https://www.fpftraining.com/
This class was held at the Riley Conservation Club in Riley, Indiana March 24, 25 2018. My 18 year old daughter attended with me, and nine others on day 1. Two folks did not return for Day 2. I think that was a road and weather thing.
The weather was a concern when this class was booked. Spring rains and cool temperatures were a possibility. I never dreamed that 7-10 inches of snow would complicate things. As it turned out the weather was the one fly in the ointment and that is not something that can be controlled. But John worked around it swimmingly. This is not a shooting class, but rather a class with some shooting. You need to arrive with a developed shooting skill level. If you are a self taught shooter with no formal instruction, or no competition experience, then you probably do not belong in this class. There will be stress applied to your shooting in this class. There is no time to teach folks to shoot without holding up the whole class. Shame on people that hold up the whole class because they are not good enough to keep pace with the class. We were fortunate in this class to not have this as an issue. Don't be that guy or gal.
As the host of this class I was exposed early on to the top notch organization, planning, logistics and preparation for the class from John Murphy. The supplies from the class arrived at the home front in plenty of time, and I knew they were coming before they arrived. The curriculum is well thought out and fits together very well. There was pre-class homework. John sent out some video that everyone was to watch prior to class. It was a solid introduction to what was to come. Not just some busy work for folks to do. My recommendation is to do the homework.
Saturday was scheduled to end with an hour or two of shooting on the range to test the classes shooting ability and see what the students capabilities were with a gun. The cold wind driven rain for the entire day cancelled that plan. It was decided earlier in the day to shoot longer on Sunday that was forecast to be dry if not warm. This was a good game time decision. The alternative schedule hurt nothing and likely helped.
Saturday started with an evaluation of the shooter's personality, ego and values, and habits. Some hard questions were asked and a list of things not to do or behave like while carrying a gun was hashed through. I am sad to report that I have violated many of those things on that list at one time or another and was wrong to do so. I have never sat in on a class that began with this material. More classes should. It is good preventative measures.
The class then moved to the issues of awareness and the layers involved in awareness and alertness. How to project confidence and awareness. This material dovetailed right into thin-slicing or reading people. Seeing the fight coming in other words, and hopefully in time to avoid it, and if not to prevail. These concepts were not simply discussed or lectured on but there were video clips that accompanied them that showed each concept or point. John did a great job of unpacking many of the videos. As a class we saw tons of video demonstrating crimes and violence so that we would be able to see what it looks like without having the the experience of having been in that spot. This would come into play on the range the day. Behold the genius of John Murphy the curriculum planner. As a class we were being educated and entertained at the same time.
The next phase of class was about the interview that is done by the criminal in selecting the target or victim. The dangers of inattention and infirmity were stressed. "Looking around does not cost anything and is a healthy habit." Joe Foss. This led to the Pepper Spray segment of the class. Going into class I was against Pepper Spray. I am not fully a convert at this time, but I am in a much different place. We were schooled on the use of Pepper Spray and watched some more video of several different reactions to pepper spray. Then we went hands on for a time and sprayed John with training units of pepper spray and got coached up on the use. We went out on the porch and John went into the rain and demonstrated that "wind is a thing". We saw what spraying with, against and sideways with the wind would do. In addition to not spitting and pissing into the wind you should not spray pepper spray into the wind.
The next phase was dealing with Post-development. What to say and not to say with the police. If you want the specifics on this or any other phase take the class.
This included treating of injuries to you and other people. We applied tourniquets to ourselves and to a partner. A proper kit was discussed in length. This was an area of class that I struggle with. On a few subjects I display Liberal behavior. I don't like medical topics and don't want to deal with them. But what has that to do with reality and facts? I can do a number of these things, but I do not enjoy it at all. John hit me right at the core with this part of the class. Why do I not have purpose built gear for saving lives of the family? Because I am an idiot. Riding home from class on day 2 Alyssa told me she wanted to start carrying some medical gear right away. It will be so.
The next phase was MUC. Managing Unknown Contacts:
What to say and not to say. We hit a point of emphasis here. The value of pre-planning these contacts because all of us will have these contacts, and handling these contacts properly will save each of us plenty of grief and potentially our lives. Verbal judo is for cops, don't talk to goofy, if there is 1 there really are 2. The concept of +1 seems to be a thing. This is an area of class that John plans to enhance in the future. I agree with his plan. I am not sure what he can cut to beef this up even more but this is valuable materials.
