AAR: Tactical Defense Institute's Extreme Close Quarters (ECQ) 10/5-6/2013

The first sign that you might be in trouble is coming to and finding someone on top of you reeling back to start beating the snot out of you. I know it's cliché' and everyone will tell you that you're being paranoid or that just having a gun is enough etc. but there is a very big risk as a concealed carrier or person who goes about armed on a regular basis. If you're an open carrier, be it as a Law Enforcement Officer or armed civilian, even more so. And that risk is that your gun can be used against you.

If you look at FBI stats on lost gun fights (why they don't put more emphasis on victories is beyond me) you will see that a lot of dead officers ended up that way while in close proximity to their attacker, a lot of times it's with their own pistol. I've covered these numbers in brief before, but here they are again.

To make a long story short, there's a lot that can happen in close distances that can put you behind the eight ball. A flubbed draw, a snagged cover garment, a lapse in situational awareness (contrary to popular belief you can't maintain 100% situational awareness and keep every one out past a 21' radius of your position) and just bad luck can result in an attacker being right up on you before you know it.

A lot of us train in the proper use of firearms. A lot of time is spent on drawing the gun, aiming the gun,  firing the gun, reloading the gun etc. Not a lot of time is spent learning to draw a gun while someone is actively beating you. Not a lot of time is spent learning how to keep the gun away from someone that is actively beating you, and not a lot of time is spent on learning how to keep your gun running while actively defending yourself against someone...you got it...that is actively beating on you.

A lot of us that carry firearms are also "gun centric" we have a gun so we don't learn how to fight, we have a gun so we don't carry a knife, we have a gun so we can shoot our way out of trouble.

But what happens when you can't shoot your way out of trouble? The gun is not always the best answer and in wanting to be well rounded I found ourselves at the Tactical Defense Institute (TDI) in Ohio attending their Extreme Close Quarters Class.  If you've been reading this blog for a time you may have read our other reviews of TDI classes, if not you can find them HERE, as such we are not strangers to TDI and we've always been pleased with the training we've received there.

The Extreme Close Quarters (ECQ) class is typically offered once a year and it fills up fast so if you want to attend you need to sign up fast. Their Handgun III or Equivalent is required.

We believe this unusual, innovative class to be the first of its kind ever offered. No one weapon is the sole answer. You may well have to engage with your hands prior to deploying another weapon. ECQ integrates the use of the hands, knives and handguns in the extreme close quarter’s environment.Learn weapon retention and takeaway, physical interaction with hands and other weapons. Deal with single and multiple assailants. Learn to protect your partner/family member in the ECQ environment. This class is not for the faint at heart and a must for law enforcement professionals and citizens alike.Prerequisites: Level III handgun or equivalent.

This class covered a LOT of material, this could easily be a three day class but they do a pretty good job in the span of two days.

One of the things I like most about TDI is the instructor/student ratio. I want to say we had a class of nineteen and seven instructors. While the other students acted as safety persons, you won't find much of the "coach - pupil" method in place @ TDI. Sure the other students are helpful if they spot you doing something wonky but there's plenty of instructors walking the training area looking to help and instruct. It's also nice to get several different sets of eyes looking over your techniques.

The lead instructors were Greg Ellifritz and David Bowie.

In the class we covered some of the distance stats that I referenced above as well as the following:

:What is required to get your gun out while in a physical altercation.
: What constitutes a good retention position.
: Expected operation of your pistol in close proximity to your target.
: Clearing of cover garments
: Live Fire - "TDI Retention" and transitions from/to retention and extended - Moving Forward
: Stuffing the draw of an aggressor
: Countering a stuffed draw
: Fighting an armed attacker
: Issues with handgun mechanics in close quarters
: Live Fire - "TDI Retention" and transitions from/to retention and extended - Moving Rearward

: Creating Distance

:Transitioning from empty handed defense to armed defense 

: Weapon retention

: Holster selection 

: Knife work

: Ground defense

: Live Fire - Shooting from the ground.
: Force on Force Scenarios - Stand up and starting on the ground.

