This is the second of the third part of the series.
Here is the file to download with the pictures as well.
A.M.I.S 1: Corridor Movement
And Managing Danger Areas
This is the first instalment in the “Armed Movement in Structures” series. If you haven’t read the thread “Armed Movement in Structures: A Primer”, go read it first before you continue. This instalment shall address moving through corridors or hallways. They are in every structure and are all basically the same, long and narrow. When you move down a hallway you will invariably be either on the right or the left of center. This is because doors to rooms run off of hallways and they are considered danger areas. Open doorways are more dangerous than closed doorways and must be cleared visually. Closed doors are dangerous and you can still be shot through them. So depending on whether the doorways are to the right or the left you will angle off in the opposite direction so you can take visual depth through the doorway and into the room. Okay here we have a typical hallway. Ignore the doorways that are X’ed out in yellow and assume that we have a single room on the right hand side. This is from my vantage point and I have a good distance to go before this becomes more of an issue.
I’m moving down the hallway on the right side, gun up, just below eye level so I can see the environment. I’m not scraping the wall.
Still moving down the hallway, closing the gap on the open doorway to my right, which is a danger area.
As I encroach this open doorway on my right, I angle off to my left in the hallway so I can take visual depth on the room. The further away I am the more I can see. Ignore the X’ed out doorway and assume that we’re dealing with the single room on my right.
Attached Images
I will now begin to incrementally clear the doorway, a piece at a time, by taking small steps laterally to my left. If you’re moving down a hallway you have to do this. If you don’t then you expose yourself to an area that you can’t see in, where a hostile might be hiding. So even if you’re trying to just get out of the structure this must be done. If you don’t you risk getting shot in the back. The common name for this method is called “slicing the pie”.
Continuing to slice the pie (incremental, lateral movement to support visual clearing).
Another step left continuing to clear. I’ve brought the gun in a bit from extension because in moving laterally I’ve actually brought myself closer to the hard, blind corner of the doorway, which would be the right jamb.
Continuing to clear.
Another step left and back a bit more. I’ve moved closer to the wall but I’m still not scraping it so I can take more depth on the vertical angle created by the right side of the jamb. I’ll roll my upper body a bit to the left and try and take my first peek around that blind corner with as much depth as possible.
From inside the room that roll-out should ideally look about like this. Nothing exposed other than what’s necessary to shoot and see.
Continuing incrementally to the left.
Continuing to move incrementally left.
View from the inside of the room working the door jamb on my right.
Still moving incrementally, almost finished.
View from the room.
Almost done, all I lack is the hard corner of the room.
Done. Hard corner is cleared as much as is feasible without entering the room. The hard corners, meaning the corners to the right and left on the same side as the doorway, are the high ground of a flat room. They take the most time to clear and provide the adversary the best position in the room when dealing with a threat that comes through the doorway. Why? Because visually they are the furthest away and take the most time to see, giving your adversary the time to fire without being fired upon.
From here I can continue to move down the hallway unless I have the time to clear that room. If you’re just trying to get out then this is probably the best option. How slow or fast you clear is a balancing act of time which is dictated by the situation that you’re faced with. Is it just me I’m worried about or do I have to quickly pass a doorway to get to my child in another room and then slow down and clear every danger area? Know your options and choose based on the situation.
Let’s go back to our hallway. Ignore the doorway X’ed out in yellow. I’m at the point in the previous pictures where I’m about to break the vertical plane created by the jamb. Everything to the right of the jamb is highlighted in red and represents what is visually uncleared. Normally I’d clear this as in the previous pictures.
But now I have another open doorway further down the hall. If I continue to clear as before I’ll expose my back to that uncleared room as I move closer
to it, trying to clear the first room while taking depth… I can see into the second room a bit, but not much. A large portion of the second room (to the left of the doorway and all of the room to the right) is still visually uncleared. What do I do? Again choices are made based on time available. I could just clear half of the first room and move on to the second and clear all of it from the doorway, and then move on down the hallway (if there are no more rooms and I’m exiting the structure). That leaves half of the first room uncleared.
