my training experiance

[kevco]

Excellent +1

[vetter3006]

Great post thanks for your in site and your experience with the training class you took and your own thoughts about what you took from the class.

[27hand]

Great post Shawn,

I was just about where you are about 10 years ago.

i bought a handgun for self defense.

I had absolutely NO clue on how I might have to use it.

I saw a FireInstitute flyer about tactical pistol training and called PeteG as to what was involved.

The cost factor was where I almost drew the line, but sucked it up and sent in the check.

Giles was my first instructor as well and I was totally beside myself as to how much I DIDN'T know.

I do believe the reason many men don't seek out professional training is ego. Men, as a whole, do not want to appear to be less than knowledgeable about firearms and are actually afraid that someone may find this out. I was very apprehensive before that first class.

Women may decide not to train just because they feel intimidated in a class full of men.

Since the first class, I have taken training classes with a handful of trainers and people from all walks of life. I can't think that I disliked any of those people. Perhaps there is some truth in the statement "an armed society is a polite society".

Congrats on taking that step. You will find out that as you progress, there is a never ending series of plateaus of information and skill level.

Keep it up.

27hand

[Palerider]

To the OP, that really summarizes how I felt before training as well. Been handling guns/hunting for many years, had my LCTF for many years, carried occasionally (especially in the glove box) but never felt uber comfortable.

Took General Defensive Handgun by Insights training in Harrisburg, and obtained an enirely new perspective on my responsibilities and capabilities. I've taken my training and seriously and practive regulary what and how I was taught. I definitely plan on taking additional training to maintain and improve my skills.

I highly recommend training for anyone casually thinking about it.

[Papuppyowner]

This is on my to do list. The sooner the better

[PeteG]

[QUOTE=Shawn.L;795913]
But there was also a disconnect between me carrying a gun, and having a full and honest appraisal of why.

QUOTE]

Taking this idea away from the course is more important than the gun handling or marksmanship skills. It distinguishes those who carry with purpose from those who carry as though a firearm was a piece of exotic jewelry.

Getting one's head around why one would carry a firearm is not as easy as it might at first appear. It's easier to gloss it over with jokes or vapid, macho rhetoric. All the training in the world cannot compensate for one failing to get serious with himself - who he is, what he is prepared to do, why.

And you can believe me when I tell you it is not hard to distinguish those who have undertaken that evaluation from those who have not.

[SilentRage]

Great read , Thank you ,,,,,,, now off to research my area for some
training !

[Shawn.L]

I took the FIRE inst. Tactics I class last weekend.

The phrase "eye opener" seems both exactly descriptive, and too overused to portray what I learned.

to sum up, I wasnt as ready as I thought

I was amazed, that knowing full well I was at a Firearm tactics class, having gone over tactical principles just moments before, repeating things in my head like "remember to scan, distance is your friend, stay away from corners" I still came up short.

I fell for distractions I knew where distractions.

I had to make shots after moving, or under stress, or while also watch footing, looking for cover, assesing threats, and my marksmanship plummetted. bad.

At first I really thought it was the gun. I have been shooting a 1911 pretty much exclusively for the last year. And while I was between guns (thats another thread) I was using my G19.

After the class I went back out to the range. And I shot the G19. I shoot the gun fine. Maybe not as well as my 1911, but a hell of a lot better than I was shooting on day one at the Tactics class.

If an attacker jumps out of a corner while you are walking down the street with your family what will they do? Will your wife grab on to you and yell? Will your child run between you and the attacker as you draw? Hes moving, your moving, your being pushed or shoved and you cant sweep yourself or your family. Can you make the shot?

you will not rise to the occasion........................

we have heard it over and over. But maybe somewhere inside I still didnt fully get it. I hadnt "put it in my soul". If I couldnt rise to the occasion in controlled circumstance where I had at least some fore-knowlwdge then how can I possibly when the life of me and my loved ones are on the line?

I have some new priorities, some new objectives, and a renewed sense of humility.

and being humble, I endeavor to learn

[LittleRedToyota]

yep. tactics I was a great class. everyone needs to take a class like it...and then periodically practice what is learned.

even if one is already familiar with the theory of how to respond, what mistakes to not make, etc. "knowing what to do" vs. actually doing it even in simulations are two *entirely* different things--as everyone in the class experienced.

it is really not possible to overstate the value of a class like tactics I.

[PeteG]

I have found that most people never take the first step, which is to find out what they don't know.

Those who take that first formal course of instruction usually have an experience that starts out with "HOLY COW! I'm a complete ignoramus, and I've been walking around oblivious like this for years!", and resolves into "Hey ... this isn't hard ... I can do this!" Confidence follows. Control follows confidence.

After that first course, however, some people think "NOW I'm ready." And because they think they know, they never test that proposition (just as most others never test thier initial assumption that they know what they need to know).

One effect of "Tactics I" is to test how it will all shake out in an emergency. It should not be surprising, in retrospect, that we discover a three-day class on gun handling, marksmanship and introduction to mind set does not teach one everything they need to know about using the gun to fight. It certainly teaches a lot; but testing for the weak points is always a good idea.

Tony and I are kicking around the idea of a two-day course designed expressly for the purpose of allowing participants to measure what they know and how they react. It would be like Tactics I, but without the classroom talk. Instruction would be on an "as needed" basis, as things happen and where correction is in order. (Sort of like the individual debriefing in the shoot-house simulation, or the group debriefing after the "walk in the mall.") We would include position shooting with a hand gun. The down side of no advance instruction in the classroom (an assumption that "we know") is there may be such complete befuddlment on the range that we will wind up doing all the talking anyway.

Would anyone be interested in that? One week-end (day-and-a-half or, perhaps, two days)? Some time in October. Cost would be about $200 or $250, depending upon the length of the class, we guess. Basic pistol course would be a prerequsite.

BUT, we MUST have at least 10 people. It's too much to ask the volunteers to do all the work involved for only a few people.

Meantime, you guys who took Tactics I, don't be too concerned about skill degradation. If we had another day to work those drills, marksmanship and decision making would improve considerably. It's just a matter of assimilating the new skills and getting used to concentrating when one has more than one thing to worry about. As I said, you could all shoot ... I've seen it with my own eyes. Now you know what you need to do to practice shooting well under a broader range of circumstances, and you won't be taken by surprise at what happens when you have to do more than stand and shoot.

Those two things (understanding of what we don't know and applying the basics under a wider range of circumstances) just may be the difference between "basic" and "advanced."