Monday, April 08, 2013

Kapalıçarşı yeniçeri

(Unfortunately, there's no direct Turkish equivalent of "ninja" so I had to roll with what the language offered...)

I'm not at all clear on the purpose of the "Stayin' Alive" gesture with the off hand during the man dance sequences.



The vehicular ambush drill is epic. Apparently, if your car starts taking fire from some dude with an AK, what you want to do is stop right in front of him and let your passenger hang out the window and return desultory fire. Passengers should also randomly yell "Allah" a lot. (Although, to be fair, I imagine that if my driver stopped right in the kill zone, I'd be yelling "OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD!" too.)

Also, if you're bodyguarding somebody and see a threat with a gun, your protectee should get on their knees right there in the street behind the dubious protection of your 501s while you chamber a round and engage and yell a lot.

What is the phobia half the world has about carrying with a round in the chamber?

YouTube: Enabler of more Monkey-See, Monkey-Do tactical asshattery than anything since the Zouave fad of the mid 19th Century.

45 comments:

Chas S. Clifton said...

I figure the stance is a relic of horse-riding days in Central Asia.

Matthew Walker said...

Dude: If you can't get rich selling Polish Zouaves of Death Tacticool Ninja Ballistic Nylon Haberdashery, well, I don't know what. It could be the new zombie.

Speaking of wacky 19th century tacticool fads, I recently saw a beardy burly Quebecois celebrity chef on TV sabering a bottle of champagne with a chainsaw, hussar style. I forget the dude's name; it was Quebec TV.

At my training academy, all the Low Drag Operators will wear a cerise and canary half jacket over one shoulder and a plumed helmet. And plumed pomegranate Oakleys.

Matt G said...

Why must the feet be in different zip codes whilst shooting, at all times? It's especially odd when they're backing up, as here. He's very skilled at managing to back up with his pistol pointed at the threat with his feet 4 feet apart and never more than 6.9mm off the ground, but why was that skill necessary to learn?

Anonymous said...

Ma Bu=Horse Stance, fairly common in all martial arts, builds up the knees and legs.

"I'm not at all clear on the purpose of the "Stayin' Alive" gesture with the off hand during the man dance sequences"

It is a corruption of the "gwa/gua" one of the 12 characters of praying mantis boxing that is evident in other styles but corrupted (e.g. karate sunblock style). One parries/deflects a punch while striking. I do not know what MMA calls it, likely something epic.

They were taught to block as they shoot but stuff gets lost in translation just like the kung fu into karate confusion/corruption so you get hands and arms all over the place as they have no idea why they are doing it.

Shootin' Buddy

Kristophr said...

Shootin' Buddy: So they are basically adding random bits of "art" styles of martial arts?

It sounds like Tam's characterization of this as dance is extremely accurate than.

I wonder if I could sell access of vids of me doing the hokey-pokey while shooting blanks and wearing a speedo? And maybe singing as well?

It's all really tactical!

Anonymous said...

"Shootin' Buddy: So they are basically adding random bits of "art" styles of martial arts?"

Likely. Charge of the 300 stuff.

Why are we doing this Sgt. Kaya?

Because I said so . . . and that's what the guy we hired to teach us said to do, but he said it in Hebrew and, um, we don't speak Hebrew but it was something cool with the other hand, so do it, Private Mahmud!

Shootin' Buddy

Anonymous said...

I hope the bodyguard doesn't expect his principal to feed him loaded mags if they ever get into a gunfight, before they do the two step shuffle together. That poor principal is like Ginger Rogers, doing everything Fred did, but backwards and in scratchy Levis knockoffs.

I can tell without flying to Istanbul how the fabric of those jeans would feel; just like those my mom bought me when I was 11 at Penneys, scratchy and as unbroken in as PVC pipe.

Matt
St Paul
@1077idaho

Leatherwing said...

