What level of defensive handgun skills does it take to win in a gunfight? Because no two defensive gun uses are exactly the same, and there are many variables, it's impossible to answer this question unequivocally.
However, don't think that you can't orshouldn't train to a quantifiable standard.
By studying many armed encounters caught on video, we can draw some basic inferences on things like typical draw speed necessary to get a shot on a suspect who has a gun at the ready position vs at their side. We can look at how many shots are typically necessary to get immediate stoppage based on where they hit the suspect.
These videos provide great real-life data we can look at to put together some general parameters on the proficiency standards that suggest a favorable outcome. But I want to reiterate that nothing guarantees you'll win a gunfight. Proficiency in defensive gun skills certainly helps, and that's what we are trying to get at.
Limitations to practice —
It is hard to train for the exact conditions one undergoes in a real-life deadly force encounter........Read the full article........
Part of being human is wanting to experience success and accomplish the goals we set for ourselves.
Sometimes this is easier said than done, especially when we face adversity that threatens to set us back. Often the difference between success and failure isn’t intelligence or book learning, but our willingness to keep going. When we feel discouraged and think we can’t go another step, knowing what God says about persisting and persevering gives us strength to keep moving forward.
Persistence and perseverance are good, as long as they aren’t misdirected. We can spend months or even years spinning our wheels trying to move in a direction God doesn’t want us to go. This is the wrong kind of persistence that yields no results. When we step out of the way and let God set our course, things begin to get very clear and everything we need to do clicks into place. “A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).
We live in a culture of “me-ism” that encourages us to put ourselves first and foremost, in the center of the circle. This can block our progress. Our blind spot can cause us to struggle to reach the goals we set for ourselves, instead of the goals God wants us to reach. We greatly increase our chances of success when we listen to God’s voice instead of to the voice of our own human reasoning. “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left” (Isaiah 30:21).
Persevering in the things God tells us to do instead of the things the world tells us to do puts us in the supernatural realm. Following His prompting is guaranteed to generate resistance in a world that doesn’t know God. When we feel that external pressure applied to us, we endure because we know we’re going in the right direction. “You need the strength of endurance to reveal the poetry of God’s will and then you receive the promise in full” (Hebrews 10:36, TPT). Correctly dividing the Word in this area gives us the discernment to know the difference between God’s perfect plan for our lives and what we have decided to do for ourselves.
Perseverance involves patience, which is a godly trait. Abraham was a good example of someone who patiently walked in faith regardless of the odds. He no doubt faced numerous opportunities and temptations to pull his faith off the field, but he didn’t. “And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise” (Hebrews 6:15). Patience is defined as constantly, consistently remaining the same regardless of what happens; God rewards this kind of unwavering belief in Him.
Christians living in the world without being part of it face many spiritual traps the devil has laid out. People determined to choose their own path in life are the ones most likely to fall into these pits. They stubbornly persevere in their efforts to deliver themselves but make no progress. However, the picture is different for believers who patiently persist. “Stand firm with patient endurance and you will find your souls’ deliverance” (Luke 21:19, TPT).
There’s nothing wrong with resolutely persisting, as long as we set ourselves on the right thing. It’s impossible to see every situation brewing that can derail our carefully-laid plans and stall our progress. Persevering in what God tells us to do spares us from train wrecks up ahead. Letting Him call the shots gives us success.
We live in a fallen world caught up in perverse, twisted values. The prevailing “anything goes” mindset around us has no concept of right and wrong. The message we get is that it’s okay to think whatever we want. In this kind of environment, the difference between the world’s way of thinking and God’s way of thinking is like night and day.
It’s critical to understand how important our thought lives are. What we expose ourselves to influences how we think, and how we think determines how we feel. This can explain the anger and strife we see everywhere around us, and the confusion as to where all this negativity comes from. We’re in a spiritual battle; thinking like the world blinds us to the fact that a war is even being fought, but thinking like God opens our spiritual eyes and gives us a fighting chance. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12, NIV).
