What: Defensive Pistol Concepts Level 1 and 2.
Where: Riley Conservation Club Terre Haute, IN
When: 16SEPT2017 Level 1, 10 am - 2 pm, Level 2, 3 pm - 7 pm
Who: Instructed by BehindBlueI's (11 year LEO, 5 years as Robbery/Aggravated Assault Detective at Large Midwestern City P.D.)
Assisted by Aron Bright (Master Class USPSA Competitor, Range Master Certified Instructor, Teacher) Home Page
Introduction:
I was contacted by Aron Bright and asked to come audit this class. We know each other from classes he has hosted for me, and classes in competition I have taken from him as well as other "Tactical" hanging out such as numerous Range Master classes or Tactical Conferences. The lead instructor BBI (BehindBlueI's) was known to me virtually from a couple of Internet forums, but until this class I had not met him. As a point of reference, I have had in excess of 1,000 hours of private sector firearms training from a lot of the big names and some of the small ones. The majority of this consisted of handgun, but also medical, rifle, F.O.F., H2H, and Knife. I say this not to brag, but establish myself as the one thing I should be an SME on, taking classes. This review will be somewhat generalized as I don't want to give away the farm, but I will give a good overview and offer some take aways.
Level 1:
There were 12 students in attendance at Level 1. BBI started with his background. Some of that I listed above. He then went into a description of the class. I will note here that all of the cases we looked at in the class happened in the jurisdiction of BBI's department and he was either the lead investigator or had direct information on.
Class is about
-Common precursors to violence.
-Avoidance.
-Asocial and Hybrid Violence.
-Pre-planned reactions.
Class is not about
-Targeted violence.
-Social Violence.
-Fundamentals of shooting.
If you have been involved in this subject matter very long at all, you have heard of the OODA loop. BBI used this as a template for much of the instruction. I had never seen it covered quite this way before. We watched numerous videos of bad things happening and BBI plugged them into the OODA loop while providing a lot of information on things like, Dangerous people, places, and developments, adjusting to new information, planning, pre attack indicators, predatory behavior, and so much more. If you have been to a Tom Givens or William April class, you have probably heard this information before, if you haven't it is important and you should find a way to learn it. One of the other things talked about in the lecture portion was described by BBI as "leverage points" these are the times in the altercation where you could act while the aggressors attention was somewhere else and was seen as a major factor in good guy success in his experience.
At this point Coach (Aron Bright) took the floor with a safety briefing before heading out to the range. All of the usual topics were covered including the four rules, cease fire rules, common firing line rules, medical, etc.. We then headed out to the range for some shooting. We started on the firing line with some simple drills which involved a disguised draw. This is something BBI was very big on but I have seen very little mention of in my numerous other training experiences. We also worked movement left and right before going into the scenarios.
I don't want to give information on the scenarios and spoil it for others, but I will talk about how things were set up. The instructors gave us a brief description of the incident such as involved parties and had the targets set up in a rough simulation of the incident. We were not told how we had to handle the situation. None of the shooting was particularly challenging, but that didn't stop people from not exactly being bulls eye masters under the stress of the moment. Imagine how that could be worse if it were the real deal. After everyone went through the scenario BBI debriefed us by giving us the details on how the incident actually went down. Sometimes it was not at all as I would have expected. We went through a number of scenarios where the good guys were successful in defending themselves or others, and BBI gave us some examples of things that didn't go so well.
That pretty much sums up Level 1. At this point I was happy with the material and quality of instruction. I should note also that I was impressed that even though it was approaching 90 degrees with some pretty decent humidity levels, BBI was still wearing his sport coat. (or blazer or whatever is the proper term)
Level 2
After taking a break for lunch we returned to the classroom for level two. One student from the first session had other plans and could not be there for this session but otherwise it was the same students. BBI started with mindset and why it matters. He described the two options as avoid or dominate. It was then time for some videos to reinforce the point. More information was given in breaking down and recognizing "tells". We also saw examples of what BBI termed "clutch slipping". This is where there is a mental freeze from the unexpected happening and can affect either the good guy or bad guy. Post shooting response was then covered. While BBI did get fairly specific with this, I don't want to be misunderstood and will just say that he recommends to give a little more information to responding LE than just name and serial number as it were. He emphasized that there is a time to shut up and ask for a lawyer, but in his opinion and experience there is some important information that should be relayed first.
Back out to the range. We started out on the common firing line again sometimes using relays. We worked with some colored dots for mild decision making. There was also some one handed shooting covered. At around this point it become obvious that there were some vast differences in skill and experience among the students and Coach had to be careful to not push too hard. I believe this is understandable in a class like this. It was not billed as a shooting skills improvement class and I believe Coach did a great job in handling this aspect of the class by giving what help he could without slowing the proceedings down too much. After this we worked some more scenarios where shooting and moving were involved. A moving target was set up on which we shot while static and while moving. Not everybody gets a chance to do this type of shooting and I thought it was a good opportunity for all. The Level 2 class concluded on the range with a thorough debrief and chance for questions. In my report it looks like the level 2 was less involved than level 1. It wasn't, its just that I took a few less notes, and we shot a little more in the second session.
Conclusion
This class did very well at delivering what it promised. Though most of the information was not new to me, I am not the target demographic for this class. Not because I am so great, just because I have already covered most of this in other classes. That being said, I still found it very worthwhile and was not sorry I made the 8 hour round trip to attend. For someone who maybe only has one or two "shooting" classes under their belt, this class could be invaluable. There really was a wealth of important information taught very competently by two sharp and dedicated teachers. A good shooting class, along with this class and then some Force on Force work would be a great benefit for anyone who carries a gun for self defense and defense of others. Actually in my estimation it would be mandatory. (Personally, not legally)
Where: Riley Conservation Club Terre Haute, IN
When: 16SEPT2017 Level 1, 10 am - 2 pm, Level 2, 3 pm - 7 pm
Who: Instructed by BehindBlueI's (11 year LEO, 5 years as Robbery/Aggravated Assault Detective at Large Midwestern City P.D.)
