Smooth Moves

Full Spectrum Warrior's Combat Mobility System

- Tom Marshall

A lot of time is spent, in various forums and professional social settings, discussing when one should move with a firearm. But it seems not a ton of time is spent on discussing how to move with one. Sure, you hear things like "explosive movement off the X, which roughly translates into "go fast in any direction." This is one thing we feel the martial arts community does better than the firearms community - good martial arts instructors will explain everything in terms of leverage, force application, and body mechanics. Much of what we accept as conventional wisdom in the shooting world is anecdotal, or at least passed down anecdotally and accepted based on the pedigree of the source.

Occasionally, you'll come across trainers who are both skilled in firearms and possess a deep background in martial arts and/or strength training. Enter Full Spectrum Warrior, founded by former Navy SEAL Rich Graham. He offers a number of training courses in both firearms and combatives topics, but one of his flagship curricula is the Combat Mobility System. Coauthored with strength coach and martial arts trainer Greg Mihovich (read more about his unique story in RECOIL OFFGRID Issue 49), the Combat Mobility System approaches movement and body positioning from a kinesiological perspective, offering some unique methods of movement and positioning.

Last year, I had the chance to visit Full Spectrum Warrior and spend several days with both Rich and Greg reviewing the Combat Mobility methodology. It'd be impossible to capture the entirety of their three-day program in a single article, but I wanted to highlight a couple of the lessons I learned while working with FSW to learn the details of their Combat Mobility System.