Transcript

Travis Bader: [00:00:00] I’m Travis Bader and this is The Silvercore Podcast. Join me as I discuss matters related to hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits with the people in businesses that comprise the community. If you’re a new to Silvercore, be sure to check out our website, www.Silvercore.ca where you can learn more about courses, services, and products that we offer as well as how you can join The Silvercore Club, which includes 10 million in north America wide liability insurance, to ensure you are properly covered during your outdoor adventures.

[00:00:43] All right. Here’s the much anticipated part two of the urban awareness podcasts that we’ve recorded a couple of weeks ago. Now we decided to break it down into three parts before the incident, during the incident and after the incident. And we’ve actually received a fair bit of feedback from the first podcast that came out.

[00:01:03] And we’re going to be talking about that a little bit in this podcast, but the crux of this prod cast episode here will be some suggestions on what to do if you are in an incident, the during stage. 

Paul Ballard: [00:01:20] And, you know, we talked about some other colors and in our first podcast, it was a big emphasis on yellow and orange. Today it’s red and contrary to everything you’ve ever learned. Red is go, red is go, and we’re going to learn how we make red as the go, or learn. We’re going to discuss it. This is not a, this is not a training thing, this is a discussion. 

Travis Bader: [00:01:44] Now I should shut out right at the very beginning. One of the people I spoke with is, uh, he’s an ex British special forces, uh, individual who’s written a book on this topic about what we’re talking about now. He hasn’t published a book yet, but he’s in the process of getting it published, but he has a social media account called sixsight.co S I X S I G H t.co. And if you go on his TikTok account or on his Instagram account, You’re going to see a whole ton of useful information, broken down into just little bite sized chunks and you’ll take some videos and you’ll look at it and I’d recommend anybody after listening to this, check that out.

Paul Ballard: [00:02:28] Okay. 

[00:02:30] Travis Bader: [00:02:30] I also had a, uh, an individual call up Paul, were talking about this earlier and he works for the Range Langley, fantastic range. I’d recommend anybody in the lower mainland or anyone visiting the lower mainland. Go check out The Range Langley. You don’t even need to have a firearms license, you can rent firearms, you can use them there. But, uh, this fellow, Jared, he’s a range officer there and he was sitting in a Browns. What is it? socialhouse, browns pub. 

Paul Ballard: [00:02:59] Brown socialhouse, I guess. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:00] Brown socialhouse. 

Paul Ballard: [00:03:01] There’s a plug for brown socialhouse. 

Travis Bader: [00:03:03] I guess so, out in Burnaby and this was 2017 and there was a shooting that happened right in front of him. And he was on a date at the time. So we’ll talk a little bit about the, that incident or what he relayed in it. In the during, as well as we’ll touch a little bit on the after and then get into more of the next podcast. 

Paul Ballard: [00:03:24] Yeah. And I think it’s important before we get into this, too, just to talk about the impressions that we got from the listeners. And one of the things was, you know, people said, oh Jesus, all great. You know, uh, if it’s a shooting or a stabbing or a, an active, um, type of situation like that, but this needs to, you know, open your mind here. This, this applies to, uh, an individual assault, this applies to you’re out for a jog, uh, and somebody starts to jog with you or follow you, uh, you know, leading to a potential robbery or sexual assault, any, anything that is of a traumatic event.

[00:04:05] At the, you know, sort of at the behest of somebody who has evil intent, we really have to, you know, emphasize this is not, you know, training for the accidental occurrence. This is not for the, you know, trip and fall type of thing. This is where somebody has evil intent and you need to be able to, you know, avoid that.

[00:04:24] And that’s where we’re going with this. So it, you know, again, uh, you’re out there walking your dog fluffy and, uh, coming the other way is the urban wolf on the end of somebody’s chain and, you know, understanding what happens if all of a sudden that that pit bull turns and starts to take your fluffy apart, how are you, you know, are you, have you got a plan beforehand? And I’m not here to talk from a dog’s trainer’s perspective, but, you know, do you have a plan?

[00:04:52] What, what you going to do? If, if fluffy gets attacked, what’s the right thing to do. So, you know, again, that can be as traumatic as, that can be probably to some people, even more traumatic than them getting attack themselves so. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:04] You know, the difficult part I had when kind of formulating my thoughts on all of this is that almost everything that we talk about can also go into the, before podcasts and trying to separate the during and the after, because all of the points that we talk about in during are something that you should be mentally prepared for before. 

Paul Ballard: [00:05:24] Right.

Travis Bader: [00:05:25] And things that happen after you should have a plan, beforehand, of how you would deal with these things in the aftermath, because there’s, there’s a lot to the, after. 

Paul Ballard: [00:05:35] Yes. And I mean, we are, you know, in the during, this is the execution of the plan. Now the, you know, at this point we have recognized that there is potential. It’s a, and we’re not looking for it to happen, we just are recognizing that it could. Uh, this is not this, when it will happen, this, it could happen and are you ready when it could? 

[00:06:00] So planning, we’ve recognized that it could happen. We’ve recognized that we’re going to take steps uh, once we recognize a situation has changed, that no longer are we, you know, in our day to day, we’re moving from code yellow to  code orange, we see, you know, there’s potential for something to change. And now, it’s gone off, the, off, it’s it’s it’s now imminent, imminent, real, and a direct threat to yourself, your family, your dog, uh, whatever the case may be. 

Travis Bader: [00:06:35] Right. 

Paul Ballard: [00:06:35] And how are you going to go into that? So red is go. Red is absolutely go.  When you find yourself going, there’s no getting out of this at this point, I’ve got a flee, uh, and like, not just walk away, flea, not cross the street.

[00:06:53] As we talked about in code orange, this is as fast as your legs can move you. Uh, you must get out of the attack zone, uh, the threat zone that’s, that’s there and, and menacing, you know, your potential wellbeing. And that means all the things that you thought about. As you were in code orange, looking for your escape route, you’re now execute.

[00:07:15] So over that planter, uh, around the car, behind the car to get out of, you know, some ballistic protection, if it’s, if it’s a firearm situation to get physical distance. If it’s a blade, uh, to, you know, to avoid that, get out of physical reach, um, start calling for help as well is another part of that. You know, plan that you’ve had before all of these things. 

[00:07:39] And done without emotion, like, oh, this will be embarrassing if I start yelling for help, forget that. It’s, it’s now to the point where you’re going to yell for help, you’re going to scream at the top of your lungs. You’re going to make the biggest scene you can, you know, if somebody’s physically trying to take your wallet to, to molest you, to, you know, pull your child out of your arms.

Travis Bader: [00:08:01] To hurt you, to do damage to. 

Paul Ballard: [00:08:03] Yes! 

Travis Bader: [00:08:03] You or harm you and the ones you love. 

Paul Ballard: [00:08:04] You’ve got to completely, uh, eliminate your ego about ohh, what will people think of me if I do that? Well, that part has, has, has left, uh, that scenario you are now in it for good. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:18] I’ve heard that one a lot from people coming back as being a barrier to acting properly, was the fact that they were embarrassed of looking foolish or not doing the right thing. And that led to inaction. 

Paul Ballard: [00:08:30] Absolutely. And I, I have seen that not a lot, but I have seen that, uh, in uniform police officers, on duty police officers, where they are not acting to the full, you know, uh, efficiency at that moment because of what are other people going to think? 

Travis Bader: [00:08:49] And they’ve got all the eyes on them.

Paul Ballard: [00:08:50] That’s right. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:51] And they’ve got all the after repercussions as well, looming in their head. 

Paul Ballard: [00:08:55] Which is maybe something we’re going to, you know, in-law, not we, I’m out of it, but those who are the trainers for law enforcement going to have to address, is this, you know, reservation as a result of what appears to be immediate lack of support for the police.