Most people put more faith in what the world says than what their Bible says; it’s no coincidence that these people struggle through life and wonder why they’re so unhappy. We’re living in the age where self-made “experts” tell us that what we once considered wrong is now right, and what was right is now wrong. The truth is that the morals that God outlined in His Word from the beginning will never change. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8, NKJV). Jesus is God’s Word in human form; therefore, to get a handle on what’s happening around us and rise above it, we need to learn to think like Christ.
God loves us very much and wants the best for us. However, He holds us accountable for our actions. The world has chosen to reject Him, at its own peril.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel(Isaiah 5:20-24).
We’re seeing this prophecy coming to pass right now.
The things that worldly philosophies accept as true is plain nonsense to God. To think like Christ, we must begin to renew our minds according to His Word. “Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ” (Colossians 2:8, NLT). Bringing our belief system into alignment with God’s is a lifetime process, but it gives us victory in a defeated world.
We must never get tricked into wrong-thinking; the stakes are too high. Using God’s Word as our guide helps us avoid the pitfalls others have fallen into. We stay on safe ground when we compare everything we hear and see in the world to what He says.
“SPRINT BASED LACROSSE” is the ninth course of an ambitious “Feed the Cats certification program created by Tony Holler.
Feed the Cats is a revolutionary way of training, coaching, and teaching that values specificity, essentialism, performance, and love. After gaining a world-wide following in Track & Field, FTC has now gained a strong foothold in American football. Book this course.....
This presentation rocked the lacrosse world at the IMLCA National Clinic held in December of 2020. Tony Holler is the first presenter at IMLCA to never hold a lacrosse stick… yet the presentation got rave reviews.
“Sprint Based Lacrosse” takes an overview of the traditional approach to sport training (lift weights and get tired every day), and turns it upside down. Feed the Cats is the name of the new model and speed is the priority. The foundation of that speed is rest, recovery, and sleep.
Head track coach at Plainfield North High School. 40 years experience coaching football, basketball, and track. Member of Illinois Track & Field Hall of Fame and Co-director of Track Football Consortium with Chris Korfist
Head Boy's Track & Field at Plainfield North High School (IL)
As good as modern medical technology is, it will never be able
to save you from a problem caused by an unhealthy lifestyle.
Instead of
getting modern medical improvements for each problem, it is much better
to live in such a way that you will not fall ill.
One ounce of prevention is certainly better than one pound of
healing. Here are seven tips on how to live a long and healthy life. In
addition, the same lifestyle that helps you avoid disease also helps you
lose weight.
Get Enough Physical Activity
People had to use their physical bodies as part of their everyday
labor in the past. Today, though, someone may get up, drive to work, sit
down, drive home, and then sit down for the rest of the day. There is
no physical labor in such a life. Physical inactivity is one of the
leading causes of a variety of illnesses. If our typical work does not
demand us to strain ourselves physically, we must incorporate sports,
running, walking, and other activities into our lives. I
Go to sleep when you feel sleepy
This might sound simple, but many people stay up even when their
bodies tell them that it's time to sleep. Yoga and Doctor Ayurvedic also
say that it's better to sleep at night and active during the day.
However, people like students will drink coffee and stimulants to learn
until late at night. The other develops the habit of staying active at
night and sleeps during the day. While we can do this, finally taking
victims of health. Alternative health doctors say that unnatural life
like this is one of the factors that contribute to the causes of cancer
and other diseases
Eat only when you're hungry.
This is likewise a simple concept, but we frequently ignore the
body's messages. You will not digest your food effectively if you eat
out of habit or due to social pressure at a given time of day, even
though you have no true appetite. Acidity and indigestion set in,
increasing the likelihood of other, more complex disorders developing.
Having an appetite is a sign of excellent health, but if you don't have
one, you should wait a while before eating. (If you still don't have an
appetite after waiting a reasonable amount of time, see a doctor because
something is wrong.)
Quickly regularly, systematically
If you are going to ask people to work 365 days per year without
rest, they will complain and say that they must have a break or they
will break down. But we never bothered asking or thinking about our
digestive organs we forced to work day after day without rest. They
cannot protest the way someone will go to his boss, but they give us a
signal that they cannot work without stopping. When we ignore the
signals and still force them to work, the organs broke down. That is why
fasting is needed. Don't eat for one complete day. It gives a break on
your digestive organs and also helps in removing waste from your body.
