Non-Gun Weapons: Carried and Improvised an Interview with Michael Janich Interview by Gila Hayes the Door
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© Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network, Inc. 1 Non-Gun Weapons: Carried and Improvised An Interview with Michael Janich Interview by Gila Hayes the door. Here he comes! The first thing you see is his head coming eJournal: Last month, in the Network’s online journal through the door. Are you (http://armedcitizensnetwork.org/march-2016-surviving- prepared to take that We’re often an-active-shooter) we talked with you at length about hammer and beat his instructed to consider improvised strengthening our defense potential against armed head in? You weapons yet rarely terrorists. A number of times during that discussion, you should be. Be taught what to select spoke of defending yourself with whatever is at hand in prepared to or specifically how to use it. Michael Janich a no-gun environment. From your long experience as a do what you provides specifics in martial artist, can you outline principles for using have got to this interview. improvised weapons to the greatest effect? Because our do. membership is firearms-focused, many of us may not have given sufficient consideration to improvising impact We did a program on weapons, like the way you mentioned striking with a The Best Defense last season about a hammer, when you were outlining ways to make a church active shooter classroom safer. (http://outdoorchannel.com/showepisodes.aspx?show- id=720). We showed using a pocketknife to disable an Janich: Whenever I’m asked about this topic, there is active shooter very quickly and very decisively. Some of always one important thing I try to address first, and that the criticism we got from that was, “Are you really going is the mindset you want to achieve. When the media to go after a guy armed with a rifle with a pocketknife?” describes successful interventions in active shooter Yes, because the pocketknife is something that I know I incidents, they typically do us a disservice by describing have with me all of the time. Obviously, a firearm would them in politically correct terms. For example, the U.S. be better, but if that’s not possible, a purpose-designed service members who took down the shooter on the weapon is still the preferred choice. I would rather train in Belgium last summer. There, you had a situation choose my tools if I possibly could. where people took decisive action, but you often hear from the media things like, “Well, they tackled the When you look at improvised weapons in an shooter. They overpowered him.” environment where you do not have any control over what is available, you are relying only on what is there. If you think in those terms, you are already thinking in I’d rather stack the odds in my favor, like the example the wrong mindset, because you are not trying to keep last month of the teacher with the fire extinguisher. them from making a touchdown; you are trying to keep them from killing people. If you tackle somebody, what If we go back to the example of the pocketknife, the are you going to do once you tackle him? What you primary target in my Martial Blade Concepts system is need to do is stop him from killing people, so you want the flexor tendons on the inside of the wrist, to take to act as decisively and as ruthlessly as possible. Take away whatever handheld weapons the attacker may him out of the fight! have. Cut the tendons and the hand is crippled, so it can’t hold a weapon. Well, that also takes away trigger If you look at stopping an active shooter in that context, squeeze. If you have access to a knife and you have it puts you in the right mindset to do what you need to do. access to the shooter, the idea is targeting their ability to To go back to the teacher analogy from last month, you squeeze the trigger first, especially if you have a have got all the kids hunkered down against the wall, pocketknife. you have the door barricaded and you have got the hammer in your hand. He manages to make it through [Continued next page…] April 2016 Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network • www.armedcitizensnetwork.org • P O Box 400, Onalaska, WA 98570 © Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network, Inc. 2 The idea that I will stab this guy until he stops shooting address.” They said, “We know you do rifle disarms; can is a really inefficient way to address the problem. we do that?” This is France: not a very gun-centric culture at all. Most people are not shooters and have no There are a couple of places on the human body where interest. Owning a gun is very much an exception to the you can stab somebody and get an immediate, profound rule. stopping effect. They are really hard to hit in a stand-up fight. There are no guarantees you are going to hit them. We were teaching at a traditional Japanese dojo with If he has his hand gripping the gun and squeezing the bokken, wooden swords, on the wall, so we pulled those trigger, you have much better access and it is very easy off the wall and had people hold them as rifles. We had to simply hook it, rip and cut all the flexor tendons and people learning how to take down people with rifles, take his hand out of the fight. If he can’t squeeze the using empty hands and using knives. It was interesting trigger, he is no longer shooting the weapon unless he to see the mindset change. It was great, because it gave can switch it to the other hand, and you are already on them some training that was relevant to something they top of that with the rest of your technique. were afraid of at the time. eJournal: This dovetails with the interview you gave us eJournal: And even for us, who are customarily armed, in early 2013, which readers can review at the important thing that we must focus on is getting that http://www.armedcitizensnetwork.org/images/stories/Net rifle shut down, because even if we shoot him, the work_2013-03.pdf. Is there more detailed instruction on attacker may not die immediately. He can continue this in the Martial Blade Concepts Distance Learning pulling the trigger. Program (http://www.martialbladeconcepts.com/training/ mbc-distance-learning-program)? Janich: Exactly. Look at the concept of stopping power. With a firearm, you are looking at basically shutting Janich: Yes, the Distance Learning Program includes down the entire body, so you get your center of mass specific instruction about using a knife against an active hits—ideally central nervous system hits—and shut shooter. That instruction has been very well received, down everything. It is like going to the fuse box and especially by people in areas where carrying a firearm is hitting the circuit breaker to turn off all the lights. not an option—like France. Stopping power with non-firearm weapons is a very I have been teaching in Paris for the past three years. different problem. If you have a less efficient weapon— Fred Perrin, a good friend of mine, a great martial artist, an improvised weapon—you are not going to have a a custom knife maker and a very well known combatives weapon that is efficient enough to turn off all the lights, trainer, has been kind enough to invite me there to teach so you have to look at shutting down the lights in just seminars for his students, typically around Thanksgiving one room. Go to the wall, turn off the light switch in just every year. It is a huge honor for me. this room. A lot of repeat students come back year after year. Most How do I keep that shooter from shooting? Well, if I come from a martial arts background. There are some have a table leg, or I went into the utility closet and I who are a bit more street-savvy and a bit more self- pulled out a plunger or something like that, I can take his defense oriented, but many considered the training as hand off of the gun. If I break his hand so that he can’t an expression of the martial arts; they looked at it from squeeze the trigger, that may be the first, best step to be the technical standpoint of an enthusiast. This past year, able to stop him from killing people. I could hit this guy in I was there about four days after the Paris terrorist the head repeatedly and not necessarily have the attacks. The students’ attitudes were very different. In efficiency that I need to shut down the entire body, so he previous years, I’d show them a technique and they’d try is still squeezing the trigger. Is the head the best target? it a couple of times, then stand around and socialize. Not necessarily, especially if you have a weapon that is This year, I could not get them to stop training. not really as capable as you might like. I always try to meet the students’ needs as best as eJournal: Since interviewing you in 2013, I’ve thought possible, so in the latter part of the seminar, I said, “Let of you as the Apostle of Targeting because I’ve never me know if there is anything you would like me to [Continued next page…] April 2016 Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network • www.armedcitizensnetwork.org • P O Box 400, Onalaska, WA 98570 © Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network, Inc.