The Art of Manliness - #129： Competition Gun Shooting and Self-Defense With Mike Seeklander

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well today on the

00:00:18.580 show we're discussing firearms and in particular we're talking about a world of firearms that i

00:00:22.880 didn't know much about and that's competition shooting my guest today his name is mike

00:00:26.760 seeklander he's based here in tulsa oklahoma he's actually helped me with content about firearms

00:00:30.780 on the site and he's a champion competitive shooter he's actually one of the first contestants on

00:00:35.840 history's channel's top shot if you've seen that show so today mike and i discuss about three gun

00:00:41.980 competition shooting how you get started what's involved so if you're looking for a new hobby

00:00:46.380 new sport and you like guns you'll get a lot out of this podcast and besides being a competitive

00:00:50.900 shooter mike is also a firearms and self-defense instructor so he travels the country teaching

00:00:56.060 not only citizens but also law enforcement agencies how to be better tacticians with weapons and not

00:01:02.140 with weapons so mike and i also get into a little bit about self-defense all right so really interesting

00:01:07.160 podcast i think you'll like it so without further ado mike seeklander

00:01:10.440 all right mike seeklander welcome to the show thanks ma'am all right mike uh so you are

00:01:23.580 a world-class firearms instructor as well as competitor uh can you tell us a little bit about

00:01:29.160 your background how did you end up doing what you're doing man it's um the the background is

00:01:35.640 pretty diverse i from childhood love to shoot love guns and um you know actually i joined the marine

00:01:43.660 corps in 1990 and sometime in that time frame i ran across some videos of these guys shooting

00:01:51.200 do what we call practical shooting running and gunning and and you know i shot a handgun as a

00:01:56.260 young child i hunted i did all these different things but when i saw what these guys could do

00:02:01.260 their ability to shoot you know and the speeds they could accomplish with the handguns i was like man

00:02:05.820 i'm in love with this i gotta try this so throughout my marine corps career at the tail end and then

00:02:11.000 later on in law enforcement at the same time while i've always been doing you know tactical or defensive

00:02:16.120 stuff i've been competing you know as a as a shooter and now i'm a sponsored professional

00:02:21.320 shooter so it's uh it's been it's been an interesting road uh you uh you were air marshal

00:02:26.340 right is that what you did in law enforcement you know it's funny your listeners won't won't think i

00:02:30.720 can hold down a job so basically i went from the marine corps and then moved to knoxville tennessee

00:02:35.980 where i was a police officer there for years and then 9-11 happened and because of my shooting

00:02:42.120 background and some of my connections i had uh connect with the instructors in the federal air

00:02:47.400 marshal academy and uh man i made a made a phone call and they said wow you know so and so and you

00:02:52.300 can do that and i'm like yeah and they said come on come on up for an interview so i did and uh the

00:02:58.100 next thing i know i am the lead firearms instructor for the federal air marshal what we used to call phase

00:03:04.020 two training program which was you know after 9-11 they hired all these fams and then we had to

00:03:10.860 train them so i was in charge of the initial firearms program of course there were you know a

00:03:15.260 lot of instructors that worked with me and and for me and contractors and special forces guys and it

00:03:20.580 was really a great place to learn a lot awesome so uh you you mentioned okay there's a difference

00:03:25.820 between like you said there's practical shooting and there's competition shooting you're a sponsored

00:03:29.880 competitive shooter can you talk a little bit about competitive shootings i think that's a world that a lot

00:03:34.140 of people aren't familiar with um what are the events in competitive shooting i guess there's one

00:03:41.680 that's called three gun right right yeah yeah so when we're talking when we talk about practical

00:03:46.500 shooting the original sport called ipsic which is the international practical shooting confederation

00:03:52.060 was started years and years ago and basically it was a a gun handling and skills test made up by these

00:03:59.460 old gun fighters guys that carry 1911s and wanted to find a way to test their skills and that evolved

00:04:05.740 into the u.s version of the sport which is the united states practical shooting association and later on

00:04:11.440 idpa which is called the international defensive pistol association and the bottom line is it's um it's

00:04:17.900 almost all done from the holster different sports require concealment but if you can imagine running and

00:04:23.280 gunning where you know speed and accuracy is always balanced so for example you know a lot of

00:04:29.360 competitive sports you know you shoot a bullseye very slow with a rifle or a handgun or a bow and

00:04:34.080 arrow with practical shooting you know we're constantly shooting on the move i mean like i said it was a

00:04:40.180 combative oriented sport now of course these days you know they're really fancy handguns in certain