Now I'm not going to go into too much detail, if you want all the details do what I did and go take the class. But I will go into a little detail about some of what we learned, what I all ready knew that was reinforced, and just some thoughts on the class.

Getting your gun out. In a perfect world we'll always see trouble coming three miles away. The world is not perfect. A good holster and a concealment garment (if applicable) need to work together and you need to practice getting at your gun from a variety of positions, and not just standing. Can you get it with one hand? Can you get it on the ground? Can you get it on your back with someone sitting on you raining down blows?

Retention. There's  a variety of different retention positions. Some are better than others and some of the lesser methods leave the gun too far out or "Floating" keep the gun in for the best protection.

We should all be aware that semi-autos can be forced out of battery and can be fickle things when filled up with gunk. Gunk as in someone skin clogging the ejection port after you fire a close shot. Can you clear malfunctions? Can you clear malfunctions one handed? Can you clear malfunctions one handed while going fisticuffs with your attacker either defending your dome or attacking theirs? Yeah, we covered that and there's some good tactics and things to think about. Is your gun set up to easily facilitate one handed cycling on a belt or other surface?

I all ready talked a little about cover garments, but to reiterate, YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO GET YOUR GUN OUT! If you're carrying under a closed front shirt, you need to lift that shirt HIGH.

Stuffing / Countering a Stuffed Draw. We discussed techniques to counter an attacker trying to stuff your draw and how to stuff your attackers draw. We also spent some time using empty hand techniques against armed attackers to negate their weapon. This is one of those things that you'll have to just go the class to learn.


Handguns, even revolvers are easy to tie up in close quarters. Slides can be pushed back, revolver cylinder can be bound up. They taught some nice tricks to keep your gun running including one in which while running a revolver you can use your attacker to rotate the cylinder. That was pretty cool.
Another thing that we saw was that depending on wrist angle, you might not even be able to pull a heavy trigger, like that of a traditional double action semi-automatic.

Creating distance is a two edged sword. You can get distance to get your gun out, but that also gives your attacker distance to do the same or access another weapon. If they've got a hand on your gun, you can't just shove them off as the gun might go with them and leave you reaching for an empty holster. We learned ways to create enough distance to access a firearm and use it.

Empty hand to armed transitions. There may be a time where something starts as a situation that you think you can handle with empty hands and escalates to a situation where you need some help. This kind of ties in with creating distance but it all boils down to creating an opportunity where you can access your gun and draw it without it being blocked.

Weapon retention. It's amazing how ingrained fully extending the pistol is now. I think a lot of us have spent so much time pressing the gun out that it's what we want to do even when it's in our best interest to keep it in a retention position. When I was still on active duty in the Marines the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP) was being phased in. A common sound-byte was "An extended limb is a broken limb" in close quarters gun fighting, an extended gun is going to be grabbed, snatched, and otherwise wrenched on. Keep it close to the body.

Holster selection. They covered good holster and bad holsters. Cheap paddles: BAD. Serpas: BAD. Fobus: BAD. 5.11 Thumb-Drive: BAD. "Slide holsters" that don't cover the entire slide of the gun: BAD. To elaborate on the slide holsters, pending on your position and while rolling around it's easy for pressure on the bottom of the gun to force it out of the holster. A holster should cover the muzzle.

The Safariland ALS got high marks.

Knife work. We did a very brief portion on knives, for a review of TDI's Defensive Knife Class you can read it HERE. This class really reinforced using the support side fixed blade in a lot of cases. I picked up a couple more TDI knives. Again, this was really brief and was kind of a primer for the Defensive Knife Class but it was a good primer and gave the students something to think about.

