Course Reviews for the trainers- considered by neshooters

[JimConway]

Tom Givens Combative Pistol 1

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Originally posted on Warriortalk by
Paul Gomez
Chief Instructor
Options for Personal Security



Over the weekend of 21/22 May, I had the pleasure of hosting renown instructor Tom Givens for his Combative Pistol 1 class in lovely Baton Rouge, Louisiana.



In addition to being a roadshow instructor, Tom is the proprietor of the state of the art indoor range facility in Memphis known as Rangemaster [www.rangemaster.com].



I’ve known Tom for a number of years and have wanted to train with him for quite awhile. Unfortunately, life has gotten in the way each time that I have planned to attend one of his classes. Thankfully, it worked out this time and I was able to attend.



Throughout the weekend, Tom continually returned the focus
of the class to the need to accept and cultivate a fighting mindset. He did this in several different ways.

Tom started with a bit about his background and then proceeded into a discussion of defensive shooting technique.



Prior to livefire, Tom showed us the Dinkeller video after which, we discussed the ramifications of his actions on his survival. Following that, we watched an interview with Lance Thomas and discussed the same topics. To say that it was a study in contrasts is a major understatement. This helped set the mental stage for the livefire work that was to follow.

Watching Tom shoot, his Modern Technique background is obvious and his arms still maintain a Weaver-like structure, however that is where the similarities end. He urges you to maintain a fighting platform that allows Stability, Mobility and Flexibility. He also advises that your platform should allow you to maintain balance and that it should be
aggressive [with your nose forward of your toes]. Additionally he admonishes you to 'Drive the gun, don't hang onto the gun.'

He utilizes a 360-degree grip, but prefers a 'flying thumbs' grip a la Farnam over the 'thumbs forward grip' that is my preference.



He encourages the shooter to use an 'acceptable sight picture' dictated by time [closer &/or larger target requires less time to get adequate hits...]

Trigger control, trigger reset, Non-standard responses of 3 to 5 rounds were all addressed on Saturday.

After working the skills of Presentation etc, Tom introduced the Speed Reload as his core reload technique.



Tom utilizes a series of 50 round courses of fire throughout the class to track student competency with various techniques.



During one of these COF, shot from concealment, I had somewhere around 20 failures to fire due to a box of very substandard ammunition from a Mississippi reloader who sells to the local law enforcement community. To say I was a “Tap, Rackin’ S.O.B.” would be a grave understatement.



On Sunday morning, after shooting the Q-COF cold, Tom gave an extremely detailed presentation on the “Miami Massacre”. The “lessons learned” available from this incident are profound on many levels.



The class was very well organized and I managed to shoot approximately 1100 rounds over two days. This was do-able only because Tom runs the range in two relays. One group is on line working while the other is stuffing magazines. The timing is such that as soon as you are done firing, the next group is ready and so there is no downtime for the entire class to be loading. Given how rarely I get to shoot anymore, I greatly appreciated the opportunity to put so many rounds downrange.




Some interesting comments from Tom:

The purpose of Combative Pistol 1 is to teach the basic skills involved in fighting with a handgun.

"Secondary Skills" means that you are statistically less likely to need the skill, not that the skill is less important.

The difference between the novice and the expert is the ability to execute the same skills well, quickly and on demand.

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Tom's Combative Pistol class is very solid. The mindset component for the private citizen is unmatched. The drills are challenging. The techniques taught are a comphrensive blend with a surprising degree of overlap with those that I teach. This class was very worthwhile and if you have the opportunity to train with Tom Givens, take it.
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[JimConway]

Report: Tatical Handgun 101 with Randy Cain (long)
Originally appeared on the 1911forum
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Along with 15 other guys and two women, earlier today I finished up three days with Randy Cain in Lakeland, Florida for his Tactical Handgun 101 course. Brief synopsis (I'm a little too tired for much else) of my impresssions follows.

Randy Cain is a personable, plain-spoken teacher with a wry sense of humor, a gifted eye for detail, and a laser-like focus on the basics of good shooting. He told us up front what his focus was, and stuck to it throughout, winding up the class with the same simple instructions to us that he gave us for our first shots on Monday morning: "Put three rounds into the target, into the same bullet hole" (nobody did it on Monday, of course, but a number of us had single, large holes today - a tribute to his emphasis on marksmanship fundamentals, what I'll call the building block leg of the combat triad).

