foundation. If you feel you got some value out of this post I would really appreciate any feedback you have to give (I try to respond to them all) and thank you for sharing on your social network of choice.

I recently got back from a training iteration for work and I noticed that a lot of us kept making the same simple mistakes so I decided to make a list of ten of them so we can avoid them and strengthen the force. I decided to leave out the obvious stuff like “fatal funnels” and not digging corners but instead included some of the big stuff that doesn’t get as much attention.

disclaimer: I have no egoic investment in being the greatest CQB warrior on the planet. I know there are hundreds of guys out there who have forgotten more about CQB than I will ever know, but that being said, I think I am a pretty good teacher and I feel I have enough training, instruction experience, and combat experience to talk intelligently on the subject. Also I have taken great pains to exclude any classified information or non-open source intel so as to not give away any TTPs that you can not find on ‘Youtube’ or the like. Please take this as a guide and not doctrine and if you think something I put out violates common sense or is just plain wrong feel free to throw it out cause heaven knows I have no problem blowing off bad tactics myself. Also I am not talking about other people exclusively, I have made most if not all of these mistakes myself not only in training but, also in combat.

What is CQB?

CQB for those who aren’t familiar with the term stands for Close-Quarters-Battle or Close-Quarters-Combat and in the grand scheme of things I think it falls somewhere between combat from street corner to street corner, to hand-to-hand fighting. I would say if you think you can engage accurately in combat using your pistol with a high degree of precision then you are in CQB range.

The following is a short (not exhaustive) list of mistakes I regularly see guys make in CQB with hopefully a few gems to improve combat skills and tactics.

10. Hesitation

The confused look you see in the eyes of your buddies when he decides whether to go or stay is an indicator that he has reached his mental or physical capacity to solve the CQB problem. At its root CQB is about angles, opportunity and percentages. Not every tactic works in every situation and often times you can do the exact right thing and take a round to the trauma plate anyway. The CQB skills are based on the most likely course of action you need to take to have the highest chance of survivability and it is not a 100% solution because nothing is. So the question becomes, can you mentally negotiate the problem at a speed that provides the highest success rate. Often times for guys who are new to the tactics the answer is, “no” and when this happens there is an introduction of hesitation that gives the opposition force advantage.

I feel the solution is multifaceted, but starts with repetition of SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures) and making sure everyone is dancing to the same sheet of music. Having a well established and planned SOP before you get out to the training site is imperative, making sure everyone understands those SOP’s  intellectually will save hours in the glass house or shoot house. Secondly I think some mental rehearsal just prior to execution of an IMT (Individual Movement Technique) can greatly speed the learning process. If you are beyond the training environment you may simply have to move the offending team member to a location in the stack to where he is no longer in a position to slow the flow. This removal should be done in a non judgemental way and used as a training tool and not a means of ridicule or you will create an environment where failure is so feared that no one will have the courage to do anything.

9. Rabbiting/One-Man Room Clearing

Rabbiting is a situation where the number one man starts off so fast that no one has the time to catchup conversely a one-man room clear is when the number two-man just plan drops the ball and sends the number one man off into danger areas alone. The reaction time of a bad guy in a room is very fast and it should be within that time that number two-man is able to get in and provide support. If number one man runs into a danger area and doesn’t give two-man a chance to catch up it can be very bad and conversely if number two-man sort of gets behind the power curve  and allows number one man to go it alone there can be dire consequences.

Number one man needs to recognize that the guys behind him have to react to his movement before they can go so moving at below normal combat speed can mitigate that break in contact. Number two-man has to be on the ball, he needs to have the situational awareness that number one man can’t get, number two-man needs to be ready to go and support his number one man.

8. Chemlights Don’t Pull Security

Okay I know this sounds dumb, but I see it all the time. Often when an assault team clears a room they will mark the room with a Chemlight to let others know that friendlies have cleared it already, or so they know the status of that room. If for some reason you lose eyes on that “cleared” room and have to pass it again to get out of the structure or to conduct a secondary search you need to re clear that room. The Chemlight is glowing because it is full of Predator blood but what it is not doing is keeping that room safe. Any number of things can happen when your team leaves the room, so if you need to go by or reenter that room be sure to respect the threat.

7. Find a Hole Fill a Hole

Like I said earlier, CQB is a solution to a very complex problem, to include the angles, levels and shooter’s solutions; be flexible enough to fill in the blanks. If you see a team-mate drop a threat or blow off an important danger area do not stop the operation to argue about what he should have done, just do your part to fix the omission.  Many structures provide overwhelming threats and you arguing about who should do what will jeopardize your security and could cost you your life.  So if you find a hole in the team security posture or a hole in mission tasks just fill the hole. If you find yourself standing in the middle of a structure or threat area with nothing to do then, do it quick and go pull security.

6. Getting So Amped You Loose Your Mind

Combat is stressful and stress will cause an increase in your heart rate, an increased heart rate can cause tunnel vision and tunnel vision will kill you. If you are in a tough scrape and the world looks as if you are viewing it through a toilet paper roll then you need to calm down and get you situational awareness back on line. Take a deep breath do a 360 to make sure you aren’t standing in a window or silhouetting a danger area and take inventory of what is going on. Often when we get amped up we don’t even know it so be sure to monitor your buddies for this kind of behavior.

