Saturday May 7, 2016 was a different day at KR Training. In the morning was the “Pocket Gun Class” and in the afternoon was Skill Builder. I say different because these are two classes we don’t run often, but they are so important.

Why don’t we run them more often? People don’t want to come out for these classes, and we’re honestly mystified as to why.

The Pocket Gun Class is that class for all those little guns that no one admits to carrying yet you all do. The little snub revolver, or the micro semi-auto that you throw in your pocket to run to the mailbox or the grocery story. The smaller gun that you carry because it’s a hot Texas summer and you don’t want to strap on your “heater” with the tank-top and flip-flops attire du jour.

I guess you think that if you can do it with your big gun you can do it with your small gun?

Not necessarily.

And this class was a perfect example.

Note: don’t take the following as picking on students. It’s more that the results of class were a perfect illustration of the importance of this class. I know from speaking with these student afterwards they were thankful for taking the class because it was exactly the eye-opening “get this sorted out before it’s truly relevant in my life” experience they needed.

Skills may not translate

So you think that all guns are the same? That if you have skill here it will translate over there? That if I can shoot this gun, I’ll be able to shoot that gun just as well?

Well, perhaps.

The closer the two platforms are to each other, the more things will translate. So for instance, if you were shooting a Glock 17 then switched to another Glock 17, chances are you’ll shoot just the same. If you switched to a Glock 19, you’d probably shoot just the same. A 17 and 19 aren’t 100% alike, but close enough that skills will transfer. Switch to a Glock 26 and chances are you’ll shoot pretty close, but there’s more difference between the 26 and the 17 that some issues will creep in.

Now let’s try a more radical difference. We had this in class: a student shooting a snub-nose revolver. So a very small gun (and he had very big, meaty hands), with a long, very-heavy trigger pull. Plus, snubs like this have a different “point of aim” to them. Then he switched to his normal gun: a proper 1911. So this very large frame, a short and sweet trigger pull, and that “natural point of aim” 1911’s are so famed for. You can’t get more different in the two platforms than this, and it manifested itself in the student’s performance. In fact, towards the end of class we shoot the “3 Seconds or Less” drill with the pocket gun, then shoot it again with your normal carry gun, and every student sees marked differences – generally how much better they are with a full-sized gun. Is that because of the gun itself? or because they just don’t practice enough with the small gun? Either way.

There was another difference manifest in this experience. That sudden switching was difficult! Another student was shooting a snub revolver, and I don’t recall what his normal carry was (I think a M&P9), but when he switched from the snub to the normal  he was yanking the trigger terribly because he had been used to this long, heavy-trigger and his body was still expecting to have to shoot that way.

With another student, he was working with a Ruger LC9, then switched to his normal which was an M&P9c. The difference was dramatic. He has the skills, he can certainly shoot. But that long, heavy, trigger press on the Ruger he was working so hard to overcome every time that was slapping the trigger to a high degree. Switch back to his M&P and he was shooting great.

So what are some take homes?

To me, this is one reason I gave up on carrying a snub as a back-up gun or even as a “small gun” when I needed a small gun. When the platforms are too different, I don’t find advantage. There’s no question different tools can have different advantages (and disadvantages): there’s certainly things that a snub revolver can do that the smaller semi-autos just cannot. But trying to switch between my primary M&P9 and a S&W 442 as a backup? It just grew to have more problems than benefits. Instead, I opted that when I need a smaller gun, pick something of similar setup: like an M&P Shield.

So that whole Glock 17/19/26/43 setup works really well. You can have the different sizes, and the skill transfer between them is pretty close. You still need to work with the different sizes because it’s not a perfect 1-to-1 transfer, but it’s a LOT better than wider swings like a 1911 to a J-frame.

Another take home? Long, heavy, trigger presses suck. What advantage do you gain from them?

Another? The more the dohickies, the more complicated the machine is to operate, the more you must practice – and ensure you put manipulation of the dohickies into your practice. If it’s too annoying to always manipulate in practice, then that’s a clue.