Proper preparation was another segment of class. Read local crime reports, engage in visulaization, force on force training. Maintain your equipment and skills. Develop tactics to disrupt the pace and rhythm of violence and crime, and we had seen a good number of videos by this time to show us what that rhythm and pace looks like.
And so day 1 ended, and a crappy drive home in the snow began.
It was obvious to me that John Murphy is a subject matter expert that stays in his lane. He has done a tremendous amount of planning and rehearsing. This class is well constructed and pulls from a number of sources and puts things together in a systematic way. At the end of class it was clear that the plan had come together well.
Day 2: On the range:
The class called for 600 rounds of ammunition per shooter. Alyssa and I shot that much each. We had not gotten any shooting done on Day 1 due to weather but we hit the frozen ground running and stayed on it for three hours straight with just small breaks to load magazines.
John started by doing a little shooting. After a few peripheral hits on the target he questioned the class about if the target was shot or not. The point being that there are different levels of shot and making the point that good hits matter and that we need to achieve good hits and will likely need multiple hits as handguns are wimpy.
We then started through a number of shooting tests with everyone on the line. There were breaks to discuss the targets and the hits on the target. Words of encouragement were offered at times and some times these words of encouragement were of the negative variety. Snowflakes should stay at home. The folks in this class were at least decent shooters or they would not have been invited to participate. However some folks needed some attention and were given it. There were some folks that needed reminded about things that they already knew. John did a masterful job helping improve their hits and and keeping the whole class on track.
Visualization was stressed. John reminded us that he had shown us a ton of video of violence and what it looks like. So the command to fire was not "up" which is common. But rather see it, fight. The point being to visualize the violence and then react to it. Not exactly a visual start but much more than just a beep or up command even for these standard exercises. A good idea. There will be more visual starts to come.
We used the sights for controlled pairs and aimed strings of fire. "The sights are a thing that matter." We fired from four different stances for this portion and all of the live fire. We fired from rest, bodyguard, the thinker and shields up. These were introduced in the classroom on Day 1 for the proper context, and now we were putting them into practice. This was not the BS of shooting from the startle.
The distances ranged from 3,5,7,10,15 yards. There were many strings of fired that called for fast and accurate fire to be delivered on target to the critical zone of the high center chest area. Then many times some slow fire bulls-eye shooting from greater distances. We worked on moving off the line of force and why that was important and the distances where it is effective. Plenty of practice in relays. It was a good mix and took us to the lunch break. To this point the shooting challenges were fairly standard other than some of the starting positions. In my mind I was asking myself if this class was going to break into new ground? Well yes it will.
The sun was out much more after lunch and that helped. We started doing many different drills after lunch. I took hardly any notes because when not shooting, loading magazines or helping Alyssa keep her magazines loaded I had my gloves on. So the order of operations is unclear in my mind.
We shot on a hard rubber dummy that gave us a 3D perspective. John demonstrated and explained how aiming at the high center chest critical zone we had been shooting at all morning on paper would not provide a good hit to the CNS, heart and lungs. The we all took turns shooting the Arc of Death on the dummy to the right and left. Same concepts with head shots on the dummy.
We shot a box drill on the dummy. This drill had us shooting and moving in three different directions.
We shot out of the hole to both the left and the right on multiple threats. We had seen the hole in several videos the day before and we were trying to work out way out of that hole.
We did a number of drills with visual starts using different colors of sirt pistols accompanied by a lot of verbalization, yelling to bring some stress to the situation and to force us to recognize the escalating violence that was being simulated.
We shot from seated positions with folks on our left and right. Great supervision by John on each shooter here. Perfectly safe.
We shot a get down drill. It started with Alyssa as the shooter and I was sitting down range from her across the table. She ordered me down and I have to bear crawl around the table and get up range. She then drew and shot the threat. I would call this advanced.
Screened draws were then shot in pairs. I would call this advanced as well. A great tactic that needs to be in the tool box. I figure this will be how it goes in real life if Alyssa and I are out together. I will be the focus of attention. She will give the "O" face duck behind me and draw her gun and then distribute justice in a controlled fashion. She will prevail and the whole world will give me **** for the rest of my life about not getting a lick in. I can live with that.
