Class: Steve Tarani Active Countermeasures-Handgun

[BarryinIN]

If you recognize the name Steve Tarani, what do you think of? Probably the same thing I did- "He's that knife guy in the gun magazines. Usually shown doing some knife move with a grimace on his face and saying Grrr". He does a class or two each year at a nearby Sheriff's Office, but although they are open to the public I never paid much attention to them. After all, he's that knife guy in the magazines, and I'm not a knife guy. To me, a knife just takes up space where another spare magazine can go. He usually does a handgun class, but still- He's a knife guy, right?

But people were saying I should go. One friend I see in classes now and then was surprised to hear I had not been already.

"You need to go."

"He's a knife guy, right?"

Smile, followed by "You need to go."

"What's it like?"

"You need to go."

He wouldn't tell me anything about it, aside from saying he liked it and I'd like it. He is definitely not a knife guy either, so this carried some weight.

His handgun class is a weekend class, so I signed up. The class was this past weekend.

Steve Tarani is indeed a knife and martial arts guy, but there is a bit more to him. I hadn't thought about it until the class, but while I used to see his face behind a knife in half the gun magazines out there, I haven't seen him in them at all in a while. He's been busy. He has been doing a lot of protection details, working for government alphabet agencies as a contractor and regular employee, working VIP protection. He's done some private work too, and I'll post a pic about that later.

This class was based on one he teaches to new protective detail personnel.

What does this protective detail stuff do for the average person?

An awful lot, once you look at it. He was 10 minutes into his opening presentation when I realized this might be just what I've been looking for in training.

I'm a stay home dad. I go to classes to learn how to better protect the kids. If something happens when I am out with them, I might expect to be pushing or leading them to safety, while fending off an attack, and maybe shooting back.

Did I just describe a Protective Security Detail or what?

I will never guard Donald Trump, but I saw that everything in the class could apply to me one day. Getting a CEO out of a building under attack is no different than getting my kids away from a mall shooting. I found it to be a very useful class.

And the only knives we touched were plastic training knives used in knife defense drills.

This class is hard to review because he uses some methods that I've never seen or heard of before. He has ways to teach a knife defense or gun takeaway from a training partner AND do live fire of a paper target, and do it safely. Since these methods are his bread and butter and he might not want to let it out (without paying for the class) I won't let it out either. I'll just tell what we did, not all of how we did it.

Only around half or a little more was range time. I didn't expect that. We spent most of the first morning in the classroom. The second morning was spent in the classroom for about 45 minutes and the rest in the department's exercise/mat room. The range time was more to demo what we had just learned, but with live fire. It worked pretty well.

After a qualification/evaluation shoot, we got to the moves and skills. Everybody in the class had some training and experience, and it wasn't a marksmanship fundamental class, so not a lot of time was spent on this. However, we were expected to get good, proper, fast hits. He did make corrections as needed. Assisting with the class were two Gunsite instructors, and they made sure we knew about any errors.

We covered turns and pivots (threat right, left, and to the rear), including a very...novel...way of dealing with a threat to the rear. Then we worked from folding chairs, engaging threats from the left, the right, and from the rear.

This was nothing too out of the ordinary. What was different was the added complications of dealing with a protectee (be it a VIP or family member). Engaging a threat to your left side is one thing, but having to alert your protectee, move them or yourself to give you a clear shot, shield them, and get them moving to safety is something else entirely. If you've never shot on the move with someone clinging to your belt or elbow, you're in for a treat.

It got harder.

Day 2 began in the classroom for a short period, then we headed off to the department's training room/gym with blue guns and plastic "knives", Steve Tarani is a martial artist, a proponent of the arts, and all around he eats that stuff up. Yet he repeatedly said complex maneuvers are not the way to learn weapon takeaways or to counter them. At least, not in a weekend. His gun takeaway method uses a couple of simple moves, and it works whether the gun is held one-handed, two-handed, left hand, right hand, or homey style. We practiced this until the most inept (me) was fairly decent at it.

Saying gloves are highly recommended is an understatement.

Next we went the other direction, to retention, or countering gun grabs. The exact method can change according to whether the gun is being grabbed from the side, pulled low, or pushed up high, but the general approach is the same. It's all about using leverage, because getting into a wrestling match only works if the other guy is weaker.

Retention and takeaways is mostly new stuff to me, so I am in no position to say anything about how good it bad his methods may be, but they sure seemed to work in our practice time. There were several LEOs in the class who had received disarm/retention training before, and they were impressed.

We paired off and practiced each method, then swapped places, then swapped training partners, and dud this multiple times, so we all got to try them with people of all sizes, strengths, and skill levels. As far as I know, nobody was able to defeat the methods.

They were simple to learn. If I could get it, anybody can.

He said that where he's taught the disarm with Simunitions guns, it always works but it almost always results in the gun being discharged. It also results in the shot missing the goid guy. I really don't see a way around the trigger pull. In a gun struggle, the finger is going to pull the trigger.

We then worked on defending edges weapons and impact weapons- trapping or gaining distance so you can shoot.

After lunch, we went back to the range and did it all again with live weapons. As I said earlier, he has a way to do that safely which I won't divulge. Definitely new ground for me. He put us through more drills using what we learned. One was to run a gauntlet of fellow students while leading a protectee to safety. Some of the students were armed with impact weapons or edged, and some were just standing in the way playing deer in the headlights. You had to rush your protectee through, handling each human obstruction as needed. After getting through, you had to shoot a steel target. Possible? We all agreed it was a good sampling- and only a sampling- of the chaos one might experience escaping from any number of heavily reported shootings we've all heard about.

Good stuff. I'm extremely glad I went.

I'm awful sore today too.

[BarryinIN]

Some of the instructor's recent work:

That's him on the far right. Some guy named Trump is in the middle.

[BarryinIN]

I have another Tarani class coming up. Two day combined Cane/Walking Stick defense (I use a cane some) and handgun/long gun retention/disarm.

I'll report afterwards.

[BarryinIN]

Class is over. Three things:

1) I don't see me saying "It's just a stick" for a long while.

2) I talked a friend into going. We had a plan to go shooting this week, but the new plan consists of us checking with each other to see when the soreness subsides enough.

3) I hope the author got good pictures of me for the S.W.A.T. magazine article he's writing on the class.