1 hr 5 min
193 – Steve Tarani The MagLife
-
- Education
On this week’s episode of The Mag Life Podcast, Daniel is joined by the immensely knowledgeable, Steve Tarani. With decades in the defense, law enforcement, and intelligence communities, Steve is a highly-respected firearm, defensive tactics, bladed weapons, and personal protection instructor. As of late, Tarani has specialized in awareness-based training, having incorporated this into his training classes as well as his books.
Together, Daniel and Steve discuss the vital importance of soft skills versus hard skills, situational awareness training, and overcoming fear in a fight.
https://media.blubrry.com/gunfightercast/content.blubrry.com/gunfightercast/193-Steve_Tarani.mp3
Host: Daniel Shaw
Guest: Steve Tarani
Introduction/Timeline: Eric Huh
00:37 What is your profession?
Daniel starts off the conversation by asking what Steve’s occupation entails. In a general sense, Steve Tarani would describe himself as a teacher of practical hard and soft skills. Hard skills is defined by talents or abilities that can be measured, often associated with on-the-job training such as programming, bookkeeping, foreign language skills, shooting, and the like. Soft skills by contrast relate more towards universal traits such as leadership, teamwork, communication, and adaptability. Over the decades of his teaching experience, Steve has leaned more toward soft skills as he finds these to be more applicable in day-to-day situations. Although he’s made a career in training others, Steve constantly strives to keep his knowledge and skills up to date.
In Steve’s line of work, keeping up with the most current information in tactics and methodologies is essential.
“So, I keep one foot in the training world and one foot in the ops world… I really don’t want to be one of those guys ‘Hey twenty years ago when I did this…’ ya know? Times change, people change, tactics change, gear changes. For your information to remain relevant to you, you to have to be in it, I think, day-to-day.”
04:26 Reacting to threats and close protection security
The conversation shifts to the topic of close protection security and reacting to unexpected threats. Obviously, bodyguard work differs greatly from normal self-defense tactics. The vast majority of concealed carry shooters would react to a threat by immediately going for their gun and drawing. Steve reveals that in the world of close protection, he was taught that immediately going for the gun is a setup for failure. The time it takes to go for the firearm is ample time for the attacker to shoot at the VIP that you’ve been charged to protect.
Instead, Steve was taught to prioritize observing threats in their entirety and to move the client away from danger. He uses the tragic incident of the Titanic as an analogy, saying if one could observe and see icebergs coming from a distance, it would make far more sense to simply avoid a head-on collision with them. In his eyes, the firearm is akin to a “lifeboat” on the Titanic, the last resort option and not a primary one. Processing and reacting to threats fall into three main categories: being proactive, active, and reactive.
Taking notes from the book Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps' Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life by Jason Riley, Steve explains that the proactive and active phases are how we utilize our soft skills before a dangerous incident occurs or the “bang.” How we react after to the initial encounter with a threat is the reactive phase which forces out the hard skills. For example, soft skills such as using verbal de-escalation or analyzing a situation can avoid a conflict but should it occur anyways, the fighting abilities that come from hard skills come into play.
08:52 Soft skills vs hard skills in your everyday life
On this week’s episode of The Mag Life Podcast, Daniel is joined by the immensely knowledgeable, Steve Tarani. With decades in the defense, law enforcement, and intelligence communities, Steve is a highly-respected firearm, defensive tactics, bladed weapons, and personal protection instructor. As of late, Tarani has specialized in awareness-based training, having incorporated this into his training classes as well as his books.
Together, Daniel and Steve discuss the vital importance of soft skills versus hard skills, situational awareness training, and overcoming fear in a fight.
https://media.blubrry.com/gunfightercast/content.blubrry.com/gunfightercast/193-Steve_Tarani.mp3
Host: Daniel Shaw
Guest: Steve Tarani
Introduction/Timeline: Eric Huh
00:37 What is your profession?
Daniel starts off the conversation by asking what Steve’s occupation entails. In a general sense, Steve Tarani would describe himself as a teacher of practical hard and soft skills. Hard skills is defined by talents or abilities that can be measured, often associated with on-the-job training such as programming, bookkeeping, foreign language skills, shooting, and the like. Soft skills by contrast relate more towards universal traits such as leadership, teamwork, communication, and adaptability. Over the decades of his teaching experience, Steve has leaned more toward soft skills as he finds these to be more applicable in day-to-day situations. Although he’s made a career in training others, Steve constantly strives to keep his knowledge and skills up to date.
In Steve’s line of work, keeping up with the most current information in tactics and methodologies is essential.
“So, I keep one foot in the training world and one foot in the ops world… I really don’t want to be one of those guys ‘Hey twenty years ago when I did this…’ ya know? Times change, people change, tactics change, gear changes. For your information to remain relevant to you, you to have to be in it, I think, day-to-day.”
04:26 Reacting to threats and close protection security
The conversation shifts to the topic of close protection security and reacting to unexpected threats. Obviously, bodyguard work differs greatly from normal self-defense tactics. The vast majority of concealed carry shooters would react to a threat by immediately going for their gun and drawing. Steve reveals that in the world of close protection, he was taught that immediately going for the gun is a setup for failure. The time it takes to go for the firearm is ample time for the attacker to shoot at the VIP that you’ve been charged to protect.
Instead, Steve was taught to prioritize observing threats in their entirety and to move the client away from danger. He uses the tragic incident of the Titanic as an analogy, saying if one could observe and see icebergs coming from a distance, it would make far more sense to simply avoid a head-on collision with them. In his eyes, the firearm is akin to a “lifeboat” on the Titanic, the last resort option and not a primary one. Processing and reacting to threats fall into three main categories: being proactive, active, and reactive.
Taking notes from the book Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps' Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life by Jason Riley, Steve explains that the proactive and active phases are how we utilize our soft skills before a dangerous incident occurs or the “bang.” How we react after to the initial encounter with a threat is the reactive phase which forces out the hard skills. For example, soft skills such as using verbal de-escalation or analyzing a situation can avoid a conflict but should it occur anyways, the fighting abilities that come from hard skills come into play.
08:52 Soft skills vs hard skills in your everyday life
1 hr 5 min