Sideways starts to both the left and the right reacting to noises and disturbances. Face buried in the phone starts.
We did the standard Hearts and Minds. (failure drills)
We did modified Hearts and Minds. People don't hold their head still while getting shot in the chest. Video proves it. Multiple heads glued on the target allowed us to practice finding the head and putting rounds on the left, middle or right head. John would put the laser on the head that you were to shoot after you began to fight. Good stuff right there. The visual was heavily incorporated into the shooting in the afternoon and that was huge positive.
We did some scenarios that were completed one at a time and each one was different. Sometimes it was solved verbally and some sometimes it escalated to pepper spray and sometimes it escalated to guns. Officer Friendly would arrive and interview the person after the violence was over. Many teachable moments here. the escalation in each case involved verbal and visual elements. John is very verbal.
The penultimate shooting drill was done one at a time. It would involve verbal and visual clues, some used words, pepper spray, guns. Some were wounded in the course of this event and had to apply a tourniquet to themselves, and they comply with arriving officers. It was the full deal that we have been learning in the whole two days wrapped up into a great final exam.
The last shooting we did was on a clean target. We had written our names on the target with the date. We performed a qualification. Posed beside the target with John and had our pictures taken. John will be emailing us this picture to print and put with our class certificate to provide evidence of our training.
It was a great class. John Murphy did a great job for both days. I highly recommend taking this class. I had my daughter take it as preparation for going off to college. Because I cannot be there for her. She is on her own, and this class has helped make her more prepared for what is out there. I am also more prepared as well. The class was about preparing us for life in the jungle, and yet nothing done on the range was more dangerous than any other shooting class I have taken. I recruited the students for this class. I felt the pressure that everyone would be satisfied. After the class was over I am confident that folks were pleased. I will recommend John Murphy without reservation to anyone. I took my favorite daughter to the class and I feel like it was a genius move.
That is all folks.
This class was held at the Riley Conservation Club in Riley, Indiana March 24, 25 2018. My 18 year old daughter attended with me, and nine others on day 1. Two folks did not return for Day 2. I think that was a road and weather thing.
The weather was a concern when this class was booked. Spring rains and cool temperatures were a possibility. I never dreamed that 7-10 inches of snow would complicate things. As it turned out the weather was the one fly in the ointment and that is not something that can be controlled. But John worked around it swimmingly. This is not a shooting class, but rather a class with some shooting. You need to arrive with a developed shooting skill level. If you are a self taught shooter with no formal instruction, or no competition experience, then you probably do not belong in this class. There will be stress applied to your shooting in this class. There is no time to teach folks to shoot without holding up the whole class. Shame on people that hold up the whole class because they are not good enough to keep pace with the class. We were fortunate in this class to not have this as an issue. Don't be that guy or gal.
As the host of this class I was exposed early on to the top notch organization, planning, logistics and preparation for the class from John Murphy. The supplies from the class arrived at the home front in plenty of time, and I knew they were coming before they arrived. The curriculum is well thought out and fits together very well. There was pre-class homework. John sent out some video that everyone was to watch prior to class. It was a solid introduction to what was to come. Not just some busy work for folks to do. My recommendation is to do the homework.
Saturday was scheduled to end with an hour or two of shooting on the range to test the classes shooting ability and see what the students capabilities were with a gun. The cold wind driven rain for the entire day cancelled that plan. It was decided earlier in the day to shoot longer on Sunday that was forecast to be dry if not warm. This was a good game time decision. The alternative schedule hurt nothing and likely helped.
Saturday started with an evaluation of the shooter's personality, ego and values, and habits. Some hard questions were asked and a list of things not to do or behave like while carrying a gun was hashed through. I am sad to report that I have violated many of those things on that list at one time or another and was wrong to do so. I have never sat in on a class that began with this material. More classes should. It is good preventative measures.