00:04:45.360 divisions it's not um it's not really practical in any aspect unless you shoot idpa but it's running

00:04:52.620 and gunning and you mentioned three gun of course there's a sport of three gun which is instead of just

00:04:56.540 competing with handguns you're you're shooting the rifles handguns and shotguns and oftentimes you're

00:05:01.820 shooting all three guns on one stage in a match wow so you are you like when you say running and gunning

00:05:07.400 so you are on the move are you getting behind obstacles or barriers and then shooting from those positions

00:05:14.460 all of the above man if you can imagine you know we don't necessarily i wouldn't say on we're on

00:05:20.520 obstacles like an obstacle course but similar i mean there are walls there are doors there are positions

00:05:25.700 we can shoot while we're moving we're literally shooting targets and then running to the next

00:05:29.840 targets and shooting you know the next array of targets and originally what happened was they said

00:05:34.520 we're going to set up an array of of threat targets and then you're going to have to run around

00:05:39.620 and use cover and do all these different things well that evolved into a more athletic sport which is

00:05:44.040 really when i describe it as running and gunning you know if you get on my youtube page or whatever

00:05:48.820 page out there and you know look up idp or uspsa or my name you'll find videos of us running and

00:05:55.020 gunning and that's literally i mean it's an athletic event but skill with a handgun rifle or shotgun is

00:06:00.780 also really really important to do well in these sports and they're they're incredibly fun they're not

00:06:06.140 slow and you know some of the sports out there to me are maybe a little bit more boring i mean i enjoy

00:06:11.580 them but they're just not as fun this is a there it's a fun sport man yeah does that does the does

00:06:16.820 that carry over to like actual self-defense it it does but the people that use it need to be aware

00:06:24.440 that they are in a sport and what they're going to get from doing sports like that is they're going

00:06:30.040 to get to test their gun handling and their marksmanship skills under stress but they're not

00:06:35.840 going to learn good tactics for example so someone that's a serious defensive shooter needs to

00:06:40.080 needs to do both they need to have you know the ability to shoot in the sport at the same time

00:06:44.720 they need to understand good tactics you know self-defense type tactics we'll talk about tactics

00:06:48.760 here in a little bit um but here's a thing you were on top shot history channel top shot uh can you

00:06:54.540 tell us a little bit about how that happened can you tell us about the experience there and i wasn't

00:06:59.060 on very long i'm i made i'm i'm famous man nobody can ever claim my title because i was the first person

00:07:04.920 to ever get kicked off oh no i will and you know it's it is what it is it was a it was a really 0.89

00:07:11.040 unique show and it was something i'm i'm proud of even though i got my butt kicked and i i gotta you 0.63

00:07:16.800 know we all lose here and there but the the deal was they started recruiting people from my sport and

00:07:22.140 all these other sports and the history channel put this show together and basically it was it was the

00:07:27.240 the reality tv show where they put all these different shooters you know some of us professional

00:07:32.520 shooters some somebody some people that were just from the military and etc in a house and then we

00:07:37.840 had to go to these different competitions and uh if you screwed up and you know we had the red red

00:07:43.680 team and the blue team and if you lost and of course you had to vote and two team members had to shoot

00:07:48.280 it off and if you lost the shoot off you had to go home um and i went into it pretty much blind i mean

00:07:53.600 nobody had any idea what the show was all about how to train for it what it would be like and it was

00:07:58.300 unique because you know you had hollywood people setting up a tv show and they didn't know anything

00:08:03.160 really about guns or shooting so there were a lot of little things they did that probably could have

00:08:07.820 been done better but it was a neat deal you know lots of people watch the show it was a great thing

00:08:12.380 for the gun culture yeah they had some weird like wild west type stuff i remember yeah man wild west

00:08:19.040 some of the shows they were shooting from these ropes they were hanging off of they did all kinds of

00:08:24.300 unique challenges and that's probably my biggest disappointment you know other than getting my

00:08:28.840 butt beat was that i didn't get to do all these other fun challenges all the other stuff yeah so

00:08:34.680 one thing i love about mike so here some for you who don't know uh mike has actually mike lives here

00:08:39.320 near tulsa uh this is in owasso right kind of found that area uh anyways uh mike has helped me out on

00:08:46.400 content with about firearms on the website so if you google or search on the site how to fire handgun

00:08:52.480 how to fire shotgun how to fire rifle uh you're gonna see mike uh looking all scary with his bald

00:08:58.660 head and goatee no but one thing i love about mike is that he makes firearms extremely approachable