@Matt Speaking of flying to Istanbul, my wife is going to Italy later this year with some friends. Looking at flights from Washington DC to Venice, the cheapest flight was through Istanbul. Like 50% cheaper. We opted for the flight through London instead.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

That was the first firearm training video I ever watched, way back in '07. You coulda warned me away back then...

Defens said...

Obviously, to our American, HSLD-trained pseudo-operators, a lot of these tactics look pretty bogus. In fact, a bunch of them actually ARE bogus.

However, how many American gunnies willingly pay big bucks to do equally lame "snake drills" or do live fire drills with their colleagues downrange? There's a lot of BS being spewed in training done here too - so I guess I'm not so quick to cast the first stone.

Since Tam posted the video a few days ago, I'm really wanting to train with Rick Taylor, myself. I want to also wean myself of shaking before a drop.

Tam said...

Defens,

There's bogus trainers in the U.S. putting out stupid videos, too? Gosh, I should look for some and make fun of THEM someday, too!

Anonymous said...

Tam - if you've been to the the other half of the world, the phobia is very natural. As in, natural deselection occurs if they don't keep the chamber empty. Apparently, the four rules are either impossible to translate or do not they survive translation. Seeing folks walk around with their AKs, selector on auto, finger on the trigger, muzzles swinging about leads one to adopt prayer into ones life and hope the chamber is empty.

- Cave Pilot

Chuck said...

Bob Fosse would be proud.

Cormac said...

I needed a good laugh today, Tam.
(didn't so much need to be choking on my coffee...)

Ajdshootist said...

The guys i used to train with back in the late 1970s and early 1980s would be laughing so hard they would more than likely pee themselves if they saw that. SBS & SAS etc

Robert said...

I was expecting a 'Gangham Style' video to start at any moment.

Will said...

I vaguely recall the story that the empty chamber carry was adopted in the early Israeli days due to the lack of standardization of weapons. Supply was whatever they could find on the market, as the big players wouldn't sell to them, for political reasons.

Easier to develop generic rules for everyone, than to try to be model specific, when 12 people might have 7 varieties of guns issued.

Institutional inertia then takes over. Why change actions, even if conditions have?

ISH (Mininerd) said...

Still, you gotta admit, its better training than the NYPD receives.

TCinVA said...

They may believe in carrying an empty chamber, but they sure as hell seem to have no problem muzzling each other. The gun in your holster is probably a lot less likely to shoot you than your buddy is when you're doing pointless tactical ballet.

Anonymous said...

Having trained Turkish EOD teams a few times I call BS on this.

If they were Turks they would all be smoking cigarettes and have mustaches. The Turkish Air Force folks practices emergency cigarette lighting in rainstorms at night with only the support hand. If they draw a lighter they must light something, even if it's their on finger before they can put it away or they lose face.

Gerry

og said...

You might as well yell "Oh god!" at that point. You've probably got an appointment.

Cincinnatus said...

Defens .... uh, did you not "get" Rick Taylor?

Anonymous said...

Remember, the thrusting non-pistol arm WAS a part of U.S. military pistol training 70-80 years ago.

Look at the old photos of U.S. Marines squatting and thrusting an arm out, or look at the photos in Jeff Cooper's biography. You will see similar photos.

Shootin' Buddy

Tam said...

SB,

Not held straight overhead like you wanted your opponent to give you permission to go to the bathroom, it wasn't; never that I've seen...

Anonymous said...

Shootin' Buddy --

Yup. Just like "teacupping" and "chicken winging" were both in the US field manuals quite recently. . .

Geodkyt

Tam said...

Geodkyt,

Face it, teaching how to shoot somebody with a bullet is just not a very sexy use of scarce DoD resources.

Cincinnatus said...

The arm isn't to ask permission to go to the bathroom, Tam, its signaling a "fair catch" ....

In one of the vip protection drills, did I see the right hand "bodyguard" firing rounds into the air or was that my imagination? And having 2/3rds of the protection detail race off away from the protected person to chase the attackers? Brilliant!

Old NFO said...

