Training for those with reduced abilities

Training Training and Tactics
1

I changed the title to avoid confusion with the NRA’s Refuse to be a Victim program. That is a very good program, but it fills a different niche than I’m asking about in this thread.

There is very little in the public discussion about the citizen limited by injury, illness or age and creeping decrepitude, who is willing to use a firearm to avoid being an soft target. My desired focus is on properly using both long arms and hand guns for personal defense in the home and for self defense in public. Weight and recoil are factors since strength and age are inversely proportional. Cost is not a major consideration.

Other than Bruce Eimer (a different Bruce, not me), who I read in CC magazine, are there any authors and trainers offering specific guidance to this target group?

2

The NRA.

3

“The NRA”

Thank you SryOfcr: I’m looking for something more than the NRA’s 4-hour personal safety seminar, please.

Edit: my original post appeared to be asking specifically about the NRA’s Refuse to be a Victim program. I edited my original post to clarify my question.

4

Let me offer what I found and suggest that there is a potentially large customer set of aging baby boomers (with $$) begging for training and it looks like Bruce Eimer is the only game in town. Look at Dr. Eimers articles going back to 2004 on the CC web site. I’m not associated with him in any way, so I have nothing to gain by giving out his information.

https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/category/ccm-columns/armed-senior-citizen/

5

A decent trainer will have no problem working with a shooter with physical issues.
The final outcome of proficiency will not be as high as that of a spry 23 year old, but the fundamentals and the techniques used to accelerate the fundamentals use the body to it’s maximum base efficiency, which reduces raw strength as a major component of recoil reduction.

6

No offense, but I was serious about the personal safety seminar. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and shooting is shooting. The fundamentals don’t change because you get older.

7

I think the issues for the student are a combination of skill sets - knowing how to avoid having to shoot if at all possible, but knowing how to shoot when the situation requires it. At the risk of inviting a s**t storm, let me offer a few thoughts.

There’s an interesting dynamic that takes place in the training environment that relates directly to the skills of the training staff in relation to the students. It requires that the trainer fully understand the desires, needs, abilities and limitation of the students, and respond appropriately to their ability to absorb the materials and put them into practice. They have to understand their students’ abilities and limitations at a very deep level.

A little war story: when I was first getting into flexibility training to complement martial arts training I went to an introductory yoga class taught by a very skilled practitioner who happened to be a terrible teacher (and even poorer businessman). He had us do poses and movements totally inappropriate to our skill level that caused physical harm to several students. Nobody I know went back to him, and his studio eventually failed because he couldn’t get new students to sign up at the beginner level as he lost his advanced students through normal attrition. I don’t want to go through that experience again in firearms training. I don’t need some hard ass DI –wannabe whining about how I can’t kneel, squat, go prone, or run on command like a 25-year old (or even a healthy 50-year old) and how that defeats his wonderful training program. I am what I am and I am willing to pay for skilled training that fits me.

What I’m searching for is somebody who is educated in the biogerontology, medical gerontology and social gerontology of aging, and is able to apply that knowledge to the field of firearms tactics and training in the normal environments that a student like me would find himself (or herself) in, especially in the world of rifles. Maybe some of you noticed that the most recent box-o-truth talked about firearms for home defense, and concluded that the carbine/rifle was the most effective. What they didn’t say is that finding training for how to exploit that superiority is next to impossible to find.

Private training with the very best in the field (that have a few years of their own under their belt) is a possibility. Men like John Farnam and Mas Ayoob and women like Kay Miculek and her staff come to mind, but the cost can be prohibitive at that level. I notice that Bruce Eimer teams with these folks on occasion and maybe that’s the best option, but it sure would be nice to see more trainers in the mix.

This forum is regularly graced by the presence of the very best carbine/rifle trainers in the country. Surely someone can come up with a way to service my demographic. That line of business could add value to your business and may even become a significant profit center in the future if you’re good at it and get good word-of-mouth.

8

Bruce, to be completely frank, it’s not easy to fill a class with any specific demographic, and as such, unless you have several friends already lined up and in agreement that they will drop a random weekend and all venture off together to attend a class, it probably ain’t gonna happen. I’m not saying that to crush your training goals, just to say that attending a normal open-enrollment class shouldn’t be written off.

You also have the option of one on one/individual training. While the rate will generally be higher per hour for the individual student with a lower take-home for the instructor, it does allow for a very intimate and personal training experience. I don’t know if that is an option for you, but if you have performance anxiety, it is a good way to

I can’t speak for every other trainer out there, but I have absolutely no problem with a student for letting me know, “Kneeling ain’t gonna happen, and I am not running anywhere for anything, and I can’t see out of my left eye.” No problem. Do what you can do, and I will alter drills to your physical ability, and you can sit-out those drills that you are not up to.

I want you to come out a better shooter than you came in as, that’s my job, that’s what I am getting paid to do, as I see it. To me, that means understanding the individual and crafting the training to their needs, not trying to make them conform to something that doesn’t work for them. Those that try to emulate the prototypical Marine DI don’t last long in the training world (there is also a reason that DIs aren’t the ones that teach USMC recruits in entry-level marksmanship).

I have worked with men and women, the young and the elderly, those of world class physical condition and those that have been disabled by injury or age. I know that I am not unique in those experiences in the training world.

I think that you may need to be more selective of the instructor(s) to work with than the “average” shooter, but not at the cost of not training.

This is, of course, my opinon. Not knowing the extent of your impediment it is difficult to give much more than a general impression of the topic.

9

That’s a useful perspective on the real world of running a training business.
I will work to find someone in my area as flexible as you are about their students’ abilities and limitation.

10

I have a (very) little experience working with individuals with reduced abilities, specifically those in wheelchairs and veterans who carry the effects of their service. I agree it’s an under-served demographic simply because instructors work to teach as many people as they safely can and you can’t reliably put together a group of people with identical physical limitations.

Aside from what’s been mentioned, what I’ve experienced as a hurdle is when the gun-shop or internet forum or whoever recommends a particular model to an individual, they often don’t take into account his limitations and thus recommend whatever blaster they normally do to people who don’t have those challenges.

I had a student who was a very petite 60+ year old woman and there was no way she was going to be able to rack the slide of any of the 20 or so semiautomatics in our gun library. And the double-action trigger pull on the easier-to-load revolvers was a struggle as well. She finally settled on a .357 S&W with a 4+ inch barrel shooting .38 spl rounds. She could load it easily, a smith had done a great job on the trigger so she could handle the reduced DA pull if she had to, and the .38s didn’t hurt her any because of the mass of the gun.

These are the kinds of challenges more instructors will face as -like you mentioned- the baby boomer generation gets older. They still want to be proactive in their personal safety but they’re going to increasingly face difficulties.

I have gotten to work with two young gentlemen with Muscular Dystrophy. One, a cousin, has since passed away but both shared the difficulties of compromised dexterity. The only product I’ve seen that helps address this is the Constitution Arms Palm Pistol which I have yet to actually encounter in real life. But at least there’s somebody working toward a solution, no matter how limited.

You bring up very interesting points and I agree with F2S that probably the best bet is working one-on-one with someone who knows your specific challenges and has the software to structure your training accordingly.

-'bridge

11

HeadHunter, who is on this forum, has done some work on an “Old Man Gun”. Usually 22 handguns that can be manipulated by someone with decreased strength in their hands.