00:09:05.140 for the average guy um and so with that in mind i mean for the someone so the guys listening who who

00:09:13.120 might want to get into firearms right for whatever reason whether it's just for a hobby because let's

00:09:18.920 admit it shooting guns is just fun making things go boom is fun yeah or for personal defense uh what's

00:09:24.860 the best way to get started do you sign up for a class do you just go through the range what do you

00:09:30.120 do yeah you know man and obviously i'll certainly toot my own horn i i have classes that i sell and i

00:09:36.060 have online programs we can talk about that later but you know the thing that i tell everybody is you

00:09:41.460 know first of all you need to basically get rid of the fear and say you know i'm not going to be

00:09:45.680 afraid of this anymore and here's the deal guys you we are the worst because we're afraid of doing

00:09:53.220 anything that's unknown especially when we're talking about something in the in the manly gun

00:09:57.220 culture it's like wait i don't know how to i don't know how to hold a gun or shoot a gun i don't want

00:10:01.560 to admit that to my family or friends or you know other people out there well the reality is you know

00:10:06.880 if you go if you go to any range and find any good instructor and uh or any kind of program

00:10:12.240 especially competitive programs people are the nicest people you'll ever ever meet so i would

00:10:16.480 tell the listeners just jump into it you know go to a local gun range or contact me i'll help you find

00:10:21.820 one and uh you know get into it and then from there you know don't rush it you know go to the gun stores

00:10:28.060 that you know rent handguns rent a handgun rent a rifle rent a shotgun you know read your articles

00:10:33.200 brett i mean all the basics are there and then once you're ready to take it the next level then you

00:10:37.800 could consider you know buying some books or videos there's lots of good ones out there taking an

00:10:41.580 online course or actually taking you know maybe a four hour or one day course i don't recommend the

00:10:46.760 new people take like the two-day course or three-day course because that's very intensive and it's it's

00:10:52.280 hard on your body so shoot a little bit first get comfortable you know and then and then jump into it

00:10:57.020 and then if you want to try the competitive sports watch out because once you try them you know you're

00:11:01.980 going to be hooked they're just they're so much fun well speaking of like firearms instructors like what

00:11:07.620 should you look for in a good instructor because there's lots of them out there there's really

00:11:11.680 there's no um accreditation right i mean that that has its vices and virtues right there's been a

00:11:17.140 frozen cause uh but i mean so with that in mind what what should you look for an instructor well first

00:11:22.500 you're right it does have its vices number one because the problem is especially since the the

00:11:27.140 global war on terrorism is winding down however you want to put that there are lots and lots and

00:11:32.160 lots of guys and gals out there that are now instructors and instructing and so i would tell people a few

00:11:36.340 things number one now the nra does certify instructors and there are some certification

00:11:41.020 programs in the federal and state local law enforcement entities just because someone has a

00:11:47.360 instructor certification doesn't mean a lot to me but here's what i would tell people number one look

00:11:52.300 for someone that has a really good base of knowledge meaning you know if you're going to go take a class

00:11:57.880 from someone the first thing you should be able to do is you know go meet them and watch them shoot

00:12:03.380 and or see videos of them shooting and or know of their shooting background because to really be a

00:12:08.900 good instructor you have have to have a body of knowledge because i would want students to go to

00:12:13.400 someone that has a very deep body of knowledge versus just a certification and then of course the

00:12:19.660 second thing is the certification helps because if someone is a certified instructor at least they

00:12:24.260 understand the format of instruction you know and i wrote a book last year called the art of

00:12:29.660 instruction and that's what it teaches people it doesn't teach people specific text techniques that

00:12:34.540 i want them to teach it embodies you know the energy and the structure of instruction because

00:12:40.000 you know as you know right if someone is a good instructor and they have the ability to teach

00:12:45.700 something that the student's job is simply to enjoy the process and learn if the instructor is a bad

00:12:51.440 instructor or god forbid teaches bad techniques then it'll it's very hard to erase that memory or that bad

00:12:58.940 experience for the student you know so but that's my recommendation i'll give you one last thing

00:13:03.000 if you ever go to an instructor that won't shoot in front of you or that won't do things whatever

00:13:07.980 they're instructing if they're a piano instructor they better play the piano in front of you if they

00:13:12.300 don't do it in front of you then they're not very good to find someone else all right what about guys

00:13:17.160 who are about who want to buy their first firearm uh any advice on that is it something to just rent

00:13:24.640 stuff and like find what you like and what should we be looking for i will tell you this dude if you

