Immediate Personal Defense (IPD)
“One shot to the body… GUN.”
I moved as quickly across the silhouettes as I could, maintaining front sight focus, delivering one shot to the body of each. As I reached the third silhouette, I ran back to the first.
One shot to the body, one shot to the head… GUN.”
Again, I traversed the silhouettes moving as fast as possible, comfortable in my stances, feeling little recoil, maintaining front sight focus, switching weapon and support side hands at will, and maintaining accuracy at a blistering rate.
We continued escalating the shot patterns until we finished with 2 shots to the body and three to the head of the silhouettes… as a novice, I couldn’t believe what I had accomplished after such a short time shooting!
This is the Immediate Personal Defense (IPD) class- the civilian version of the Center Axis Relock (CAR) system of gunfighting developed by Paul Castle. The next evolution in tactical training, IPD utilizes some very unique components to provide simply unbelievable results. First, the bladed stance is a very natural stance and provides a level of stability when attacked or shooting in nearly all directions. Secondly, felt recoil from firing the handgun is readily dispersed through a unique support hand platform and weapon hand/ forearm/ elbow/ shoulder alignment. This unique recoil support system leads to the third, and most dramatic aspect of IPD… the ability to maintain front sight focus despite high rates of fire because you don’t have to wait to reacquire the sight picture, your front sight is already on target.
I was lucky enough to have a private Weaponcraft class with Dan Hayden to review the practical aspects of IPD outlined in the mandatory online course through Paul Castle’s website. In the online course, you review handgun safety basics, the benefits of IPD and how it works. I practiced with my blue gun quite a bit before hitting the range because the system requires you to use the eye opposite your weapon hand for aiming, something that can take getting used to. It also helps to become ambidextrous with your firearm before going to live fire and there are some great videos on the website for practicing lighting fast handgun transfer from weapon to support hand. Additionally, IPD has fairly unique malfunction clearing and reloading techniques that can be helpful to review in dry practice.
We had a perfect day on the range for shooting… sunny with a light breeze (just like every other day this summer). We started with dry practice: checking stances, movement, shooting platforms (high position, combat high, extended, and apogee), changing weapon hands, and retention. The system is so intuitive and natural that we were able to move to live fire drills and scenarios quickly. The shot count was high as most of the drills require 2 shots to the body and 2 shots to the head as fast as you can pull the trigger, but this was matched by the satisfaction of getting rounds on target in a way I would have not thought possible at the start of the day. Dan was superb (as always) and his knowledge of the history of shooting made this course particularly interesting as it gave me a more sophisticated perspective on IPD.
While I am looking forward to more courses through Weaponcraft, I feel I have found “my style” in IPD. I would encourage everyone who is serious about personal defense to strongly consider signing up for their next available course.
Respectfully,
Norman Guay
For more information, see http://www.weaponcrafttraining.com/wc_classes_detail.aspx?id=26