Methods

I particularly enjoyed this instance of class because we had a variety of carry methods. We had fanny packs, appendix holster, pocket carry, a SmartCarry/Thunderwear, ankle rig. There’s all sorts of “non-traditional” methods out there.

Stupid me forgot to bring some of my usuals, like my Maxpedition bag or my ITS Tactical messenger bag.

Bottom line: practice with it.

This is one of those things that you can most certainly do in dry-fire practice — and you should. Work these methods. Work on accessing your gun from them, because generally they are slower methods or methods with a higher chance of fumble.

Case in point: for giggles I carried my NAA Guardian .32 ACP in a pocket holster for this class. The particular shorts I was wearing have very deep pockets and a very wide pocket mouth, but the way the pants then ride the pocket mouth “closes” very tight against the body, which makes drawing a “fist” out of the pocket a little difficult. Every pair of shorts is different (unless you only wear one brand of clothing, I guess). If you are going to pocket carry, make sure every day when you get dressed you do a dozen dry reps drawing from that pocket to make sure it will work (else maybe change shorts, or buy new ones, or get these tailored, etc.).

Skills

Blending into the afternoon Skill Builder class, we transition from talking about gear to talking about skills. I don’t always talk gear so much, but so much of what the “small gun” class is about is the gear. But in Skill Builder, it’s all about you. 🙂

We had a good group of students, progressing really well. As a result, Karl went a little “off script” and taught some extra things – you weren’t there, so you missed out on these extra gems. 😉

One take home from me dovetailed well into my own practice from a few days ago: Going Faster.

There’s the old Ball-And-Dummy drill that everyone knows about. Well, Karl uses a variantion from the Rogers School where you set up a magazine: live-dummy 5x. When you shoot you should shoot the live then immediately shoot the dummy. Yes, you know the dummy is there – but it doesn’t matter. See, when you do other flavors of the drill, far too often you start to game it (I was doing this a bunch a few days ago), you start to anticipate, and you do more of a disservice to yourself. With this, believe me: the problems will come out. You will be forced to do better. But the better thing here is to move “at speed” into that second shot. As I watched Karl explain, as I watched the students execute I was like “Man, this is exactly the drill I need right now”. So this will move into my live-fire practice. It will help you get faster, it will help you flinch and slap less.

For the students in class: that 3M Drill? You can read about it here.

Other

All in all, a good day. Classes were small, which was a bummer because these are two classes well worth taking. But it wound up benefitting the students because class could run a little faster and we certainly took advantage of that working in extra things where we could.

Weather was great. It’s warming up to Texas summer now – wear sunscreen, drink water, eat well, take care of yourself.

Afterwards, Karl and I spent a little time looking at my M&P Shield. I’m honestly still not 100% sure if it’s a PEBKAC issue or a mechanical issue, and if there’s still actually a problem or not. But given what Karl and I did yesterday we’re both starting to lean towards: no, the gun has been fixed, but this is just the level of accuracy you’re going to get. We did drift the sights a little bit, which helped with a few things. But even shooting Karl’s Shield well… we are starting to lean towards these are just “combat accurate” to use a slight eye-rolling term. Jury’s still out, I still want to do more work with it to really see what’s what and if I’m willing to entrust to this particular gun or not.

But bottom line: I was outside, enjoying a wonderful day, with a good  group of people.

Life is good.

To the students: thank you all for coming out and spending your day with us. We’ll see you again soon. 🙂

 

Practice Time

I wanted to run just a few live-fire drills today as a diagnostic. So I picked 2 challenging ones that fit the bill for diagnostic: the 3M Test, and the Rangemaster Handgun Core Skills Test. Yes, both from Rangemaster. I didn’t pick them because of that, they’re just good diagnostics. And I’ve never shot the Core Skills Test before, so I figured this should be good.

I did have to modify the drills slightly: using and IDPA target because that’s what was available. When i in doubt, I scored harder.