Ground defense. There's only so much time to spend on this in a two day class, it take a lot of time to get "good" at unarmed combat and defense. They taught a couple of basic techniques to help you out in a ground fight. The wife and I have been studying with a Krav Maga instructor for the last year and it's really starting to pay off. Go out and start learning to improve your empty hand skills. They can be your first and last line of defense and unlike a gun will always be with you.

The live fire work was pretty light, the class info on TDI's website says 600 rounds, we probably shot less then 400rds between the two of us, but still bring the required 600 as it may have been abbreviated due to the still lurking ammo shortage. We did some shooting on the ground which was pretty neat. I've done a good amount of that in the past, but it was nice to get a refresher. We also shot from chest ready on paper and steel, that was a nice eye opener for some of the students to see what they were capable of with no sights and just indexing on the target.

We worked live fire drills shooting from retention and working from retention to extended and the other way around. Movement was pretty basic, just forward and rear. This is not a moving and shooting course. I would have liked to see more lateral or oblique movement.

Force on Force. Near the end of day two we did two force on force scenarios. These are optional but encouraged. We started with a stand up scenario with your typical "interview process" and you had to play it out. The students act as a jury of sorts and we debrief after the scenario to determine if the actions were justifiable.

The 2nd scenario started under the premise that you were knocked unconscious and come to with your attacker in the mount.

Both scenarios were pretty interesting and the beauty of it is that no two are the same.



Do keep in mind that this is a training environment and while the instructors are pretty well protected  the students are not. This is not full contact training and was really pretty moderate. It's a two day class and not all students walk in the door with empty hand skills. This just acts as a more fluid experience in working the techniques that are being taught in the class.  It's not meant to be as realistic as possible or a substitute for an actual steady training regimen in empty hand combatives.

Overall I really, really enjoyed the class. It really enforced the need for some empty hand skills, the off-side carry of a fixed blade and really knowing how to run your gun in a variety of environments.

The gear I used for the class was my 2nd Gen Glock 17(slightly modified), a Fricke Seraphim AIWB holster, and a single Blackhawk CQC mag carrier. I kept a couple spare mags in a pocket and more in the range bag ready to go but this was not a heavy round count class so we didn't need a lot of mags on your person. I did the first day not working from concealment and concealed the second day of class.

My gun functioned well, while some students had malfunctions a lot of it was a result of poor retention positions and odd grips while firing.

This was my first time working live fire from AIWB and I'm pleased to say I didn't blow my junk off or otherwise shoot myself. The advantages of AIWB while trying to control a holstered pistol are pretty impressive. Having the gun centered really allows you to keep pressure on it and it's just all around easier to defend and access.

TDI Active Shooter Training AAR

For a review of TDI's Active Shooter Training see:

A Review Of The Active Killer-Shooter Course at TDI

 

This class is also on the short list for me and the Mrs.As with anything taught @ TDI, I'm sure this class will be fantastic. Much thanks to John for posting this review

AAR: Suarez Intl. Point Shooting Progressions - April 21-22 w/ Roger Phillips and Greg Nichols

Suarez Intl. Point Shooting Progressions

April 21-22, 2012

Big Springs Range – Searsboro, Iowa

Roger Phillips and Greg Nichols

~Preface~

First and foremost, I will say that I am writing this with the intent to post it at multiple venues and that some comments may be made to certain groups of individuals and not the member base of any one particular forum etc. Also, please excuse any typos or errors, while I usually go through great lengths to use proper spelling and grammar, I've been writing most of this with my 4 month old daughter on my lap and it's been kind of hard to type...

It seems that whenever I see a review of a Suarez Intl. Course posted outside of Warrior Talk, Gabe Suarez’s forum and meeting place for his students, customers, and colleagues; that some will take to condemning the organization for elements of Gabe’s past.

I do not care about Gabe’s past, it was in the past and that is it. If you have some beef about Suarez as an individual, I would ask that you not air your issues where this class review is being discussed as it’s not really about Gabe Suarez.