00:13:29.300 and if you haven't seen this you might like this too there i just did a youtube video on a trip to the

00:13:34.540 gun store where literally i paid uh paid up my videographer to go to the gun store with me and i

00:13:39.700 videoed the whole thing and i talk about how you would select a handgun and selecting a family of guns

00:13:44.020 because and here's the deal i i go to so many classes where people show up and they have the wrong

00:13:50.680 gear and the wrong gun for them it just doesn't work for them so one of the biggest tips i give

00:13:56.260 on that video which is on my youtube page is rent them exactly you're you're you hit a spot on because

00:14:01.960 once you rent a gun you know what it feels like to fire the second thing is once you've rented it

00:14:06.700 get some instruction before you buy that handgun because just because it feels good to you doesn't

00:14:12.640 mean it is good you know what i'm saying yeah as a new new shooter you don't know what you don't

00:14:17.540 know i mean you're you know you innocently lack the knowledge to really select the proper handgun

00:14:22.360 and gear initially so go rent a few guns get some instruction shoot the instructor's guns most

00:14:26.860 instructors have a dozen different handguns that they've you know they've bought over the years

00:14:30.620 um you know but like i said the video that i did is is kind of the because everybody told me mike

00:14:35.440 your books and your videos are great but you don't have anything that's very basic like i'm brand new

00:14:39.680 to this what do i do the second i walk in the gun store and i teach that in the video yeah i mean

00:14:44.540 the thing i found um is that you can get really you can spend a lot of money oh man like wasted money

00:14:50.360 too uh trying to figure out if you had just taken the time to try stuff before you actually buy

00:14:57.740 yeah and the thing about that is once you've bought it's it's uh you know all guns retain their value

00:15:03.920 but they're not going to retain the same value so it just it i've like i said i did the video because

00:15:09.660 i've had so many students that show up that that are that have been so misinformed in their gun

00:15:15.860 purchase or their gear purchase trip to the store i mean it's it's really pitiful so yeah so all right

00:15:21.440 so you you buy your gun um you know you want to own that but you want to be responsible gun owner so

00:15:26.780 what should a a typical firearms regimen look like if you want to be really serious and really adept

00:15:34.220 at using your firearm okay well for man before i answer it let's separate in the into the two

00:15:40.100 different arenas number one if you're going to be if you're training for defensive reasons or self

00:15:44.620 defense that's a completely different context than training for competition so if i were to say and

00:15:51.860 more likely most of your listeners they're probably going to want to be they're going to they're going

00:15:56.000 to want to use a firearm for self-defense maybe home defense vehicle defense whatever so you know

00:16:01.240 the bottom line there to approach that in a serious nature is to learn how to build the skills

00:16:06.820 with drills and the drills have to be built properly so for example most of my skill brett and most of

00:16:13.300 the professional shooters i know spend a large amount of time dry firing and manipulating their

00:16:19.260 firearms at home in a safe you know there's some safety rules you have to follow but basically

00:16:23.000 handling the firearm learning how to draw it learning how to reload it learning how to clear malfunctions

00:16:28.020 and those those skills can all be practiced and taught in dry fire you don't have to go to the

00:16:32.720 range at all you can you matter of fact in my online course all of the first drills are dry fire

00:16:37.440 drills like like the first 15 of them you never have to leave your house and you can do it in a safe

00:16:42.760 area in your home and and develop a tremendous amount of skill without you know firing a live round

00:16:47.780 of course the next step is to find a good range and go to the range and whether you're getting

00:16:51.700 instruction from videos or a person is to start to put those aspects into use when you're actually

00:16:57.120 firing that you know the rifle hanging or shotgun yourself okay so it's dry fire every day something

00:17:01.420 you should probably be doing man almost every single day you know it's like fitness you know

00:17:06.300 if you don't stick to it and do it you know routinely four or five times a week you're not

00:17:10.440 going to get anything out of it but you know three days a week dry fire for 10 to 15 minutes

00:17:14.840 will develop skills that are really unbelievable to most people you know yeah and then try to get

00:17:21.020 to the range what once a week once a week man yeah if you get the range once a week once a week

00:17:25.400 you're golden i know people that once they develop the initial skill will maintain their skill

00:17:29.680 every other week maybe once a month for like half a day you know for a longer range session

00:17:34.180 you know but once a week is really good if you're dry firing three or four days and going to the live

00:17:39.260 fire range once a week i mean you're going to develop some serious skills and what about competition

00:17:43.980 is that something you have to get a little more serious about and spend more time with well you do but

