'3f)

herher yo u're a patrol

officer or a member of
a high risk en try team,
proper use of force is an
ove rriding concern for you . If it isn't,
then I can ass ure yo u th at the re are

horde s of liabiliry lawyers waitin g to

reorient your thinking. If you don't believe me, all you have to do is watch the
news or read the newspapers abo ut a
bust gon e bad. W ith the creation o f tabloid television shows, a subculture has

spru ng up of people who seem to drive

around with video cameras ready to tape
you in actio n.

This is why I'm now going to tell

you about a defensive tactics system that

is literally D ESIG N ED T O BE VIDEO TAPED. In fact, if John Q. Public

wa nts to film yo u in actio n, it's actu ally

going to help you out. But I'm getti ng

ahead of myself.
I recently had th e pleasu re of

AReporton
Three Rivers

andGST
John C. Simpson
58

watching a class conducted

by the T hree

Rivers Group. T he name of this program is GST, which stands for what a
bad guy WONT be able to do to you.
That is, you won't get Grabbed, Stru ck,
or Taken down . GST is the brainchild
of Elliot Freeman, the Chief Insrrucror
for Three Rivers Group.

Now I must admit that when I first

heard th at GST was based on the prin ciples of the martial art Aikido , I started
having a Pavlovian reaction. Faithful
readers of this magazine will remember
this author's previous disparaging comments about the l Orh Special Forces
Gro up's Aikido based j edi Project. T his
program was famou s for making 24
Special Forces operators exempt from

J ourn al o f Co untert error ism & S ecuri ty Int ernati on a l ! Vol. 6 N o.4

details, alerts, sch ools and sched uling

morning and afternoon Physical Fitness
sessions. The fact that they scored higher
o n th eir fitn ess rests afte r a few months
of this is supposed to have "validated"
th e program. But I digress.
\Vhar Elliot Freeman has done is
reminiscent of what the legendary W illiam E. Fairbairn d id wh en he was a
pol ice officer in Shanghai in the early
1900 's. Fairb airn had sought out classica l martia l art s tr ai nin g and had
ac hieved black belts in several styles.
W hat h e did NOT do was to open a
dojo within police headquarters to train
his people. Fast forward to 1999. M r.
Freeman has been in volved in the tradit io nal martial arts fo r almost 30 years.
Fortuna tely, in his presentation ofG ST,
a studen t doesn't have to learn a word
of Japanese, wear a tr aditional aikido
un iform, or bow. T his is because GST
is a fighting science.

?1tMtid A-zt tI4.

'?~

S~
M artial arts are a reflection of the culru re in which they are created. Admittedly, a lor of people st udy martial arts
for just such an exposu re to a not her
cult u re , a n d m ore p ower to th em .
Within the culture ofa law enforcement
or mili tary agency, a p rogram designed
(Q teach a martial arts curriculum will
create a crum my m artial artist instead
of a well trained fighter. A well trained
fighter is someone who und erstands th e
science offighting without wo rrying overmuch about the "art"
parr of it.
A good analogy for this can
be found in pistol shooting. Yo u
have com bat or tacti cal p istol
shooting which is put into practice against someo ne shooting
ba ck at you . It ca n usually be
characterized as close range, low
light, d yn ami c, a n d in sm all
rime intervals. T he re is also target shooting, wh ich for man y is
a terrific sport. If yo u look at a
slow fire m atch, however, the
shooter is stand ing upright, in
d ayl ight, slowly sq ueezing off
rounds at a hull's eye on a light
colo red background. Now, if
yo u were to ta lk to a target

A well trainedfighter
is someone who
understands the
science offighting
without worrying
overmuch about the
"art"part ofit,
shoo ter, yo u m ight hear th ings like
"T h is reall y teach es me patien ce" o r
"My self discipline has really improved."
T hese are all admirable things, but these
aren't the goals we h ave in mind when
we're getting ready to shoot som eone
wh o is working ro kill us at a thi rd party.