I did not take this course because of Gabe Suarez, I enrolled in this class mainly because of Roger Phillips. I’ve been reading Roger’s writings for years at DefensiveCarry.com and have always found his pieces, well written, technically and tactically proficient, valid and quite informational. To this day, every time I shoot a shot looking for maximum accuracy (yes that does mean using sights), I do so using information that I obtained from Roger and his writings.

I have wanted to take this course for years, particularly under the instruction of Roger, for many reasons I was never able to make it to this class until this month, I have taken a few training classes with other instructors but I've still wanted to take this class.

The final straw driving me to this class was when I was attending a course at the Tactical Defense Institute of Ohio (TDI) one of the instructors, Greg Elfritz made mention of a study on movement and other factors and how they altered the results of modeled gun fights using AirSoft Force on Force training. Near the end of this study, the following can be found.

"This clearly identifies a need for additional training and highlights the critical importance of making yourself a moving target during a gunfight. If highly trained shooters hit their opponents’ torsos with only eleven percent of rounds fired, imagine how much worse the average street thug with no training and minimal experience will perform under similar conditions!"

"I’ll simply say that we as trainers need to do some more work. We need to find a better solution to allow our students to hit their targets with a greater percentage of rounds during the stressful, fast-evolving nature of a gunfight. Whatever that solution is, be it training in point shooting techniques, an enhanced sighted shooting curriculum, or stress-inoculating scenario-based training, it is our collective responsibility as trainers to find it."

While some of the material from the Point Shooting Progressions Course, hereafter referred to as PSP had been covered in those classes other classes, PSP is just the class to fill the gaps referenced above from Greg’s article and I highly recommend it. I have no qualms referring friends, family, and my own students to Suarez International (SI) and after reading this after action review (AAR) in its entirety, neither should you. 

~Day 1~

The class was hosted by Suarez Intl. Staff Instructor, Greg Nichols. While Roger did a majority of teaching the course, Greg did his fair share of giving feedback to the students and word is that he is doing quite well inside the SI Organization. I have a feeling I'll be seeing more of him in the future and have some friends and prior students looking to take the Defensive Pistol Skills Class with Greg this June. I will be eagerly awaiting more feedback from this class.

It will surprise a lot of readers to learn that this class, which is often thought of as the “must have” of point shooting classes did not start off with a sacrifice along the lines of sights being sawed off from pistols and thrown into the trash, after all the paper work was filled out, mags were loaded, eyes and ears in place; we started with…

…An exercise in accurate shooting. That’s right, the first shots in POINT SHOOTING CLASS were shot using our sights in a “One hole drill” where the goal is to try and shoot five (5) shots into as tight a group as possible with a single hole being the desired result. Range was only about three (3) yards and the “target” was a small piece of blue tape no bigger than the fingernail of my little finger. This is just to see if anyone is having any issues regarding the fundamentals of shooting a pistol.

Finally...Tactical Defense Institute (TDI) Pistol II & III After Action Review

TDI Pistols II & III After Action Review. May 15th-16th 2011

Before I get into the review of the class, I want to talk a little more about what TDI is and who makes it that way. TDI is currently ran by John Benner who is the president and chief instructor of the Tactical Defense Institute. He is a 37-year veteran police Lieutenant and Vietnam Veteran and spent 25 years with the Hamilton County Police Association Regional SWAT Team, serving for 20 years as team Commander, he has received several prestigious awards including Contribution to Law Enforcement, Police Leadership and Officer of the Year. Mr. Benner is certified to instruct and a guest instructor for the Ohio Peace Officer’s Training Council (OPOTA). John is a member of and presenter for the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors (IALEFI). John is the co-author of the nationally used CQPC Program.


Most of the doctrine at TDI has come from John’s lifetime of experiences, he’s basically been going into harms way while armed for his entire adult life and he’s still here to talk and teach about it, so I found it very wroth while to perk up my ears when he was speaking, regardless of the topic. John freely admits that most if not all things TDI is 49% him, and 51% his instructors, and they aren't slouches either.

