I can’t imagine a better weekend for some hard training. In the days leading up to the class we had torrential rains bordering on flooding in some areas. Both days at the range were 70+ and sunny!
If anyone missed this class but would like to be notified about future training opportunities in Pittsburg, KS send an email to me at roger AT tailwindcyclists DOT com. Your email will only be used by me for notices when we host Todd and other pro instructors from time to time.
We had 10 shooters total. Originally the class filled up at 12 but two of the students had to bail due to family & work. Hopefully they can hit another AFHF elsewhere or hit Pittsburg the next time we host Todd.
Students ran the gamut from at or near retirement age to 24, backgrounds ranged from a few USPSA shooters, solid mindset civilians, military and at least one LEO who doubles as a local instructor. We had students from all over the Midwest and beyond with our youngest coming from Minnesota, another from Nebraska and the longest drive was from the NYC area (20 hours).
First off Todd was the consummate professional instructor and the class was everything I had hoped for. Todd’s explanations and demos were clear and concise. When he did a demo Todd would run it exactly as he described, varying his speed to match the accuracy requirements just as he expected us to do. The rare miss or flub on his part was handled with aplomb and self deprecating humor.
To keep us shooting fast and minimize student down time Todd has us split into two squads (squad 1 and squad alpha). That way while one squad is firing the other can be loading mags. It worked great and had the added benefit of keeping the student/instructor ratio at 5:1 so Todd could focus more attention on each student.
Safety was absolute and well controlled. Todd was clear on his requirements and was polite but rock hard in correcting any potential issues before they became a problem. We couldn’t have been clearer on his expectations and had no major issues.
Personally I was pushed hard and learned a lot. I’ve been shooting USPSA for almost 10 years and am just scraping the B level. I had no illusions of being the best shooter in class but was amazed at how much I learned!
Just a few of the many things I changed or improved significantly with Todd’s lessons; grip & stance were the biggies followed by a much improved draw. I have a long way to go but the press out noticeably sped up my accurate first shot time from the draw which was especially noticed on the low probability targets.
I went from a 12+ second FAST on day one to 7.04 at the end of day two. I keep thinking of ways I could have done something faster to get under 7 but the reality is that was everything I had to give at that time.
I’m gonna drill the fundamentals until my hair hurts because I saw and felt in one weekend how much I improved when I did what Todd was teaching.
I look forward to inviting Todd back in the future for more quality training.
On to the photos & videos…
Todd showing proper reload technique with a field stripped Glock frame for safety when facing the crowd.
Grant, JTHhapkido, Ben & Ken working the reloads
Yours truly slapping leather
Ben giving a great example of the press out. He was the “kid” in the class and from what I saw did the best job out of all of us putting Todd’s lessons into practice.
More photos & videos can be seen at photobucket. If I have time tomorrow I’ll try to throw a few more up.