The importance of both hands weapon retention
Over recent years we have received numbers of enquiries from individuals with concerns and questions about weapon retention and disarming skills.
Most are avid readers of CQC times and use the close combat files for reference information and a resources source.
Having 94 years’ experience and expertise in mil CQC/MSD training provision and skills development along with a lineage of no other private specialist European mil close combat training authority dating back to allied Master-Instructors from WWII has put us in a unique status that comes with great responsibilities.
Their concerns include techniques where primary or backup weapons are retained with a single hand grip with the enemy face to face with the combatant in close proximity or in contact with an enemy per.
I can understand their concerns as single hand securing/retention of a weapon in close to point-blank bodily contact range front on face to face defies our primary tradecraft tactics and skills.
There are always situational considerations such as rear and side flanks covert sudden shock actions of a non-ballistic type but compromised frontal face to face single handed grip of your weapon in the kill zone is suicidal against a formidable enemy with deadly intentions.
The reality is that if the enemy seizes your weapon with both hands they have a more secure grip of the weapon than you do with a single hand grip of your weapon.
It also advantages them in weapon muzzle manipulation and increases their chances of disarming you of your weapon.
The reality is a formidable enemy with the smarts would most likely seize the opportunity of a combatant offering their weapon to them because of compromised single handed retention of their weapon.
I can see their concerns of using one arm/hand at close quarters in a weapon range seizure position. In hands reach close quarters range face to face you can only expect a formidable foe to go actions on to strip you of your weapon. Setting a frontal face to face kill zone range and status defies logic and anyone who does this can expect a violent struggle if they assume static front flank face to face attempts at upright pinning, maneuvering or manipulation of their enemy with a single grip retention of their weapon. The reality is two hands and arms provide higher level retention than a single grip.
Often the enemy has their back to a solid backdrop giving them something to push off or slide along adding to their advantages.
The risks of such wall arrest techniques in law-enforcement have been identified in prisoner handling for decades by operators and instructors with the smarts but there are those that have not been trained in best of operational tactics and skills that still promote such increased risk practices as single handed weapon retention while using their free arm to pin or grapple with the enemy.
Formidable offenders will take advantage of every situational offering and against a single hand weapon retention grip two hands provide superior capabilities. Those with the smarts and killer instincts will employ their double retention seizure and securing of the weapon by the quickest and most deliberate means.
They may well slide along a wall, push off a wall, check and redirect or even duck under their adversaries non-weapon holding arm or change their position to maximise their weapon seizure and taking control of the weapon.
Primary tactics and skills should include the elimination of any practices that are flawed and increase risk.
The old military CQB/CQC adage; if your wrestling with the enemy in combat your wrong, highlights the risks and realities of giving the enemy any access to your weapon or any opportunity to strip you of your weapon and use it against you.
If a formidable unarmed enemy with the smarts is facing a combatant holding their primary or backup weapon at close to point-blank range with only one hand they are increasing the risk of being stripped of their weapon and having it turned on them. Offering your weapon at close range with a single hand grip could be a fatal last error.
It very much comes down to an enemy not wanting to be taken prisoner and as such seizing and securing a weapon and manipulating the muzzle towards the combatant with both hands in a disarming manner with all their might.
Once they have seized and secured the combatants weapon and have manipulated the muzzle away from themselves and turned it back towards the combatant it is all but over for the combatant.
Weather the intention is to use the weapon holders own weapon against them lethally or to take them prisoner or escape and evade the outcome is now a negative one that never needed to happen if primary hard targeting tactics and skills had been employed.
Employing single arm weapon retention combined with single arm contact with an enemy is potentially suicidal and certainly defies primary means of covering or taking a prisoner when armed.
Even some reasonably inexperienced combatants have raised this concern and others that have long records of service have commented that such high risk techniques speak volumes about those that instruct such high risk skills.
It can come down to the origins of the techniques and the techniques original purposes especially when techniques have been bastardised and are based on traditional means and methods that may well be for somewhat different purposes.
I was taught by my former instructors who were WWII Master-Instructors and Senior Instructors the importance of the correct and best tools for objective achievement and how the military and law-enforcement faced threats are ever evolving and require threat specific means and methods of threat neutralisation not techniques or bastardised techniques of traditional historic lines that are not the most current proven objective achievement means and methods.
They would simply state something like this, it’s not traditional rape, robbery or murder faced in the real world of extreme violence today and as such traditional ways are not normally the best in safety or objective achievement, being historic traditional arts practices of different cultures. Such practices do not provide primary best and most current threat neutralisation capabilities for the battle field or western world urban/criminal violence.
Using stand up fighting arts or grappling sport fighting means and methods to take a formidable enemy prisoner certainly would not be the best and safest modus operandi of objective achievement.
Apart from made easy kill zone low level weapon retention weapon disarming there is also the threat of covert/concealed weapons being employed and you must always remember how dangerous an unseen weapon can be.
Maintaining double hand retention of your weapon and using it from a safe range and tactically correct orientation increases safety and one’s chances of objective achievement while reducing risk.
Unfortunately when techniques are based on traditional or sporting codes and styles and not military close quarters combat/close quarters battle defensive tactics in deadly actions on encounters as a result of instructor’s/operators capabilities not being military task/role specific, the likelihood of defeating the enemy is dramatically reduced and as such safety is compromised.
In the real world on the battlefield or in urban violence there are not rules and an error in tactics and skills can be fatal.
Decentralisation or incapacitation can be achieved by tactically correct stamp kicks to destroy the integrity of the ligaments of the knee joint/knee cap while maintaining maximum retention of your primary weapon or backup weapon.
Even if you have your weapon on a sling holding it with one hand is tactically flawed and still offers the enemy the opportunity to grasp and secure it with both hands and redirect the muzzle on you.
Sometimes it comes down to a lack of enemy party realism in training where there are no sudden aggressive shock actions and highly committed disarming enemy party attempts.
In my early days as an exponent we were always briefed on the matter of fact that only a foolish enemy would take you prisoner at point blank weapon range providing you with opportunity to disarm them of their weapon and disable/dispose of them with it.
I was tasked back then with developing prisoner taking skills that removed the opportunity to be able to seize and secure your weapon.
Like with any mil CQC developed skill we also develop counter skills against our own skills.
Two-handed weapon securing methods of weapon seizure prevention, weapon retention and weapon regention (regaining control of the weapon) if the enemy seizes it, combined with primary tactics of hard targeting using range angle and the weapon as a means of directional pointing combined with short sharp verbiage demonstrates a combatant that understands risk reduction and how to safely and effectively achieve detainee handling objectives.
Primary weapon secure retention using the weapon as an impact weapon from rear flanks
Maintaining two handed securing of your weapon also provides the best capability to use the weapon as a bludgeon or spiking type weapon by covert surprise/rear flank actions.
My previous mil close combat instructors agreed that battlefield close combat and urban violence are very different to sport or art forms and as such require very different means and methods to achieve objectives.