00:17:48.640 here's the thing i'll tell everybody out there don't wait until you think you're at a certain level

00:17:53.620 to shoot your first match it's much better just to show up and get into it now i'm not saying they

00:17:58.480 have to go to a match and shoot the first one they ever see go and watch one initially if you're new

00:18:02.260 to this stuff but don't be that person that waits for one or two or three years until you think you have

00:18:07.380 a certain level of skill to go to the match because what you're going to realize is once you get to the

00:18:10.960 match itself you missed all of that fun and all of all of that experience along the way and and

00:18:16.460 secondly um you probably don't have the skills necessary to be able to participate in the sport

00:18:22.360 so and i know it sounds weird my recommendation is to get a basic level of skill go watch a match

00:18:29.060 and if it's like man this looks really fun jump into it and you're going to have a half a dozen

00:18:34.120 people there that will help you out and give you gear alone your gear you know because people

00:18:38.920 generally in our sports are very friendly so we've talked a lot about like sort of beginner

00:18:43.240 um firearm you know for people who want to get started but what about uh people who are seasoned

00:18:49.240 firearm practitioners are there are there mistakes that you commonly see that they make or

00:18:54.880 things that they're overlooking in their own self-defense training or competition training

00:18:59.560 yeah man they um here's the deal i don't and i don't say this to insult anybody but most most of us

00:19:08.260 are taught if we if we're a shooter we were taught to shoot probably by a parent probably by our father

00:19:14.680 okay and uh some of us are taught really well some of us were not taught that well and you know one of

00:19:22.380 the comments and emails i get all of the time is that when people get on some of the free stuff that

00:19:27.160 i give out the articles on my blog or the videos or whatever and they try some of the you know the

00:19:31.280 techniques let's talk you know for example handgun shooting how to properly grip a handgun and how to

00:19:35.900 manage the trigger better so you can shoot it faster and more accurately because i think there's

00:19:39.800 always a balance that that needs to be met people just this light bulb goes off and they realize how

00:19:45.660 wrong they've been taught along the way most most people that come to my classes uh don't know how to

00:19:52.600 grip a handgun properly uh they fail to understand how to manage the trigger properly and what i'm you

00:19:58.160 know brett what i'm talking about is to shoot it fast and accurately and understand fast and

00:20:03.020 accurately that's applicable in both the self-defense arena and the competitive arena it's

00:20:07.580 the same skill sets we don't need to separate those um you know and then from the self-defense

00:20:12.180 defense you know perspective there's boy there's a lot of information out there especially if you

00:20:17.000 start to get on and and follow some of these videos that that are wrong or you're just watching some

00:20:22.200 crackerjack do whatever i mean you know unfortunately people learn wrong and that's most of my classes i spend

00:20:28.580 a large majority of the time fixing problems that were ingrained you know habits bad habits all right

00:20:35.000 so let's talk about you to mention tactics right is an important part of self-defense so i was gonna

00:20:41.540 the thing that was i got where was i going with this well i'm gonna have the guy my editor edit this

00:20:46.380 out um okay so yeah listen just the as far as tactics go a lot of you see a lot of in the tactical

00:20:53.020 world everyone's like obsessed with the gun right it's like my gun you know if i got a problem

00:20:57.660 well i'll just shoot the guy i mean it's sort of like a joke um on our site amongst me and my my

00:21:03.360 fellow writers is that whenever you publish like a uh an article on hand-to-hand combatives like 0.83

00:21:09.820 croft mcgaard or something like that there's always going to be some guys going to say well i'll just

00:21:14.080 shoot him with my gun i know dude all the time um so i mean let's talk about tactics so what role does

00:21:22.420 the firearm play in self-defense well here's the deal first of all you what you just said was so 0.98

00:21:30.360 incredibly true and uh the problem with that is the problem with people saying well i'll just shoot

00:21:36.540 them is number one you may not be able to because you might not be able to get your gun out and what

00:21:41.520 we do is i do what's called um we do a lot of mma type combative stuff here but i do it with some

00:21:48.180 guys that are also armed with blue guns and training knives so we're using safe plastic firearms or a

00:21:55.000 little you know what's called cert firearms and training knives and what we do is we just arm

00:21:59.600 ourselves like we'd normally be armed and everything is in play strikes kicks knees wrestling and then we

00:22:05.580 work on how we would get to the gun or get to the knife or you know draw the handgun etc and i'll tell

00:22:11.120 you man i'm pretty good at drawing a handgun i've been doing it professionally for about 20 years now

00:22:15.100 and i cannot get a handgun out more often than not against a motivated attacker that's punching me

