I am now (almost*) a certified instructor in NRA Personal Protection Outside the Home (PPOTH). In short, this is the NRA’s course for teaching private citizens how to draw a handgun from a concealed holster and use it as a last resort for self-defense.

I spent Valentine’s Day weekend working on this certification, because I love what I do and I do this for those that I love. It was long and intensive – 33 hours of training in 3 days. First we take the actual PPOTH course (14 hours), then we learn how to teach the course (19 hours). It was taught by Wendell Joost and Dave Burdett, hosted at KR Training.

The stated course goal:

To develop in students the knowledge, skills, and attitude essential for avoiding dangerous confrontations and for the safe, effective, responsible, and ethical use of a concealed pistol for self-defnse outside the home.

Students are expected to already know fundamentals of marksmanship and personal defense, as NRA Personal Protection Inside the Home is a prerequisite (there is also a pre-test that can be administered to waive this requirement). PPOTH provides important foundational material such as how to select proper equipment; proper mindset for concealed carry; dealing with the physical, mental, emotional, and legal aspects of concealed carry; and fundamental shooting skills for the context. The shooting skills build from the basics of drawing from a holster, to shooting multiple targets, use of cover, different shooting positions (e.g. kneeling, squatting, turning, basic movement). Even drawing from other carry methods like a holster purse. Yes… nothing like 12 guys struggling on the firing line not with how to shoot, but with how to carry and use a purse. 🙂  But it’s good because as instructors we can encounter students that don’t fit our personal mold, e.g. a right-handed semi-auto shooter. We could have a lefty shooting a revolver (note: 99% of revolvers are right-hand biased, and not very lefty friendly), we could have a woman who wishes to carry in her purse. We need to know how to work with these things.

Overall, the material in the PPOTH course is pretty good; we were pleasantly surprised. The material is nothing groundbreaking and isn’t on the cutting edge of carry techniques (e.g. it doesn’t mention the “cheek index” flashlight technique, which is de rigueur these days), but overall what’s presented and how it’s presented is quite solid. Yes, we came to learn and understand lots of “design by committee” and internal politics that went into producing this course, so I’d have to give it a B+ rating. There are a few little nits, printing errors, and stuff  you can easily overlook and forgive. There are some inconsistencies, e.g. some shooting exercises reuse the “ready” command to mean two different things, so it’s best for any prospective instructor to reconcile the instructor manual and the range drill manual AND also run through everything outside of a class and add your own notes to ensure typos and omissions don’t catch you.

One thing that really bugged me was how during instruction they say:

You should never search and assess with an empty gun. Always reload before scanning and assessing the area. (Instructor manual, page V-15)

But then all the range commands during the shooting drills have you scan then reload. The instructor manual does attempt to excuse it by saying “However, for training purposes, when you exhaust your ammunition on the last shot of an exercise, do not reload before scanning and assessing.” (V-15) But this is bad! Page II-3 of the Instructor manual says:

The way you train is the way you will react under stress. This is why you will train to develop proper habits, such as immediately seeking cover.

I agree. You will fight the way you train. I recall a story of a police officer that was killed in the line of duty. The way the police department gun range operated, you shot your revolver, then you could not drop the empty cases onto the floor: you had to dump them into your hand, put them into your pocket, then reload. Well, this officer was in the field, got into a gunfight, and was killed. When the officer was found, he had empty cases in his hand because he was fighting like he trained: wasting time with range administrative nonsense instead of getting his gun and himself back into the fight. I don’t know exactly why the NRA chose to say one thing then train another – that’s bad. They should be training that if your gun runs dry, immediately get it back into action. The gun should be ready for action before you scan. If this class is out to introduce people to concepts, if this is the first time students could be learning such concepts, then we should be setting them up for success in everything we do and teach. We should be carving those initial neural pathways with the 100% right way to do things, not cluttering them up with administrative nonsense that won’t serve to help them.

I am making a big deal out of that one because it stood out to me, but that is just one. On the whole, NRA PPOTH is a good course and is generally full of good material. Material that, with a good instructor that cares enough to make the right corrections and spit-and-polish where needed, can make PPOTH into a very good course for teaching these concepts. I find PPOTH is a good introduction to all the factors that come into play when it comes to concealed carry. Couple that, at least here in Texas, with the Texas CHL course, tests, and requirements, and someone who wishes to carry a concealed handgun should have a good start on things. I say start because I highly encourage people to seek greater, deeper, and continuing education. Obtaining your CHL is just the beginning and should open the gate for more education.

One other thing I got out of the weekend? I’m embarrassingly out of practice. 😦 I know why… the job change has me down, stress, and so on. It’s no excuse, but it is why. But I am wanting to use it as motivation to not just get more practice, but to ensure I get out and shoot more because yes, it’ll be a stress reliever. The weather appears to be improving here too (the 3 class days had perfect weather), so maybe that means soon I can be back at the reloading bench getting to work on my .223 loads… but I digress. That said, I did spend most of the weekend shooting my snub revolver, and that was fun. 🙂

I’d like to thank Karl Rehn for hosting the event. I’d also like to thank Dave Burdett for coming down from College Station, and Wendell Joost for coming out from Seattle. It was a pleasure to meet and work with both of them, and I’m sure we’ll continue to cross paths in the future. It was cool to finally meet Dave Re, and we got to talking about a project to do together (stay tuned). And finally, I’d like to give thanks to Tom Hogel, for being my snubbie brother this weekend and always being there to bust my chops. 🙂

(*almost – just a matter of paperwork and processing; all the heavy lifting is complete)

Updated: Dave Re, another student in the class, posted to his blog about his experience.