Most of us have probably heard of or read content regarding Bowie Tactical Concepts, what we get a glimpse of on the website is Dave’s background as a SWAT officer. Dave Bowie has been an instructor at TDI for 18 years and has worked as a prosecutors office investigator, a deputy sheriff and has been on SWAT for 10 years as a team member then as team leader and has now commander for the past two and half years.

Dave also was a competitive shooter in USPSA and was a master class shooter until TDI got so busy that he could no longer attend matches. Dave is a NRA certified pistol and rifle instructor and has been a guest instructor for the Ohio peace officers training academy and for the international association of law enforcement firearms instructors and is also a member of the Ohio and national Tactical officers association.

One of TDIs assets  Greg Ellifritz, I was first introduced to Greg though my wife who attended the TDI Defensive Knife Course, through her reviews, and video of the class which can be viewed HERE.
Greg Ellifritz is a 16-year veteran police officer, spending the last 11 years as the fulltime tactical training officer for his central Ohio agency. In that position, he is responsible for developing and instructing all of the in-service training for a 57-officer police department. Prior to his training position, he served as patrol officer, bike patrol officer, precision marksman, and field training officer for his agency.

He has been an active instructor for the Tactical Defense Institute since 2001 and a lead instructor for TDI’s ground fighting, knife fighting, impact weapons, active shooter, and extreme close quarters shooting classes.

Greg holds instructor, master instructor, or armorer certifications in more than 75 different weapons systems, defensive tactics programs, and law enforcement specialty areas. In addition to these instructor certifications, Greg has trained with most of the leading firearms and edged weapons instructors in the country.

Greg has been an adjunct instructor for the Ohio Peace Officer’s Training Academy, teaching firearms, defensive tactics, bike patrol, knife defense and physical fitness topics. He has taught firearms and self defense classes at the national and international level through the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors, The American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers and Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police. He has a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Management and has written for several publications including: ‘The Firearms Instructor”, “Ohio Police Chief”, “Combat Handguns”, “Concealed Carry Magazine” and “The Journal of the American Women’s Self Defense Association”.

What my wife and I both like about Greg is that despite the list above, he is very approachable and easy to dialogue with regarding almost any topic related to self-defense. On top of being a physical fitness instructor Greg is also an avid foreign traveler, which brings a unique perspective regarding improvised weapons of opportunity. Greg also teaches Field Emergency Medicine.


Another unique part of the TDI team is instructor Bill Posey, Bill has only been shooting for about four and half years but was directed to TDI early on and started in the right direction. After two years of intensive training at TDI, approximately 35 days in his first year, he obtained NRA instructor's certifications in Pistol, Home Firearm Safety, and Personal Protection in the Home. John Benner then invited Bill to join the staff at TDI as an adjunct, volunteer, instructor. Bill views his helping out at TDI as his "give-back" to the community of people interested in self defense and willing to obtain competent instruction. He is in his third year of instructing at TDI.

Bill has been a practicing trial lawyer since 1979, having litigated product liability and other cases in more than 35 states. As part of his responsibilities at TDI he gives the brief lecture on home insurance considerations and handles questions that may arise relating to personal liability in self-defense situations. Bill ran the "furtive movement" part of the Handgun 3, which will be covered in more detail later in this review.

Not all of TDI’s instructor cadre is SWAT Police or lawyers. Clay Smith’s day job is in the 401k business. His shooting background started young with his father who was a competitive trap shooter for most of his life, around the age of 18 he picked up an interest in handguns, and other firearms of a "defensive" which eventually led him into pistol competition sports including IDPA and USPSA and led him to seek out professional training. Clay began attending TDI in 1997 and began instructing there in 2003. Clay has also attended NRA Instructor Certification, Glock Armorer's Certification, training from Tactical Response in Tennessee, and Bob Vogel, and will also be attending the Roger's Shooting School in Georgia this year. Clay still shoots in competition at the local level when his schedule permits.


