Whenever I’ve given thought to the “if” of being put in threat of life or limb I’ve always figured I’d just wing it. I’ve done some concealed carry/shooting from retention but the whole “getting to your gun” thing was something that I had not trained for, and we all fall back on our training as there are no deus ex machina/exceed your abilities/heart of the card/supersaiyan BS (kudos to the other nerds in here) when bad stuff happens. Given the opportunity to take a class with someone who teaches this stuff for a living and has actually used it throughout their profession was a no brainer.
Saturday started off chilly at C2, some clouds and rain here and there but we lucked out for the most part. The first 3.5hrs of the day had us shooting drills and evos similar to Hans’ Concealed Carry class, starting off with seeing where all of us were with regards to handling our pistols, being accountable for our shots, drawing from concealment, conducting reloads and ended off with a small competition. I beat Bob! But Mike G got the better of me, so I was first loser anyway.
After a short talk on lights and cleaning up brass Hans turned us over to Mike Duke. Duke started off with a talk about possible threat indicators, distance (or the lack of respect for distance) being a big takeaway for myself as I’ve let randoms come awfully close to me especially at work (my thought being who would mess with the UPS guy? …) and situational awareness really being king. We were lucky in that 3 or 4 of the students in the class also trained with Duke so having the extra reps with these guys and getting extra one on one time was pretty awesome. Duke and one of his minions (Petey I believe) would demonstrate and we’d go pair up and try not to beat each other up too much. We worked with someone just getting a tad too close and creating distance, a strike (mantra being that any block/deflect should be able to counter either a fist or a blade) controlling your attacker or creating space to draw your weapon. A SIRT pistol here is great. I know I’ve forgotten things already as it was truly information overload for me. Both Hans and Duke are great instructors and I’m looking forward to whatever they team up for in the future.