AAR: Southnarc's AMIS Class

[WETSU]

AAR Southnarc/Shivworks AMIS

I attended Southnarc’s AMIS course this past weekend in Bristol Indiana. AMIS Stands for Armed Movement Inside Structures. This course is a 20 hour class delivered in two days. Most of that time is spent working problems inside a building using an air soft pistol, working angles and “hunting” for a bad guy. The goal for the class is to give a solo shooter the skills he needs to conduct a building search or to move from point A to point B inside a structure with possibly one or more hostiles. The worst of situations. But sometimes you have to do it. The class delivered.
We started out Saturday morning at 0800 with intros. The building was “cold”. Live weapons were locked inside vehicles, so there were no live guns inside the building, not even on the instructors. The first couple hours Southnarc laid down the foundation of basic, simple principles that all structure movement is based upon. There aren’t many, and everything you do flows form them. Get them and you are on your way to solving a lot of problems.
After that we did some white board or chalk and talk work. Southnarc drew a building/room diagram on the board and students took turns coming up and talking through how they would clear sections of rooms. It was good stuff, allowing the principles to start taking shape in my brain-allowing me to start to see them in 2D terms, which helped when we moved onto the 3D world after a break for lunch.
After lunch we broke into 4 man teams -with 3 teams total, and all headed into 3 different sections of the building. (2 offices sections and a large warehouse/workshop area). We started working angles on dry runs at first and then going live with loaded air soft pistols and masks. We learned how to conform our bodies to the hard angles and visual impediments (corners, doorways etc) The stress started to ramp up. All along the way, Southnarc coached, prodded and adjusted students as he watched each team work their sections. After an hour we switched to another section, and then another section an hour after that. Each area presented its own set of challenges.
We broke for dinner at excellent eatery in Elkhart Indiana. An Irish pub style restaurant owned by Dennis, a student and also the guy who offered up his business to hold the class in. Thanks for the hospitality Dennis and sorry about the dings in your walls dude.
After dinner we returned for the low light phase. Southnarc could not cover all there is to know about working in lowlight, but he gave a taste and we spent a couple hours working our angles and problems, dry and then live, hunting a bad guy. Once again the stress ratcheted up. The effectiveness of the high intensity strobe became evident to me. We broke for the day a little after 10:00 A long ass day. Not physically demanding, but I was tired when I got to my room.
Sunday we met back in the class room and briefly discussed new situations and complications we would start incorporating into the scenarios. We worked on holding a compliant BG at gunpoint, and then holding a compliant BG at gunpoint and then having to leave him and quickly move to another part of the uncleared building. This involved “porting” each doorway and other decisions that needed to be made quickly in calculating your risk as the situation changed. That then changed to an emergency situation (blood curdling scream) where you had to leave a known armed BG and RUN to another section to fight. And that’s what it came down to. Once again, choices had to be made, fast and risks traded. Beside a lunch break. We spent all day from 0900 to 1700 working.
The final X was a big ****ed up situation, home invasion situation with multiple armed intruders. The student had to search the structure, encountered one BG and held him, and then had a loved one scream that drew his immediate attention and required decisive action (and hits).
This was an awesome class. I learned a metric **** ton of material that I had always wondered about or sort pf pieced together over the years, never coming up with a satisfactory set of solutions. This really filled the gap in my knowledge and understanding of angles. That’s the science. Under Southnarc’s watchful eye I was shown the art of moving through a structure, armed. That’s the hard part. That’s what takes continued practice.
Southnarc is a top tier instructor. You can tell he is passionate about his training and his students. He teaches stuff you just can’t get most places and he is one of the few tactics instructors that is 100% open to civilians. SN is also a good dude, great teaching style, no bull**** trainer. He always gave credit to others that have gone before him or recommended other trainers, who do a better job than he does in certain areas. The mark of a good dude IMO.
Stuff I learned that wasn’t really “taught” in the class:
Trust your instincts. If you think you saw part of person, it probably was, don’t bypass it.
Use ALL of your senses. In lowlight, your sense of hearing becomes VERY useful.
In lowlight, a person moving through a structure can backlight themselves on something as small as the light on a coffee maker, betraying their position. I shot a couple students who were hunting for me, using that idea.
Having solid, weapon handling and marksmanship skills down cold really come into play in a situation like this. I was able to get hits on BGs time and time again, under stress while not getting hit. I credit my training with Tactical Response for that and the payments I have made. Shooting accurately was never an issue for me in this class, while it was for others. It was VERY evident.
Take this class. Its worth it. You will not be disappointed.

 

[Tinman]

I'm glad you enjoyed the class. Thanks for the AAR and feedback.

I know when I first took this course (as with much of Southnarc's classes) it was a huge learning experience. It definately had a different look being able to stand back and look at from the observers perspective.

Tinman....

 

[BIX]

AMIS AAR
March 19 -20, 2010
Elkhart, IN

“Guys - this is a better options game.”


TD1:

We began promptly at 8am, dealt with the usual admin issues, disarmed, and launched into a discussion of the conceptual framework underlying the course. We first discussed bigger-picture issues related to solo movement in a 360 / 3D environment. Paramount among these is the fact that this cannot be done safely - that was actually the very first point made. We then were presented with the handful of core principles of Armed Movement in Structures. The lecture was accompanied by a professional looking PowerPoint and was well organized.