'P~

W ha t is most impressive abo ut G ST is

th e concep tu al basis in it's design:
I. GST is not an "all or nothing propositio n ." If you are already trained in
some fo rm of D efensive Tactics or
com batives, G ST doesn't require you
to unlearn what yo u already know.
Even th e ins tructors refer to it as
"m ore tools on you r tool bel t. "
2. GST takes as it's sta rting point that

Journal o f Co u nterte r ro r i s m & Security Int e rnationa l ! V o l. 6 No.4

if an opponent can't grab yo u, strike

yo u, o r take you down, what can he
do ro you? And yes, I know that he
can shoo t you ; don't cha nge the sub
Ject.
3. You don't have to be in shape to learn
or use GST I know that for certain
full tim e, elite u nits at th e na tional
level yo ur m o nthly p ay ch eck is
mostly for staying in sha pe. For the
patro l officer who only becomes a
" ba rrel ch ested fr eedom fighter"
whe n his pager goes off, staying at
th e razo r's edge of physical pe rfection is a nice goal. I'm not making a
value judgement, just an observatio n.
As a sidenote. when I returned fro m
researching this article. I showed my
9 year old son Jason one o f the pa in
compliance techn iques. He d id it to
me and it H URT ! I don't know who
was more surprised , h im or me.
4 . As a co rollary to #3 above, GST has
cleverly avoide d one of my favorite
pet peeves w hen it co mes to warming up or stretch ing during tra ining.
Every session begins with a warm up
session . This is the fi rst time that I
heard someone say th at stretchi ng
wasn't so met h ing th at you wo uld
have to do d uring morn ing roll call.
Rath er, if yo u slip in trai n ing a
stretched muscle is less likely to sus.
"
tarn an Injury.
5. Speaking of injuries, one of th e best
examples of the useful ness of this system was demo nstrated by a school
policy. Students with previous
injuries had a strip of silver
d uct tap e applied to the site
of th e previous inj ury as a reminder to all. One stude n t
had sus t ained c racked rib s
prior to the start of training.
It is extremely signifi cant th at
this studen t was ab le to perform ALL of th e training desp ite hi s cracked ribs. Even
more important in these litigious times, ALL of th e techniques were performed o n
him without aggravating h is
injury!
As sta ted previously,
6.
this system is de sign ed to be
vide otaped! T he G ST "interview sta nce" is unli ke anything this author has ever seen
59

in defensive tactics training! You find

yo urs elf fac ing the threat sq u arely
w ith yo ur arms held in front, p alm s
up (Figure I). Any th ird party viewing this from afarwo uld have to view
it as non threatening. You, however
w ill be able ro get our of th e way of
an o ncoming attack and even take
down th e opponent . T h is is beca use
th e palm up h an d s are used like
edged weapons to parry or "cut" an
attack. Fo rce against force is great
when yo u're bigger than everyone
else , but there's going to co me a time
when yo u meet so meo ne that you
"have to loo k up ro".
7 . GST teac hes yo u wha t is possib le by ta k ing yo u in to the
impossible. I saw this demonstrated w hen Elliot had th e st udents co me rushin g in by tw os
o n a stude nt "o n the spot". Students had to successfully "cut"
o ne attacker inca ano ther while
getting o ut of the way of th e
at tack (Figure 2). Th is was followed by three people at tack in g th e student at o ne tim e.
Aft er o nly 20 ho urs of training
at this po int, of cou rse the lon e
defender fou nd h im self o n rhe
ground with three guys sitting
o n him . T he point of this is th e
same as in learning to ski. If you
don't fall, yo u're really not learn ing to ski. Similarly, if yo u do n't
get defeated and taken down in practice, you're only fool ing yourself.
8 . Practice is based on honest attacks.
Ar the begi n ni ng of the class, the Insrruc ror makes ce rtain promises to
the class regarding his co nducr, the
rhings he'll sho w th em, an d so forrh .
At the same time, a promise is extracted from the students in o ne particular area: when they attack in practice, they go all o ut in what Elliot
calls an "ho nest attack." In other
wo rds, most civilized peop le are initially reluctant to grab someo ne by
th e throat in co ld blood . H ow m any
times have yo u seen a trainer say
"grab me" and then permit the soon
to be training dum my to gi nge rly
place h is hands o n hi m ? To show
what he want ed , Elliot had o ne of
his Assistant Instructors grab him by
the throat while he just stood there.
62

