NP3® Finished Firing Pin


I recall a pistol student I had many years ago. He was a kenjutsu aficionado. Kenjutsu, for those who missed that day, is the old martial version of japanese swordsmanship. In any case, after training he remarked on the similarity in concept of what I was teaching him and his sword studies.

I'd never seen a true traditional early period Japanese sword form so I asked him to show me. Immediately he grabbed up a katana and demonstrated. He drew the sword, cut once and twice and sheathed.
That was it.

Astounded at the brevity, I asked him about it. He remarked that simplicity had a beauty and sophistication all its own. The old warriors did not need many complex methods, just a very few that they could pull off any time, any place, mindlessly, and with quickness and accuracy.

Flash forward a few years to a conversation I had with a Suarez Staff member. He'd worked in the middle east in a PSD for many years. He related about the time when he worked with Gurkhas. Always a bladesman, he asked one of the high ranking Gurkha fighters about his kukri, and about how one day, when there was time, he'd like to learn about their system of combat.

"There is time now", related the Gurkha. "Please...pick up Kukri...raise it up...up".
Our staff member did as he was instructed and raised the sharpened Nepali machete over his head.

"Very good ...now bring down fast...very fast. Good....now do it again". Our man raised and brought down the Kukri in a rapid two shot chopping action as he was instructed.
"Very good ...now you are finished...you move to the next enemy".

Simple actions that can be done instantly without a great deal of planning, positioning, or forethought is what warriors have sought from the days of the samurai to the modern day gurkha.
Collect a series of simple methods like this, gathered around a common theme or concept, and you create a system. Use that system with a variety of weapons and you create a martial art. Its not hard.....as long as you keep it simple.  But today, many want to eschew simplicity because it is, well, too simple. Too simple to be tactical, or so says the subtitle in one of our DVDs. Or is it that their motives are the approval of a social media audience rather than efficiency in combat?

A martial system must have an objective.  And if one is true to the adjective, that objective is to win the fight that is presented.  It really is that simple.  In training, the student is there because he ostensibly does not know what the instructor does. He is there not only to learn what the instructor knows, but to learn why the instructor thinks what he is doing is better. He wants the how and the why.

A viable system must be simple. It must be simple for a number of reasons.

One, we have a finite time to train. A workable system that can be learned in a weekend is better than one that takes two years.

Two, since we have a finite time to train a system that can be maintained with a couple of hours work per week is better than one that requires a couple of hours per day.

Three, the system must be applicable under all conditions. Thus a system that is fantastic when moving forward, or standing still, but not so good when moving sideways is less desirable than a system of movement that is equally useful to all possible angles.

Four, the system must be stress proof. It must be able to function under the most stressful situations. One reason we have abandoned many of the gun game based, albeit faster and more clever gunhandling methods, is simply because they are not repeatable under physical duress. Same goes for the draw. How many draws are there? One.

In that simplicity there must be some "adaptability" as well. We are not suggesting the creation of modern technique androids that walk around in weaver stances. Rather within the simplicity of execution, there can be adaptability to what the fight brings you.

Thus, for example, your draw is your draw, whether sprinting off the X, hanging one handed from a rope ladder, or punching a man in the face. Your "displacement" off the X is the same whether standing by for the draw in FOF, or walking out of a Starbucks with a latte in your hand....and equally to all points on the compass.

So simple that you have done it tens of thousands of times, the same way, over and over and over until your active mind has disconnected from the process and the entire execution becomes as natural as breathing.
When the test comes to you it will not be on a training ground with you ready to go, it will be when you have your head firmly planted in your rectum as you walk out of the store with your cell phone up to your face carrying a bag of groceries in the other and you look up to see a gun moving your way.
There will be no time to decide which sort of move you will do, if you will move right or left or if you will do this or that drill.

You will either do it, or you will not.

Execution without active thought about "how to execute", requires mindless understanding of simplicity of methodology - and while some may want to argue the point, you will not have this if your system has complexity and diagnosis instead of simplicity.

If your method does not allow for what I depicted above, regardless of where it came from or who invented it - delete it and begin again.