If you’re prepping, and people are aware of it, you are a target.  Once civilization collapses, the old economic principle of scarcity will take on a brand new meaning for most folks.  Many will find themselves resorting to acts of violence to satisfy their immediate needs of food, water, clothing, and shelter.  In short, you may need to fight in order to survive.

I’m not claiming to be Rambo or anything, but I have been in combat.  That being said, I feel as if I can offer some advice from my own massive failures.  There are many things to consider when putting together a realistic training regimen to ensure that you are prepared for that day.  Here are a few:

Combat makes you very, very tired.  Bottom line, you’re not in good enough shape for sustained combat operations.  You may be an excellent shot on your range in controlled conditions, but when you are rushing and rolling, moving from cover to cover, and my personal favorite, low crawling, you quickly find that you lack the cardiovascular fitness necessary to produce a stable shooting platform.  What does that mean?  You can’t hit the broad side of a barn because your chest is heaving and your hands are shaking.  Get in shape, fatty.

Account for  the fight or flight response.  Hey, lesson one in combat is that nothing works.  Your fingers don’t work.  Your hearing doesn’t work.  Your eye sight is awful (tunnel vision). Your fine motor skills go the way of Jimmy Hoffa.  Why?  Because the age-old fight or flight response takes over and prepares your body for combat (think old fashioned combat…caveman style….sticks and rocks) by draining the blood from your extremities and shutting down unnecessary functions in order to channel energy to your combat faculties.  That’s why your fingers don’t work right and you become uncoordinated like a three legged dear on a frozen pond.  Bottom line, you lose the ability to recall fine motor skills, and you become completely dependent upon your gross motor skills.  Guess where your fancy shooting techniques live?  You guessed it….fine motor skills.  Which means you’re not going to be able to do it in actual combat.  You need to drill, and drill, aaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd drill, until you beat those movements into your lizard brain.  Only then will the instinctual movements be available to you in combat.

Also, abandon anything fancy.  I saw a knife fighting technique this week that invited the combatant to drop the knife from one hand to the other while engaged with an enemy under combat stress.  I laughed myself to sleep.  Let me know how that works out for you in real combat.

Simulate combat stress. Well, as good a simulation as you can muster anyhow.  What most Americans call stress makes me giggle.  I’m not talking about your stress about what to wear to school today.  I’m talking real stress.  If possible, train under low light conditions, having just run five miles, in the rain, with simunitions (or something else that will hurt like hell…paintball set to 400 fps comes to mind).  The possibility of negative reinforcement (getting shot in the junk, for instance) will trigger the release of some endorphins and help to somewhat simulate combat stress.  In the end, if you haven’t actually been in combat, you have no idea what you’re in for.  It’s ok.  Just do the best you can.