[00:09:12] I still believe that, you know, Jane and, and, uh, Joel Canadian and, you know, the, the citizens out there think the cops are doing a good job and are wholly behind them, but they’re just not voicing that enough for the, for the good people, law enforcement to realize it. However, getting back to that, um, when the moment comes, your ego leaves, you do everything you can.

[00:09:37] Um, we are still heavy emphasis on what our discussion here is for an armed or an unarmed civilian in society. We are not talking armed service personnel, either military or police. That’s not the purpose of what we’re saying here. So now within physical limitations, if it’s, if it’s. Within your ability to fight off the situation, then you do it and you fight with such determination and drive that whatever the situation is, you fight till it stops.

[00:10:14] Now, legally you’ve, you’ve thought about that beforehand, because you can use as much force as is necessary to stop that assault, but no more. No more. 

Travis Bader: [00:10:26] That’s a bit of a tightrope isn’t it.

Paul Ballard: [00:10:27] Right, and, and when we think about this is, you know, the desire, once your attacker is down to start laying the boots to them, this is what separates us from those kinds of people. Honestly, uh, when the person is down and the situation is ended, maybe now just withdraw and, you know, and, and get away from them, you know, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve stopped that assault. 

[00:10:54] That’s, that’s another thing, but that, that desire to think you should sit there and make them pay, that’s not up to you. That’s, you know, in, uh, in our society. However, society completely allows you to stop something that’s happening to you. 

Travis Bader: [00:11:08] So you’ve, you’ve actually touched on a whole bunch of points in just that short little bit of time. Uh, I think anybody who’s going to find themselves in this situation should be completely prepared for the adrenal dump and the physiological effects and the psychophysiological effects of that adrenal dump. Of feeling like they’re operating in slow motion of not being able to articulate their thoughts well, or to really think as well as they normally would in an, in their pre training situation.

Paul Ballard: [00:11:41] Yes. So the, the physical, or the physiological effects of visual narrowing, auditory exclusion, uh, the adrenaline dump of, you know, near superhuman strength that you never thought you had, those are all good things, like even, you know, you’re so scared you, you wet your pants, but you gotta think now, well, I don’t have to worry about that anymore. That’s over, you know, that that’s the, the, the ego side, but, you know, I try not to make light of it. You know. 

Travis Bader: [00:12:10] Nobody wants to fight the person who just crapped themselves, right?

Paul Ballard: [00:12:13] That’s, that is, that’s or throw up, boy, I’ll tell you there’s, you know, a lot to be said, if, if you feel physically ill and can throw up, that might stop somebody wanting to hang onto you or touch you, you know, that, that revulsion that they would find. It, it sounds funny and it’s not something a lot of people thought about, but that’s it. If that’s, if that’s your, uh, you know, the, the arrow that you have in the quiver at that time, draw that arrow in fire it, you know, it’s there. 

[00:12:41] If you’ve been fortunate to have maybe taken some form of, of martial art or you’re just good with your hands and you think that you can overpower your attacker, man, this is the time to do it and do it with efficiency. No, no half measures. A punch to stop the assault, not a punch just for the sake of a punch. And that’s, that’s another thing I’ve seen a lot of in my experience is, not hitting hard enough. 

[00:13:09] You know, when, when it goes to trial later and, and you’re concerned about, you know, explaining yourself, cause you’re what we would call a nice person, a normal person, property raised, good parents. You don’t want to look at the judge and say, yeah, you know, I, I had him, your honour. And of course the defence says, well, how hard did you hit him? Well I didn’t want to hit him too hard. No, the answer is, I hit him as hard as I could at that moment to try and stop the assault. And, and again, don’t let your ego hold you back. It’s the point though, where you recognize that you’ve stopped it, that you have to break yourself away. 

Travis Bader: [00:13:49] So when we talk about getting in a physical altercation, I’ve always found space or distance is your friend in all of this. And it’s all about either increasing that distance, you got reactionary gaps, so you can start to make some better decisions because of threats a little bit further away. Or decreasing that reactionary gap. If you’ve made that decision to go hands-on because a lot of times, if someone’s going to be trying to hurt you and they’re using their hands, or they’re using a weapon, decreasing that distance will put you in a safer zone.

[00:14:29] For example, a baseball bat, there is a very dangerous area of someone’s swinging a baseball bat and that’s going to be at the tip of that bat. If you can get far enough away that the bat doesn’t hit you at all. Perfect. If you can’t get in tight, get in close, get hands on and do whatever you have pre-conditioned yourself to, to try and stop that threat.

[00:14:54] And if that just means grabbing onto the person and holding them until other people can come in and help you. Then that’s, that’s what you do. And the other thing that you brought up Paul, which I think is of huge importance was what, in the policing world, they called tactical communication. Use your voice.

[00:15:13] If that means yelling and screaming and just to get eyes on you. Great. But if you can use that time to articulate something such as go away, leave me alone. Don’t touch me. You’re not, if someone’s pretending that let’s say you’re a female and someone’s pretending that you’re their husband or boyfriend, you’re not my husband, you’re not my boyfriend. 

[00:15:33] Get, make it clear to everybody else around what’s happening, because you’re doing two things. You’re hoping to get a desired effect out of the individual and maybe they’ll comply and you’ve, you could use your voice in order to prevent having to use physical harm, but you’re also creating witnesses.

Paul Ballard: [00:15:54] Yes. And, and what you’re saying there too is, we are talking to the people out there and we’re saying, you’re going to recognize that this stuff could happen, you’re going to have a plan. You’re going to be ahead of yourself because you’ve thought about that. But you yelling, you’re not my husband. You’re not, I don’t know you, this man does, this has, help me, help me, is going to maybe draw somebody else in that’s thinking, oh my God, this is real, what I’m seeing here.

Travis Bader: [00:16:23] Right. 

Paul Ballard: [00:16:24] And maybe that’s going to cause them to react. In society, they’re sheep, there’s wolves and there’s sheepdogs. And this is just the way it is. Not every sheep dog wears a uniform. Not every sheep dog has had training. Sheepdog is inside, it’s in your heart. And there are people that, you know, it doesn’t take much and suddenly that inner sheepdog comes up. A mother and her child, is one of those things. That, again, I see, man, you threaten a child around that child’s mother and there’s a woman who’s not formally trained in everything. That’s a person who can go into code red quite easily. And for, you know, without any formal training, really take care of business at that time, do the right thing.

[00:17:12] We talk, at length about exiting the situation, you know, plan of escape, but you know what, there are just some people that are, aren’t going to do that they are sheepdog. They’re going to take care of other people, people they don’t even know. You know, we often have words for them like heroes, you know, like that person was a hero.

[00:17:33] That was a person that has that inner sheepdog, and it, and it gets out in that moment and they, they, you know, bless them. They put their, their, others ahead of themselves in the moment and that’s going to happen. Not, you know, not everybody is going to run away, but if it comes down to it, if it’s you or somebody else, you gotta pick you and your family.

Travis Bader: [00:17:55] Right. 

Paul Ballard: [00:17:55] You gotta. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:56] Right. 

Paul Ballard: [00:17:56] You know, that’s the most important thing. And, uh, but again, make it real, get rid of that ego. Absolutely anything you think that, that, uh, you can, you can offer up that will make other people realize that they need to get involved in that? You know. 

Travis Bader: [00:18:14] One thing that I, I find often is that people will mentally prepare, they will physically condition themselves. They’ll make sure they’ve got the cardiovascular strength to be able to go a few rounds of somebody and come out on top because quite often fights are just won by the person with the best cardio, not necessarily the most technique or the strongest individual. 

[00:18:35] But in that whole quiver of arrows that they have, uh, they should always be keeping in mind, is there a possible way to deescalate the situation, but they shouldn’t hold that so close that all they’re trying to do is deescalate. It’s a, there is a fine line between training a person to be a sheep and training them to be a sheepdog, or just training that person to be a wolf , because you can, you can give so much information out there that everyone just leaves and they’re just ready for the fight and they’re ready for the next thing that happens.

