MDS
09-25-2011, 12:41 AM
This isn't a fully-fledged AAR. I don't have anything new to say about Randy that hasn't been said a bunch of times, and I don't have cool pictures to post. But it was such a valuable couple of classes for me, that when I couldn't find an AAR thread for Randy Cain on PFC, I felt I had to fix that. So:
Before this class, I'd had 8 hours of one-on-one with Frank Garcia at Universal Shooting Academy; 4 hours of low-light and target identification with TLG at the NRA range; and 4 hours of handgun fundamentals with SLG in Culpeper, VA. This was my first multi-day pistol-training experience.
The classes were held at Southern Exposure (http://www.southernexposuretraining.com/) in Lakeland, FL, a 45-minute drive from my brother's house. It was a beating to wake up at 6am in order to shower and make the 8am start time - made worse by the fact that my brother and I would stay up talking until all hours. I mention this because I guarantee I would have shot a lot better if I'd had more sleep. Also, my shoes were too tight.
I took the Handgun 101 class Friday-Sunday 9/16-9/18, and stayed Monday-Tuesday 9/19-9/20 for the Intro to Indoor Tactics class.
Handgun 101
As for describing the HG101 class, here's where I'm going to skim a lot. You can google "Handgun 101" (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22handgun+101%22+%22randy+cain%22) to read a lot about this class and see some videos and pictures. All I can add is just one more voice to the chorus:
The Four Rules deserve to be carved in stone and put on a pedestal... and at Southern Exposure they literally are.
Randy Cain is a phenomenal instructor.
Ending the day with a competition on the plate rack is fun!
Randy Cain speaks with a west-Tennessee accent.
Line up your sights, take up the slack, apply gradually increasing pressure, get a surprise break, don't anticipate recoil, reset the trigger, and follow through with the sights
Randy Cain will diagnose shooter issues - from minute problems causing 1" drift @ 10yds, to multiple simultaneous issues that are hard to see as separate problems.
Shooting prone pistol can be uncomfortable, but getting 2" groups @ 25yds is worth it.
Personally, I got a lot of little things to work on. The major things are my draw stroke and my follow-through. I've been thinking of a "combat grip" in terms of where my thumb should be before I begin pulling the gun out of the holster. I've realized that where I've been going wrong is in putting the heel of my hand in a consistent spot. The way he broke down the draw makes it easy to practice slow-and-perfect in dry-fire, rather than fast-and-sloppy as I have been. I fully expect to get major breakthroughs in my draw speed once I get back to doing it on the clock. Also, Randy really drove home how much I fail to follow through with my sights. I've been focusing my dry-fire trigger practice on front-sight focus, and I fully expect to get major breakthroughs in my accuracy once I get back on the range - especially accuracy at speed.
Intro to Indoor Tactics
The Intro to Indoor Tactics was something I took half for fun, and half for learning. The fun aspect was well fulfilled, and I got more learning out of it than I could have hoped. The shoot house is a work in progress, I feel like the class was definitely a beta. Nevertheless, Randy ran through the house with everyone individually, and everyone came out of each run with a very thoughtful look on his face as he considered all the different feedback Randy gave. My airsoft gun crapped out, so I shot my SIRT pistol through half of the six or seven dry runs. We also did two runs with simunitions - one just with targets, and one with a role player (who I shot in the throat instead of the face, because I didn't follow through with the shot!) And finally, we did one run with live fire.
The result was a whole lot of enlightenment. I'd never gone through a shoot-house before, and everything I learned about clearing buildings I learned from watching TV. For example, I went through the whole house in 45 seconds the first time around. By the end, I was taking 15+ minutes to work the same problem. I don't expect I'll be clearing buildings any time soon, but after a couple of days with Randy, I feel like I have a solid understanding of why it would be a suicide mission for me to try. I can immediately put what I learned to practical use to help make my home/office/etc more defensible. And having even just a rudimentary grasp of the basic concepts is valuable in many subtle ways - for example, explanations of cover hit home with more force in the context of a shoot house.