YGTBSM... sigh... No WONDER we keep winning...

Anonymous said...

Ok, yeah, it does look like the back guy is holding up a badge or something.

Maybe it is a Rick Taylor training cert?

Shootin' Buddy

Anonymous said...

@ Robin,
Yes, I totally grok Rick Taylor - funniest video in quite a while.
@ Tam - no doubt you've seen both of the videos of instructors shooting themselves in various parts of the anatomy.

I'm just not so quick to ridicule the Turkish video. I've personally seen some lame training and tactics taught by instructors; probably also good for a few laughs until someone gets hurt. I've attended courses where the instructor held a target on a stick while the class carefully lined up to shoot at it (one at a time), presumably to inoculate the class about friendlies potentially being downrange. I've taken other classes with some odd drills, and have taken still other classes (again, from instructors who should know better) where they had bullets missing the backstop entirely and leaving the range (I declined to participate in that drill, and told him why).
My response simply means this - yeah, it's kind of funny and definitely has a WFT? aspect to it - but worthy of this level of ridicule? I'd be willing to bet that a non-zero percentage of readers here would pay money to attend a class, have one of the big American instructors tell them to jump on one foot in a circle while shooting, and wouldn't hesitate to do so, believing it was some secret squirrel high speed maneuver.

Tam said...

"I've attended courses where the instructor held a target on a stick while the class carefully lined up to shoot at it (one at a time), presumably to inoculate the class about friendlies potentially being downrange."

Question: (And I'm being totally serious here) What was your reason for not immediately packing your range bag and leaving?

Tam said...

(...and if you think these Turks are getting an unnecessarily rough time of it, you should have been here for the verbal curb stomping the clowns at the all-'Murrican American Defense Enterprises took a year or two ago. Or those clownshoes in Detroit with their balance beam thing. Or... well, let's just say this is something of a continuing series at VFTP.)

DanH said...

Personally, I enjoyed the run forward to about 10ft from the target and THEN reload drill. As far as the tactical jazz hands, I'm hoping it was just their method of training SHO/WHO instead of holding their hand to their chest.

Critter said...

Stop! In the naaaame of Looooove! *bangbangbangbang!*

Anonymous said...

Methinks the Israeli's may have been having a bit more, um, fun? than usual when training up this particular cadre of Elite Tactical Warriors(pat.pend.).

FormerFlyer

bobbookworm said...

kristophr: My wife says she might buy if the Speedo'z are glow in the dark and tracers are involved

Steve Skubinna said...

All right, Tactical Gangnam Style!

Kristophr said...

bobbookworm: Your wife is obviously disturbed.

I had thought that I would need too put the audience in dance appreciation restraints before showing this.

Matthew said...

The Zouave craze of the 19th Century was limited by photographic technology. It wasn't until the 1980's that MC Hammer could impart their dynamic technique for "getting off the 'x'."

Tam said...

Can't shoot this!

Anonymous said...

I believe that the condition three BS comes from watching modern American tv and movies where it is done countless times probably because it "sounds good". Arghhhh....

Robert said...

"Tam said...
Can't shoot this!"

Brings a whole new meaning to "Hammer Time!".

Defens said...

@Tam - regarding the downrange exercise:

I was fairly new to the training culture when this happened, and this was a pretty big name in the industry, with high recommendations. I think this exercise was actually the last thing we did in the class. So I drank the Kool-Aid on this one. Later, when confronted by sheer stupidity in exercises, I tended to get the instructor off to the side and ask him what's going on. (But I've learned to select my instructors better, too!)

Will said...

As long as they don't require the STUDENTS to hold the stick!

I'm thinking there is some connection to that "short (or shitty) end of the stick" saying in here...

NotClauswitz said...

ROFLMAO!! This WHOLE thing, esp. the backwards Travolta Chicken Dance, and the shootin' club I belong to is called the Zouaves - but we don't have MC Hammer pants or the short vest with doodle braid. My only real training has been two classes with just the same one guy...