I am starting this thread with the hopes that others who took the course will also jump in with observations.
It took me this long to try to post an AAR because the sheer volume and intensity of the training I received this past weekend required a bit of time to marinate in my brain. I will try to capture some of my thoughts and give what I thought were some of the best takeaways.
The thing I keep coming back to as I think about the training is how much useable information George was able to pack into one weekend without making it overwhelming. Part of the genius of his system is that nearly all of the techniques we learned had carryover to other techniques. This was one of the things that made it possible to absorb a high volume of material. Regardless of whether you are using pen, knife, open hand or gun, the skills we were taught were viewed as building blocks that could be combined in various ways to counter whatever threat you are facing.
Another thing that struck me about the weekend was that I cannot pick out any fluff. All of the material was stripped down no BS moves to decisively and violently stop a threat with an appropriate level of force.
My odds of surviving a violent encounter have to be about 1000% better than they were before taking this class, and I will definitely be looking to train with MCS again, because obviously that's what it's all about. I feel much more confident in my gun skills, and I have gone from carrying a knife, to actually knowing some useable techniques with a knife. Similarly, my open hand skills are much better, to the point that I would not necessarily go to a weapon as my first reaction to being attacked. Rather than being tools dependent (and I was not necessarily very good with those tools) George has showed me how to be skills dependent.
My last thought for now is to just mention that a lot of people talk about gun, knife and open hand complementing each other, and I thought I knew what they meant. George's class showed me I was wrong, and gave me a look at the real meaning of an integrated self defense toolbox. If you are someone like me with little to no training, or if you have had traditional training but no force on force work, you owe it to yourself to train with George next time he is in Indiana. Just to recap, the skills I learned this weekend, many of them that I had no previous experience with at all:
-Weapon retention
-How to deploy a folding knife
-Useable techniques for self defense with an edged weapon
-Combat pen (this one is huge for me as I work in an office and can always have a pen already in my hand if I so desire)
-How to defend against most likely angles of attack
-Fighting from ground
-How to recover when malfunctions occur
It took me this long to try to post an AAR because the sheer volume and intensity of the training I received this past weekend required a bit of time to marinate in my brain. I will try to capture some of my thoughts and give what I thought were some of the best takeaways.
The thing I keep coming back to as I think about the training is how much useable information George was able to pack into one weekend without making it overwhelming. Part of the genius of his system is that nearly all of the techniques we learned had carryover to other techniques. This was one of the things that made it possible to absorb a high volume of material. Regardless of whether you are using pen, knife, open hand or gun, the skills we were taught were viewed as building blocks that could be combined in various ways to counter whatever threat you are facing.
Another thing that struck me about the weekend was that I cannot pick out any fluff. All of the material was stripped down no BS moves to decisively and violently stop a threat with an appropriate level of force.
My odds of surviving a violent encounter have to be about 1000% better than they were before taking this class, and I will definitely be looking to train with MCS again, because obviously that's what it's all about. I feel much more confident in my gun skills, and I have gone from carrying a knife, to actually knowing some useable techniques with a knife. Similarly, my open hand skills are much better, to the point that I would not necessarily go to a weapon as my first reaction to being attacked. Rather than being tools dependent (and I was not necessarily very good with those tools) George has showed me how to be skills dependent.
My last thought for now is to just mention that a lot of people talk about gun, knife and open hand complementing each other, and I thought I knew what they meant. George's class showed me I was wrong, and gave me a look at the real meaning of an integrated self defense toolbox. If you are someone like me with little to no training, or if you have had traditional training but no force on force work, you owe it to yourself to train with George next time he is in Indiana. Just to recap, the skills I learned this weekend, many of them that I had no previous experience with at all:
-Weapon retention
-How to deploy a folding knife
-Useable techniques for self defense with an edged weapon
-Combat pen (this one is huge for me as I work in an office and can always have a pen already in my hand if I so desire)
-How to defend against most likely angles of attack
-Fighting from ground
-How to recover when malfunctions occur