00:22:21.740 in the face so when you say that you're exactly right people need to have a self-defense uh continuum

00:22:28.140 for lack of a better word they need to understand uh distance they need to understand how to use their

00:22:33.620 hands and their feet uh for both striking as well as movement offline or maybe sprint movement where

00:22:39.360 they're literally sprinting and putting a vehicle or something between them and the attacker

00:22:43.780 and when we're talking about you know self-defense it's not just one part it's not like okay i've got

00:22:49.840 a handgun i've got a care permit now i'm able to defend myself no no no it goes way beyond that you

00:22:55.220 understand and that's the first thing i try to get across in most of my classes and yeah i mean that

00:23:00.460 that whole distance thing is because i've done that some i've done a similar drill like that where

00:23:04.580 you had a guy with a knife um you had i had my fire you know a blue gun you know in my in holstered

00:23:11.280 not even hole it was like where i can you know conceal carry and he attacked me and i could never

00:23:15.060 get a a shot off and i got stabbed multiple times and died multiple times it was really humbling um

00:23:21.900 so yeah i mean i guess so an important part of of tactics in self-defense is being situationally

00:23:28.100 aware and you talk a lot about this and you you taught you taught me this really kind of cool game

00:23:32.840 to improve your situational awareness uh can you talk about that a little bit well i'm thinking we

00:23:38.380 were talking about the uh the where we were doing the identification and later on you kind of test

00:23:43.560 your buddy or test whoever you're with to see what they saw yeah yeah yeah well you know and

00:23:48.020 basically i turn it into a game and i'll actually i play this with my nine-year-old son believe it

00:23:52.320 or not so we'll be in a weird area and um i will spot someone that maybe looks like they're out of

00:23:58.100 place or whatever and then later on i'll just whoever i'm with hey what'd you see in the store

00:24:03.660 who'd you see in the store that was out of place or that you know and the bottom line is what i try

00:24:08.120 to do is get them to recall information so to really develop uh aware what we call awareness because

00:24:14.000 of awareness is the first step in avoidance everybody always says i'm gonna avoid the fight

00:24:19.160 i'm gonna i'm gonna avoid of what well you can't avoid unless you're aware first and that's the first

00:24:24.240 thing is turning your your senses back on because we're so dumbed down in in the world you know our

00:24:29.340 heads are stuck in our cell phones you know we're thinking about other things we don't we're just not

00:24:34.440 aware of our surroundings where if i dropped you know all of your listeners off right now

00:24:38.320 in kodiak alaska on a river and the salmon are probably running sometime soon and they knew there

00:24:44.520 were kodiak grizzly bears around the first thing they would do would be turn up their awareness level

00:24:49.200 you know what i'm saying yeah but we're not we don't do that in society so the awareness game is

00:24:53.340 very simple you just play with your you know spouse or friend or children or whoever else say

00:24:57.500 what'd you see inside walmart there were two guys that were weird did you see them if they if you

00:25:02.600 if you did what were they wearing what were they doing and and whoever catches those little details

00:25:08.120 of information wins the game you know so you start keeping track of points and for kids it becomes a

00:25:12.940 game and then the neat thing is you can ask them well do you think that person was a bad guy or a bad

00:25:17.780 woman you know bad and they'll say well yeah i think so and then you can ask them well who who was in

00:25:22.980 the store that could help you and they'll be like well there was a mother with two children because

00:25:26.760 a mother with two children is probably pretty safe or there was a police officer or security guard

00:25:30.560 in a gray uniform and that's you know that's how i make it into a game so yeah that i guess that whole

00:25:35.520 point of situation you talked about avoiding the fight and that's something i think a mentality

00:25:39.340 when things when you bring out your gun right like that's that's not a good day right that's a horrible

00:25:46.320 day it's a horrible day um and uh i mean i guess what i've noticed in firearms training

00:25:52.040 that i've taken is that as far as tactics go a lot of emphasis placed on how to not get in that

00:25:57.740 position in the first place and i guess situational awareness plays a big role in that well yeah man i

00:26:03.880 mean if you think about this all of these millions of concealed carry holders are doing the right thing

00:26:08.220 there i'm hoping they're getting some training they're carrying their firearms etc etc but even on the

00:26:13.240 best day if they had to defend their lives and they they had to shoot somebody they are gonna

00:26:18.960 they're gonna spend almost everything they have in their bank accounts unless they're super rich to

00:26:23.200 defend the right decision and i applaud them for that but if they could have just avoided that problem