Another option is to minimize my exposure to the second room by entering the first. So if this option is chosen incremental clearing goes out the window. I have to use speed and get into a large uncleared area (half a room) and dominate it as quickly as possible.
I’ll move into the horizontal elbow position to take the hard corner. I do this because there may be someone immediately on the other side and I have to be in a position to drive through them that doesn’t telegraph my muzzle, yet still allows me to crash a guy and shoot him at close range. I’ve cleared the left side of the room from the doorway, so I’ll set up to enter on the right. I do this in the hallway with minimal exposure to the second room.
I break the vertical plane of the jamb and enter the right side of the room quickly and with forward drive, without stopping. As soon as I break that plane and don’t have a grapple range threat to deal with…
…I begin to transition back up to extension to reacquire my stable shooting platform. This is the reason I harp so much about definitive, unconscious gunhandling and a systematic complimentary method. It’s gotta’ be that way because you have to concentrate on the environment, not fiddling your handgun. Does any of this movement look disparate from the normal horizontal line that one should have already established within a good drawstroke? Some trainers don’t think drawstroke is important. I strongly disagree.
Continuing to move I’ve come back up to extension and now work the room from the outside in, dealing with clearing problems as I go created by furniture. If you choose this option, remember that since you’ve entered that room and given up the hallway, you now have to clear the hallway before you move back into it. Pros and cons…options taken based on time.
Back to our hallway. Now the doorway to my left is not X’ed out in yellow, so it’s in play. I have two open doorways across the hall from each other. Problematic. Extremely problematic. You’ll see this problem time and time again. Essentially what we have here are two danger areas opposing at 180 degrees. We see this in doorways and T intersections in addition to this problem. What makes this so dangerous is the width of the problem and how that translates into the time it takes to work it. There really isn’t enough.
I’ll move to the right side of the hallway and clear the room on my left a bit incrementally.
I clear the left room a bit more incrementally. I’ve pulled my gun in a bit because in clearing the left room incrementally, I’ve actually moved closer to the right side of the hallway, because I’m trying to take depth on the left room. This in turn moves me closer to the right room and closer still to what’s immediately on the other side of the right room’s right jamb, which is still visually uncleared and more importantly very close to me.
I can clear one half of both rooms from the hallway. If I drive forward as before and try and move on down the hallway quickly I expose myself to one half of two rooms that are each visually uncleared. That’s a lot of exposure and mentioned previously with the theory of 180 degree danger areas. But options are chosen based on time and priority. If your child’s screaming in her bedroom, you may do something like this, so never say never. Just understand the implications.
As before, I’m going to choose the option (just me and now) of moving into a room. I’ll move into the left room and clear the half (to the left side of the jamb) of the room that is blind. Again, because I can’t do this incrementally without exposing myself to the uncleared portion of the room to my right, I’ll use speed and aggression to move into that blind area. I again choose my biomechanical battering ram, the horizontal elbow, to immediately clear the corner.
Quickly hooking around the corner driving with the elbow…
..No immediate threat around the corner so I move back into my more stable platform…
…and back to extension, working the room from the outside in.
That’s it for this first A.M.I.S. piece. As I said in the primer, moving around in a structure by yourself, with an armed adversary is probably the single most dangerous thing you can do. There is no “safe” way to do it. Understand your options and choose based on time and priority. Enjoy! SN
Originally posted by Southnarc of ShivWorks and Total Protection Interactive. This PDF file is created to aid students of self protection, as a tribute to those who wrote the content and is in no way a challenge to the original author. The format of this document is protected by a Creative Commons Licence. Any derivative works must give attribution to the original author(s) of the content. The copyright for the content is held by the original author. I have edited spelling and grammar only.
James Marwood
RealDefense 
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