[00:19:09] So looking to deescalate, but not having that as the hindering block to, uh, to actually having some action.

Paul Ballard: [00:19:18] And in a lot of cases, hopefully the deescalation occurred in code orange. The deescalation was by taking opportunity away. And at that point actually creating sufficient physical distance or a barrier, uh, that stopped that initial attack.

[00:19:36] But now we’re talking the attack is on and I totally agree. You get some distance we’ll give you time. Time will give you the chance to think, but it can work against you in giving your adversary time now to think, and they can re um, renew their assault with a little bit more planning on their part.

[00:19:58] Remember, everybody’s suffering this extreme, emotional, um, effected at that time, the attacker, the, the victim or the person being attacked. It, it, it is all there, right? You can, you know, ever watch a little dog that gets attacked by a much bigger dog. And the, the bigger dog comes in, recognizes that, you know, it’s, it’s got that, you know, superior strength and size and everything else.

[00:20:27] But the little dog goes absolutely bizerk. He bears his teeth, he opens his eyes, his eyes roll back and he doesn’t run away. He just keeps screaming. And it’s, you know, the sounds that come out of that little dog or like, you know, and you watch the big dog go that was not what I expected. And that is who you got to beat.

[00:20:49] You got to not be what they expected. The wolf expects you to just, you know, once they’re grabbed to maybe offer some, you know, ineffective resistance and that’s it. We’re not here to train people, you know, in physical defence, you know, or, or techniques or anything else. 

Travis Bader: [00:21:10] Right. 

Paul Ballard: [00:21:11] But even though you’ve never thought about it before, never got, you know, hands-on with another person, you got to remember the eyes of your attacker. If you don’t have distance and you are close, you gotta, as you’re screaming, think about, oh man, the screaming is not making this person let go. It’s not slowing the attack. You might now have to get physical. And the simplest thing, if your hands are free and your thumb with its two solid joints is to make that thumb straight, lay the flat of your hand against the side of a person’s head and push your thumbs as far into their eyes, as you can.

[00:21:52] And as much as you know, people can take steroids and lift weights. Uh, we don’t see too many people except real showman that are lifting weights with their eyelids. You can force your thumb through that eyelid. You can get in there and that threat or that attack to the eye, hopefully can give you some time, get some distance, distance and time they’re interrelated, you know. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:17] And it’s not like on TV, it’s not like, thumb goes in the eye, eyes done. It’s out. I’ve had my thumb about halfway into a person’s eye before thinking, for sure this person is going to be blind afterwards. And nope. When the thumb came out and the person got off it, and that, that gets a person out of your face pretty damn quick. 

Paul Ballard: [00:22:36] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:37] Uh, he had a cut under his eye and his eye went right back into place. But it’s a very unpleasant feeling I’m sure. 

Paul Ballard: [00:22:46] At the moment. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:46] From the way that that individual reacted. 

Paul Ballard: [00:22:48] Yeah. And we all can relate to the, you know, the bang on the tip of the nose and, you know, a flat palm driven into the tip of the nose and just start turning that cartilage round and round. And I mean, it does absolutely nothing to somebody who’s a, you know, a serious fighter. Who’s had their nose broken lots of times, but the average person, if, you know, particularly if it’s a, it, if it is a true coward, that’s there to, uh, attack a smaller person. 

[00:23:17] They probably have not and that might be enough to distract them as well. But the triangle between the eyes and the tip of the nose, if your hands are free, you know, and that’s the best we can offer up on this, you know, this podcast, right? The rest of it can be followed up by a host of individuals that are out there. 

Travis Bader: [00:23:35] And maybe just think, what’s not allowed in the UFC. And maybe there’s a reason why. 

Paul Ballard: [00:23:41] Or, yeah, that’s right. Any. 

Travis Bader: [00:23:42] Grabbin’ the hair, if the person has hair. 

Paul Ballard: [00:23:44] Yep.

Travis Bader: [00:23:45] I’ve broken fingers on hair before from, from being in an altercation, but it’s really difficult to keep a head up and for a person, typically they don’t have much muscle in their neck and you can really control an individual through doing the things that they tell you not to do in organized professional events.

Paul Ballard: [00:24:08] Biting, yeah. That’s cheating. Yeah. Well, there’s no cheating in code red. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:14] And that’s it. 

Paul Ballard: [00:24:15] There’s no rules in code red, except when you’ve stopped the attack on you, you must then withdraw. You must, not withdraw, but you cannot continue to, you know, to finish somebody off. It’s it’s just that, is that’s the only rule we have here.

Travis Bader: [00:24:34] Tell me this, Paul, quite often people say, well, you got to meet force with force. What do you think about that? Equal force. If someone. 

Paul Ballard: [00:24:42] No. The, your force must multiply you, you know, you’ve got to hit twice as hard for it. That’s the only way to go over it. I mean, in law enforcement, um, the need to control an individual is, is, is, you know, addressed in the gymnasium in, you know, or the, the dojo if somebody is taking formal martial arts and what it takes in a traditional sense to disable or overcome somebody is shocking. 

[00:25:13] Like when people think, oh yeah, you know, in the gym and you have a big padded stick and you say, all right, we’re going to strike him on the thigh. And that’s going to cause the thigh to buckle and away it goes, is great, until you finally figure out that this stuff, you gotta hit way harder than you ever got hit or hit somebody in training for it to work.

[00:25:36] And that’s, again, that ego thing, you got a really, you know, it’s no, unless you have that training, you know, you’ve, you’ve got to hit way harder than you expected. You’ve got to push yourself to your absolute limits until it stops. And don’t be afraid. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:55] And that’s where the trading sometimes falls apart. When people are training in a martial art, that’s an art and it’s great, and it’s great for mental and physical conditioning. But when they continually train, I hit you here, you go down, we do this. You hit me here, or I punch, you block and you start getting this training mindset of, well, when I throw my punch, I’m not throwing to connect because he’s got, my opponents, got a practice their block.

[00:26:26] You can really ingrain some negative effects from this training, that whole mental detachment and. You’ve said it so many times now, absolute ruthless aggression, being able to take their mind and say, I’m not stopping until this is over. 

Paul Ballard: [00:26:44] Right. And that, that is really, uh, difficult thing to, you know, to invoke, cause it’s not an emotion, it’s just, it’s raw. It is completely raw. It’s taking how you’ve trained, what you know, what you have in your skillset and utilizing it. Okay. Um, and I’m totally trying to avoid, you know, firearms in this whole thing. They’re like, that’s. 

Travis Bader: [00:27:13] Well, that’s your background, you’re a firearms instructor, so it’s easy to go to that. 

Paul Ballard: [00:27:16] And I want to take out, you know, the use of a blade in response to an attack, you know, that’s, those are all things that, uh, we can’t advocate here.

[00:27:25] You, you can’t tell somebody that that is the right thing to do because we’re, you know, this is Canadian law. This is it. You, you are allowed a weapon of opportunity by all means. So somebody is attacking you with a baseball bat and they drop the baseball bat. And they’re ready to take you on a, with their fists or feet or whatever it is. Do you now secure the baseball bat? You got to think, well, that’s a weapon of opportunity, I’m still subjected to this person’s attack. That’s a different thing. And, and again, in the moment you use that effectively. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:02] So everything really, as you go through your day-to-day life, you can look around, everything’s a weapon of opportunity. Your laptop is pretty expensive, but it’s not worth your life. 

Paul Ballard: [00:28:12] That’s right. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:13] And it would probably hurt pretty hard if I folded it up and whacked the person with it. 

Paul Ballard: [00:28:17] Or the corner of the laptops straight into the face, right. You know, again, in that triangle, around the nose, you know, under the, the, the septum, you know, those types, they, man, that stuff, it hurts and it distracts, it may not disable or incapacitate, but it’ll give you a bit of space. It’s, you know, people recoil from those kinds of things and it’s unexpected. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:41] Your pint glass.

