2013 PDN Training Tour: Update #12

I am here in Utah. I am at the "Salvo indoor gun range". This is actually relatively new range. They opened up in November, pretty good timing for them. I'm sure they had a very busy first few months of operation and they are well stocked and some of the locals that came out here, we put it up on Facebook.

I was gonna come out tonight while I was here doing some business meetings, just North of salt Lake city. And this place is very cool. So I think we're in Leighton technically and I was having some meetings nearby in Clearfield and obviously the good news, the exciting thing is the PDN tour is back from hiatus. So I always take some time during 4th of July. And we went back to Columbus, Ohio where I own...

Well co-owner of "Endeavor Defense and Fitness". And we actually ran the "Extreme close quarters tactics" course there. That's the course that we've been running... I started running that course as one of the first formal programs I really started running. And originally running it with SWAT teams.

That was a long time ago and that course evolved through some military customers that we had. 2004 to 2007 we did a lot of work with the military, continued on and in 2009, 2010. And eventually we turned that into a civilian course. And what that does, we started teaching it to civilians about 2004, combining unarmed combatives along with the context shooting. So it's really got about four different blocks.

We talk about striking in close quarters, we talk about grappling, in close quarters obviously, we talk about firearms retention and then we talk about actually doing the contact shooting and then we run scenarios. So we added the first instructor development for that this time. So we actually have four instructor candidates that took part in the course. Have taken part in the courses end users before. And that's kind of the only time we're gonna be running that particular course on the "personal offense network" tour.

And now I'm back here in Utah, picking the PDN tour truck back up and we are going to be continuing to head West into Washington and Oregon. But first this weekend I'll be at the Industry Masters. What I... why am I standing at a range? Why do I have hearing production on?

Obviously we're gonna do some shooting. For those of you who have been following me on Facebook the Springfield XDS nine millimeter. I got to shoot two magazines through it at Media day at SHOT Show. I got to shoot another person's, just a few rounds through it. And this one I've actually owned for, I don't know probably six or seven weeks now, but of course I bought it in out of state and had it shipped back to my FFL.

While I was on my 4th of July break, I went home, picked it up, got it from my local dealer there Black Wing Shooting Center and here we are. This is the first shots I'm gonna put out of it. Now of course, I'm only gonna shoot a few magazines out of it here today. The reality is, you know, I never trust a gun until I've put about 200 or so rounds through it. And then I've run 50 rounds of carry ammunition through it.

So we're not quite to the point where we're thinking about carrying the XDS yet but I'm... I've been anxious to shoot my own copy of it. I'm gonna put some rounds into the queue target. Hopefully it's going to function and feel good and we'll continue testing as we. So far so good.

No malfunctions, three mags, the gunlock opened every time, the mags dropped free every time, mags went in, gun racked that's what we're looking for right now. First rounds I put through a gun I always just wanna make sure it's reliable. Next thing I'm gonna be working on and seeing how that trigger actually feels. I'll check sight alignment, sight picture and make sure point of aim and point of impact, all that kind of stuff. And then ultimately once I've had that first couple of hundred rounds through I'll start running the carry ammunition through it.

I'll put the Winchester PDX one in and then we'll see what happens. So we're back out on the tour. You'll get some updates, still coming, we've got a Firearms Academy, Seattle I'm gonna be out there. We've got... I'm going to be working with Next Level Training up in Washington State.

Again, I'll give you an update from the Shooting Industry Masters. It's great to be back out on the tour. It's great to be here at the Salvo Indoor Gun Range. Great to be shooting my XDS. And here comes some video and some commentary from the "Extreme close quarters tactics course".

It is one of the most physically demanding courses that exist in the training industry. Check it out. I'd love to see you at it some point in the future. I just went through the "Extreme close quarter tactics" instructor development course. We brought Pincus and Krav Maga in fitness.