3M Test

I started with this cold. Scored 114, which is good but not great. I shot it a few more times and my score averaged into the 140-150 range, which was much better. But I had some obvious problems.

First, I had a hardware problem. This mag pouch is just not working for me. In order to have enough retention on the mag, it makes it difficult to withdraw the magazine. If I make it easy to withdraw, there’s no retention. I know it’s something with this specific pouch because others in the past have not had this problem. In this case, my pouch broke, I ordered a new one from Comp-Tac, it wasn’t done right so it was sent back. I am not sure if they made a new one or just tried to bend/fix this one, but I got it back and it’s been this way. Again, this is not what I’ve typically experienced from Comp-Tac. I’ll figure something out.

Second, I do need to work on my reloads. This was a combination hardware and software problem. On the hardware side, I’m shooting a different M&P9 (my primary is in the shop), and this one doesn’t like to auto-forward as much. I’ve gotten used to the auto-forward and I think too used to it, because I find myself slamming the mag home and going right back to shooting – but now the slide is still locked back. Dang it — so that’s a fumble to get things going again. Also, during the Kathy Jackson class a little bit ago, I had multiple times when it did auto-forward but did NOT strip a round! I’m back to my old feeling that this auto-forward is a bug and not a feature (if it’s not 100% then there’s a bug somewhere). So I found myself fumbling my reloads because of the hardware issues. BUT really it’s straight-up me because I really should never have gotten used to the auto-forward and just always racked the slide. Even if it meant a round on the ground, meh. This is really reinforcing in me that I need to fix that, and just get better on my reloads.

Speaking of, another problem I had was gaming the drill. I found myself anticipating the malfunction a few times and thus I stuttered and added a second or two onto my time. Stupid. I need to just be in the drill, be in the moment, and let what happens happens.

Third, I just need to go faster. I can go faster and still get acceptable hits, but my brain is so wired towards accuracy first. Towards the end I shot the 3M a few more times and just pushed myself hard. Yes I had a couple shots outside the circle, but I really need to push myself more. I can do more, and I just have to really drill that into my head.

Anyways, this was good. Big takehomes: fix my gear, work on my reloads, be in the moment, allow myself to be faster.

Core Skills Test

Again, this was a first time shooting it. It’s not necessarily a tough drill, but because it’s scored Comstock it is tough — if you want a good score. You need to be fast, but you also need to be accurate.

I found myself holding back on this as well — didn’t want to miss, but I also know I can pick up the pace. I scored an 80, which is at the bottom edge of the “very good” range. Again, I know I was going slower than I could have, plus on the longer distances I dropped a couple outside the -0 ring. Honestly, I’m not sure how the official scoring on that would be, if it’d still be 5 points but I counted those as 3. Regardless, my score is “very good” but that’s still not good enough.

My take-homes from here are about the same as everything else I need to work on: getting faster on my draw and time to first shot (which wasn’t bad, just can still be improved), weak-hand, and working at longer distances (15 yards and up).

One thing that I think I’m going to have to do? Less dry fire. Well, not really that, but more live fire. Sure, there’s stuff to work on in dry fire that will help me, but I think I just need more live fire work to really fix some of the problems I’m working through. My brain knows the difference between dry and live and I need it to allow me to do in live what I can do in dry.

Overall

So, it’s about the same old same old for me.

The weather was great. It was good to get out and shoot a bit. And I’ve got more homework to do. 🙂

Some kind words from Kathy Jackson about myself and Karl.

Thank you, Kathy. I look forward to the future.

 

Always be learning.

From April 22-25, 2016, KR Training hosted Kathy Jackson of The Cornered Cat and her Instructor Development Course. From the course description:

During this four-day course that includes both classroom and range time, we will focus on teaching defensive handgun skills to adult students. With personalized instruction designed to help you become a better teacher, our lecture and discussion subjects will include firearms safety, emergency protocols, classroom management, principles of adult learning, gendered learning styles and classroom dynamics, developing student confidence, legal considerations for use of force, instructor liability, writing and documenting course materials, effective coaching, and holster/carry method selection. Range work includes left- and right-handed manipulations with semi-auto pistols and revolvers, developing student accuracy, teaching trigger control, demonstrating techniques, developing your range presence, giving effective voice commands, observational safety skills, malfunction clearances, teaching drawstroke, working with instructional teams and assistants, diagnosing and solving shooting problems, and sight or vision issues.