Regular fasting allows someone to get extra time for intellectual or
spiritual pursuit. Fasting is not for ascetic in the cave, but is a
reasonable practice that can be practiced anyone.
Wash with cold water before going to bed
As mentioned above, the right sleep is very important for health
care. If you wash your important motor and sensory organs (hands, arms,
eyes, legs, mouth, genitals) before going to bed using cold water, this
will calm you down and prepare you to sleep well.
Perform regular meditation
Your body is linked to your mind. Many of these era diseases are
psychosomatic. Stress and anxiety took their victims on our physical
health. Meditation is a mental exercise that, among others, allows you
to escape life's worries. Learn simple techniques and do it regularly.
Get up at the same time every day.
"Early to bed, early to wake" is an old adage that "makes a person
healthy, wealthy, and wise." I'm not sure if it will make you wealthy,
but it will undoubtedly keep you healthy. Your body requires just the
right amount of sleep, not too much or too little.
Seven Tips For A Long And Healthy Life. It is necessary
for us to maintain our diet and physical fitness. In our daily life we
use various kind of work to maintain our body healthy.
In order to lose weight, your body must burn more calories
than it takes in, but keep in mind that your body needs calories for
energy and when you exercise your body needs even more calories. Before I
talk about energy, the first thing you must understand is that losing
weight and losing fat is not the same thing. Just because you lose
weight, does not mean you lose fat, and just because you lose fat, does
not mean you lose weight. When people talk about losing weight, what the
really want to do is lose the excess fat on their body and obtain an
attractive figure.
Everyone has a different approach to training and nutrition, here's a few things I've found helpful over the years.
When you eat, the body uses most of the calories for energy. If you
eat more calories than the body uses, it will get stored as fat. If you
do not consume enough calories per day you will lose weight, but you
will also lose energy. When you do not consume enough energy (calories)
for your body, it will start using up your energy stores to make up for
the energy deficiency. Unfortunately, the energy stores used is not your
stored fat, but instead it's protein and carbohydrates (carbs) that
will supply most of the energy (stored fat makes up a very small
percentage). Your body will take the protein and carbohydrates from your
muscle cells; causing your muscle mass to reduce (say goodbye to that
toned attractive look) which forces your metabolism to decrease (a low
metabolism = slow or no fat burning). When this happens your body
requires less energy to maintain its new lower body weight (remember the
body weight is lower because you loss muscle), which is why your body
conserves energy by slowing down the metabolism. In other words, the
body has adapted to the new lower energy (calorie) intake which means
that you will no longer continue to lose weight.
Keep in mind that the weight you had lost in the first place was
mostly water weight and you will eventually gain it back in the form of
fat, not muscle (in order to get your muscle mass back to the way it was
before, you have to work on rebuilding it). When carbohydrates and
protein that are already in your body are used as the energy source,
your body will lose water weight because both carbohydrates and protein
hold water in the cells. In essence, you are dehydrating yourself to
lose weight. So yes the scale will go down, but approximately 75% (if
not more) of it is water instead of fat. And just so you know,
exercising while consuming a small calorie intake just makes the
situation worse. This is because when you exercise, you start burning
off more energy and the more you workout, the more energy your body
needs. I already told you above where the energy comes from, and if you
do not give your body the energy it needs, it will just feed on your
muscles even quicker now that you are exercising. So eat more food! In
addition to this, when you cut down too much on your calorie intake,
your body will start storing calories because it doesn't know when you
will eat again. The calories that are stored will be stored as fat. So
in other words, when your body is storing energy, it's basically storing
more fat.
To summarize my point: Not eating enough calories results in muscle
loss, dehydration, slower fat burning, and your body will always adapt
to a lower calorie intake.
Bottom Line: if you can't maintain that lower calorie intake for the
rest of your life, you will gain your weight back when you get tired of
starving yourself!