In Conclusion
All in all, I give it 10/10, as so many have before me. I plan to take training from as wide an array of respected instructors as I can. I have a feeling Randy's training will rank up there with the best of them.
Before this class, I'd had 8 hours of one-on-one with Frank Garcia at Universal Shooting Academy; 4 hours of low-light and target identification with TLG at the NRA range; and 4 hours of handgun fundamentals with SLG in Culpeper, VA. This was my first multi-day pistol-training experience.
The classes were held at Southern Exposure (http://www.southernexposuretraining.com/) in Lakeland, FL, a 45-minute drive from my brother's house. It was a beating to wake up at 6am in order to shower and make the 8am start time - made worse by the fact that my brother and I would stay up talking until all hours. I mention this because I guarantee I would have shot a lot better if I'd had more sleep. Also, my shoes were too tight.
I took the Handgun 101 class Friday-Sunday 9/16-9/18, and stayed Monday-Tuesday 9/19-9/20 for the Intro to Indoor Tactics class.
Handgun 101
As for describing the HG101 class, here's where I'm going to skim a lot. You can google "Handgun 101" (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22handgun+101%22+%22randy+cain%22) to read a lot about this class and see some videos and pictures. All I can add is just one more voice to the chorus:
The Four Rules deserve to be carved in stone and put on a pedestal... and at Southern Exposure they literally are.
Randy Cain is a phenomenal instructor.
Ending the day with a competition on the plate rack is fun!
Randy Cain speaks with a west-Tennessee accent.
Line up your sights, take up the slack, apply gradually increasing pressure, get a surprise break, don't anticipate recoil, reset the trigger, and follow through with the sights
Randy Cain will diagnose shooter issues - from minute problems causing 1" drift @ 10yds, to multiple simultaneous issues that are hard to see as separate problems.
Shooting prone pistol can be uncomfortable, but getting 2" groups @ 25yds is worth it.
Personally, I got a lot of little things to work on. The major things are my draw stroke and my follow-through. I've been thinking of a "combat grip" in terms of where my thumb should be before I begin pulling the gun out of the holster. I've realized that where I've been going wrong is in putting the heel of my hand in a consistent spot. The way he broke down the draw makes it easy to practice slow-and-perfect in dry-fire, rather than fast-and-sloppy as I have been. I fully expect to get major breakthroughs in my draw speed once I get back to doing it on the clock. Also, Randy really drove home how much I fail to follow through with my sights. I've been focusing my dry-fire trigger practice on front-sight focus, and I fully expect to get major breakthroughs in my accuracy once I get back on the range - especially accuracy at speed.
Intro to Indoor Tactics
The Intro to Indoor Tactics was something I took half for fun, and half for learning. The fun aspect was well fulfilled, and I got more learning out of it than I could have hoped. The shoot house is a work in progress, I feel like the class was definitely a beta. Nevertheless, Randy ran through the house with everyone individually, and everyone came out of each run with a very thoughtful look on his face as he considered all the different feedback Randy gave. My airsoft gun crapped out, so I shot my SIRT pistol through half of the six or seven dry runs. We also did two runs with simunitions - one just with targets, and one with a role player (who I shot in the throat instead of the face, because I didn't follow through with the shot!) And finally, we did one run with live fire.
The result was a whole lot of enlightenment. I'd never gone through a shoot-house before, and everything I learned about clearing buildings I learned from watching TV. For example, I went through the whole house in 45 seconds the first time around. By the end, I was taking 15+ minutes to work the same problem. I don't expect I'll be clearing buildings any time soon, but after a couple of days with Randy, I feel like I have a solid understanding of why it would be a suicide mission for me to try. I can immediately put what I learned to practical use to help make my home/office/etc more defensible. And having even just a rudimentary grasp of the basic concepts is valuable in many subtle ways - for example, explanations of cover hit home with more force in the context of a shoot house.
In Conclusion
All in all, I give it 10/10, as so many have before me. I plan to take training from as wide an array of respected instructors as I can. I have a feeling Randy's training will rank up there with the best of them.