Paul Ballard: [00:28:42] Your pencil. 

Travis Bader: [00:28:44] Your pencil, your salt shaker rolled up in a napkin, right, at the dinner table. 

Paul Ballard: [00:28:49] But when you’re walking to your car, like everybody’s got automatic unlock on their car. So they got a fob. So now we’re, we’re out of luck, but the old, you know, huge ring of keys and, you know, I always, you know, in the dark carried my keys through my fingers, you know. 

Travis Bader: [00:29:05] Sure.

Paul Ballard: [00:29:05] For a cheap pair of, of a brass knuckles, but you know, it’s there. Um, one of the things always is, you watch people when they’re getting into drunk fights and they tend to start pulling their shirt off. So now there you are in the bar having your nice dinner and some guys now taken offence to you and you know, you’ve, you’ve done what you can to deescalate.

[00:29:30] He’s, he’s drunk and he’s pushing at you. And, and you’re trying to get out of there. And of course now the crowd comes around and here’s your weapon of opportunity is when he gets that shirt over his head, that’s it. 

Travis Bader: [00:29:42] Jersey him. 

Paul Ballard: [00:29:43] Yeah. Jersey him. That’s , happens every day when you know, we’re watching pro hockey in the old, well, I guess more so in the old days, but that something you got to think about, you’ve got to have it in there and use it. Who cares? There’s no rules. There’s nobody coming running in with a black and white shirt that’s going to say, wait, you shouldn’t have done that. 

Travis Bader: [00:30:03] And if you’re having a hard time thinking, hold on, am I in condition orange, or am I in condition red? What you just pointed out there is a very common indicator and there’s lots of them, that the fight is on. You might not be aware of the fights on, but if someone starts taking off articles of clothing, it’s a very, very common precursor to wanting to fight. 

Paul Ballard: [00:30:25] Time to fight. 

Travis Bader: [00:30:26] Right. Or maybe they keep looking at, you have a pint glass in your hand, you’re holding it and they keep looking at it and they’re looking at it because they view that as a possible weapon that’ll you be used against them when the fights on. What they’re looking at, how their body position is. Again, like I say, Allan Pease has got some good books on basic body language. But they’re clenched jaw, clenched fists, uh, how they’re looking at you, all of these things, you don’t even have to rationally be able to articulate, well I read this book, or I heard about it on a podcast. I I’m willing to bet, you know. And you will know when it’s happening, if you just trust your gut. 

Paul Ballard: [00:31:05] Right. Yeah. Doesn’t lie the hair on the back of your neck, not lying. 

Travis Bader: [00:31:09] Right. 

Paul Ballard: [00:31:10] You know, that’s, that’s, that’s telling you the truth. Don’t ignore it. Never, ever exhort, you know, and I guess we kind of talked about it, but you know, the difference between men and women and what feelings they have, but if you feel it, it’s probably real. 

Travis Bader: [00:31:27] Right.

Paul Ballard: [00:31:27] Well, it is real. 

Travis Bader: [00:31:28] It is real and it’s real to you .And whether or not history will look back and look at it as the real event, as long as you have downloaded the proper responses, you can square yourself with it, hopefully afterwards. And that was one of the things that you brought up before. And then we talked about you’re number one, you protect yourself because if you can’t protect yourself, you can’t protect your family, your friends, your loved ones around you.

[00:31:55] And you go in that process, how you do that is going to have to be something that you can feel good about afterwards, because all of this mental preparation and the during preparation will lead into the next podcast as well. 

Paul Ballard: [00:32:10] Right. And you know, it’s just funny. Um, An unconscious sheepdog doesn’t help any of the sheep, you know, and if the sheep happened to be your family, I like that, you know, we got to go stay with, and you gotta remember that, uh, the wolves are looking for easy prey. 

Travis Bader: [00:32:29] Right.

Paul Ballard: [00:32:30] And you don’t see the wolves going after that you know, the Akbash herd dog out there in amongst, we don’t have to be sheep. We could actually have alpacas or something like that. But, you know, whatever the herd of domestic, you know, critters are there is that, that sharp set of ears, you know, that look of alertness and the wolf is not going for that sheepdog.

[00:32:56] And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s fascinating to, uh, you know, to, to really put yourself into that position. I mean, I’m going to just, you know, talk a little bit about being in things. Um, I’ve had, you could say the, the good fortune for being able to talk about it now, but the misfortune of it happening in the moment. Um, literally, uh, to full-scale urban riots and being on the pointy end of the stick for those, well the first one most especially, back, you know, when, uh, you know, we always called a game, anyways, we won’t talk about that because that’ll be wrong. 

[00:33:37] But, um, watching things happen literally in slow motion. Literally. And they aren’t, they’re happening in real time, but you are in such an elevated state through, you know, the adrenaline dump and everything else. You go into this hyper, um, observant state where things seem to slow down. You’re looking, you know, with, with visual narrowing, you’re looking into a tube, all the other things around you really aren’t important, but seeing that person that’s throwing a bottle directly at you, throwing a brick at you, sometimes that tunnel vision changes, and you can see, you know, with stuff going towards your, your, your teammates at the moment and, and seeing that’s strange.

[00:34:28] In the middle of a full-blown riot, the one thing that will take you away from your normal day to day is the sheer amount of noise, explosions of the gas grenades going off, the yelling, the screaming, the breaking of glass. Uh, the sound, fire is very quiet funny enough, but you can hear fire, you can hear the crackling of stuff burning, but it’s not very loud.

[00:34:55] So in amongst all of these incredibly loud things, you’re hearing the subtleties, you hear the sound of, you know, um, a bottle being broken, which is not in itself very loud, but then you, you know, you’re turning yourself, uh, to those, those unusual sounds. 

[00:35:14] Voices, hearing people in the crowd actually discussing what they’re about to do to somebody in the riot squad that we are with, we call them, uh, you know, all sorts of nice things, that was a riot squad in the, in the, you know, um, public order unit. Like they’re actually talking about that and you can, your auditory exclusion takes you into their conversation and that’s happening 10, 15 feet away amongst the den.

[00:35:43] I recall listening to the boss on a cell phone, in the middle of the riot, we’re holding the line. He’s probably standing 15, 20 feet away from me. And he’s talking to, you know, the commander in the, in the, in the centre, you know, who’s making all the direction and I can hear their conversation. I can hear the voice on the cell phone, not just him talking, just thinking, you know, taking myself back.

[00:36:15] Thinking this is, you know, not really pay attention into the moment, but afterwards, to be able to articulate the words that were there. And, and until it happens to you, you can’t believe it. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:26] And for somebody who’s never been in that before, that’s gotta be disorienting.  So to have a little bit of an idea of what to possibly expect in these situations can give a little bit of comfort.

Paul Ballard: [00:36:39] And, and that’s why you got to listen to somebody who’s been there when they say the stuff’s going to happen. Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. It’s good, it’s your body uh, you know, getting you ready for that. You know, this is how many million years of evolution, you know, has changed so many things in the way we live, but that primal ability of fight or flight.

[00:37:03] And we keep emphasizing, it’s all about flight. All these physical occurrences that are happening and their real, they are real, are there to help you get out of the situation. One of the things you may not necessarily feel, uh, in the moment is the adrenaline is now pumping you full of strength that you never had before.

[00:37:26] And that’s good. You’ll be able to run faster, jump higher, swim longer, punch harder, all these things, but they will happen. Shockingly is when you, you know, hey, the critical incident you look over and there’s a kid trapped underneath of a car. There’s just been a collision. And that car’s on top of a kid and everybody’s pulling the kid and they can’t get them out.