After arming us with our core principles, Southnarc ("SN") drew a labyrinthine structure on the whiteboard, and each student took a turn chalking his way through clearing a portion of it. As decisions were made, questioned, and reconsidered, some of the philosophical underpinnings the course became clear. “If you do this, you get this – but you lose this”. While there were clearly better and worse approaches to a particular problem, the object seemed to be not "what is the right course of action here" – but "do you understand the compromises contained in that course of action".

After that, we began practical application of the principles by breaking into groups and working our way through one of three 'routes' in the facility. We began clearing as a group, dry, and progressed through hunting for people dry, and finally going live with airsoft. SN and our host (Tinman, an AMIS alum) hopped around between groups, observing, discussing, etc.

After breaking for an excellent meal at McCarthy's On the Riverwalk | Facilities, we returned for the lowlight segment. This began with a lecture that SN prefaced by indicating that his class was not a ‘low light class’ per se, and recommending that we take a dedicated lowlight class from a competent instructor. We discussed some mechanics, strategy, and gear issues and then shut off the lights. Evolutions generally followed the same pattern as earlier in the day, as we worked up to hunting each other in the dark. We broke around 10:30pm

TD2:

We started with a brief lecture on the particular principles SN wanted to see us focusing on during the day. We then discussed and drilled confronting both compliant and noncompliant opponents, and moving through uncleared space in response to various levels of exigency. In addition, SN identified a couple specific areas that students were repeatedly having difficulty solving, and walked us through how he would work the problem. The day culminated in a ‘final’ evolution which loaded us up with many of the issues we’d been working on all weekend. A new role player element was brought in for the final evo which, I expect, added significantly to the realism of the experience for some students.

Positives:

1. Class administration. Communication with Tinman was excellent, in spite of the fact that he was traveling out of the country in the months leading up to the course. The facility was ideal for this type of training, providing us with two levels of office space, as well as a warehouse and a variety of offices, hallways, bathrooms, etc. Thanks again, Dennis!
2. Subject. There is a major dearth of open-enrollment ‘tactics’ classes in the market as this moment. It was a huge opportunity to have something like this pop up in my area.
3. Content. SN provided us with a comparatively small number of generally-applicable, fundamental principles. As a Regular Earth Person, I don’t have much of a frame of reference for evaluating these principles, but they struck me as logical and straightforward and they worked when applied during our FoF evolutions. The utility of these principles extends beyond solo structure clearing and really forms a basis for ‘tactics’ in any environment. In this regard, the class was enormously valuable.
4. Presentation. In terms of presentation of material, this was one of the most logically well-organized classes I’ve taken. The material was structured with obvious consideration toward helping the student effectively adopt the information. This is a fairly unique quality in ‘gun’ classes, in my experience.

Negatives:

1. This is a heck of a lot of stuff to cover in two days. As I mentioned, the principles (the ‘science’) are fairly straightforward and small in number. But, the application (the ‘art’) is deep and complicated. This is where we spent most of our time and it takes a lot of time. There were a couple runs where one member of my group did not get a chance to run the route. This may have been because my group spent a lot of time debriefing after each run (which I found valuable). In any event, it seems like this class may benefit from a 3-day format where that is possible. I understand that this is difficult for students and the instructor (who is on the job and does this on his own time). I’ve been to weekend classes where the lecture portion is done on Friday evening and you hit the ground running Saturday morning. That might be something to consider here, again, where possible.

Takeaways:

1. Airsoft Glocks are not to be found. I had to borrow one for this class. If you need an Airsoft Glock for FoF, start looking now.
2. Core principles. These were the biggest takeaway for me. The challenge now, like with all classes, is to find a way to regularly drill and integrate them.
3. Gear makes a difference in low light. I usually don’t want to hear about hardware solutions to what I perceive as a software problem, but technology provides a striking advantage here. WMLs and strobing handhelds, in particular, are tough things to be on the wrong side of in the dark.
4. You must check your ego at a class like this. In a couple instances, when called on my approach to a problem, I found that - in spite of myself - I was rationalizing and justifying instead of just shutting the heck up and learning. I’ve not seen myself do this in earlier classes. It seems that as you log more training hours, put more rounds downrange, and get more comfortable, this becomes more of a potential problem. It’s much easier to admit that you don’t know what the you’re doing when you first start out, but you’ve got to remember to reset that ego every time you show up for a new class.

I also want to add that it's always nice to have an instructor from another school alongside you in a class. It reflects well on the school and the instructor, IMO. WETSU was one of the role players for our final exercise and, as SN later commented, he did a great job. It sounds like he had a good bit of experience as a role palyer in FoF scenarios, and that certainly showed in our exchange.


A final note: At one point SN mentioned that his classes tend to be “relatively douche-free”. That was certainly the case here. We had a solid group of guys – most of whom had significant prior shooting or fighting experience - and all of whom showed up ready to work. I’m fortunate to have met up with these guys and look forward to training with them again.

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

Is there a schedule for this trainer showing upcoming classes?


Thanks

 

[gewehr3]

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TPI has the Shivworks schedule posted. It was a great class. Definitely check your ego at the door, and bring an open mind ready to learn when training with S'narc.