MDTS News, Events & Upcoming Courses

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M.D.T.S. NEWS, UPDATES & EVENTS
December, 2009

I hope everyone who reads this has a great holiday season, stays safe and enjoys family and friends. Happy Holidays to everyone.

December 5th we begin again the MDTS Combative Pistol Skills Workshops. These will be monthly 4 hr. skill building workshops focusing on different handgun skills or sub-skills each month. It will be limited to 12 participants for safety, held outdoors when weather allows. The December workshop will focus on Shooting-On-The-Move (SOTM). See more info below.

December 12th MDTS will be at Tim's Guns in Elbridge NY for the CNY Black Rifle and Training Expo. Tim will have some great deals going that day and we will be doing small break out training sessions on various subjects for those in attendance. Come check it out.

I am coordinating the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association's "2010 Tactical & Practical Training Series". Rob Pincus is our first trainer, see the course announcement with details and information below.

The December video training tip is on Situational Control Tactics. Please note, I will no longer be hosting the video tips off my website server since these videos take up considerable space and for video security purposes. The link below will direct you to the MDTSLLC YouTube Channel.

Keep Training,

Chris

December MDTS Video Training Tip

BIG THANKS TO SPIKE'S TACTICAL!

SPIKES' TACTICAL

I have been in contact with Kane Tierney from Spike's Tactical about a project MDTS will be working on for a month or more. So, I invited Kane to attend an MDTS Combative Carbine Skills course down in NJ last weekend if he was available with his busy schedule. He was and brought A LOT of cool toys and gear for MDTS students to handle and test out.
sotm

We had a GREAT day of training and I would like to add a BIG THANKS to Spike's and Kane for coming out, shooting with us and allowing us the opportunity to handle some of Spike's finest hardware. The winners of one team on team competition all were given a Spike's tungston buffer and everyone in the class got gear and swag!

Kane is a shooter and it was a pleasure having him in the class. He also took time to speak a little with each student in the class, not selling anything but inquiring about gear, guns and previous training. Spikes' is lucky to have him on staff IMO.

I was particularly impressed with Spike's dedicated .22, 9mm upper and .22 conversion kit. I did not have an opportunity to shoot one of the piston rifles but take delivery of one from Spike's this week and will be doing a complete review of the system after running a few thousand rounds through it in classes in 2010.

I look forward to working closely with Kane and Spikes on many future projects and look forward to having Kane and Spike's in attendance at future MDTS Carbine courses.

Thanks again Spikes and Kane, I can honestly say that I cannot wait to get my Spike's rifle and start running it in classes. See Kane's contact info in photo below if you have any questions about Spike's guns or gear.

"NYS CRIME STATISTICS and YOU"

According to NYS Department of Criminal Justice Services office of justice research and performance 2008 crime report there has been a steady decline in crime in NY since 1999. The largest area of note is a decline in motor vehicle theft. While generally speaking crime has gone down, it is important to note that this is only crime that has been reported to DCJS via the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) and Incident Based Reporting (IBR) programs. I point this out because a large number of crimes go unreported every year. For example, the FBI estimates that only 1 out of 3 rapes is reported to authorities.

While crime in NYC has declined steadily there has been a steady rise in crime in Non-NYC regions. See Figure 1 below.

Figure 1- Regional Crime

Figure 2 and Figure 3 show some statistics for Crimes Reported by County and Crimes Reported by City. I could not list all the counties that readers of this newsletter reside in nor all the cities.

Figure 2 - Crimes Reprted by County

Figure 3 - Crimes Reported by City

These crime reports show a decrease in crime in NY and the percentage population whom crime is perpetrated against looks relatively low, statistically speaking. For example, US Census shows population stats for Albany county = 298,140. Which according to the above charts combining violent crime and property crime, equates to 3.5% of the citizens in that county experiencing some form of crime perpetrated against them.

What does all this mean to you and why am I talking about it? It is easy for most of us to walk out our front door and think to ourselves how nice it is where we live and how after living here for a year or 20 years nothing bad has ever happened in the way of crime. But, sadly reality has shown us that anytime and anywhere we can fall victim to human predators. It is important to be vigilant and remember that any day it could happen to you or to me.

For many reading this, words like "awareness" and the concept of "being prepared" are presumed to be old hat and skill sets that don't need to be trained anymore. Again, reality has shown us that none of us are 100% aware all of the time. We all get colds and don't feel well, walk with our heads down in the rain and have walked around a corner and bumped into someone with that bump being our first indication they were there. If your honest, you will admit to this fact and realize that awareness, just like our ability to shoot straight or throw a jab-cross, degrades with time and inattention. Complacency kills.

So, how do we train environmental awareness and keep sharp? Here are a couple fun drills you can do on your own or involve your kids to keep it fresh for you and to begin installing good environmental awareness in them:

1) "I SPY for Personal Protection" - Next time you are out, play a game of "I spy" and pick a facial feature, clothing color or specific make or model of car and throughout the day keep alert and actively look for that specific item, trait or object. This helps build memory skills and good environmental awareness skills and habits.

2) "Commentary Walking & Driving"- In the executive protection industry a new team member or vehicle operator/driver for motorcade operations is taught to verbally communicate to the rest of the team any and all contacts or persons they see. This is done for a short time until the habit of locate, identify, decide and act (if action is necessary) is ingrained into them. We can do this same drill to develop and/or improve our environmental awareness while driving in areas we are unfamiliar with or walking somewhere. It can be done out loud with a partner or family member or you can run a constant inner monologue to yourself (you may get some funny looks if your walking around talking to yourself!). Remember that we live in a 360 degree environment and we should not only be attentive to people or objects on our horizontal plane of view but also vertically scanning up and down to cover stairs, second floors, balconies etc.

Try these drills out and remember to make it fun, not a job or burden. As my friend and teacher Brian Hartman always says, "Never miss a training opportunity".

Keep Training,

Chris Fry

Saturday December 5

Shooting on the Move Workshop

Oneida Rifle Club, Oneida NY

Join us for a monthly Combative Pistol skill building workshop. The December workshop focuses on shooting and accurately engaging targets while moving to and from cover and while in motion. Practical shooting strategies and tactics will be presented and then drilled dry fire followed by live fire execution.

sotm