The class then moved to the issues of awareness and the layers involved in awareness and alertness. How to project confidence and awareness. This material dovetailed right into thin-slicing or reading people. Seeing the fight coming in other words, and hopefully in time to avoid it, and if not to prevail. These concepts were not simply discussed or lectured on but there were video clips that accompanied them that showed each concept or point. John did a great job of unpacking many of the videos. As a class we saw tons of video demonstrating crimes and violence so that we would be able to see what it looks like without having the the experience of having been in that spot. This would come into play on the range the day. Behold the genius of John Murphy the curriculum planner. As a class we were being educated and entertained at the same time.
The next phase of class was about the interview that is done by the criminal in selecting the target or victim. The dangers of inattention and infirmity were stressed. "Looking around does not cost anything and is a healthy habit." Joe Foss. This led to the Pepper Spray segment of the class. Going into class I was against Pepper Spray. I am not fully a convert at this time, but I am in a much different place. We were schooled on the use of Pepper Spray and watched some more video of several different reactions to pepper spray. Then we went hands on for a time and sprayed John with training units of pepper spray and got coached up on the use. We went out on the porch and John went into the rain and demonstrated that "wind is a thing". We saw what spraying with, against and sideways with the wind would do. In addition to not spitting and pissing into the wind you should not spray pepper spray into the wind.
The next phase was dealing with Post-development. What to say and not to say with the police. If you want the specifics on this or any other phase take the class.
This included treating of injuries to you and other people. We applied tourniquets to ourselves and to a partner. A proper kit was discussed in length. This was an area of class that I struggle with. On a few subjects I display Liberal behavior. I don't like medical topics and don't want to deal with them. But what has that to do with reality and facts? I can do a number of these things, but I do not enjoy it at all. John hit me right at the core with this part of the class. Why do I not have purpose built gear for saving lives of the family? Because I am an idiot. Riding home from class on day 2 Alyssa told me she wanted to start carrying some medical gear right away. It will be so.
The next phase was MUC. Managing Unknown Contacts:
What to say and not to say. We hit a point of emphasis here. The value of pre-planning these contacts because all of us will have these contacts, and handling these contacts properly will save each of us plenty of grief and potentially our lives. Verbal judo is for cops, don't talk to goofy, if there is 1 there really are 2. The concept of +1 seems to be a thing. This is an area of class that John plans to enhance in the future. I agree with his plan. I am not sure what he can cut to beef this up even more but this is valuable materials.
Proper preparation was another segment of class. Read local crime reports, engage in visulaization, force on force training. Maintain your equipment and skills. Develop tactics to disrupt the pace and rhythm of violence and crime, and we had seen a good number of videos by this time to show us what that rhythm and pace looks like.
And so day 1 ended, and a crappy drive home in the snow began.
It was obvious to me that John Murphy is a subject matter expert that stays in his lane. He has done a tremendous amount of planning and rehearsing. This class is well constructed and pulls from a number of sources and puts things together in a systematic way. At the end of class it was clear that the plan had come together well.
Day 2: On the range:
The class called for 600 rounds of ammunition per shooter. Alyssa and I shot that much each. We had not gotten any shooting done on Day 1 due to weather but we hit the frozen ground running and stayed on it for three hours straight with just small breaks to load magazines.
John started by doing a little shooting. After a few peripheral hits on the target he questioned the class about if the target was shot or not. The point being that there are different levels of shot and making the point that good hits matter and that we need to achieve good hits and will likely need multiple hits as handguns are wimpy.
We then started through a number of shooting tests with everyone on the line. There were breaks to discuss the targets and the hits on the target. Words of encouragement were offered at times and some times these words of encouragement were of the negative variety. Snowflakes should stay at home. The folks in this class were at least decent shooters or they would not have been invited to participate. However some folks needed some attention and were given it. There were some folks that needed reminded about things that they already knew. John did a masterful job helping improve their hits and and keeping the whole class on track.
Visualization was stressed. John reminded us that he had shown us a ton of video of violence and what it looks like. So the command to fire was not "up" which is common. But rather see it, fight. The point being to visualize the violence and then react to it. Not exactly a visual start but much more than just a beep or up command even for these standard exercises. A good idea. There will be more visual starts to come.
We used the sights for controlled pairs and aimed strings of fire. "The sights are a thing that matter." We fired from four different stances for this portion and all of the live fire. We fired from rest, bodyguard, the thinker and shields up. These were introduced in the classroom on Day 1 for the proper context, and now we were putting them into practice. This was not the BS of shooting from the startle.
