Episode-750- Bryan Black on the Top 10 Tactical Skills for the Common Man
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Bryan Black From ITSTactical.com
Bryan Black from ITS Tactical joins us today to discuss tactical skill sets.
ITS was founded in early 2009 as a joint venture between Military Veterans and those serving in the Special Operations community, ITS Tactical has quickly grown into a definitive resource for skill-set information, tactical gear reviews and DIY projects.
While ITS provides a lot of information specifically designed for the military, LEO and security communities they are also a great resource for preppers even those who are not into “everything tacticool”.
Today Bryan joins us to discuss his personal top ten list of tactical skills that everyone should make a part of their lives, specifically for those of us in a preparedness mindset.
Join Us Today As We Discuss…
- Self Defense, Combatives and Situational Awareness
- Navigation
- Fitness
- Lock Picking
- Medical
- Driving
- Knot Tying
- Digital Competency
- Home Security/Assessment
- The Tactical Mindset
Additional Resources for Today’s Show
- Members Support Brigade
- TSP Gear Shop
- Join Our Forum
- ShelfReliance.com – (sponsor of the day)
- The Berkey Guy – (sponsor of the day)
- ITS Tactical Links
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.
I don’t know if it’s my browser (RockMelt), but my I can’t stream by pressing the ‘play’ button, I have to download it. Which is fine, just thought I’d let you know. 🙂
You guys give so many useful tips and we learn something new every single time we listen. Thanks for being THE source we come to to learn and to share with our comrades!
As far as the podcast goes, these are some extremely useful tactics for everyday life and for general survival.
Congrats on your 750th episode!
Hey Jack, thanks for having me on TSP!
Great podcasts, keep up the great work.
I love that you are bringing ITS to TSP. Two of my favorite websites in one place.
Adopt this term in regards to needing help or emergency: When least expected, your elected.
The driving school brian is thinking of is BSR. I believe its Bill Scott racing. Keely Mcan’s school Crucible teaches driving. So does Tactical Response.
Awesome show guys! Some great food for thought. Also I will mention that concerning unarmed combat and martial arts you should do the research and pick something that suits your needs and goals. All are not created equal as you’ve said on the show. I just had the experience last night where someone told me that Russian soldiers are trained to rip out voice boxes. Total nonsense! So no, your some random guy telling you utter B.S. and hearsay does not count as research 🙂
@S, so true. The Russians are largely misunderstood as beasts or something they are far more compassionate and philosophical than we give them credit for, of course that wouldn’t have made good propaganda in the cold war.
Case in point Val Riazanov relayed a story to me. He and some other systema practitioners were at a martial arts demonstration. An attendee asked some martial artist from some discipline to break a brick and of course he did so and was quite proud of himself.
They then asked one of Val’s contemporaries to break a brick with a systema strike. The guy says, why? The response of course “to prove how powerful the strike was”, the Russian shrugs and says, “why would one human being exert such effort to destroy an object that another human being put so much work into so that a third human being could have a house?” He added that “if you want to feel the power I can hit you in the stomach and slowly take it up to what you can handle that should convince you more than a parlor trick”.
So much for crazy maniac Russian warriors. They are a lot more than what the g-men and Hollywood painted them to be.
Oh and if you want to know what a systema strike is like ask a person (like Bryan or I) who has taken our fair share of them. Or better yet go find an instructor, getting hit is part of the training. That said I have found the training less “violent” and less injury producing than Tai Kwo Do, etc.
The weird thing is systema actually teaches you to absorb many strikes and how to control them. It isn’t going to make you a MMA champ overnight but it sure will help you on the street if God forbid you need it.
Thanks Bryan for all the great info. We now are putting a set of lock picks on our list of things to pick up.
Great interview with open perspectives. Thanks . ps I’m also a crew member, thanks Bryan for good intel.
Great interview!
Thank you guys for the excellent show. Bryan, thanks for leading me over here to TSP in the first place! I’ve been a fan of ITSTactical on Facebook for quite a while, and learned quite a bit from your site. While I’ve always had a “prepper” mentality, listing to TSP has opened up a whole new community of like minded folks for me. You guys rock! Keep up the great work.
I would add to the medical portion of the kit (and the thing on the whole) a pen, paper, and watch. You might not know what to write down, but carrying the mindset that during an incident, any responder would like to know what happened. Did the patient fall off the porch or the roof, when? Is the patient still breathing, at what rate, or WHEN did it stop? Did the patient give any information before LOC? You put on a tourniquet? When? Knowing that the person(self) you are caring for will eventually be handed over to another and that writing down any information you might think is important, and the possibility that it could be VERY important, I feel is a crucial point to make in a medical skillset.
The song has a punk flare to me. Maybe there could be a Sex Pistols sorta version. 😉
Whoops. Wrong episode to comment on.
