A few weeks ago I watched a YouTube video about disarming someone holding a pistol and decided to give the technique a try with my sparring partner.
The technique was the most common we see in movies, if the opponent holds a gun with his right arm, you place your right arm on the outer side of your opponents arm and using your left arm you grab the gun.
So for a few weeks me and my partner were trying to learn this with some toy pistol, we followed the instructions precisely and having about four years experience in martial arts, we expected to be able to do this, but the truth is that it wasn't possible.
The ones suggesting the technique assumed that the opponent will hold the pistol extremely lightly, this was the only case the technique worked, generally with a more natural grip it was just impossible to get the gun out of the opponent's arm no matter how hard we tried (it is worth mentioning that my sparring partner has been a powerlifter for quite some time and he still wasn't able to get the gun out of my hand despite being way stronger than me), in fact I believe attempting the technique in a real situation could get you killed and I would never recommend it, the best thing one should do if someone is trying to rob him is cooperate since your life is worth more than a few bucks.
Anyway, my question is, is this technique useless or it was our fault that we couldn't make it work (perhaps due to lack of experience)?