[00:37:49] And suddenly somebody emerges from the crowd and they lift the car up for everybody else to pull through. And we hear that all the time, 80 year old woman lifts car off, you know, husband in garage when jack fails. This type of stuff, but people get the benefit of however many years that we’ve had this as, uh, an instinctual response, you know, the adrenaline dump and all the other things. And don’t be afraid, use them, use them effectively.

Travis Bader: [00:38:21] So we talked about the one plus one rule, the rule of one plus one before, if there’s one bad guy, there’s probably two. If there’s one person talking to you on the street that you don’t know, there might be a reason why, there might be a second person they’re working with. 

[00:38:35] But in a fight, don’t think that this is just the one aggressor. You could have an innocent person who’s just happened to be walking by passively acquiescing, minding their own business, and they see this fight and progress, and they look at you as the aggressor and all of a sudden now it’s you against more than one person. 

[00:38:56] And I don’t care how many Steven Seagal movies a person has watched. When you start having a physical altercation with more than one individual, it gets tough really quick. 

Paul Ballard: [00:39:10] We’re now in code red, maybe we’re with, uh, our spouse, our kids, or someone else. Now that person needs to be your ally in that moment. If you’re in that confrontation and you’re down on the ground and you say somebody else comes along. Now there’s wolves that are just going to come along and they see something happening and their pack mentality forces them to just start kicking the people that are on the ground and see that lots, lots, and lots. 

[00:39:39] People are totally un-involved in whatever, you know, sparked the incidents, but they’ll come out of the crowd because they always, you know, wanting to kick somebody, you know, cause they’ve seen it on TV and that stuff. So yes, you gotta be wary of that, but you know, your, your backup may not be in the form of a physical backup, but again, clarifying to the crowd, help him, help him, help the guy in the red shirt, he got attacked by the other guy. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:06] Right. 

Paul Ballard: [00:40:07] Or something to that effect. Everybody needs to know they got to all work together. It’s no good if they go into that lockup phase and just stand and stare at you get in getting it, you know, so to speak, everybody’s gotta be together. 

Travis Bader: [00:40:22] And that was always a big part of the self-defence system that I would teach my kids. The big one is you’re not my mom, you’re not my dad. Right. If someone’s trying to hurt them or take them or do something, make it be known to everybody else around what’s going on.

[00:40:37] But as well, they’re not in a position to be able to physically help in the way that I’m sure they would want to, but they can sure use their voices to be able to help. And having that game plan ahead of time with your family or with your friends. That’s a very important conversation. 

Paul Ballard: [00:40:52] Yeah. That, that plan that you’ve had with your kids saying the only people that will ever come and pick you up from school will be somebody that you’ve met before. And even saying that as a problem, because we know that it could. 

Travis Bader: [00:41:08] Statistically. 

Paul Ballard: [00:41:09] You know, but you got to start with that and you say, is it okay if grandpa picks you up? Yes. Is it okay if grandma, uncle Joe, you know, and we are trusting uncle Joe, mom, dad, sister, brother, whatever, if it’s not one of those people, you don’t go. The only people that you would go with are the police. And again, making the kids understand. 

[00:41:29] Now we’re kind of going off into the stranger danger thing, you know, suddenly it’s not one of those people that you’ve preauthorized. The kid needs to start letting it out. You’re not physically capable, but you’ve got a voice and use it and don’t go and don’t go and don’t go, no matter what. 

[00:41:50] There’s no such thing as a, as a person that wants you to help them find something, you know, the classic, you know, I’m here looking for my dog, can you help me? You know, or, or any of those, kids are just nice. You know, they’ve been properly, brought up. Kid can still be polite and start screaming his head off a second later. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:12] So fights on, we know absolute aggression. You think of Malone from the untouchables. What did he say? He says, uh, see if I can do it. If he pulls a knife, you pull a gun. If he sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. 

Paul Ballard: [00:42:31] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:32] Something like that. But, but essentially what you don’t want to do is someone’s attacking with force, you meet that force. You have to go one. 

Paul Ballard: [00:42:41] Overcome the force. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:42] One step up and keep that force until the thread has stopped. Um, do we want to talk about Jared’s story? 

Paul Ballard: [00:42:52] Well, just, uh, you know, and I, I’m just going to take us back here again, though. We keep talking about the use of force at this point, but let’s talk about, we had the escape option. We don’t run so far and then turn around and try and start taking pictures of it or turn back to look to see what we’d done.

[00:43:10] We run so we know that we are in a position of true safety, like secure behind something that’s not penetrable or whatever we’re in our car. Somebody wants to get into our car. There’s no reason in the world for somebody to come out of the blue and start pulling on your door handle that’s going to be good.

[00:43:31] Now, if it’s clearly evident that that’s somebody who’s going to be a victim themselves, can you get them in and get them out of there? Without the suspect or the, you know, the, the attacker getting in with them, you know, that’s a consideration. 

[00:43:46] So your emotion is one thing, oh, I want to help this person. But the reality, there’s not going to be better if I drive my car away a little bit and get on the phone and come back with, you know, the ability to deal with it on your terms. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:01] And that just comes down to, from teaching a survival mindset. There is only one person and that’s you. 

Paul Ballard: [00:44:10] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:11] That’s not always going to be the right thing with yourself afterwards.

Paul Ballard: [00:44:14] And people have such a difficult time accepting that. And, and, you know, they say, oh, that’s like, you know, this is the degradation of human society if that’s all you’re thinking of. And, and that’s what we become that we’re telling people to abandon everybody else. But again, if you can’t continue on. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:37] I remember in my early twenties, when I got a license to carry in the states your CCW and few different states of reciprocity and, uh, Marty Hayes, Firearms Academy in Seattle did some training there with him and did some basic scenario training as a part of the CCW course.

[00:44:55] And one of the big things that they really want to get across is that firearm is not there for you to be a hero. You’re not a cop because you have a firearm on, you’re not there to help the cops cause you have that firearm. You’re there, that firearms air for one reason only, and that’s to protect you and your loved ones and that’s it.

[00:45:13] And you forget all the rest. And that was a really difficult thing to think about especially as a young male testosterone, wanting to help people all the rest. Really, when it comes down to a survival situation, you’re there to protect yourself, cause you might not have all of the information required to make proper decisions, to interject yourself into the, into some, some other sort of situation.

[00:45:43] And I remember that was one of the scenarios. A couple of people arguing, someone pulls a gun out and what do you do? Do you interject? No, you take off, the guy with the gun was actually a cop undercover right? And so when people start making these judgment calls of how, how could you just do that? Really, from a survival situation, that is where your head should be. 

Paul Ballard: [00:46:06] Yeah. And that’s true, you know, you hear repeatedly, oh, you know, if there had been somebody with a gun there, probably would have ended the whole thing, but you know, that, that’s where this, this idea having an armed society and all of the ability to they, you know, to carry a concealed firearm, everybody has sort of a, an armchair idea of how this is going to work.

[00:46:31] And it’s not that way at all. It is that, it’s that deep down personal thing, you know, it’s just you and the attacker in the moment, yours is not to, as a, as an armed citizen to come in, until you can clearly recognize it. But the fact that you come running down the street, withdrawn gun, might be the worst thing in the world, thinking that you’re going to end somebody else’s situation. You have to read it. When you’re in your own, different thing. 

Travis Bader: [00:46:58] And the same goes for people who carry a utility knife or who happened to have dog spray on them, or who’ve taken that napkin and put salt shaker in there and using. 

Paul Ballard: [00:47:09] Not a paper napkin. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:10] It as a weapon. 

Paul Ballard: [00:47:10] Not a paper napkin. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:11] Not a paper napkin, but the same thing applies to all of these.

Paul Ballard: [00:47:15] Yeah. Yeah. And, and like I say, you know, arming yourself ahead of time, um, is also arming the person that attacks you. You know, so if you are going to, uh, put a knife on your belt or put a knife in your pocket, you know that, uh, in the moment, if somebody gets your knife, now you need to recognize and fight that.