00:26:28.540 if they could have avoided that fight altogether they're gonna be so much better off you know and 0.96

00:26:33.480 like you said you know a lot of people like i'll just shoot them it's not that easy it doesn't work 0.97

00:26:37.420 that way and more importantly if you do it's gonna be a miserable miserable experience it's one that i 0.94

00:26:42.680 recommend that you avoid entirely you know what i'm saying it's just a bad situation so you know

00:26:48.180 turn on that awareness and uh you know be a humble polite individual you know have the ability to

00:26:53.800 defend your life if you need to but man stay away from it if you can avoid it yeah all right so another

00:26:58.720 thing i love about uh your content mike and the way your approach towards self-defense is the role

00:27:04.720 physical fitness plays in that what role does physical fitness play in your philosophy and training

00:27:11.640 man physical fitness is everything and understand it ties in both my competitive shooting and what

00:27:18.160 i do in my sport as well as self-defense because as you know and you i know you're into some of the

00:27:22.760 lifting i've been watching some of your videos and everything else man a self-defense situation is

00:27:28.500 more than likely oftentimes going to start out in a fight where your fitness is going to have to be

00:27:33.980 really really high or the higher it is let's say that's the great equalizer the higher your fitness

00:27:39.000 level the better off you are um and you know then the bottom line is the more it increases your

00:27:44.880 skill set so it's you know having good fitness is like a force multiplier you're going to be able to

00:27:49.340 defend yourself better and i wrote about this not long ago i said you know what as a side if you never

00:27:54.140 get in a fight if you focus on your fitness what i call fighting fitness guess what you're going to

00:27:59.020 be in better shape you're you're going to be happier you're going to feel better and you're

00:28:02.020 going to live longer because you're more likely to die from heart disease than you are probably from a 1.00

00:28:06.240 gunfight yeah and one thing i think it's what's great about what's good about physical fitness for

00:28:10.480 self-defense not only is it useful in a fight but it's great for avoiding fights in the first place

00:28:16.040 because it acts as a deterrent right if you look strong and in shape you know here's the thing most

00:28:21.680 criminals they're criminals of opportunity they're only going to go after people they think they can

00:28:26.760 beat because they look out of shape they're fat they're small and skinny or whatever that's why most 0.82

00:28:31.520 people most attackers attack women that's right so if you look big and strong you're probably not

00:28:37.080 going to get messed with all that often yeah you know and another thing about that man when i started

00:28:41.460 training doing combatives and i've been doing martial arts for years i find that the more in shape i am

00:28:46.280 and the better trained i am my confidence level goes up to the point where people can read and they can

00:28:51.020 feel that and and more importantly that internal confidence level you know it's like i don't if a guy tries

00:28:56.980 to pick a fight with me i am completely comfortable walking away he can call me a coward he can call me

00:29:02.100 a scary cat that's fine i have no interest in fighting now if i do have to fight i know what my

00:29:06.840 abilities are but it gives you a confidence that allows you just to relax and walk away from things

00:29:11.560 and like you said you're right that that appearance is is a very very big deterrent to criminals you know

00:29:16.860 they prey on the weak so what does your fitness regimen look like is it lifting and cardio high intense

00:29:22.120 cardio man almost everything i'm doing now it has some sort of function so for example my cardio is

00:29:28.500 not cardio it's a circuit where i'm doing some sort of intervals and i'm doing a set of strikes on my

00:29:35.000 bag elbows hands knees legs whatever and then i'll work into weapon strikes believe it or not where i'm

00:29:41.260 working some of my close range techniques where i these are hard to describe on audio but video is

00:29:46.640 better and then i'll go right into something like kettlebell swings or some sort of functional

00:29:51.680 fitness type exercise that's my cardio routine i normally do you know one minute up one minute

00:29:57.740 down sometimes i vary that i really push the intensity on the up interval and then i try to

00:30:02.140 bring my heart rate back down and sometimes i'll go longer you know two two to three minutes because

00:30:07.160 that that's what you're going to do in a fight you're going to expend a whole bunch of energy and

00:30:10.820 then you're going to try to rest and that and that's what i want to try to mimic my lifting stuff and

00:30:15.220 i don't know if you know this or not brett but i i had both hips replaced yeah you mentioned that in

00:30:19.700 email so now my lifting has changed i mean i'm doing all of the stuff the strength i'm watching

00:30:24.700 your videos dude i'm doing deadlifts i'm starting to squat again and what i want to do is i want to

00:30:29.200 build as much strength as i possibly can with perfect form you know and i want to be able to