Although we will enjoy many shooting activities during this class and will coach each other to shoot better, please be aware that we will primarily focus on teaching skills development, not shooting skills development. You will have an opportunity to assess your own shooting skills against several objective standards, which will give you some idea of where to focus your efforts for personal growth. If you find that your current shooting abilities are not up to standard, that’s a subject you can and should address in classes designed specifically to improve the skills you need to improve.

Come prepared to teach and learn during our time together.

It was a long but fun and fruitful 4 days.

Background

While Karl Rehn is certainly mentor #1 for me, I would say Kathy Jackson is one of my earliest influences. When I was first getting serious with firearms, I found Kathy’s website and read just about everything she wrote. Still to this day I find her work on “Kids & Guns” to be the best resource on the topic, and always refer folks to that series of articles.

I don’t recall how Kathy and I first crossed paths, but I do have a comment here on my website from her from back in 2009, so at least since then (Kathy and I talked about it and we believe it was even earlier but… whatever). So we’ve known of each other for some time; she’s linked to my blog numerous times and I hers, and we’ve conversed online from time to time. But it wasn’t until this weekend we finally got to meet.

I will confess one reason for attending was just to finally meet her. In fact, I was the impetus for this class. I had read about Kathy’s first time offering this class (either Tam’s or Melody’s), and around the same time Karl and us other KRT instructors were talking future class schedule. I mentioned Kathy’s class to Karl one morning and by lunch time they had come to agreement. Huzzah! 🙂 So of course I had to attend.

Some have asked me why I’d want to attend this class. What would I expect to get out of it?

Learning.

Improvement.

Growth.

The older I get, the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know and how much more there is to learn. Given my background, I didn’t expect everything that Kathy taught to be a novel realization for me, but I knew there’d be something. Her training and lineage is different from mine (tho with some overlaps), her approach and attitude are different. And I know that even hearing about things I already know, I’ll hear about it from a different perspective. I know some new light will be shed, I know something will expand and grow. I know I will come out better than I went in.

Achievement unlocked.

General Stuff

Class was small. There was Kathy, her assistants Don and Tina, then 8 students. Three of the students were male (myself, Karl, one other), and five were female. I knew half of the students, the other half I met for the first time. While I had hoped for a sold-out class, I was happy for the smaller class which meant an improved teacher-to-student ratio. Weather was good, facilities were in order, and away we went.

Classes were generally 9-to-5 each day, and we worked through lunch. I appreciated the timing because with the KRT facility being where it is, having that drive in and out every day adds to the total time investment, plus it wears on you. Running a sharp 9-to-5 instead of an 8 until we run long and maybe get out of there whenever we do, was appreciated. Right there is a key factor in a good instructor: classroom time management, and Kathy ran things well.

After introductions and generalities to get up and running, class officially began.

Course Focus

Usually I break down my AAR’s by day, but this time I don’t want to do that because it doesn’t do the course justice.

What did we talk about? A lot of things.

Some of the class was presented in the context of a basic/introductory firearms familiarization class. As Kathy said, then we’re “pulling the sheet rock” off the wall to actually see the wiring, the pipes, and other “behind the scenes” things that are necessary to make such a class go. The learning then had 3 facets:

1. You learn how to have such a class. How to have an introductory class, what to talk about, drills to do, and other things to allow you to formulate your own such class.
2. You learn how to run such a class. You learn how to run the line, keep it safe, keep it orderly. How to present (e.g. tell, show, do, feedback).
3. And here’s the subtle one: you learn by watching how Kathy actually runs her own class. You have to remember that we’re here in a class ourselves, that Kathy is teaching it, so pay attention to the things she’s doing to run this class itself! There are things you can pick up.

