Course review: Frank Proctor WAy of the Gun Carbine July 2014 Pittsburgh PA

[Shawn.L]

I dont normally write many course reviews any more but i was so blown away by this course I felt I had to share some of it.

www.wayofthegun.us

www.aliastraining.com

www.anti-fragile.net





I hosted this course through Alias and we had 16 students, for 2 days, and shot every bit of 1k rounds. Strictly carbine shooting, zero pistol rounds or pistol gear used at all.

While we did cover material on technical shooting skills with a focus on how to mount the gun for improved repeatable recoil managment and a head up visually active information gathering style the focus of the class was more about how to develop our information gathering skills to see more and process faster.

This was material that in umpteen billion hours of formal firearms training I have never seen presented.

Frank was adamant on the point that while most firearms practice and instruction revolves around mechanical shooting skills and shooting drills the real performance gains for all sides of the house from tactical to gaming lays in efficient accurate information gathering and the ability to process and make decsions at speed.

He didnt just talk about it. We trained it.

The visual information gathering work started simple enough with Frank asking us to mount the guns like normal and then asking us what we saw. How far could our vision pick up to the left and right? Up and down? Can you see the tree line at the top of the berm? The solution to "see more" was a upright head position, and pushing the chin forward to keep the face flat to the target. To better help in both recoil managment and bringing the gun up the eyes Frank suggested a more outboard position of the stock with the reciver extension level with the top of the shoulder so that pushing the shoulder forward and up acted against recoil and pushed the gun up into the line of sight.

From there we checked our visual range by using our hands at the edges of our vision until we could become aware of of our fingers while still focusing on the target from all directions.

Throughout the weekend we worked a number of excerices to develop those awerness and information gathering muscles.

One example was a partner excercies in which the shooter would present to one target, shoot once, transition to a second target for one shot, and then drive the gun to a 3rd target with the goal of getting there before the first piece of brass hits the ground. The shooter is to flex his awerness muscles and allow his perifieral vision to track the brass and be able to call the shots off what the sights told him. The shooter runs the excercise and then tells his partner what he saw and the partner then confirms with what he saw. This is visually demanding for both partners.
"look at how much we can learn from 2 bullets."

Another exercise consisted of following a numbered series of dots on one target from one to the next with single shots and taking note of what we saw and when as the optic maybe blocked the view going in one direction or if we where overshooting the target going another.

"The machine will adapt. Let it do."



Some might have noticed Ive been using the word "excercise" a lot.
Frank was insistent that the work we where doing was "getting reps" just like excercising and that we where not simply 'shooting drills" for score. In fact there was suprisingly little scoring throughout the weekend.

The analogy that was used that I felt apt was a football one.
"If you take a look at a pro running back and what hes working on every day your going to see him doing things like running tires. Now, Ive seen a lot of football games and Ive yet to see a set of tires on the field, but have no doubt those excercises turn into results on game day.
The 3x5 card we are shooting today will not die, it cannot shoot back, and if it could those barrels wouldnt stop it. You dont need to turn this into a scenerio to make sense. This is just running tires, its an excercise."

While the major takeaways for me where those of how to train to become better information seekers there was also relevant material presented on a number of topics regarding mechanical shooting skills, shooting on the move, and especially on manuvering in tight spaces with long guns and working around others.



We even got to do some head to head runs with Frank.

On this one hes going off my go. 1 reload from bolt lock 1



Groovy.

[shrewd]

I've wanted to train with him for awhile, great aar

[LostinGermany]

As if I needed any more reason to train with him. Thanks for the info.

[Shawn.L]

If you have the chance do it.

I already booked him to come back to Pittsburgh for pistol in 2015.

[PeteG]

"the focus of the class was more about how to develop our information gathering skills to see more and process faster"

And "hardly any scoring."

Now you are getting somewhere.