Two other instructors mentoring me while there were John Motil and Forest Sonewald. John is a retired Air Force Master Sergeant and Forset is a twenty year veteran of his police department in Northern Ohio and has served as their firearms instructor and as a SWAT team member. He's been teaching at TDI for around six years.

That is not even the entire list of instructors that were there during Pistols II and III, if you’ve ever felt that the staff at a shooting class was spread too thin and if you’ve ever been shooting well enough not to warrant the attention of an instructor as others need more help, you will NOT feel that way at TDI as there were 12 instructors in all including John Benner. With a class of around 24 you get a 2 : 1 Student to Instructor ratio which in this industry is outstanding! Not only will you get time with an instructor, you get time with 11 or 12 different instructors, that’s a lot of viewpoints that look at different things and give different feedback on your performance. When you look at the cost of training classes TDI is not that expensive and it is money well spent as you will get time with an instructor regardless of how well you’re doing and as outlined above the instructors are top notch.

Now we’re going talk about the class.

AAR: InSights Training Center: General Defensive Handgun

This is a review from our class with Greg Hamilton of InSights Training back in September of '07, some details of the class may have changed since we took it, but it was and I'm sure still is a fantastic class for those new to defensive shooting.

My wife and I took this course a couple of weeks ago. For the $300 per student it was a damn good class. The lecture was superb, the shooting portion was a little fast, but when you have only two days to learn and shoot, you will feel rushed. One thing that I was not happy about was that the class description quoted 600 rounds as being required and we went home with ammo, I'd guess that the class was probably a 60/40 lecture/shooting ratio.

While I didn't really get anything out of the lecture regarding mindset and tactics, for newer shooters looking to carry concealed who haven't thought about a lot of things, this was a great class. As for actual shooting related topics of discussion I finally got a solid answer on the one thing that has been driving me nuts for over a year, mainly how do deal with my left eye dominant/right handed issue (I'm not going to get into this as that's a whole other story) the important thing is that it helped me out.

On the range I learned a good deal about the finer points of stance, drawing, and reholstering as well as doing lots of "tactical" reloads, clearance drills, and speed reloads. My wife and I are pretty much self taught shooters when it comes to pistols, so a lot of the finer points of how to do shoot a pistol better were new to me and made perfect sense.

Again this is just be being picky, and you'll probably find this at any class you'll ever go to, but if your on the skilled side of the class, the odds of actually getting any help on what you're doing wrong is pretty slim as there will be plenty of others that need the help more than you.

The lectures focused on disparity of force, threat escalation, holster selection, proper sight alignment / sight picture and the difference between the two. Also covered were a lot of the shooting basics and safety rules that are part of every class.

As Promised: TDI Defensive Knife After Action Review

As promised in Tactical Defense Institute Review Primer (See link for video) here is my wife's review of the course.

I have wanted to take a knife class for years. Just like I wanted to get quality gun training when I chose to start carrying a firearm for self-defense, it was a natural progression of my training to want quality knife training when I chose to carry a knife.
   
Through a series of force-on-force (FOF) scenarios and some research and careful thought I had chosen the Tactical Defense Institute (TDI) Law Enforcement knife made by Ka-Bar as the edged companion to my firearm for every-day carry. When I brought it home and showed my husband my newest acquisition he informed me that TDI was actually a training facility in Ohio that did defensive knife classes. I immediately became interested. After all, it made sense to take a class from the people who designed the knife I chose to carry.
   
It took another two plus years before I would be in a position, financially and logistically, to take a knife class and after hearing many wonderful things about TDI I finally signed up for their two day Defensive Knife class that took place on December fourth and fifth of this year.
   