5. You Don’t Need To Turn Your Head To Talk

This one may not kill you, but it is definitely a pet peeve of mine so I am including it. I know we grew up in a society that really values eye contact and outside of the CQB environment go nuts creeping people out with an icy stare, but in a house if your job is to lock down a crack in the door that sees the hallway please don’t turn to me to tell me you think you see something. Here is an experiment: go to the kitchen with your wife, face away from her so you can’t see her and tell her you are thinking of calling your ex girlfriend to give her make-up tips, if you get hit in the head with a frying pan then you never have to take your eyes off your assigned threat again.

4. “Break the Wrist and Walk Away”

If you have spent more than five minutes in the profession you have most likely met this guy. This is the guy who for whatever reason is teaching you and your team about CQB or Shooting or Tactics in general that knows absolutely everything there is to know about armed conflict, just ask him. This guy will get you killed! He is so wrapped up in the idea that he is awesome that he will not answer any questions or explain why he does anything the way he does it. There are a ton of guys that are teaching skills they don’t understand and only teach them because someone told them it was a good technique. Of all the stuff and BS you have to deal with getting this guy out of your training cycle will work wonders for the team. I try very hard to be open-minded and you would be hard pressed to get me in a tactical school where I couldn’t walk away learning something. There are no Jedi knights and no one left their parents on Krypton, so if we all just ratchet it back a bit and ask “WHY do we do it that way?” maybe we can learn something. That being said if you have no idea what is going on just do as your told by someone you trust to lead you.

Aside: I was doing training with a guy for hand-to-hand and when asked why he likes the palm strike so much he said “because I learned all the martial arts in the world and I took out all the stuff that doesn’t work.” This is a guy who when I asked him to spar told me that he “trains to be lethal and doesn’t want to kill me.” My answer to guys like that is “really bro….” (confused look)

3. Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast

Here is one I know we have all heard and to my analytical mind I interpret it as Slow=Smooth, Smooth=Fast, therefore Slow=Fast. Well slow isn’t fast in fact “slow” is the opposite of “fast” I looked it up in the dictionary. This is a saying that has floated around for a while and some of the guys I consider legends, who I really respect, who I would pay hundreds of dollars to learn basic skills from say this all the time.

Aside: I don’t think there is a such thing as basic skills and advanced skills I think there are basic skills done well and basic skills done poorly.

Doing skills slowly can provide a smoothness that being a spazz won’t allow, and yes when you see a masterful practitioner do a skill fast it also looks super smooth. I would say that “slow is smooth and speed is a product of the economy of motion.” So to sum it up: don’t be a spazz, do practice your skills, and when you have mastered those skills you should be able to move smoothly and quickly.

2. Speed is Your Only Security

Speed, is one of the basic principles of Close Quarters Combat: Speed, Surprise, and Violence of Action. That being said speed is not the only principle and if you are so worried about going fast that you lose security you are going to have a real problem. Never outrun your headlights, do not think that speed can compensate for poor security. Speed is an enhancer like sugar in your coffee, but you still need the beans and water to make it work. I see guys charge head long into complex scenarios that they have no chance of getting out of. I have made this mistake a ton due to frustration, or fear, or plain stupidity. You can regain the initiative with explosives, gas, distraction or misdirection etc. You do not need to be a team of guys running around like your hair is on fire unless you are trained to be incredibly fast (read this as Tier 1 operator with huge budgets, training apparatus, raw skill, advanced selection and support to execute huge amounts of training in which case you don’t need or want my advice on CQB anyway) So be deliberate, methodical, calculated and competent. If you master the skills speed will happen as a natural byproduct.

1.Playing Pic a Boo With Bad Guys

Great guys get killed because for some reason they decide to engage in a fair fight with the bad guys. Often we will gain entry into the breach point and get a foot hold in a structure, at the same time the bad guys get out of bed and decide to engage us. If we are in the first room let’s say and he is in the far room and he shoots we will go  to a position that provides cover and return fire. If there is a linear danger area separating these two places (read this as hallway, stairwell, etc) we will sit on one side and he will sit on the other and we will play pic a boo together until someone gets hit. This game is deadly, it will kill 50% of the people who play it and it is totally unnecessary. If he is there and you are here do not engage in a fair fight. If you are overseas throw your damn frags at him, use an AT-4, get out the m-203, have someone place a charge on an exterior wall to the room he is in, if ROE allows break contact and kinetically reduce the structure, please do not play this game. If you are in the US in a law enforcement capacity you can yell changing magazines (when you have ammo) drop elevation out of the gun line and get him when he shows himself, use Gas, have snipers take a shot, fill the house with bees for all I care just don’t attempt to fight fair in a gun fight it is dumb and can make your wife a widow.

Tactical Urban Rover Detachment or T.U.R.D. for short

Conclusion

First off thanks for reading to the end, your awesome. While writing this at first I made a list of ten things that I have seen cause problems in training and overseas, it was actually hard not to include everything, but I know it is tough to get guys to read more than ten things so I cut it short there are probably 125 or so. It is my hope that you will find this useful; I wish someone had given me this list ten years ago it would have saved me a lot of trouble. I have been working pretty hard to get the word out to guys like you and if you think there was something useful here I would really appreciate it if you left a comment or at least shared it on your social network of choice so I can get more feed back from guys. Thanks again for stopping by De Oppreso Liber.