Assisted by Aron Bright (Master Class USPSA Competitor, Range Master Certified Instructor, Teacher) Home Page
Introduction:
I was contacted by Aron Bright and asked to come audit this class. We know each other from classes he has hosted for me, and classes in competition I have taken from him as well as other "Tactical" hanging out such as numerous Range Master classes or Tactical Conferences. The lead instructor BBI (BehindBlueI's) was known to me virtually from a couple of Internet forums, but until this class I had not met him. As a point of reference, I have had in excess of 1,000 hours of private sector firearms training from a lot of the big names and some of the small ones. The majority of this consisted of handgun, but also medical, rifle, F.O.F., H2H, and Knife. I say this not to brag, but establish myself as the one thing I should be an SME on, taking classes. This review will be somewhat generalized as I don't want to give away the farm, but I will give a good overview and offer some take aways.
Level 1:
There were 12 students in attendance at Level 1. BBI started with his background. Some of that I listed above. He then went into a description of the class. I will note here that all of the cases we looked at in the class happened in the jurisdiction of BBI's department and he was either the lead investigator or had direct information on.
Class is about
-Common precursors to violence.
-Avoidance.
-Asocial and Hybrid Violence.
-Pre-planned reactions.
Class is not about
-Targeted violence.
-Social Violence.
-Fundamentals of shooting.
If you have been involved in this subject matter very long at all, you have heard of the OODA loop. BBI used this as a template for much of the instruction. I had never seen it covered quite this way before. We watched numerous videos of bad things happening and BBI plugged them into the OODA loop while providing a lot of information on things like, Dangerous people, places, and developments, adjusting to new information, planning, pre attack indicators, predatory behavior, and so much more. If you have been to a Tom Givens or William April class, you have probably heard this information before, if you haven't it is important and you should find a way to learn it. One of the other things talked about in the lecture portion was described by BBI as "leverage points" these are the times in the altercation where you could act while the aggressors attention was somewhere else and was seen as a major factor in good guy success in his experience.
At this point Coach (Aron Bright) took the floor with a safety briefing before heading out to the range. All of the usual topics were covered including the four rules, cease fire rules, common firing line rules, medical, etc.. We then headed out to the range for some shooting. We started on the firing line with some simple drills which involved a disguised draw. This is something BBI was very big on but I have seen very little mention of in my numerous other training experiences. We also worked movement left and right before going into the scenarios.
I don't want to give information on the scenarios and spoil it for others, but I will talk about how things were set up. The instructors gave us a brief description of the incident such as involved parties and had the targets set up in a rough simulation of the incident. We were not told how we had to handle the situation. None of the shooting was particularly challenging, but that didn't stop people from not exactly being bulls eye masters under the stress of the moment. Imagine how that could be worse if it were the real deal. After everyone went through the scenario BBI debriefed us by giving us the details on how the incident actually went down. Sometimes it was not at all as I would have expected. We went through a number of scenarios where the good guys were successful in defending themselves or others, and BBI gave us some examples of things that didn't go so well.
That pretty much sums up Level 1. At this point I was happy with the material and quality of instruction. I should note also that I was impressed that even though it was approaching 90 degrees with some pretty decent humidity levels, BBI was still wearing his sport coat. (or blazer or whatever is the proper term)
Level 2
After taking a break for lunch we returned to the classroom for level two. One student from the first session had other plans and could not be there for this session but otherwise it was the same students. BBI started with mindset and why it matters. He described the two options as avoid or dominate. It was then time for some videos to reinforce the point. More information was given in breaking down and recognizing "tells". We also saw examples of what BBI termed "clutch slipping". This is where there is a mental freeze from the unexpected happening and can affect either the good guy or bad guy. Post shooting response was then covered. While BBI did get fairly specific with this, I don't want to be misunderstood and will just say that he recommends to give a little more information to responding LE than just name and serial number as it were. He emphasized that there is a time to shut up and ask for a lawyer, but in his opinion and experience there is some important information that should be relayed first.
Back out to the range. We started out on the common firing line again sometimes using relays. We worked with some colored dots for mild decision making. There was also some one handed shooting covered. At around this point it become obvious that there were some vast differences in skill and experience among the students and Coach had to be careful to not push too hard. I believe this is understandable in a class like this. It was not billed as a shooting skills improvement class and I believe Coach did a great job in handling this aspect of the class by giving what help he could without slowing the proceedings down too much. After this we worked some more scenarios where shooting and moving were involved. A moving target was set up on which we shot while static and while moving. Not everybody gets a chance to do this type of shooting and I thought it was a good opportunity for all. The Level 2 class concluded on the range with a thorough debrief and chance for questions. In my report it looks like the level 2 was less involved than level 1. It wasn't, its just that I took a few less notes, and we shot a little more in the second session.
Conclusion
This class did very well at delivering what it promised. Though most of the information was not new to me, I am not the target demographic for this class. Not because I am so great, just because I have already covered most of this in other classes. That being said, I still found it very worthwhile and was not sorry I made the 8 hour round trip to attend. For someone who maybe only has one or two "shooting" classes under their belt, this class could be invaluable. There really was a wealth of important information taught very competently by two sharp and dedicated teachers. A good shooting class, along with this class and then some Force on Force work would be a great benefit for anyone who carries a gun for self defense and defense of others. Actually in my estimation it would be mandatory. (Personally, not legally)
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