The confirmation email I received said to bring any and all knives I wanted to train with but that if I had no knife it was not an issue as TDI would have several knives available for trial and plenty of trainers to work with. Even though I didn’t need to take my TDI trainer I stuck it, my Cold Steel Ti-Lite and my Ka-Bar TDI Law Enforcement knife in my suitcase and drove to southern Ohio for my class.
   
A look at the TDI website gives you a run down of the facility with multiple ranges, classrooms, force-on-force houses and everything else a defensive student could ask for.
   
In anticipation of getting lost (as I usually do) I left my hotel an hour and a half early to make what was reported to me to be only a half-hour long trip. The directions were not hard to follow and even though I arrived to class an hour early there was already instructors there with heaters cranked setting out equipment for the class.
   
The classroom was clean and neat with comfortable chairs, clean tables, a small kitchenette, two bathrooms, a case to display TDI products for sale, a large television and (blessedly) two heaters to combat the Ohio cold that had swept in for the weekend.
   
They weren’t kidding when they said they had plenty of knives and trainers. The table at the front of the class was covered with trainer knives and live knives that could be borrowed by students.
   
As the rest of the students arrived we mingled and got to know each other and it wasn’t a surprised to find that I would be the only woman in the class. I was delighted to find out that John Benner, the designer of the TDI knife, would be an assistant instructor for the class as I was eager to meet him after our wonderful chat on the phone when I had called to sign up for the class. When our head instructor, Greg Ellifritz, arrived with plenty of time to spare we all settled in, some finished paying for their class and it was time to start.
   
There was a ratio of three instructors for twelve students (I believe), which made for a very safe environment. With any kind of class featuring weapons safety is a main concern and when you have twelve people with knives working them and trying things they’ve never tried before it’s nice to know there’s more than one set of eyes making sure everyone is being responsible and safe. Two instructors walked around the perimeter of the class checking for safety and giving tips when needed as Greg taught. Even when we sparred or did our force-on-force there was someone there to check our pockets and waistbands to ensure we didn’t forget to remove any live weapons (which I had forgotten to do after lunch on the second day and the instructor caught it (thank goodness)). That, along with the continued safety reminders, made me feel very comfortable that no one was going to end up with a knife buried in their belly or their fingers chopped off.

Tactical Defense Institute Review Primer

My wife is on her way back from the Tactical Defense Institute (TDI) in Ohio and will be writing up review on their Defensive Knife class. In the meantime we can watch this clip from a force on force (FoF) scenario.

Disclaimer: When you have allowed your brain to be convinced the attack is real (which is the point of these exercises) you will say and do things that will later make you blush. Just saying

AAR: Langdon Tactical Technology: Two-Day Advanced Tactical Handgun

8-10-11--Langdon Tactical now has a new website, http://www.langdontac.com/ 

  I really don’t know where to begin with this AAR, the class was fast moving and very little time was spent in the classroom, we learned on the range and I think we all learned a lot. I shot just shy of 1000rds and that didn’t leave a lot of time for note taking during the shooting portion of the class.

There were seven of us in the class and I can say that I was in very good company as I was probably the “worst” shooter present. I don’t know why but I was off my game a little. I couldn’t shoot a group standing still to save my life but when the moving and shooting, and the moving and shooting of moving targets started I was back to a good level of performance.

I think one of the most unique things about this class is that Ernest knows every thing about the origins of what is currently “modern” pistolcraft. Ernest is a former Marine Corps sniper turned instructor and competitor and has worked for Beretta, Smith & Wesson & Sure Fire. The list of schools he’s attended is lengthy. He has spent the last 28 years or so learning his craft. The other students could shoot, and Ernest spanked us all with a M&P in .357 Sig that looked to handle like a 9mm in his hands, his recoil control is unreal. Not only did we get into the whos and whys but he went deeper in to why the whys are the whys if that makes sense.

Which stance is preferred? Where did the Weaver stance really come from (Jack Weaver couldn’t fully extend his left arm which is why he shot like that) we got answers to all that and then some even going into how the muscles of the hands and wrist work to explain why certain grip techniques work better than others.