The a rrac k was so fo rce fu l (yo u

kno w, "honest") that Ellio t had to
take abo ut three steps back to keep
fro m being knocked over. This type
of hon esty was demanded co nstantly
through ou t the practic e sess io ns .
CST do esn't teac h th at pract ice
makes perfect, rather that "practice
makes permanent".
9. Asscared previou sly, GST wo rks with
what you already know. Even wi th
firearms. For too many years now,
firearms training was co nducted at
the range facility by hard bitten fire-

arms instructors and Ran gernasrers

with grey hai r and high freq ue ncy
hearing loss. Students wore the range
uniform and durv belt. D efensive
tactics training was con duc ted at the
gym by guys w irh high aerobic capac ity an d ab muscles tha t you could
grate cheese on . Students wore sweats
an d strapped on the dury belr when
the sche d ule req uired . We sta rte d to
see some breakdown betwe en these
roles when H andgun Retention was
being raug hr in rhe ea rl)' 80's. Who
shou ld teach it? Was it a part of'Iactical Firearms Training o r was it D efensive Tactics? a sim ilar to pic was
ralking abou t the reactio nar y gap .
Th is was the distance betwee n yo u
and a peep because the time yo u had
to react to an attack w as less than
yo u tho ught. W hen co nducting reloadi ng d rills wi th a rifle, I have hal f

the class line up facing the o ther half

at a d istance of 2 5 yards. O n th e
command of"G O" the un armed ha lf
sprints toward the half of the class
that has to reload their rifles with a
ne w magazine. This is sim ilar to exercises where so meo ne armed w ith a
han d gun has a reactio nary gap of
about 2 1 feet in which to draw and
fire his weapo n. What all this has to
do wit h GST is the way that rhe principles raugh t ofevading an attack and
lettin g it pass by serve to actua lly
increase the reactio nary gap. T hink
of it this way, so meone charges yo u
from a distance of X. Expec ting to
crash into yOLl, they are instead
passing by yo u. They then ha ve ro o
First, realize what happened; Seco nd, co me to a stop; T hird, turn
aro und; and fina lly starr back to ward yo u. In the meant ime yo u
have had amp le o pport un ity to eith er pull o ur yo ur OC, pull o ut
yo ur imp act weapo n o r even draw
your sidearm. T he imp ortan t thi ng
is that the attacker has lost his eleme nt o f surprise.
This becom es even mo re significant in the co ntext of Hostage
Rescue work. H ow many scenarios
have entry guys pract iced whe re
o ne o r more hostages is experiencing Srockhlo lm Synd ro me ? I'm nor
saying that yo u have to go fist city
wi th so meo ne trying to shoot yo u,
bur if a hostage runs towa rd you growling w ith hands o utstretc hed and yo ur
on ly o ptio n is to cap them, wha t's that
going to do to next years budge t appropriatio n s? Curren tly , Th ree Ri vers
Group offers law enfo rcemen t training
tailo red for Patrol Officers an d H igh
Risk Perso nnel alo ng wi th Instructor
Certificat ions . In additio n. for mili tary
and po lice Specia l O peratio ns perso nnel, there are Leth al Level co urses above
and beyo nd avo id ing G rabs, Strikes an d
Taked own s. In keepin g with their basic
co ncepts , Th ree Rive rs is w illing to
modi fy a program to fit w ithin an existi ng Use of Force Po licy.

For fi lrtber information, contact Ma rk

Quinn, their Director ofTraining: Three
RiversGroup AT TN Mark Quinn 7403
Ma nchester Rd. St. Louis, MO 63 143.

Tel 3 14-645-2345

J o u rn al of C ou nte rte rro ris m & S e c urity Inte r nat io nal / Vo l.6 N o .4