Great episode!! I’ve made some lock picks from wipers and I cannot for the life of me pick a lock. Would I be better served buying a pro set, like the Bogata’s? Is that the trick, or am I just “a lock picking goober”?
Definitely a good show, I really enjoyed this one.
RE: “I don’t dial 911” stickers. I think these kinds of stickers (“Insured by Smith & Wesson”, “Keep honking, I’m reloading”, etc) probably deter some amateurs but could attract more serious burglars – they now know you probably have many guns inside the house. If they can determine that you’re not home, that might give them some incentive to pick your house over your neighbors knowing that they’ll probably score some firearms.
I don’t know. It seems like a tough call between scaring off the most likely candidates that would come steal from you (i.e. some crackhead that wants in your garage) or attracting the professionals. I’d say those kinds of stickers would make someone think twice about a home invasion though.
@Ryan I completely disagree, no one wants to get shot and no one is more likely to avoid it then a pro. John Stossell went into one of NJs wost prisons and asked criminals if they would ever consider breaking into a home where they knew the occupant was armed, overwhelmingly they said no. Additionally when asked if they more feared the police or an armed citizen it was 100% that they most feared a citizen with a gun. Guns or not there are valuables in any nice home.
I’d totally agree that letting criminals know that you’re armed would deter them probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 100% of the time, but firearms are only useful for home defense when you’re there to use them.
I’m just saying I’d practice a little discretion on this one. If someone is home all the time and/or you’re able to practice basic home security measures (Bob Maine actually has some good podcasts on this one) that might make a criminal think twice about your home, a sticker like that might be an extra layer of security. If your house is unoccupied a good portion of the day and it’s obvious when you’re out, it might act as a little extra incentive for a criminal that knows what he (or she) is doing. Personally, I wouldn’t feel comfortable advertising it like that.
Unrelated to conversation at hand: You talked about the Wall Street protests the other day. I heard a clip on a different podcast from one of the protestors who said something along the lines of “I spent a lot of time and money going to college and now that degree is worthless” when interviewed, basically blaming it on the bankers. Kind of interesting….
I wanted to mention keeping catgut sutures in a medical kit. There are packets with several feet of catgut pre-attached to a curved needle of varying gauges. They can easily be gotten from any veterinary supply website. Along with this would be an antiseptic, such as an iodine (Betadine) solution or Hibiclens wash. I also keep Lidocaine in my kit for my animals as well as my family.
I’ve been enjoying your podcasts. Thank you!
Oh, I also wanted to mention the knowledge of how to butcher your own meat can be a great skill set to have. You’ve probably covered this in previous shows (I’m a fairly new listener) and I just haven’t caught up yet. I teach butchering workshops, and it is amazing the interest I get from all walks of life. It is such great knowledge to have and not many people know how to do it any more. I’ve even walked a friend through it over the phone (dog killed her chicken and she didn’t want to waste the meat).
@Shalali Infante, I agree great skill and one we have discussed many times but it isn’t what I would call a “tactical” skill, hence it wasn’t part of this episode.
Oh, I didn’t mean it should have been included in the show. The show just made me think about that as a skill. Probably, there is a better place for that kind of comment. 🙂
I have a bone to pick with you Jack! You tell us what a tough time you had with the lock on your office, and then you don’t tell is what kind of a lock it is! Share the knowledge wealth, man! 😛
A usual, great show!
It is a Schlage but don’t take to much from that, the one at my old home I cracked in 30 seconds on my first attempt was also a Schlage. The locksmith guy noted that the key had a very deep tumbler at both the front and back of the key. He tried everything he zip gun, a bump key, etc.
He tried another door that got us to the second door of the office, (same key though) but the door jam wasn’t so tight as the old credit card trick got us in from there.
Ah, so the secret might be in the configuration of the tumblers! I’ll keep that in mind when I get locks re-keyed.
IMHO, situational awareness is either the first or in the top three of the common man tactical skills that you should learn and hone. Most of these skills are a necessity even for our modern society not just those of us with a tactical bent.
But, situational awareness is the key to everything. Being aware of your surroundings, people and things, determines which of the other skills you will or won’t have to use.
Hone your situational awareness to a razors edge. It will save your life.
Jack, about knots …
I had a boat enthusiast friend of mine tell me that “The Ashley Book of Knots” is the most comprehensive manual of knots in publication. The book is over 60 years old and it considered the most exhaustive guide to knots available with over 2,000 knots illustrated and explained.
There are other knot manuals out there which keep things much simpler, such as books that feature just the top 100 most common knots for every day use. And that kind of a more streamlined book would be very practical for a person’s emergency car kit. But for anyone with one eye on the possibility of a more comprehensive SHTF scenario, having a manual on the library shelf in your homestead which is an exhaustive compendium of every last knot known to mankind couldn’t hurt.
Great interview! Lots of good info in this one. You should have had him on a long time ago. Keep it up. I’m browsing the ITS site now.
Great info and skills we all need to work on.