We covered a little of the color codes in class as a refresher and talked a little on mindset. Something new to me was focus on the “visualization” of tasks/actions and how they can benefit performance. On a side note while flying to and from the class I managed to read “On Combat” by LtCol. Grossman and he touched on some of these same topics. Reading the book actually tied in very well with this class and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who carries a firearm. Ernest also went into how visualization of scenarios and even the way we phrase such scenarios can improve our mindset and psychological performance. Little things such as using “When” instead of “If”, making it a forced realization that things will go wrong instead of making them hypothetical as to remove denial when things do go wrong…

What was of note during the class room portion on “Training the subconscious”

Basically what that means is that our goal is that our techniques must work at the subconscious level in order to work fluidly under stress. We also need to think about “training stance” movements work at the subconscious level, or rather do what we practice really mesh well with reactive moments. A good example of this was when comparing the Weaver & Isosceles and looking at dash cam footage of officer involved shootings. They couldn’t find one case where an officer ended up in a Weaver style stance, however a modified two handed iso. position could be seen in many cases. Apparently the final straw in trying to find a case of anyone using the Weaver was when the found footage of a known Weaver proponent going to a modern iso. in a shooting.

Regarding the Weaver vs. iso, it’s Ernest’s opinion that the Weaver is fine for planned tactical actions, but the isosceles can be applied as a reactionary response and as such using that method more in training may improve performance under stress as the reactionary response is also a practiced response.

Getting further into the training aspect we covered the three levels of performance.

The first level is basic learning, I’m pretty sure we all know what that is. The second level is focused learning. Range drills; practice sessions, focusing on key elements of shooting. The third level is subconscious execution of actions. Of course no one can just leap to the third level, but with lots and lots of focused training/practice you can increase subconscious reactions/muscle memory/”neural pathways” or whatever buzz word suits your fancy. Bottom line is that you can reach a higher performance level with lots of practice. What also enables subconscious performance is “stress training” in the forms of competition, training classes, and FoF, simunition training, time/speed drills… Things that can take you out of your comfort zone and force you to perform under stress.

Also covered in class was reloading and using the slide stop/release or the slingshot method. I’m sure all of us here have discussed this time and time again, but Ernest brought up some valid points in favor of using the slide stop. Mainly that the sling shot generally requires a little more umph and can be short stroked and actually requires more fine motor skill than using the slide stop/release. Think about it, using your off hand thumb and index finger to retract and let go of the slide is doing more movement with two digits while the using the slide release is usually just done with the thumb of the firing hand. As for the argument that hitting the slide stop with your thumb is a fine motor skill, so is pulling the trigger and dropping a mag but we’re obviously able to do that just fine otherwise we wouldn’t need to be reloading and it takes less movment/number of digits than the slingshot method. And for the record I had two hiccups with my 1911 during the class, each one the result of a flubbed reload using the sling shot method which is now a training scar that has to be removed.

On to the range portion.

We shot a variety of drills starting off with slow fire on what must have been 2” circles painted on IDPA targets with some larger 4” circles at the bottom. I had a hard time keeping my shots in the circles and kept skirting the dots.

The first day is kind of a blur, along with shooting like a noob someone didn’t hydrate all that much in the days before class and that Saturday ended up being around 95 and despite pushing water once we started shooting by the end of the day I was suffering mild heat illness with a splitting headache. Most of my time in between strings of fire was spent loading mags and sucking down water. Note to single stack shooters, bring lots and lots of mags to a training class. This class required a minimum of four mags, I was toting nine to the line and doing well with four more loaded up in the bag in case I needed a fresh batch quickly. You don’t want to run short on the line and you don’t want to waste your time (as well as the other students time) having to load mags every 5 minutes. If you’re shooting a single stack, be it a Kahr, Sig, Walther, whatever, have at least double the amount of required magazines and have at least four on your belt.