Consequence? A lot of information.

While of course we had trigger time, this was not a class about guns, about learning to shoot. The fact we shot guns was merely a necessary thing  because that’s the topic realm in which we are teaching. This is a course about becoming a better instructor.

You learn how to run a classroom. You learn how to run the range.

But most of all? You learn about people.

I think that’s what really sets this class apart from other classes I’ve taken. Other classes primarily focus on the nuts-and-bolts. While we certainly received a lot of nuts-and-bolts discussion here, a lot of time was spent on people. On developing our people skills, on being able to work with our students as people. I know that seems like a “DUH” thing, but honestly I see it so much in this industry and in others where “those in charge” and “those teaching” seem to forget their audience/students are people – with needs, emotions, baggage, and differences.

If our goal is to improve our students, then we have to connect with them. We have to have their respect, their trust, and their personal interests in mind.

Kathy threw out a quote from Massad Ayoob (and hopefully I recorded it correctly):

Sooner or later every instructor realizes students don’t come to you for competence, but for confidence.

Sure, competence is what we might be teaching, but confidence is what we want people to leave with. You need people skills, you need to remember and work with your students as people.

And like it or don’t, men and women are different in this regard. Yes, sweeping generality, but go around the block enough times and no matter what modern culture wants to espouse, even underlying their commentary is acknowledgement that men and women are (generally) different. Kathy’s material is not exclusively woman oriented, but she does bring up women topics. Some of the topics work to address everyone regardless of gender. Some topics may touch on how one gender may respond and adjustments that can be made or sensitivities that can be taken. Others are flat out gender-specific. For example, we finished Monday with a great discussion of holsters and other carry equipment, and without a doubt there were female-specific solutions discussed. I saw some products I hadn’t seen before, and I must admit that some are pretty darn cool.

I think the main problem with this class? It’s a lot of information. 🙂  Rough problem to have I know. It’s just the reality of things: that there’s lots of topics to cover, and only so much time to do so. I think Kathy did a great job getting to important topics, ensuring the “must do” topics were covered, but there’s no question people wanted to continue to dig deeper on many topics. In a way, that’s ok — always leave them wanting more. I think what will help is post-class supporting materials, be it discussion groups, reading materials, etc.. One thing that’s great about Kathy is it’s evident she herself is a student, and is always learning, always trying to improve.

Personal Take-Homes

While I don’t have a resumé like Karl or Kathy or Massad Ayoob or Tom Givens or John Farnam, I’ve got some things under my belt. Consequently, a good portion of what Kathy talked about was stuff I already knew. BUT! I consider that to be a very good thing! What it does is it provides affirmation and reinforcement about what we know. Kathy’s background is different than mine, and while our lineages and circles overlap, they are different. When you find people from different areas coming to the same conclusions as you, that speaks strongly to the validity of those conclusions.

For example, over the years I’ve been frustrated at how we “teach stance”. I think it takes too long, becomes too complicated of a process. So I started to think about a simpler, easier way to do it. What I landed upon was a runner’s stance. Not getting down into the starting blocks, but “Imagine you and I were going to have a quick little race down to the end of the hallway – when I say “on your mark”, get your body into the position you’d take to start the race”. And everyone does what you’d think, which is precisely the stance we want people to be in. It works great! It makes it simple, it makes it relatable, student’s don’t think they have something new to learn because this builds upon what they already know. There’s so many good things about this approach. So when Kathy started teaching stance (how to teach stance), I couldn’t help but smile when she used the exact same approach!

But of course, there were a lot of new things I learned. The most obvious is some aspects of working with women. I’m very proud of the fact KR Training has a lot of female students: we aren’t some high-speed-low-drag #OperatorAsFuck school. We can do that stuff, but it’s not our image. We aren’t out to be intimidating (it’s just not good business). I’ve received numerous complements from female students about how comfortable they feel, how happy to are to have chosen us, etc.. Still, there just are things I hadn’t thought about.