00:30:34.720 push someone off me i want to be able to pull my body weight up i want to be able to pick something

00:30:38.560 off the ground i want to i really focus a lot of my grip strength because grip strength is everything

00:30:45.000 in a fight so i focus you know really all of my fitness time is spent doing something i could

00:30:50.400 functionally use on the shooting circuit or in a fight do you ever do like uh exercise and then

00:30:56.700 like use like a assert pistol or airsoft pistol yeah in that routine i actually do man so for example

00:31:02.560 on my down set when i'm letting my heart rate go back down i'll use assert you know assert is made

00:31:07.540 by an lta so i'll sit there and i'll dry fire and work on maybe a trigger control drill with

00:31:11.680 two hands or trigger control with my strong hand or trigger control with my weak hand

00:31:16.180 or maybe my reloads and i'm doing that during the down because you know i'm using my trigger finger

00:31:21.700 i'm not i'm not using the big muscles and then when i go back into the next set i'm doing the next

00:31:26.520 cardio set whatever i'm trying to do you know what i'm saying so yeah i do i integrate that stuff all

00:31:31.000 of the time and it also allows me to integrate my firearm stuff when my heart rate is up so i get to

00:31:36.180 experiment what it's experience what it's like when i'm when my heart rate's gonna up because your

00:31:40.460 heart rate's gonna scream in a fight you know what i'm saying yeah yeah and that affects your

00:31:44.320 physical performance absolutely man and so for those of you who don't aren't familiar a assert

00:31:48.500 pistol is basically it's a laser pistol that looks like a glock exactly like a glock it's a it's a

00:31:54.180 really cool it's an awesome training tool it's a phenomenal training tool man and i use mine all

00:31:59.280 the time in my combative stuff i mean i'm i and the the founder mike hughes that developed he's

00:32:04.360 probably doesn't want to hear this but i i'm striking my bag with my pistol you know i mean i'm

00:32:08.660 literally doing weapon strikes with it i haven't been able to break it yet so yeah i got one and 0.56

00:32:13.240 uh i keep it by on my desk and i i've killed every single light switch in my house with it there you

00:32:18.080 go i literally if you listen to this yeah i got one in my hand right now pew pew pew literally man

00:32:24.360 you got to make the pew pew noise pew pew that's right no you don't don't do that don't do that

00:32:29.000 don't we got to delete that you got to delete that now don't delete it all right well mike where can

00:32:33.960 people find out more about your work and your online training programs that you have to offer

00:32:37.700 man the best link to me is probably just to go on my website because my website has all of the

00:32:42.680 training courses both the physical courses the location the training calendar the online training

00:32:47.340 links to the vimeo videos if you want to download the videos as well as my web store and that's

00:32:52.280 shooting-performance.com and of course the dash is a hyphen you know so shooting-performance.com

00:33:00.320 my blog is blog.shooting-performance.com but there's a link to my facebook my blog and all

00:33:07.240 of the training stuff on the website that's the best place to go awesome you got training on

00:33:10.920 programs on vimeo and udemy correct yeah man udemy is an actual online course where i interact with

00:33:17.900 the students and uh and on vimeo is is just the videos for example a lot of people want to download

00:33:23.060 the videos and take them to the range and that's why i did the vimeo videos but udemy is a little more

00:33:27.960 interactive it's something where if you're a new person to shooting you know i'd recommend you do

00:33:32.300 the online because you can do it at your own pace you can do it from your home you can share it with

00:33:35.620 your husband or your wife or your boyfriend you know so that that's the one i'd recommend very

00:33:39.960 cool well mike sieklander thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure thanks a bunch man take

00:33:44.260 care our guest today was mike sieklander you can find out more about his work at shooting-performance.com

00:33:50.640 also check out the american war society and if you're looking at some of mike's books on competitive

00:33:55.760 and defensive handgun training just search for mike sieklander on amazon.com

00:34:00.100 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:34:07.780 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy

00:34:11.680 this podcast i'd really appreciate it if you'd give us a review on itunes stitcher whatever it is

00:34:16.540 you use to listen to the podcast help to get the word out about the podcast and give us feedback that

00:34:21.140 we can use to improve the podcast said podcast a lot there uh anyways until next time this is brett

00:34:26.360 mckay telling you to stay manly

00:34:28.480 you

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00:34:37.700 you

00:34:41.700 you

00:34:43.700 you

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00:35:06.920 you

The Art of Manliness - August 13, 2015

#129： Competition Gun Shooting and Self-Defense With Mike Seeklander

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