#fridayfundamentals
Todays post is not about shooting technique, its about avoiding being an idiot. Im writing a series of Patreon posts about the incident but Idiot Avoidance is the bottom line.
By now, probably everyone in America has heard about the shooting that occurred last week on a New York subway train. The full video is available on ABC 7s video Brooklyn subway shooting: the full video
The most important lesson of the entire incident is not about weapons usage or unarmed combat or weapon disarms. The important lesson is to avoid Monkey Dancing. Rory Miller coined this term years ago and its important.
The term Monkey Dance was coined in the book Meditations on Violence to describe the human dominance ritual. Its a deliberately ridiculous name for a ridiculous pattern of behavior.
Rory Miller
Before the would-be shooter, who ended up being the shootee, began to access his weapon there were three and a half minutes of Monkey Dancing. Its also worth noting that accessing his pistol took him 14 seconds because he had it in a zippered pocket of his jacket. He had taken off the jacket in preparation for the Monkey Dance, so it was off-body carry at that point.
Its also worth noting that with two exceptions, the crowd watched and enjoyed the spectacle for four minutes. They only became unnerved by the introduction of a gun. Then, they began to panic and scream. Let me out!
The two exceptions were the woman in the face diaper behind the Black man and another man who took a big chance and stepped in to create a break. The woman, although not involved up to that point, immediately stabbed the Black man in the back several time when he began his Ground and Pound. It only took her a couple of seconds to get started so she must have had her knife in hand ready to go.
Monkey dancing is stupid and irrational. Dont do it.
