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falling over. We talked about physiology of the muscle before,
so we want to continue here with more information about
muscles.
Basically we can say there are 3 types of muscle fibres.
• Slow Twitch (ST) Type 1
• Fast Twitch (FT) Type 2a
• Fast Twitch (FT) Type 2b
We want to focus now only on Type 1 and Type 2b... Both
have different characteristics and we want to summarise
them quickly. Most muscles have both muscle types within
with different distribution which leads us to the following; we
can say that nearly all muscles fibres in the back musculature
are Fast Twitch, so quickly exhaustable. On the other hand is
the distribution in the Quads pretty even what leads to the
conclusion that the musculature in the legs can be stressed
longer before they show the same symptoms. So what we want
is a nearly straight back to reduce the stress on the lower back
to a minimum because a physical exhaustion will reduce the
capability and ends in a lower ability to work under pressure.
WHY RISKING TO GET HIT?
There is a motto in the German Army which says “Wirkung vor
Deckung” which means effectiveness before cover.
To minimize the vulnerability they teach you to stand with
the plates towards the enemy so if somebody is shooting
back the chance is higher they get hit in the plate. Before we
continue I want you to ask yourself a question; if somebody
is punching you, is your first natural instinct to go towards or
away from the threat?
So what happens now is that we try to change our deepest
instincts which only show up when it comes to life threatening
situations. We don’t want to get too much into the neurosciences
and human behaviour in a firefight but let me explain you
something with the example of “Neuronal mapping”.
12
To learn a simple movement it takes 300-500 repetitions.
To change the learned procedure it takes about 5000-7000
reps because as soon as you get tired you fall back into the old
pattern. This may come out of a sports related context but is
also expressive for combat.
So all this effort only to hope the enemy is hitting you in the
310mm x250 mm plate?
We asked ourselves the question: “Why are you taking the
risk to get hit in first place, when you also could get out of
line of fire first?” Additionally it is a fact that a moving target
is always harder to hit which increases our chances to survive
drastically. I think it’s also the place to note, that most tactics
were created in theory and a sterile environment where
everything is obvious and black and white. People are training
in a square area with the targets placed perfectly parallel to the
back because our brain tends to like everything in an exact order.
THE CONCLUSION
The problem is that the reality is a pure chaos and everything
else then sterile. So following the old saying “train how you
fight” we try to keep the stance as usable as possible to provide
optimal conditions to start a moving firefight. Having this in
mind it gets clearer that there is no use in finding a perfect
position to shoot in any given direction but more finding a
position which gets you out of the enemy line of fire as quick
and as safely as possible in the first place and second gives me
the opportunity to return fire as fast as possible.
Based on Bio-mechanics, Neurosciences, and Human
Behaviour under stress and years of combat experience we
designed our stance on the needs of a firefight to improve the
capability of every student from the beginning. Knowing that
every human is different we adapt on the individual needs of a
person through trained instructors with scientific background to
provide the best training progress possible.
Our thanks go to Eli for allowing us to share both the words
and pictures featured in this article; for more articles, reviews,
and details of the training courses offered by Project Gecko
please do visit www.projectgecko.info