Month: December 2012

Becoming a Firearms Instructor

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I never set out to become a firearms instructor.

Heck, years ago I didn’t set out to ever own a gun either… but about 5 years ago that all changed. Well, it changed a lot earlier than that, but it was about 5 years ago that I bought my first firearm. If you go through life open to the possibilities, open to what flows, truly seeking Truth and not just confirming your own biases then well… it’s interesting where you wind up.

So as I took classes at KR Training, one day Tom Hogel takes me aside and suggests I get my NRA Instructor Certifications. I had no desire to teach, I was totally taken aback that he just came out of the blue to move me in that way, but he and Karl both encouraged me and well… here I am.

I am far from a master, but I have been travelling this Instructor road for about four years now. Kathy Jackson recently posted to her blog an article about “How to Become a Firearms Instructor“. It’s a good article, that contains valuable information for both instructors (current and prospective) and for students.

In fact, I think Kathy’s article speaks more towards students than instructors. Read on.

Kathy talks about how there are two roads: certification, apprenticeship. I’ve done both, and I can say that both are valuable. While having certifications are nice and they open doors and grant some level of immediately recognizable credentials, history, and understanding, I just don’t think they’re as valuable as apprenticeship. If you want to learn X you have to do X. So if you want to teach, you need to teach. But you can’t just go out there and teach — you need to learn how to teach, you need to be taught how to teach. And it’s not just how to be a teacher, but learning how to be a teacher in that particular topic area. I can attest to many things I’ve learned by being on the range, by being under Karl, watching Karl, seeing how HE does things (because Karl’s one of those few people that can both do the thing at a high level, and teach the thing at a high level — I’m fortunate). There’s just no substitute for experience, and doing it under the watchful eye of a mentor.

Still, certifications have a place. What I think is more important is to keep your binder of certificates growing. Kathy encourages this too: continuing education. I also am fortunate to have a mentor that acknowledges he doesn’t have all the answers and is willing to continually improve. Karl continues to attend classes himself and seek out training from other instructors. He encourages us to get better and grow. Granted, I haven’t done much to travel to other instructors, due in part to time and money, but as well, Karl brings some of the best instructors here: Tom Givens, Claude Werner, Caleb Causey, SouthNarc, amongst others (Ben Stoeger’s coming in 2013)… so if they’re coming here, great! I’ll finally be taking Rangemaster’s Instructor Certification course in 2013.

But what you must remember is, like Kathy points out, certifications usually just take a weekend to get.

I know what it takes to get NRA Instructor Basic Pistol certification — folks, it’s not much. I could probably take any KR Training Basic Pistol 2 graduate and get them their certification (ok, perhaps stretching it… but not by much). This isn’t to be a slight on the certification because it’s quite valuable and useful, but just realize that because someone has a piece of paper doesn’t mean they know what’s what. Just because someone is certified by Texas DPS to be a CHL Instructor doesn’t mean they actually know anything about shooting (and hitting the target).

It’s important for (prospective) students to look at the whole of the Instructor:

  • Who are they?
  • Do they put their name on their website? A picture isn’t needed, but is useful.
  • What credentials do they have?
    • Being ex- law enforcement or ex- military doesn’t mean they know how to shoot, or how to work things in a civilian context
  • Who have they trained with?
  • Are they still training? When was the last time they took a training course, and with whom?
  • Do they do other shooting activities, like IPSC/USPSA, IDPA, 3-Gun, or other competition? Hunt?
  • What’s their approach and attitude? If you Google search them, what are others saying about them? How does the instructor present themselves online?

And yes… shop around. There’s lots of people wanting to join the bandwagon. Just here in the Austin area there are more and more people setting up shop as firearms instructors, so look around and compare who and what’s available.

Kathy’s article contains a lot of wisdom for people wishing to be firearms instructors. I’d also say that it’s good guidance for (prospective) students about the sort of instructors you should seek.

 

Oh good, I can stop

/ hsoi

A bunch of “cardio” or “met-con” absolutely guts your strength progress, while getting stronger improves your work capacity all by itself. There’s time to do your conditioning work later – you’re not going to die immediately, and if you do, nobody will talk about your shitty 5-mile time. The very programs that should be preparing young guys to be more useful are instead making them very good at running away, and that’s about all.

I, of course, realize that my recommendation goes against the conventional wisdom regarding physical preparation for the sports and jobs typically (and incorrectly) regarded as endurance-based.

Running 26.2 miles in under 3 hours is an endurance activity, without doubt. It requires specialized preparation, and strength training is detrimental to high-level marathon training.

