I have an opportunity to take an AK course by Mr. Gomez.
I don’t know much about him other than what is on his bio.
I am put off a bit by who he has associated himself with.
But this by no means speaks about his knowledge and skills as an instructor.
I also noted that this AK course is a relatively low round count course.
Unlike the Tactical Response courses offered around my area.
I shy away from these ,(TR), courses.
Can any members who have trained with Mr. Gomez and also trained under other instructors give me a little insight about him.
I also wish to thank the moderator who took the time to answer some of my questions.
Paul Gomez is a good guy and a good friend, and a very knowledgeable and capable instructor.
He is no longer associated with Tactical Response.
One of Gomez’ classes which is very good is one where you do about 40% of your shooting 2-handed, while the rest is divided between strong hand only and weak hand only–skills that most people don’t spend enough time on. I believe it is his Robust Pistol Manipulation class.
His AK class is very good. I’ve taken it twice.
PM me with an email address & I will send you a copy of an article I wrote for SWAT about Paul Gomez’s AK class.
But I don’t know that I’d let that keep me away from a class I was interested in. Maybe it’s a case of he’s a better teacher than he is a judge of character.
Oh, for God sakes. Paul Gomez very briefly taught a few classes jointly with Gabe Suarez and I believe Sonny Puzikas in the 2005-2006 timeframe (I don’t remember precisely the year).
I am certainly not a fan of Gabe Suarez or Tactical Response.
I appreciate the article Ed.
Interesting thing about the manipulation of the safety reaching under the carbine using the support hand.
I’ve never seen this.
Looks like I will be selling a range toy to fund this class.
It’s in 6 weeks.
In the meantime, anyone with additional information and experiences I encourage you to post about them in this thread.
Gomez is a great instructor. I’ve taken two pistol classes, his 2-day AK, and a med class with him. His classes do tend to lean more to learning and less to shooting. That said I’ve never been bored at his classes, nor felt like I didn’t send enough rounds downrange. I also like the fact that every technique he teaches is supplemented by experience and solid logic. Nothing is done because it looks cool or helps sell a product.
Simply put, I do not miss a Gomez class when he’s in town.
I agree. Fact is a lot of the material covered just doesn’t require a lot of rounds. Weapon handling, malfunction clearances, reloads, etc take up the better part of a day to learn and become proficient with. It’s not as “fun” as throwing rounds downrange, but it’s damn important stuff.
I will admit I am still cursing Gomez for his last drill of day 2…weak side only shooting from the ground, kneeling and and standing. It’s been almost a year and I’m STILL sore.
Paul is GTG. I took a class from him several years ago, and am planning on taking another this year.
The thing I really like about Paul is he is very analytical and tends to have excellent logic to backup the “why’s” behind the techniques he teaches and what he recommends. He also has a knack for knowing the history behind a lot of things, how they came to be, why things have changed, etc. Although I don’t always agree with some of the techniques he chooses, I really can’t find any fault with the logic he uses to come to those conclusions, and I have adopted many of the same techniques for myself as well as teaching students because they just make sense.
Paul is very big about mastering the mechanical operation of whatever firearm you’re using, as well as being able to manipulate it in less than perfect (wounded) conditions.
Can’t think of anything else to say off hand. Regardless of the previous associations, Paul is a good guy and IMO not at all a “cult of personality” type like some of those he’s done work with in the past.
Concur. As a matter of fact Paul is the reason I am teaching open enrollment classes, because he badgered me for three years non stop to hang out a shingle and was on the road with me for every single class I did in '04 and '05. To be even more clear he set up the first eight or nine classes I did because I didn’t know shit about the “private sector”.
So he’s also been “associated” with me. And Bill Davison at TacPro.
As to his POI, Paul has a reason for every single thing he does. You may not agree with it, but he definitely will give you the whys of his TTPs.
But I don’t really care if Suarez was the best man at his wedding. The OP is the one that had reservations about Gomez due to his “associations.” Someone asked what those associations were.
SN vouching for him ought to be enough for anyone.