Travis Bader: [00:47:42] I think there’s a misconception, when people think about knives, they think, oh yeah, I caught this knife and I can use it for self-defence. You’re going to kill the person you stab, you should probably resign yourself to that. If you use a knife for self protection, the likelihood of doing serious grievous bodily harm or death is pretty high.

[00:48:01] It doesn’t take much for a blade to penetrate in order to do serious damage. And likewise, I don’t care how many movies they’ve seen of disarming a person with a knife and you touch on this before we used to do it with felt markers. Okay, let’s try disarm, guaranteed, and that’s just the tip of the marker. You’re walking out with ink on yourself. 

[00:48:22] You have to resign yourself. If somebody does have an edged weapon, you are going to get cut and you’re going to have to be able to fight through that. 

Paul Ballard: [00:48:30] Yes. Again, you know, completely eliminating your emotions, your ego at the time, if you look down and you’re bleeding, means nothing. You, you know, as long as you, you still got the energy to fight, you got to keep fighting. Cuts, don’t kill you fast. Um, you know, and that’s kind of a fortunate thing, unless somebody is highly trained and knows, you know, how to use the proper link to blade in the correct technique. 

[00:48:59] In most cases, you know, we see a lot of, um, stabbing, if you can get always get lucky and hit something, but you know, it’s be shocking and it’s a big help if you’ve ever seen in an animal that’s being butchered, how much space is in and around some of the organs and you know how that, uh, doesn’t become an immediate way to go.

Travis Bader: [00:49:21] Okay. 

Paul Ballard: [00:49:22] But the big thing you carry a weapon, you know, a knife, you, uh, you brought something to the situation and, and, and you bring a gun, you brought something to the situation, which you know that your attacker may not have had that before. And if you’re not, you know, physically capable of keeping that in your possession, that’s not going to be a help.

Travis Bader: [00:49:47] So Jared, Range Langley, 2017 he says. And Jared, if I’m telling the story and I get it wrong, I’m sure you’ll let me know, but I did take notes and I’m going to try and get the information across cause I think, I think you had some good points here that the listeners would appreciate. He says, Travis, if you think there would be some value in the listeners in this story of hearing the situation that I went through.

[00:50:10] So background on Jared, he’d say range officer at The Range Langley, he’s accustomed to being around firearms and hearing gunshots. He spent some time down in LA, he says he’s heard gunshots in an urban environment, kind of knows what that’s about and he spent a fair bit of time offering like physical security services for nightclubs in the form of a bouncer.

[00:50:30] And so he’s, he’s got a, uh, uh, some situational awareness and physical conditioning he’s on a date. I think it was 2017 browns social pub. And in the evening, I guess a waitress drops a highball glass, hits the ground flat makes a big bang nose, every, nose, big bang noise, and everybody looks around and yells OPA and they clean it up. And there we go. 

[00:50:59] Uh, later on in the evening they hear a similar bang and this time it was a round going through the glass and followed up by some more rounds going through and immediately he. 

Paul Ballard: [00:51:11] And more people yelling OPA. 

Travis Bader: [00:51:13] Yeah, he did. I don’t think he said, they said OPA at this point, but the first thing that came into his head and I think most other peoples there was, Jared, I’m not trying to speak on your behalf, but I’m trying to recollect what you say. First thing that came into his head was is this another high ball glass hitting the ground? 

[00:51:30] Because it’s not normal that you’re going to have gunshots coming into the restaurant where you’re, you’re eating in. Well, by the second round, people knew what was going on pretty quickly. And he was under the table with his girlfriend and, or the girl that he was on a date with anyways. And she was freaking out. And apparently most of his energy was into, went into trying to keep her calm. 

[00:52:01] Uh, he looked for exits and he saw one and there was one out by the patio, problem was there was a fellow doing backflips. Cause I guess he had been hit, right by there trying to get in and he yells out, don’t let him in. They want him, not us, right. He says right or wrong, whatever people judge that right or wrong, he says, but why do we want to invite that danger inside here? 

[00:52:25] He says, he looked and he gets to see these people, but they’re dressed all in black. Uh, and that’s about the most he got out of it. He says the adrenal fog kicked in, the adrenal dump right off the bat. But then the adrenal fog, trying to, uh, think things through, I, I guess the, let me just take a look, make sure I’m not missing anything. Here are the notes. So his exit was blocked. He says afterwards, if I was really thinking about it, places have more than one exit. I could have gone through the kitchen and no one going to think twice about someone going through a kitchen in this sort of a situation. 

[00:53:03] He says afterwards, I kind of wish I spoke with other people that were around me. Like, hey, do you know what’s going on? Hey, do you have a plan? Sort of like coordinate the other people in there. He says he didn’t do that, but this is a benefit of hindsight. Uh, he says he had to stick around for about four hours while the police came in and they took some statements about what happened.

[00:53:25] And they were asking, what are the people look like? He says, I don’t know, it was all in black. It’s all I saw, but it sounded like there was a semi-auto and a revolver. And it sounded like this many shots were fired because of his background of working in the range, that’s where his mind immediately went.

Paul Ballard: [00:53:39] And those are things though, that, as we talked about beforehand, is what has been downloaded to your subconscious. So that’s there. That, that ability to recognize those things, is there. Back to you, sorry. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:51] Mhmm. He, and part of this will go into the after as well, uh, which we can we’ll delve in further, but he says, uh, everybody wants to hear the story afterwards. Everybody wants to talk about it afterwards. And there was anger involved. He was angry at the laws that he couldn’t carry a firearm or angry at the body armour laws, or that he couldn’t protect himself in a way that he figured that he should. Um, and these are all things that a person would have to square themselves with, for the after.

[00:54:28] And we’ll talk about that in greater detail, but it was an interesting story and I didn’t do it justice, Jared, I know because we spoke for some time on this one and he had a lot more details. But his survival mindset was right. Uh, afterwards squaring yourself with, I guess, one of the, uh, uh, women in the patio opened the door and allow this person to come in bleeding all over the place. I believe that was the individual ended up, uh, passing. Um, yes, survival mindset was right. But I think afterwards, some people might have a hard time with that too, like, me over them. 

Paul Ballard: [00:55:04] Well, yeah. And that’s the part, again, that we keep going back to is, you know, it’s you, and afterwards you can imagine that other people say, you know, there was some guy yelling, don’t let him in. Can you believe that, that’s the degradation of society. We’re all finished as a, as a human race, but you know what, unfortunately, it’s the right thing to do in those kind of moments. 

[00:55:27] That person is not your kin, that person is not, you know, in your team, I’m talking, you know, if it was a battlefield situation and that was a member of your squad, a hundred percent he’s coming in and we’re going to fight out there and fight that guy back in, because that’s what we’re there to do. This is you went out for dinner on a date, that’s not what you’re there to do. There is the sheepdog that’s going to do it. And you know, like he said, the woman that, that let him in, that’s, her inner sheepdog came out. She just couldn’t, couldn’t get beyond not helping a fellow human being and that’s, that’s great.

[00:56:05] But did you know, she, how much risk did she put herself at doing that? That that’s the part that we don’t know, and we can armchair forever. People love to armchair, but I’m just, you know, that that’s the way it goes. You know, it’s funny, you know, just based solely on what you said um, he talks about looking up and seeing the exit. That’s you know,  sometimes could be talked about as a bit of tunnel vision because the activity is there and within the activity of what you’re looking at is the red exit signs. 

[00:56:37] So back in the subconscious exit, but in the upfront, in the cognitive level, not a good choice because that is also the danger area. That’s the, you know, we could use the term, killzone. I got a good story for afterwards, which actually takes us back to this, but we’ll, we’ll save that, you know, uh, going ahead, but you’re, you’re right. It’s it is, you know, restaurants. 

