I started today with a course taught by Greg Illifritz, a police officer from Ohio, assisted by his surgeon girlfriend. The course covered how to escape from commonly used restraints such as duct tape, zip ties, and handcuffs. I had no idea how easy duct tape would be to defeat. Zip ties were surprisingly easy to defeat as well but I got stuck in the 120# version. My wrists are a bit worse for the wear.
Next was (most of) a folding knife course taught by Fletcher Fuller, also a law enforcement officer. Fletcher began by covering the attributes he looks for in a folding knife used for defensive purposes and then we moved to practicing an arm containment move on the strong side (simulating a gun retention situation) and presenting the knife from the weak side.
The final course of the day was a four hour block of instruction by my friend John Murphy. Last year I attended John’s lecture using surveillance video footage. I was not able to attend his classroom section this year but was not going to miss the range work. And I’m glad I didn’t. John did a great job. He abuses us because he loves us, or so he kept saying. After working with OC spray for a bit (which was a new experience for me) we worked on target areas, tactics, and how to manage violent interactions. We finished just before it started raining. If you live in the DC area look John up.
