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Unlike Alec Baldwin, Keanu Reeves knows what he’s doing with firearms. But he was not born with this skill, oh no. No one is. He trained and trained hard. Movies like The Matrix trilogy early in his career gave him some basics of firearms manipulation, but nothing too fancy. The coolest parts of The Matrix are all computer generated anyway. After The Matrix, he landed the role as John Wick. And this is when he stepped up to the plate with some serious training.
For the role as the legendary mob hitman, Keanu enlisted the services of Taran Butler over at Taran Tactical. Butler and his team put Keanu through the wringer and quickly discovered that Mr. Reeves had a knack for competition style shooting. He fired over 10,000 rounds in preparation for the first John Wick movie. The round count is more of a testament to his perfectionist nature, but also tells the tale of the amount of training done. In this particular video he was preparing for John Wick 3.
Weapons Choice
It starts off with Halle Berry holding a shot timer and airhorn behind Keanu’s head. Our live action hero is holding a TTI/Sig Sauer MPX. This PCC, or pistol caliber carbine, is an Armalite Rifle style weapon chambered in 9mm. The advantage of cutting the balls off a 5.56 chambered AR is less recoil. With the proper build, the recoil is almost non existent.
Movie Hitman Training
Keanu has a plan with this run, as fast as possible and double tap everything. Halle blasts the horn and Reeves springs into action. With lightning fast precision he double taps each man-sized steel silhouette. The targets ring with a “ping ping,” sound on each double impact. After rapidly engaging a few targets, he quickly performs a speed reload as he moves to the next firing area.
Here he continues to unload on target after target. Ping ping, ping ping, ping ping. One after another. In an odd staccato rhythm of precise violence. All impacted with 2 rounds each, flawlessly and violently, achieved. He moves to another firing position around a corner as he eliminates all targets in a predetermined order.
After the last rounds are spent, Ms. Berry clicks the timer and announces the time, “16.54,” to which there was much rejoicing. Keanu had a variable haram of cheerleaders behind him, all very well armed and scantily clad in black sports bras and yoga pants. Yet our perfectionist was still dissatisfied with his performance as he said, “I went out of order,” as he visibly scolds himself.
This is a positive mark for Keanu’s character and diligence to training. This belligerent attention to his own mistakes is the mark of a good tactical shooting mindset. However, Keanu is trained in competitive style shooting. 3 gun style and other rapid timed actions in a preset routine. This is perfect for a guy who has to do this for his job as an action movie star. The competitive shooting training regimen gives him the ability to perform faster and more accurately on set than the average actor for sure.
Competitive vs Tactical
But competitive shooting with honed muscle memory speed from repeated action is not tactical shooting. Tactical shooting is borne from the mindset of “surviving the chaos of a firefight,” as my old instructor used to tell me. It is complex problem solving in a fluid, live fire environment. The training that Special Operations lives by. Even renowned competitive shooters with many championships under their belts will admit it. The speed and accuracy that competitive shooting teaches is great, but if you don’t know where to be and when to be there in a situation where the targets shoot back, you’re dead.
This is abundantly clear in the self defense realm of firearms training as well. And for this firearms instructor, the best training comes from special operations veterans, like those who trained me.
Mindset
Mindset is the way you have to think to survive a firefight. The mindset that you are going for is called a “conceptual shooter’s” mindset. The first thing I was taught is a lesson in mindset that I believe I will never fully learn, and you won’t either. It’s simple, only 3 words: respect defeats ego. That’s it. Lesson over. Do you get it? It’s kinda like quantum mechanics in that when you think you got it, you don’t. But at the same time, the process of understanding what this means, the journey, is a big part of the point. In a firefight, your ego will get you killed. To begin to understand, start there.
The last bit I’ll add for mindset is my personal addition. This is what enabled me to develop my conceptual shooter’s mindset and begin to understand how to process the information I am observing in my performance and environment. That phrase is: attention not perfection. That’s what you are looking for. Seeing your mistakes and problems and fixing them immediately. There is no such thing as a perfect shot, there is always a better one.
Now it’s Your turn…
For more information on how to use proper mindset to survive a firefight, book a class with my firearms training company Defensive Bravo. I curate special operations methodologies from around the world and present them in a manner that is easily digestible by all. Safety is number one, therefore I utilize a crawl walk run methodology in training. If you ain’t ready for shooting on the move, or even a simple quick draw for example, we ain’t doin’ it. Take responsibility for you and your families protection. When seconds count, cops are minutes away. I hope to see you on the range.
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