2014 courses
August 18-22, Carbine/Subgun Instructor – Yakima
AUGUST 25-29, PISTOL INSTRUCTOR, Kent WA
Sept. 22-26, Basic SWAT School, Spokane WA
Oct. 20-21, Ballistic Shield User, Spokane WA
Nov 3-5, Tactical Carbine/SubGun, Union Gap, WA
Nov 6 & 7, Tactical Pistol, Union Gap, WA
Dec 1-3, SWAT Team Leader, Richland, WA.
My team has been busy as hell lately with callouts. I’m not complaining, I dig the work otherwise I wouldn’t be doing the job. I also attended a two day rifle/pistol class as a student and then the team had a week of training from an outside vendor.
During the weapon class the instructor was BS’ing during a loading break with the students. We were all talking about previous courses we had attended, quality of instruction, etc. Pretty typical. The instructor then chimes in that all that training from different dudes could be bad. It make you a “mutt” with no real skill in any specific system. I could not disagree more.
None of us is as smart as all of us. And since I can take the best from each guy, my “system” becomes the best. If I only went to one guy, then I start to parrot him, both good and bad. Since we are all shaped by our experiences, the more experiences I can get the better I will be in the martial arts. Now if he meant that I got to instructor A and adopt his stuff, then go to B and change to his stuff and so forth, I agree. But I dont do that, and neither should you. Keep what works for you from each guy and then make your own “system”. Other than that, it was a good gun class
The Hostage Rescue class I attended was interesting. A complete 180 of how I teach it and how my team conducts business. Obviously wont go into tactics here on the internet. I will say that I got very few tidbits out of the class, but I did get a few. What I did get was a higher level of tactical sophistication. I dont agree with the tactics, but I am glad I was exposed. It allows me to speak at a higher level of knowledge about why I teach it the way I do. If you know nothing about quantum physics, you simply cant join the conversation. Same is true with tactics. He was n’t teaching anything unsafe, it was just different. I had seen and heard his ideas before. He presented them slightly different. Mo overall tactical knowledge has improved even though we will not adopt anything he taught. Some of the guys on my team were pissed about the cost. I think it was cheap for the validation of our current tactics and increase in experiential knowledge. If I ever have a beer with the guy I can talk more intelligently about why his stuff sucked and our stuff is superior.
Please note that the Carbine/Subgun Instructor course dates have changed to AUGUST 18-22 in Yakima. I still have a few seats.