[00:57:06] Hey, you know, we just heard here in the province of British Columbia, if it depends on where you’re living from, we’re going to have our opening today is going to be announced at one o’clock and you know, going into a restaurant or a bar, um, it’s, you know, you can, how many years my wife and I have been together, she understands that she doesn’t even try to sit anywhere that allows me to not keep my back away from the door. 

[00:57:33] Um, and it’s just, I’ve done it all my pretty much adult life. I can’t comfortably sit with my back to the room unless I’m sitting with somebody I trust. And if I know that the person that’s sitting with the eyes on the room, I’m good with that. But if I’m there with anybody else, any non, um, known entity, I just can’t get comfortable. And, and that’s just something I always do. And I sit down and I look, and I see as I’m ordering, where’s the in, where’s the out. Just happens and it’s not a hard way to live your life. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:14] It really isn’t. 

Paul Ballard: [00:58:15] It’s not, it’s not, it’s not overbearing, but we going back to what we talked about already, but it’s there because in the moment grab a hand, run through the kitchen, just like Jared said, and it would have been over for him. It would have been over. 

Travis Bader: [00:58:29] So there’s other things that could be done in the moment in something like that. Which may or may not be useful for this situation, but we talked about the mental prep before of being able to identify a person, look at their skin color, look at their height, look at their gender, look at any distinguishing marks that they have, that would be difficult to change.

[00:58:50] Same with vehicle, even though we all know in these sorts of situations, like Jared’s talking about there’s stolen vehicles that get torched an hour later, but direction of travel, which way were they heading? Because when they’re under the table, they called 911 as I’m sure everybody else was as well. Uh, the more information that they can gather in the during, the better off, they will be in the afterwards as well. 

[00:59:19] And the more they can articulate and user tactical communication, their, their voice and the during in a way that that’s properly pre-programmed, that they they’re saying the right words in the right way. Hey, drop that weapon. Everyone looks, they look at the person you’re talking to and they assume that person’s got a weapon right? Whoops. They made a mistake, they didn’t have a weapon, they’re just being aggressive, but they still got that information out there. If they downloaded that information to their head and they used in that situation, that could be a useful thing in the after as well. Um.

Paul Ballard: [00:59:53] Yeah, that’s right. I mean, well, we still talking about the moment your code red, it’s real it’s happening, but you may not be the focus of whatever the, you know, the, the energies of the attacker is. But you’re still feeling, you know, all of the other things that come on when, when it’s real and going down. And trying to keep yourself, um, focused on the thing to be of some value later is some consideration. 

[01:00:21] I just, you know, there’s something keeps playing in my head when gunfire happens, particularly a handgun, based on four or five rounds, I’ve trained people to fire over the years at the range. What people tend to do, is if they’re untrained with a firearm, is send rounds to the ground.

Travis Bader: [01:00:42] Mhmm. 

Paul Ballard: [01:00:44] And that in, you know, just some consideration, if you’re going to lay flat or stretched across towards somebody that’s out there can put you in a, a bit of risk at, you know, ricocheted rounds that, that go low. So, I mean, if you’re far enough away, it’s probably not a bad choice, but stay in skinny and tall and trying to get behind something, because again, that’s a more difficult target, particularly at distance, you know, all concerned.

[01:01:16] It just kind of popped into my head in the moment. That, those would be some of the things, you know, based on my, you know, makeup of experiences might be. So I would, I would consider distances, you know, I know how far people can shoot, when they can hit. I keep looking at the way people would shoot in those situations and whether it’s aimed fire or just, you know, point and squeeze or point and jerk trigger. 

Travis Bader: [01:01:44] It’s mostly point and click that I seen. 

Paul Ballard: [01:01:45] That’s it. And that can be darn effective at a darn effective at, at the shorter ranges and we can see that clearly, right. Um, but you know, some, some things, you know. If the person comes in swinging a knife, don’t get down, get around something, get, you know, get physically, get the bar between you and that person, get tables between you. But if you, if you lay down, you’ve lost your reactionary time, right. Cause now, you’ve got to get up to move away from them. Um. 

Travis Bader: [01:02:18] You know, when you talk about rounds hitting the ground and the ricochet, I remember as a kid, uh, my father would set up different shotgun shells, green ones, red ones, blue ones, 12 gauge, 20 gauge, .410, and they’d all be on the ground at different areas and call out a colour. 

[01:02:38] Red, okay. Got to bring it out and try a point shooting or body index shooting or instinctive shooting, right. And get the gun out without using the sights. Squeeze the trigger, shoot the shotgun, the casing, shotgun shell on the ground. And it didn’t take me long to realize I, as long as my left and right, my windage was good. Uh, my elevation could be dead on or pretty much anywhere in front of it cause I could skip the round into that shell. And so I could speed things up quite quickly. Maybe I didn’t quite get a dead on, but I was in front of it and skipped in. So the same thinking applies to walls. 

Paul Ballard: [01:03:14] That’s right. Yeah. The spall coming off of, you know.  

Travis Bader: [01:03:17] Spall and walls. Like if you’re going to hug a wall going down and there’s gunfire, you just got to shoot anywhere at you or in front of you on that wall. And you’re probably going to be catching a round. 

Paul Ballard: [01:03:28] Yeah. It is something to really consider, you know, people lay down under a car, but a shot fired under the car can also spall off the asphalt or concrete that’s there. So getting behind a car means, you know, getting behind the wheel, you know that, so you’ve got that protection of the tire, physically on the ground, and the rim, you know, to stop any spall or, or indeed any projectiles going to need. Those are the things, can you analyze that quickly in the moment?

[01:03:54] No, but if you’ve thought about it before, these are the things, this is the plan. This is the plan that you made. We’re talking code red, we’re talking execution of the plan. Uh, some other things to consider is, you know, if whatever you’re doing is not working in code red, like this is not making things better for me. Oh. 

Travis Bader: [01:04:20] Pivot and adapt. 

Paul Ballard: [01:04:21] Right. Have you have you, in the planning stage before any of this happened, come up with, you know, a scenario in your mind, I’m punching somebody I’m, I’m doing the attack that I’d always thought I would do in this situation, it’s not working, so what’s the secondary? 

Travis Bader: [01:04:38] Those judo chops that I was practicing so much, man, they just didn’t work quite as good. 

Paul Ballard: [01:04:44] Yeah. And you know, the, and the, the, the compliant partner I had in the gym who would lay down and scream, you know, this, person’s not doing that. So it’s always, you know, plan a, the simplest plan b uh, when a isn’t working. And boy, if it’s plan c, this has gotta be a really effective thing. Uh, but it’s, it’s gonna be, you know, almost at the point where getting distance becomes the most important to regroup. 

[01:05:18] I just, one of the most incredible conversations I ever had, um, the RCMP years ago, fully embraced the Gregg method of instinctive shooting. Um, and some of the older RCMP members that I know that can tell you about this. And, and Gregg had developed is the, what was his last name two G’s, a system of sightless shooting. 

Travis Bader: [01:05:44] Right.

Paul Ballard: [01:05:44] And when he trained you initially, you would use 22 rifles that had no sights on them, and you were actually holding them clearly out of the aim. And by gosh, you could hit an amazing amount of stuff as you trained in the Gregg method of sightless shooting and without getting into it too much, it was adopted in the RCMP training and they referred to it as instinctive shooting.

Travis Bader: [01:06:13] Right. 

Paul Ballard: [01:06:13] And it’s a word that absolute or a phrase that absolutely curdles my urine when I heal or hear people use it. But I’ll just tell you, this is how, if you think you have a plan and you’re trained with a plan and you’re in code red, what to do. So this RCMP officer, um, long story short, a robbery occurs. He sees the robbery suspect, he’s in the police vehicle. He stops the individual who immediately exits his vehicle. He draws his six shot revolver and from the Gregg method of, and he’s basically shooting well below his line of sight. He’s seeing. 

Travis Bader: [01:07:01] Cause that’s how he taught. That was the Gregg method. 

