I have been training for various forms of combat for well over 40 years, ranging from martial arts to firearms. Ironically, I actually started training in firearms before I began unarmed combat.

When I first started I was trained by my father, and I would attend the Jamaica Rifle Association (JRA) where I would be taught to shoot targets with pistols from 10 to 40 yards away. In those days there was more focus on long, distant accuracy than speed. That has changed now whereby competitions locally tend to have multiple closer targets, with time impacting your score. Both have their place in competition and in combat.

When I became a police officer and chose high-risk entry as my speciality, I chose SWAT as my system for both training and combat culture. Back then, the SWAT system focused more on dynamic entry wnerein you entered fast and hard into high-risk environments. Even as a young man, I felt this system needed a rethink.

Two decades later my doubts have been justified and SWAT teams are primarily using methodical entry, which is a slower, careful system of clearing houses during high-risk environments.

The team on which I work, and myself, do more than a 1,000 high-risk entries a year. Unless there is a hostage being harmed, then it’s methodical entry. Despite this, I augment my training by competing a few times a year in the JRA competitions, because despite it being a totally different animal from what I normally do in my job, as it is very fast, it forces me to practics fast-target acquisition.

This is completely contrary to methodical entry in totality but, nevertheless, there is an overlap in respect of having to have the skill to engage your target quickly, if necessary.

I often find myself somewhat at odds to slow down enough to acquire the target whilst at the same point going fast enough to stay within the minimum score. So although I am adapting for the purpose of competing, I am never allowing myself to miss a target because I’m trying to go fast.

This does nothing to enhance my score, but it replaces the adrenaline that I often feel whilst I am working. And, as I force myself to keep slow and steady whilst doing high-risk entry, I also force myself to slow down to be accurate in competition.

That being said, the actual competitors are really incredible to watch, and I don’t think Jamaica realises how good they are, how well they do internationally, or how well that association is run.

My reason for outlining this aspect of my training is to make the point that you have to customise your training in order to match your particularly unique threat assessment. Most people, even most police officers, don’t do high-risk entry normally, but they are still at risk.

For a police officer who is engaged in stop and search, there is a matrix of activities that needs to be done by him or her to prepare for that particular level of risk. Licensed firearm holders also are at a risk that is common to each one uniquely and differently. I am not convinced that the average licensed firearm holder is training based on their unique threat assessment.

The average person who lives in the average scheme house that is not gated is likely at his greatest risk when he pulls up at his gate. He or she is vulnerable from the moment they exit the motor vehicle until they lock the door that allows them entry into their home. Therefore, if the person is a firearm holder then they need to train and plan for this reality.

If you are a firearm holder and live in an inner-city environment then you likely have no garden gate. Your home is likely very easy to breach. With this in mind, once you’re indoors you are still very vulnerable — and the people who want your gun know that. That is why the Firearm Licensing Authority doesn’t often give people who live in the inner-city firearm permits. It’s not because they are discriminatory, it’s because the ability to defend that firearm is in doubt.

If you are blessed to have a firearm and live in an inner-city community, your first responsibility is to ensure it remains a secret. However, you have to prepare for the possibility that you may come under attack while you are in your home. Your training has to include this reality.

Jamaica has many great trainers, Captain Hibbert, PJ Johnson, Andy Yap and Howard Brown are the first to come to mind. It is important if you are planning to carry that firearm that you engage a qualified trainer to work out a defence plan, possibly before you even buy the gun. Unarmed combatants also have a need to plan for their defence. We are not all built the same. We are not all the same age. Your training will need to vary to accommodate your strength and your weaknesses.

In looking at a recently circulated video of a male and a female in a dispute over a road rage incident, I saw technical issues that caused the fight to go in a particular direction. I am not going to discuss the legal or moral basis of the video, as the matter is before the court. Trust me, I am as disturbed as you but I believe in our legal system and I’m confident that the law will take its course — and members of the press must be mindful of influencing the public whilst it is before the court.

The woman, irrespective of what caused the engagement, was holding her own to a point where the male appeared to be trying to escape her grasp. From a defence standpoint, at one point she was doing the correct thing as she had the male in a throat hold from behind. The mistake she made was putting her body directly behind the male as this allows him great torque to throw her over his shoulders.

That type of impact will likely take the fight out of you, if you are thrown to the ground over someone’s shoulders. When the fight is hit out of you in this manner the opponent can do as he likes with you, as was evident when he stepped on her head.

If you are a trained fighter you learn this, and so much more. Whatever caused that fight is immaterial, versus how that fight will go. How the fight proceeds depends on limiting the blows to your body — like the strikes to the nose, throat, eyes and the aforementioned throw to the ground. Also, there is the question of the ability to maintain a fight at this level.

When you are fighting your heart rate goes up very quickly, you become anaerobic, and the ability to maintain that combat becomes less, hence why the male attacker was looking a bit weary and trying to break free from the grasp of his shirt.

It’s important that you don’t allow that few seconds of recovery but instead continue to batter your attacker once you realise his exhaustion. These little tips are just a few of the thousand you learn when you decide to train to defend yourself.

More great Jamaican trainers are martial arts masters like Tony Robinson, Peter Lue, Arthur Barrows, and Keith Edwards, to name just a few — talent that is not readily available in most countries. They operate schools that teach people to defend themselves.

Whether you carry a firearm or not, you need to train yourself to defend your life in this, one of the most dangerous, but improving countries on planet Earth.

Let this be part of your life, mission, and part of your preparation for your children. There are thousands of men in this country who will kill you just as easily as they will tell you hello. There are even more thousands, many, who drive taxis and who will attack you because they hit your car. Ironic, isn’t it?

We are culturally a violent society.

Almost every hero in our history was involved in acts of violence (justified, but still violent). Our musicians sing songs reflecting abject brutality. It is necessary to prepare to defend yourself by any means necessary.

Learn about firearms, learn about the law regarding carriage of knives. There is no law preventing you from using a machete or a knife in defence of your life at your home or if you are drawn from your car.

Defend yourself with all that you have, because the violent men of our society will show no mercy.

Feedback: drjasonamckay@gmail.com