For example, it’s good on the reholster to look the gun back into the holster. I admit, I never realized that some women cannot see their holsters because boobs are in the way. Solution? Just move the bodypart of the way (same holds for men and their guts). I know that seems like a small thing, but that’s life for me at this point: little refinements, little details, to continue honing my skills to an even finer point.

Another good thing I got was new perspectives on existing material. Take grip. We teach that thumbs-forward grip. Kathy teachings the crush grip (thumbs are curled, clamping down over them). We do use the crush grip, but typically as an alternative to the thumbs-forward when we see someone whose strong-hand thumb keeps gripping hard and pressing their weak-hand off the gun. Is it as ideal a grip? Long-term, no. But Kathy’s fresh perspective to me was that the crush grip is easier for people to learn. Why? Because people understand crushing with their fingers/hand/grip — we all understand how to squeeze something in our fist. The thumbs forward grip does imply some additional muscular forces (e.g. use of pectorals). Me? I never really noticed because I’m pretty big and strong, but breaking down the mechanics in class, hearing Kathy’s perspective, made me realize that yes I can see how a crush grip may sometimes be the best and right grip to teach someone right out the chute (then teach them thumbs-forward down the line). There’s more to it than what I can convey in this write-up, but the larger point is I appreciate getting fresh perspectives on known material.

And this is why I like taking classes, even “beginner” classes from others: because I know there’s going to be something to learn. Even if it’s “everything I’ve heard before”, I know there will be something I can pick up and grow from.

One thing I need to work on? Being concise, especially in my range commands. For sure I can tighten up my delivery.

Fun Stuff

Class was tremendously fun. We had such a great group, so much laughter, so much cutting up.

Karl shot the class with an M&P Shield, left-handed the whole time. It was a challenge for him and he had some good take-homes from it.

During one part of the class we were working with revolvers. I had my S&W 640. I haven’t shot a revolver in… a very long time, and that gun in even longer. As we got on the line, Kathy was going to pull me off to have me work the line. Well, a fly had landed on my target and I joked “But I want to shoot the fly!” So OK, if I was going to be a smart-ass about it, they had me do it. In fact, they called the line such that only I made ready (and everyone else watched). I aimed, pressed off the shot, and got it. 🙂  I had no idea I did, because holdover — I couldn’t see the fly in order to aim properly to hit it (we were at 5 yards). And I haven’t shot that gun in ages, couldn’t remember where it’s precise holdover was at that range, with that ammo, etc..  So skill? Certainly, but a bit of luck as well. 🙂

 

Conclusion

I had a great time. 32 hours of instruction on becoming a better instructor. Am I a better instructor? Time will tell as I put the learning into practice.

I recommend this class for anyone seeking to become a better firearms instructor. Note the operative word: better. Anyone can become a firearms instructor, and a lot of people are content to just get their NRA Instructor certification or their state’s handgun license certification and call it done – that’ll be the extent of their education, forever. Alas, the consuming public doesn’t always know what makes for a good instructor, but that does seem to be changing. The more we can have an informed consumer base, the better things will be for everyone. Continuing education is important, and that includes how you can become better at the job you do.

Again, what I appreciate about this class is it’s not just a nuts-and-bolts class, but one that’s big on people skills. You just don’t find (enough of) that in other places, but it’s so key to running a successful program.

Kathy kept going on about how she’s not the best marketer in the world. Maybe so, but I can tell you one thing I noticed about her was her tremendous people skills and insights into people. She groks people. She has a keen insight into human nature and adult education. You have to not only look at the things she’s directly teaching, but look at how she herself operates: how she talks with you, the other students, how she conducts herself. Yes she’s very real and very human, and so of course things weren’t perfect. But even from those things she handles herself well and there’s learning to be had. I appreciated finally getting to meet her after all these years, that we got to spend 4 days (and even a wonderful dinner) together, and that I can now officially call her one of my instructors. I look forward to what else I can learn from her, and I hope you too can have a chance to learn from her.