I had been told by a fellow student at the 4 day Front Sight DH course in March (my only other formal non-military training) that Randy Cain was a superb diagnostician, and my buddy was right. He was everywhere up and down our line, helping (in his own inimitable way) those of us who showed a propensity for "whacking the trigger," or losing contact with the trigger in recoil/trigger reset. Randy sees stuff that most of us have been missing for years - we get to see the improvements when we make the fixes.

Something Randy puts a great deal of empahasis on was something completely new to me - shooting on the move. When he told us Monday morning we'd be taking headshots on the move by Monday evening, most of us (the rookies) were skeptical (the returning students knew he wasn't kidding).

Although we executed the standard failure drills of two to the body and one to the head, Randy also encouraged us to shoot our own, un-programmed non-standard response drills.

We began on standard IDPA targets, then went on to shooting Randy's own camo silhouettes, with tiny anatomic details and scoring rings that you can't see unless you're right on top of them. His use on the second day of three-dimensional targets gave added insight into the challenges of shooting targets that are at angles, instead of perfectly perpendicular to our line of sight/fire. He talks a lot about the differences between shooting stationary, perpendicular, flat paper targets on a range from a comfortable, standing position, and what happens in real gunfights. He also puts some of these differences into play by introducing strong-hand-only shooting, weak hand shooting, movement (combined with shooting) and engaging a target that is bobbing and weaving under his puppet-like control.

He's a demanding teacher, too. Putting shots into the general thoracic cavity isn't nearly good enough for Randy. Until you're well back on the range, or shooting blindingly fast pairs on the last day, he expects (OK, let's be frank - he demands) that you place your shots into an area that can be roughly covered with a fist. But just as I saw my other class in March step up to the task of drawing from concealment and engaging targets at speeds that seemed initially impossible, I also watched as our collective shooting under Randy's tutelage got closer to the teacher's demanding requirements.

Our class had some returning students from South Florida who could flat shoot lights out, and one of Randy's points was that it's good to take a 101 level course more than once - it sure didn't hurt these guys any, and I plan to return late this year. One of the women in the class, a veteran of many such high quality classes, could dust most of us with the quality of her shooting (and I'm talking speed AND accuracy, fellas). You could tell from some of the initial looks that this petite, pleasant lady got that expectations were low, but she let her shooting do the talking, and that cleared things up real fast. Watfa was an inspiration to many of us, and a delightful classmate, to boot.

As a special footnote, one of the students in our class was Benjamin Salas, the senior training specialist for Operational Skills Group, who also teaches classes with Randy from time to time. Some of our break time was filled with Ben's informal demonstrations of weapon retention and disarming techniques (full disclosure: Ben was only reluctantly dragged into doing this by a few members in the class that knew him previously - he's one of the most unassuming and gracious gentlemen I've ever met). It's hard to believe that such a nice man of good physical condition (but by all outward appearances, not a Superman) can move with such blinding speed and economy of motion to overwhelm an opponent before the BG's even fully aware of what just happened. This microscopic taste was enough to pique my interest for some of the classes that he and Steve Tarani offer.

 

[JimConway]

More on Louis Awerbuck

This material is from Louis Awerbuck's web site

Yavapai Firearms Academy is a Mobile Training Unit providing training that encompasses Gunhandling, Marksmanship and Tactics - the three elements of surviving a deadly force confrontation.

Lead Instructor Louis Awerbuck served in 1 Special Services Battalion in the South African Defence Force, and is a member of the National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA), the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors (IALEFI), and the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA) . He was employed at the original Gunsite Ranch as Chief Rangemaster until 1987, attaining the title of Shooting Master, and was formerly a Rangemaster for the current Gunsite Academy, Inc.

With three decades of instructional experience, Louis has been a contributory adjunct instructor to the Marine Corps Security Force Bn Atlantic combat smallarms program and an adjunct firearms/tactics instructor for the Central Training Academy, Department of Energy. He has trained extensively in the police and civilian firearms field, and has instructed military personnel from various United States bases, including Special Forces units.

Awerbuck has authored four books, "The Defensive Shotgun", "Hit or Myth", "Tactical Reality", and "More Tactical Reality", co-produced three videos including "The Combat Shotgun", "Only Hits Count", and "Safe at Home", and is Tactical Consultant and a contributing author to SWAT magazine.