TELLING DETAIL...

Writers always look for the little detail, the one authentic thing that you wouldn't automatically expect, and which therefore brings a scene to life.

So here's a clip of a Krav Maga instructor showing a gun disarm. Does this kind of thing work? Yes, because action is quicker than reaction (and the point is that the attacker is threatening, not actually pulling the trigger).

Do these guys here know what they're doing? Well, there's a little detail in here that's totally authentic, and they don't make explicit mention of it. Do you want to try watching it, and guess what it is?



So this is it. In most training (and you can check out other YouTube clips) someone takes a gun away from his partner then hands it back, and they have another go. Sounds sensible, except that the way you train is the way you react. It would be amusing if it wasn't tragic... because American police officers have been known to disarm people threatening them, then hand the weapon straight back, because under stress the frontal lobes shut down and action is performed by the amygdala. Intense emotion, automatic reaction.

This guy, in the clip, disarms his attacker, gets to a 'distance of safety'. And only then, he places the weapon back on the ground for the next go. That's the key detail! Even better would be do some kind of specific action that totally 'breaks the spell' to signal to the unconscious that the action sequence has ended (the place of safety has been reached). He might well be doing that already in a way that's not overt in the clip.