To lose weight properly (burning fat) you must increase your
metabolism (weight training) and your need for oxygen (aerobics) while
eating enough calories each day (nutritious diet) to give you energy and
maintain the protein in your muscles because protein helps build
muscles, which indirectly burns fat. This brings up another good point:
When you build muscle your weight will increase because your muscles are
made up of mostly water, but your body fat percentage will decrease
because building muscles increase your metabolism (in other words,
muscles way more than fat, but take up less space than fat). So keep in
mind that losing body fat can't be measured by a scale; use a measuring
tape and also look at yourself in the mirror, and then you will see the
true results. One of the best ways to know if you are losing more body
fat than water is by using a body fat analyzer.
Make sure that you focus on fat loss not weight loss. Your goal
should be to lose weight by burning fat, not losing water from your
muscles. Remember this when you choose your weight loss program.
The home invader is dead—the coroner loads into a van the lifeless human body of the attacker you killed. The responding Police have asked their questions, documented the scene, and left your house. You stopped the immediate threat, but now a whole new set of emotions come over you. What do you do now?
A recent late-night home invasion in Michigan isn't much different than the numerous others we've talked about on the Concealed Carry Podcast Justified Saves episodes. However, something the homeowner said led me to write this post.
I'm a religious man, so it’s still tough, [appearing to tear up] scared to death. Who knows when we’ll be done with that, I guess. Hard to go back in your own home after this happens in it.
When we decide to use deadly defensive force, all that matters is surviving the moment, and our brain helps us stay focused on that task. However, once we survive the violent attack, we have to deal with the lingering complications of a traumatic incident.
Byron Township, Michigan Home Invasion Shooting —
The incident in Michigan went down like this.
A homeowner and his wife awoke shortly after midnight when they heard noises outside their home. The noises were the sound of a man smashing out the truck's windows belonging to the homeowner. The homeowner, called Alan Lenhart, Standing at the front door, yelled for the man to leave. But, instead of going, the suspect advanced toward Lenhart. Linhart said he could see the man holding a handgun.
Linhart locked the door, grabbed his “deer hunting gun” from the safe, and loaded it. The suspect went to the back of the house, yelling for Linhart to give him the keys [to the vehicle]. The suspect climbed the back steps and began pushing on the back door to gain entry. Linhart yelled:....Read the full article.....
We live in a world that values self-effort. It has a “Pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps” mentality that actually causes us to struggle. As a result, we try to solve our own problems through our own methods but see no success.
The good news is that God is waiting for us to turn to Him so that He can save us from all our fruitless, exhausting efforts. (Continued below...)
All around us we see people carrying burdens God never meant for them to handle. Some of those burdens are bad attitudes, negative emotions, addictions, and other things that hold them back from succeeding in life. This is painful and can lead to bitterness and discouragement; however, God is asking us to give Him those issues we can’t handle. He wants an opportunity to become deeply involved in our lives and show us favor. “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:28-30, MSG).
Trying to force things to work is never the solution. If we end up feeling frustrated, it’s because we’re taking the wrong approach to the issue. We were actually created to be in union with God so that we would succeed in everything we put our hand to. “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). Abiding in Him means not only accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior but also allowing Him to walk us through the situations we need help with.
Society tells us that any good thing we want in life must come by our own doing. However, apart from God’s intervention our efforts won’t amount to anything. We may see some temporary results, but they come at a high price and don’t last. No matter how well-intentioned, our works without God’s grace are empty and meaningless. “And since it is by God’s grace, it can’t be a matter of their good works; otherwise, it wouldn’t be a gift of grace, but earned by human effort” (Romans 11:6, TPT).
Working for the sake of working doesn’t work; all it does is make us feel like we’re on a never-ending treadmill without ever reaching what we’re striving for. Under the Law of Moses, the people were required to constantly perform, but their works were empty of faith. Now that grace has replaced the law, we need to have faith in God’s grace. “Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:28, 29). This was true during Jesus’ ministry, and it’s still true today.
Jesus is grace in human form. Accepting Him means accepting the offer of help God extended to mankind when He sent us His Son. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). Christ moves us from simply existing to a life of abundance, joy, and success.