The distances ranged from 3,5,7,10,15 yards. There were many strings of fired that called for fast and accurate fire to be delivered on target to the critical zone of the high center chest area. Then many times some slow fire bulls-eye shooting from greater distances. We worked on moving off the line of force and why that was important and the distances where it is effective. Plenty of practice in relays. It was a good mix and took us to the lunch break. To this point the shooting challenges were fairly standard other than some of the starting positions. In my mind I was asking myself if this class was going to break into new ground? Well yes it will.
The sun was out much more after lunch and that helped. We started doing many different drills after lunch. I took hardly any notes because when not shooting, loading magazines or helping Alyssa keep her magazines loaded I had my gloves on. So the order of operations is unclear in my mind.
We shot on a hard rubber dummy that gave us a 3D perspective. John demonstrated and explained how aiming at the high center chest critical zone we had been shooting at all morning on paper would not provide a good hit to the CNS, heart and lungs. The we all took turns shooting the Arc of Death on the dummy to the right and left. Same concepts with head shots on the dummy.
We shot a box drill on the dummy. This drill had us shooting and moving in three different directions.
We shot out of the hole to both the left and the right on multiple threats. We had seen the hole in several videos the day before and we were trying to work out way out of that hole.
We did a number of drills with visual starts using different colors of sirt pistols accompanied by a lot of verbalization, yelling to bring some stress to the situation and to force us to recognize the escalating violence that was being simulated.
We shot from seated positions with folks on our left and right. Great supervision by John on each shooter here. Perfectly safe.
We shot a get down drill. It started with Alyssa as the shooter and I was sitting down range from her across the table. She ordered me down and I have to bear crawl around the table and get up range. She then drew and shot the threat. I would call this advanced.
Screened draws were then shot in pairs. I would call this advanced as well. A great tactic that needs to be in the tool box. I figure this will be how it goes in real life if Alyssa and I are out together. I will be the focus of attention. She will give the "O" face duck behind me and draw her gun and then distribute justice in a controlled fashion. She will prevail and the whole world will give me **** for the rest of my life about not getting a lick in. I can live with that.
Sideways starts to both the left and the right reacting to noises and disturbances. Face buried in the phone starts.
We did the standard Hearts and Minds. (failure drills)
We did modified Hearts and Minds. People don't hold their head still while getting shot in the chest. Video proves it. Multiple heads glued on the target allowed us to practice finding the head and putting rounds on the left, middle or right head. John would put the laser on the head that you were to shoot after you began to fight. Good stuff right there. The visual was heavily incorporated into the shooting in the afternoon and that was huge positive.
We did some scenarios that were completed one at a time and each one was different. Sometimes it was solved verbally and some sometimes it escalated to pepper spray and sometimes it escalated to guns. Officer Friendly would arrive and interview the person after the violence was over. Many teachable moments here. the escalation in each case involved verbal and visual elements. John is very verbal.
The penultimate shooting drill was done one at a time. It would involve verbal and visual clues, some used words, pepper spray, guns. Some were wounded in the course of this event and had to apply a tourniquet to themselves, and they comply with arriving officers. It was the full deal that we have been learning in the whole two days wrapped up into a great final exam.
The last shooting we did was on a clean target. We had written our names on the target with the date. We performed a qualification. Posed beside the target with John and had our pictures taken. John will be emailing us this picture to print and put with our class certificate to provide evidence of our training.
It was a great class. John Murphy did a great job for both days. I highly recommend taking this class. I had my daughter take it as preparation for going off to college. Because I cannot be there for her. She is on her own, and this class has helped make her more prepared for what is out there. I am also more prepared as well. The class was about preparing us for life in the jungle, and yet nothing done on the range was more dangerous than any other shooting class I have taken. I recruited the students for this class. I felt the pressure that everyone would be satisfied. After the class was over I am confident that folks were pleased. I will recommend John Murphy without reservation to anyone. I took my favorite daughter to the class and I feel like it was a genius move.
That is all folks.
Last edited:
(CZ compact for sale, lol). He did an awesome job of incorporating ‘stress’ into a situation as best he could. His Marine Corp background may have helped with this. I think everyone there improved as the day went on. 