But twenty six 5.5-minute miles represents an extremely specialized activity, the epitome of endurance, the performance of which has absolutely no bearing on the ability to do anything else, and the training for which actually decreases physical capacity for other activities – just like the specialization for powerlifting in the elite levels of the heavier weight classes in the weirder federations that don’t judge depth anymore.

Marathon competition itself is highly catabolic and has an exceptionally high mortality risk. Half-marathons are much less dangerous, as of course are 5 mile runs. But running at any distance produces no strength adaptation, while strength training improves the sedentary person’s ability to run and do everything else, too. So a rational person would regard strength training as the more beneficial activity.

But we don’t. We – meaning we recipients and promoters of the conventional wisdom – regard endurance activity as exercise and strength training as something to “sculpt lean muscle” and soothe vanity.

So sayeth Mark Rippetoe, that “Conditioning is a Sham“.

Frankly, I hate specific conditioning. I hate walking/running/jogging. I might tolerate hill sprints if I had a decent hill nearby… maybe. I haven’t been dragging my tire sled because the only time I can drag is early mornings when the neighborhood is asleep and yes I prefer to be a considerate neighbor and not wake everyone up with my weird behavior. So my solution has been to squat faster, decrease my rest periods during my assistance work, more reps, and squat more. So far, so good. And while I don’t want to use Rip’s article as a way to justify not doing specific conditioning, at least I feel a little relieved to read it. That if I just keep focused on getting up to a baseline like he recommends (e.g. 1.75x bodyweight squat, 0.75x bodyweight press, 2.0x bodyweight deadlift) well… that should be my focus, instead of spreading myself thin. Focus.

2012-12-12 training log

/ hsoi

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 15, week 4

  • Deload – Deadlift (working max: 345#)
    • 2x5x140
    • 2x5x185
    • 2x5x225
  • Asst. #1 – Pullthroughs
    • 3 x 15 x 130
  • Foam Rolling

Keep deload deload. I did some light deadlifts. I added the Fat Gripz at first, but boy… that was taxing! After the 2nd set at 185 I removed them — didn’t want to risk dropping the bar. I did make sure to grip like hell and hold at the top, to give my grip a little extra workout here. Kept rest periods to about a minute between sets. And just did some pullthroughs to round things off. I did follow with a bunch of foam rolling and static stretching of my hamstrings — I really lost a lot of flexibility here, and that’s bad.

But, just keep things light and basic.

I also had some further thoughts about my training. So much of the reading I’ve been is very specific to improving at powerlifting. There’s wisdom to be learned from that training, but it’s not what I’m after. I’m after general strength improvement. I have “Starting Strength” in my reading room and was flipping through the past few days… happened to re-read some stuff about deadlift mechanics, used that today (e.g. “break at the knees first”), but Rip is kinda about general strength improvements, not really specific to any one sport or goal other than just getting stronger because if you’re stronger, you can just a lot more of just about anything. That’s been my general approach, but that clarity faded a bit because I’ve been reading so many other things. So re-reading Rip’s stuff helped bring that back into focus and yes… just onwards to getting stronger.

Reaction times

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

If you have to defend yourself, typically that means you are reacting.

That means you are behind the curve.

You have to perceive what’s going on, process what’s going on, figure out what to do, and then do it. That takes time. At best it may take only a second or two, but that’s still time. Every second can be critical.

I saw this posting at Fark about an F1 driver and his reflexes.

Here’s the video:

Watch how quickly things unfold, how quickly he reacts, and how quickly everything could have gone south. Of course, this is why he’s Dino Zamparelli and one of the top F1 drivers — and you’re not.

In the Fark discussion thread, Farker sat1va wrote:

That was pretty damn great. I left collision reconstruction about 4 years ago but the latest on perception-response when I last applied it was anywhere from 1.0 to 2.5 seconds depending upon the circumstances. Perception-response is the time it takes to identify a hazard, decide upon a reaction, and execute the reaction with your body. The circumstances make all the difference for this time and removing any element such as knowing you just need to brake or push a button will lower that time. For example if you’re driving in heavy city traffic (lots of visual noise) through a green light intersection and a vehicle enters from your left (unexpected hazard approaching from a high eccentricity) you’ll tend to have closer to the 2.5 second perception reaction time before you begin to steer or brake. On the flip side if you’re bombing down a sparsely populated rural tertiary highway (low visual noise) and an oncoming vehicle crosses the centre-line (low eccentricity) you’ll probably be closer to 1.0-1.5 secs. Clearly this driver was on his toes driving down the wet low visibility track, and we don’t know if he was fed any information on a yellow flag up ahead, but either way his reaction time was either spectacular or had a dash of fluke in it.

