Time....Tiger McKee

Skill Set: Time

Time is a precious commodity. There are never enough hours in the day to accomplish everything necessary.  I usually start out the day behind, and then struggle to just keep up.  In a violent confrontation, time is always a deciding factor.  You’re presented a dangerous problem.  Normally you have a very short amount of time to respond to the threat.
Use the time you have wisely.  In a confrontation you have to make every second count.  Chances are the fight is only going to last a few seconds.  The threat is going to be danger close, probably closer than ten feet.  You’re going to have to make a decision – right now - on what to do.  This buys you time to figure out what to do after that.
You’ll likely have about one second to make a decision.  Being human we tend to want details.  But, there isn’t enough time to figure out all the particulars of what’s going on.  By the time you gather all the information required to know exactly what’s going on it’s too late.  The fight is over.  You lost.
Or, you do something to buy yourself time.  One good way to create time is to force the threat to react to you.  Initially you are likely reacting to the threat.  They started the fight.  Moving, taking a lateral step to the left or right, forces the threat to respond to you.  Pushing the threat into making a response buys you time.  How much time?  It may be a half a second, or a couple of seconds.
Distance and time are very closely related.  Normally the more distance between you and the threat the more time you have.  When the threat is three feet away there’s very little time, and a restricted list of possible options.  Backing up, creating distance provides you a little bit more time, and possibly a few more alternatives in the response list.  Moving – in this case backing up – creates time.
The more distance the better.  You see someone fifty feet away look at you, turn and begin approaching.  “Stop,” you command, “Don’t come any closer!”  If they obey that’s great.  If not, they ignore the commands and continue; you’ve got plenty of distance – and time – to determine what to do next.
Moving buys you time and distance.  It also greatly reduces the chances of you being injured.  When you’re moving it’s more difficult for the threat to hit, cut or shoot you.
While time is critical, you can’t feel rushed.  If you let circumstance dictate how fast you perform you’ll end up going too fast, which only leads to making mistakes.  A mistake may provide the threat a window of opportunity to take control of the fight.  You’ll make enough mistakes without creating more by going too fast.  And there’s certainly not enough time for you to think about any mistakes you might make.  When a mistake does occur you’ll need to fix it, correcting or compensating as necessary and continuing the fight.
Time is always in short supply.  Don’t waste it, and whenever possible work to create more time.  This allows you to make more assessments and decisions on what your next actions should be.  You act again, continuing to put pressure on your opponent.  You want to “suck” all his time away, never giving him an opportunity to catch up.  This continues until you’ve won.
Tiger McKee is director of Shootrite Firearms Academy