Paul Ballard: [01:07:02] How they’re taught. And it was the sort of a triangle press out from your body. And your eyes are up here and the guns down there. And he’s shooting at the bad guy who in turn is one arm extents and shooting back at him. And they start aroundy round the police car and aroundy rounds happening and they’re, both of them are shooting. He fires his six rounds, he recognizes that he’s unloaded.

[01:07:29] He accesses his speed loader, reloads fabulously, he’s got six fresh rounds ready to go. And he says he couldn’t, he doesn’t even recall the reload it went so smoothly, you know, clean ejection of the spent cases. And he starts firing that method. And he goes through his full 18 rounds, the six in the gun, the 12 off his belt, bad guy goes through the magazine that he had in a semiautomatic pistol.

[01:07:57] And now it’s one of those dead silence because there’s no more gunfire. Nobody’s got ammo. Neither one of them were hit in this exchange that, you know, in probably 10 plus rounds fired on the part of the bad guy from his semiautomatic pistol, 18 rounds fired from the revolver. And I said to him, you know, when I got the opportunity to speak to him, I said, well, why didn’t you just put the sights on him? No one ever talked about using that. It was never something that was offered up as a solution to the bad guy, not falling down. 

Travis Bader: [01:08:34] You will respond exactly as you’ve trained. 

Paul Ballard: [01:08:37] Correct.

Travis Bader: [01:08:37] To your lowest level of training that you’ve been able to perfect, is where you’ll respond. And Peter principle can also come into place.

Paul Ballard: [01:08:45] Correct. And I will tell you, or, from every single person that I have trained in uniform, that the most important thing is to learn to use your sights. Everything else is just frosting on the cake. If you need in that last moment to use your firearm. So anyways, not that I’m advocating anybody use a firearm, but that is the understanding. When you come up with a technique, the first thing that you practice is the full-proof side of it. 

Travis Bader: [01:09:15] Right. 

Paul Ballard: [01:09:16] And then everything else goes to support it. So.

Travis Bader: [01:09:18] Hick’s law, not Peter principle Hicks laws. What I was thinking of and Hick’s law essentially says that the more options that you have in your head, the more likely you are to dither between choosing one of them in a stressful situation. So if you have that one option, which is, we use a sights or my one option that I’ve really downloaded. If I have to fight, I fight hard and I fight aggressively. I’m not afraid to be dirty and use hair or eyes. Um, that can really play to your benefit when that adrenal fog kicks in. 

Paul Ballard: [01:09:52] Correct. And, oh, let’s talk about what happens if you’ve planned, it’s code red and suddenly you find yourself completely unable to fight without emotion or ego. And all of a sudden, your feet are stuck to the ground and you realize, wow, all I’m doing is breathing at, you know, any highly, um, accelerated rate of respiration. You know, there’s horns honking in my ears. The lights are flashing and everything else. Get out of that, that should be another plan. And that’s that, you know, um, autogenic breathing, just blow your lungs clear.

[01:10:35] Well, your lungs clear, empty your lungs, shake your head just a little bit, slap your hands on your thighs. Just get, get some, you know, physical stimulation there, back in. Now, you know, those things that maybe break in that, that fog that’s occurred that, and you use the word mental fibrillation or tactical dithering.

[01:10:55] You know, those, those are the things that can potentially happen. And unfortunately I have seen that effect occur in others, in some very tough situations that I’ve had the fortune, good fortune to be a part of, so I can talk about it later, the misfortune to be in some pretty, you know, tough scrapes in the moment. But you can watch others and yeah, and it’s, it’s a thing to, to take that with you as well, but how do you break out of that?

[01:11:24] Autogenic breathing just absolute complete emptying of your lungs takes, you know, all of a sudden your, your whole physical being is now coming back online. It’s almost like a restart and that could be a huge help. Um, again, slapping your hands and your thighs, give your head a little shake, you know, that, that pinching, some of those things can just bring . You back.

Travis Bader: [01:11:49] Interesting. 

Paul Ballard: [01:11:49] No guarantees, but you know, having something, uh, to, to work with on that case. 

Travis Bader: [01:11:54] That’s, that’s a good point, little, little physical tips that people can do to kind of break that psychological block that they’re in. When two things that I’ve used in the past, if you’re in a stressful situation, a box breathing where you three seconds in, hold it for three seconds, three seconds out, hold it for three seconds, three seconds in, and just keep repeating that. And that’s one way to help calm yourself in a suit. And I mean, even in mountaineering or rock climbing, and I know you’ve done a fair bit of that, there’s been situations where you. 

Paul Ballard: [01:12:26] That was a long time ago. 

Travis Bader: [01:12:28] Where you’ve, I know there’s been situations where I’ve found myself in areas where I’m over my head and you have, that, you can’t stop, you can’t move back and you have to press forward. And one of the things that I just do, I can, I can, I can, just some sort of a mantra that goes through your head and you just do it and you can achieve some otherwise maybe seemingly superhuman type things or what other people would sit back and say, how the hell does that person do it? It’s because you’re a very singular in your purpose and what you’re doing. And you keep repeating that to yourself as you work your way through. 

Paul Ballard: [01:13:04] Yeah. And I’ve always, uh, well, mine is, you know, get on it, get on it, get on it, get on it, get on it. And that’s the thing that yells in, in, you know. Brian, what’s your Brian, Brian Calgary police retired now, but he talks about the WIN principle. 

Travis Bader: [01:13:25] Mm. 

Paul Ballard: [01:13:26] And what’s important now, and I’m not going to steal his thunder and we’ll get his name here for the next podcast. And you should listen to him talk and he continually repeats the  mantra, WIN, what’s important now. Okay. So now I’ve put myself in a better position. I’ve got distance from the subject, what’s important now? Do I continue to move away? Do I now have to rescue somebody else, what’s important now? And it evolves, it evolves because you’re now taking successional steps, you’ve done something, what’s important now. And of course, then in the end you win. 

Travis Bader: [01:14:08] That’s a, uh, an adaption of your OODA loop, observe, orient, decide and act. 

Paul Ballard: [01:14:12] Correct. And everybody’s got their thing, I guess, last name’s going to come. We’ll we’ll have it for your everybody here uh, shortly. 

Travis Bader: [01:14:22] Okay. Do we want to talk about anything else in the during, or do we want to save the rest for the after?

Paul Ballard: [01:14:27] I think, uh, get rid of your ego, get rid of your emotion. Your purpose is singular it’s to make whatever is that high degree of stress, right there, an attack or imminent attack or an imminent threat to your life or wellbeing stop or get away from it. And, and to do it, you know, as efficiently as your physicality, uh, your training or your experience will allow you to do it.

[01:14:59] And that’s, that’s the thing, get rid of the emotion. Really. Don’t be afraid. Uh, not don’t be afraid, you’re going to be afraid, take your fear and turn it into righteous indignation. That’s an important thing for people to understand. Everybody gets scared. Totally. 

Travis Bader: [01:15:19] Sure. It’s normal. 

Paul Ballard: [01:15:19] You should be scared in that situation, but take from that fear, the strength and just the words are how dare, how dare you do this to me? How dare you do this to that person? How, how dare you change my life right now by doing this thing. And that will give you the, you know, the ability to continue on. But, um, no, I distracted myself from the fear side. Uh, it’ll come back. 

Travis Bader: [01:15:48] Okay. Okay, Paul, let’s wrap this one up. If the listeners have anything that they would like to add, well, they might have a difficult time on this because we’re going to be recording our after right, right now, but we can definitely post it up on social media.

Paul Ballard: [01:16:04] For sure. 

Travis Bader: [01:16:05] And if the demand is there, I’m happy to make a synopsis of all of these things and put it up into blog posts for people to be able to have some downloadable assets. 

Paul Ballard: [01:16:15] Absolutely. 

Travis Bader: [01:16:16] Thank you very much Paul.