So consider that: 1.0 to 2.5 seconds to react. Look at all that unfolded within a second or two in that video. Look at how much can happen in such a short period of time. Consider in this racing context it’s a pretty controlled context and there’s a small set of possible situations and responses to have to deal with, so you can trim down your reaction time.

Now back out to a violent attack. How many variables could we have to deal with? How much will our brain have to flip through a mental rolodex to find what to do? And will it find anything?  Considering the greater number of possible situations and then possible reactions (because “shooting him” isn’t going to be and can’t be the only answer), consider then how this affects your reaction time. Chances are, your reaction is going to be slow. Yes every situation is different, and yes people are different. But let’s just back up and look at the general concepts and its a fairly good risk of being slow.

This is where force-on-force training can be useful, because your brain can find a problem and solution to an already experienced event, instead of now having to invent one on the fly. You get put into real and typical scenarios, you then reacted. Maybe you did it wrong or did it right, but either way after the scenario is done, there’s a briefing to discuss, and you will ingrain the lessons. The more FoF you do, the more you’ll learn. The more you’ll come up with game plans, and then you can just act instead of having to wing it.

It’s also why formal training with reputable schools is important. These are people that have studied what it takes to stay alive in a deadly force confrontation. They have worked for formalize methods of teaching so they can imbue reactions in their students that are appropriate. For example, when we get into classes like Defensive Pistol Skills 1, we don’t just tell you to “draw” or “shoot” or “fire”. We yell “GUN!!!!!” as your indicator for when you should be drawing your gun and shooting. Why? It’s attempting to replicate what your brain is going to be saying. Some dude pulls a gun on you and you’re not going to ask him out for tea! No, your brain is going to be going “HOLY SHIT! HE’S GOT A GUN!!! GUN!! GUN!!!”, so it’s about ingraining that reaction to that stimulus.  And then, your reaction times can decrease because you don’t lock up wondering what to do next, you can get to action.

I don’t know how much credence to put into sat1va’s numbers, but the principle remains. Shit happens, we’re behind the curve, and it takes time for us to perceive, process, devise a plan, and execute the plan (OODA loop). Anything you can do to tighten up your OODA loop works in your favor.

2012-12-10 training log

/ hsoi

First deload week in a while.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 15, week 4

  • Deload – Squat (working max: 280#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 2x5x115
    • 2x5x140
    • 2x5x170
  • Asst. #1 – Good Mornings
    • 3 x 12 x 95
  • Deload – Bench Press (working max: 220#)
    • 3x5x45 (warmup)
    • 2x5x95
    • 2x5x110
    • 2x5x135
  • Asst. #2 – Chin-ups, band assist
    • 3 x 7/5/4 x BW
  • Pump superset
    • Flat Bench DB Flies
    • JM Press
    • Hammer Cheat Curls, with Fat Gripz
    • 3 sets, 8-15 reps, enough weight to make it hard; on 3rd set immediately drop weight and keep going to failure

To make the cycle weeks even on 3x a week, deload week couples up 1 day. I just opted to compress the first two together, so that’s squat and bench. I just winged it… did the warm-up weights for 2 sets each, picked a relevant assistance exercise and worked but didn’t kill myself, and finished off with a little extra upper body work. No stripped sets, just a little work. It’s deload.

I did work on my form in everything I did. Bench felt a little better, tho it feels stranger with the straighter wrist. My right shoulder continues to be weird to me, and I swear that it’s hanging exercises that are killing me… like chins, the hanging leg raises, and so on. But I also think improving my bench form will help, because today, my shoulder felt the best it has while benching… lower on the stomach, greater elbow tuck. So we’ll see how it goes.

I also worked with my foot positioning. While having my felt out and flat is certainly more comfortable and natural, I found it a lot harder to keep tight throughout the set. Having my feet tucked way back in towards my head was awkward as hell, but I was able to maintain a much tighter form throughout. So, I think I’m going to just keep working with the tuck and get used to it.

Oh, and the Fat Gripz? Man, that made the hammer curls harder. But I want that forearm work, that grip work. Not only helps my deadlift and such, but carryover into my pistol shooting too. 🙂

Sunday Metal Extra – Wrathchild America

/ hsoi

Old VA/DC/MD favorite, Wrathchild America, live at Hammerjacks… doing their version of “I Ain’t Drunk (I’m just drinkin’)”

So much awesome. Their shows were always a huge party.