Taking my 14 yr old daughter to a Pistol Class: CLASS REVIEW Everyday Pistol Keene NH

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Everyday Pistol
August 24, 2019, Keene, NH
Start time 8 am

-- CLASS REVIEW, AAR --
This is a two-day class, we only attended day one​

Instructor: Brian A. Sayers
Weather: Beautiful sunny/partly cloudy 75°ish (57° at 0700- 68° at 1900)
Location: Cheshire County Shooting Sports Education Foundation


Read my daughters (14 yr old) AAR of this class: 14 year old girl's AAR: First pistol fighting class "Everyday Pistol" Keen NH 8-24-19

This AAR will be not a full detail of the class as I have taken this class twice before and written detailed class reviews and specifics of the class. Read my previous AARs:
CLASS REVIEW- AAR- EVERYDAY PISTOL JUNE 29 & 30, KEENE NH

CLASS REVIEW: EVERYDAY PISTOL, 3R OPERATIONS, INC. JUNE 15 & 16, 2019- KEENE NH

We have a rule: what happens on the range stays on the range and cannot be held against each other after the class. Normal swearing rules are lifted for the day. Anything that is not allowed at home cannot be discussed with other family members. After the class is over, normal house rules go back into effect.

I took my 14-year-old daughter Kate to this class. She has gone to the range with me several times over the years as she was growing up. She started with 22 rifles moved to a 22 revolver and then for the past year she has been shooting the Smith & Wesson Shield EZ 380 as her strength was low and had trouble racking the slide of a 9mm pistol. I replaced her EZ380 standard sights with some yellow/green Big Dots, got her a total of 9 magazines, cut down one of my gun belts to fit her tiny frame, she was psyched to attend a class. She always was the most interested in hearing every detail from my training classes when I came back from a class. She would take notes, watch the videos and do dry practice 3-4 times a week with me. She had taken a tactical medical class and a Dr. William April class with me she was ready for a pistol fighting class.

As her dad, I had some apprehension with her going into the class, I knew the class material well, I knew the instructor well, she had a private lesson with another awesome instructor (shout-out to Ben DeWalt of OnSight Firearms Training) that gave her the confidence and competence to attend this “A BIG BOY/GIRL/TRANS/CISGENDER…BIG WHATEVER… CLASS”. I knew the instructor's policy was if you shared or swapped DNA with someone you could not shoot next to them. That concerned me, I wanted to keep an eye on her. This was serious shit we were doing, she absolutely had the possibility of shooting herself or someone else, I am still her daddy.

I was also a little weary about bringing her into my training life. This was “my place” where I could be me and not her daddy. Would I be ruining this for me? Could I still be myself and still have an awesome time training? be corrected in front of the class? f***-up majorly? All these things were going through my mind.

We showed up an hour early to set up our gear, canopy, chairs, coolers, etc... Mike (the President of the club and a FRIGGIN’ awesome dude) let us in the gate and tossed our gear in his truck so we would not have to walk it up to our range. He gave me a hug, told me he was in the class as well and was really excited to meet Kate. He was so nice, polite, friendly, to Kate and I will ALWAYS be super grateful for that. ALWAYS!

As the other students & the instructor, Brian arrived each was truly happy to meet Kate and engaged her in conversations. Kate and a student Connie instantly hit it off with their love of the TV show Gotham, they both had a crush on Cobblepot (both loves birds, I guess?) I have been to a few of Brian’s classes and know he personally vets the students before signing them up, I knew they would all be cool dudes and dudettes. He always has the nicest people taking his classes. I have never met one jerk, stuck-up wannabee, or even slightly arrogant person in any of his classes I have attended. This group was no different. An awesome bunch of folks.

After the medical, safety brief we had instruction on drawing and how to shoot the pistol. We got on the line, I was three people down from Kate. We all had loaded guns and she was WAY out of my control...my apprehension went up! The first few shots I could see on her target and they were not as good as she’d want. Brian keeps on telling the class, “..he did not care about the marksmanship this was a gun manipulation and gun fighting class..” BUT I KNOW MY DAUGHTER, anything but perfection was going to be a problem in her mind. Brian worked with her, and I could see that she was anticipating the recoil and she had trigger control issues. Brian would have her line up the sights and he would pull the trigger….dead f***ing center each time. We went through some more shots and I could not see what he was doing with her from my position in the line. I fought the urge to run over and get involved, it was super hard.

The next few drills I noticed her shots were MUCH better on her target when Brian sent us back to recharge our mags and hydrate our body, he called me over. He handed me the EZ380 and asked if I had a Glock 19 with me. I noticed she had been shooting his Glock 19 for the past few iterations. Hmmm, She was not able to rack the slide at home of my Glock 19, interesting. I went into my bag a got my G19 but he did not want her to shoot it as it has an RMR on it. He gave her his G19 and his IWB and told me to load 5 of my G19 mags up with ammo, she was going to run his Glock 19 for the remainder of the class. I thought…HUH? How’s that going to work? I said YES SIR as I trusted him as an instructor to know what is best for her. I told him I had a Glock 48 single stack for her small hands in my bag, but he wanted her to run his 19 for the class. Roger That Sir! I said.

I watched her target and it was improving, I was trying to watch her change mags and racking the slide, it wasn’t pretty, but she was getting it done. The class was made of a few other students having similar results on their targets to hers so her target did not look too out of place on the line. My tension seemed to be going away, I started to get back into the game and remember why I was there to sharpen my defensive pistol skills and have some fun.

Brian told me I had to recharge all of her magazines all day, she needed to keep her strength for the shooting part (sexist PIG!). She called me her loading bitch….and I was.

She did great, much better than I expected. Brian and the other students were so supportive of her that a few times I found myself a little tearful with pride. Thank you all for being so kind to her!

She rocked out all the drills like a friggin’ BOSS, John Wick would have been proud to call her a teammate, I sure was. GO TEAM WATCH!

She followed Brian’s directions well, She was not looking down at her holster when re-holstering, she kept her support hand right where it needed to be during the draw. She handled the ground fighting, the shooting on the move, closeup retention shooting, the one-handed shooting well, it certainly did not look like this was her first class. When dummy rounds found their way into the chamber she did not look at the gun…she MOVED, tapped, racked and got back on the front sight. One of the benefits to her learning to shoot as young as she had was she was taught trigger reset and follow-through from day one. That’s all she has ever known or done, so those skills were not an issue.

The last drill we went one person at a time so there was a little more pressure on her with everyone watching. It was the end of a long day (I woke her at 0415 to drive up) and she was tired and sore (we all were) she did fantastic moving forward, backward, side to side all while firing accurate heart shots into the bad guy, fixing malfunctions, bringing the magazine up to the gun before ejecting the empty one, scanning and topping off (FAST, Wyatt Protocol) Never taking her eyes off the bad guy.

A BIG thank you Instructor Brian!

She had a grin and would not stop talking about what a GREAT time she had all the way home. Now I have to buy a G19 for her. She wants her own (and she’ll get it!) I now have a training buddy for life. #GAMEON!
##

3R OPERATIONS INC.
Instructor Brian A. Sayers
Phone: (518) 929-4818
Email: [email protected]

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