And I have to tell you guys it was an incredible experience. I have quite a bit of experience in combative force and force training, scenario building and so on. And I think that most people in the industry most people that wanna look for training are not really aware of how important it is to train outside of your comfort zone. This class premise is that you are really defending your gun or fighting to access your gun, within ones reach. Hey my name's Ashlyn, I was taking the "Extreme close quarters tactics" class mainly to learn about pistol retention.

I'm a person... I don't like to carry something unless I know that I'm gonna be able to hang on to. My background in combatives is "sikal", which is a combination of Indonesian Silat and Kali. So I'm more from blade stick background. So it was a very different angle.

So good learning, good learning experience. I would say I would recommend the class to just about anybody, whether you're a complete beginner you can start from the beginning and work through and get, you know a lot of information by the end of the day or if you're know what you're doing you still find a lot of weaknesses and holes going through. So I think overall it's good for just about anybody. A lot of people focus on awareness, a lot of people focused on preparedness, you know. I'm gonna be aware for sure, I'm gonna be prepared I train.

That works as long as you're in control. Awareness, tactics, that intellectual knowledge that you get from reading books taking classes and so on is a cognitive knowledge, you know. We use... It's stored in the cognitive part of the brain. When we were startled, when we were taken by surprise the brain, the amygdala bypass the cognitive brain to react instinctively to the stimulus, right?

So now it's really important to be able to experience that, to be able to experience being overwhelmed. To be able to experience being taken by surprise and not having the intellectual tools, the plan if you will, to put in action, but having to react naturally and intuitively with your body's natural reaction and really fight, dig deep until you can prevail. The important part is that whatever you learn during a scenario, during a "force and force evolution" you're learning under extreme stress. And the more important the skill is to your survival the least amount of reps you need to own that skills. And this really comes to the forefront when we do the defense.

I came to this class because I'm a concealed carrier permit holder and I carry a gun all the time. And it seemed like a major hole in what I knew how to do was deal with people better as close as this camera is right now to me and yeah, I liked it. I think it was... it was productive. I learned a lot, I learned a lot of stuff that I sort of had imagined would work when thinking about dealing with someone who's close, that doesn't and some things that...

Oh, for someone with a firearms background similar to mind I would strongly suggest taking this course. There's a lot of psychological and emotional content to actually being in contact with another person up close in your face. And a lot of the stuff that you can do really smoothly, really fast gets jammed up quick both by the psychological content and by a person physically being that close. The other thing that we've seen is that it also teaches implicitly about force continuum, right? We cannot tell the students that all the time you're gonna have to shoot the bad guy in order to stop him.

Because if you're fighting for your gun you're still using your combative. You're using elbows, knees, you're using whatever you find the wall to really try to stop the guy to gain time, space to reach for your weapon, right? Once you reach for your weapon and the guy's unconscious you can not shoot him, right? You can maintain control of the guy. You can give verbal commands.

At the same time, if the guy's coming to you with a knife and is lunging at you, you're gonna... And you go for your gun first, you're gonna get stabbed. So you need to learn to stop the attack. Clear the line of attack, control the arm limb, control the initiative and counter first with empty strike, empty hand strikes with combatives until you can have enough time again and space to go for your gun. Once you go for your gun, if the aggressor is still pressing the attack you can engage him with lethal force.

Otherwise you need to maintain control of yourself not just the situation, give him verbal commands and call 911 or do whatever is appropriate at that moment. So all of this really is brought to bear in the last evolution of the two days. Everybody, we have people with very varied background from military, to law enforcement, to firearms instructor, to Krav Maga instructors, everybody that goes through, they said at the beginning they had a plan. Okay, I know what the scenario is gonna be so I have a plan to take care of that. I know there's gonna be four or five bad guys.

I'm gonna have... I have my gun, I know how to use it and I'm gonna be taking care of this guy, the next and the next threat, right? So you're planning. Unfortunately, when the scenario starts, we really try to build it up in a way that will take you by surprise. They will overwhelm you.

In short, no matter the level of training that you have, if you take this class, you're gonna go past your level of comfort. You're gonna learn that even in the dire of situation you have it within yourself to keep fighting until you find a solution and to overcome...