AAR: "Aim Fast, Hit Fast" - 3/31-4/1/2012 - Atlanta, GA
CLASS TITLE: "Aim Fast, Hit Fast"
INSTRUCTOR: Todd Louis Green (TLG) of Pistol-Training.com
HOST: Robert Wilson
RANGE: South River Gun Club, Covington, GA
DATES: 3/31-4/1/2012
STUDENTS: 15; (1) active .Mil, (14) civilians
WX TD1: Weather started nice and cool in the morning due to overcast conditions, with a light breeze now and then. Rain the night before kept the humidity up (which TLG complained about on the hour, each hour). Just about perfect. By mid-day the sun had baked off the clouds and we got warm, but no big deal.
WX TD2: Clear and warm. High in the afternoon was low 80's, so felt 90+ but it wasn't oppressive (yet- wait till July).
GEAR: I was the only non-Glock/M&P, and at that I was running an "ancient design" per TLG - a 1911. I was running a new custom build from Combat Precision. note: I've been waiting to receive the build for a while, and it wasn't going to be fully ready by classtime so the builder made me a deal where I could run the gun and break it in a bit, if I ran some prototype sights he's developing, and if I gave the gun back for him to finish all the cosmetics after the class finished. This new weapon will be my EDC and I definitely wanted to shoot it in the class, so it was a deal I was willing to make. Unfortunately I lost the brass bead for the front sight while Todd was standing over my shoulder watching me shoot a drill (of course it had to happen while he was watching, as if I hadn't caught enough grief about running a "low-cap, single stack" already... :) So I just ran black sights the rest of the weekend and honestly was just fine. The brass bead was a bit faster to acquire, but the lack of it didn't really negatively effect my performance in the class. If anything it helped to force me to slow down (well, sometimes to slow down). I ran this in a 5" Milt Sparks Versa Max 2 holster (one of the few IWB rigs in the class), paired with a quad mag pouch (OWB kydex) from Kolbeson Leather (Austin, TX) that was fantastic.
TD1: Started with a quick medical & safety orientation, the on to the range for a few quick warm-up drills and our first FASTest. There was no "Hello, My Name Is" nametags or personal introductions, and not even a nice aroma candle lighting or song for the group to sing as we got to know each other [inside joke] - we just started punching holes in paper. I was personally very excited to shoot the FASTest for the first time (ever) after having read about it on Pistol-Training.com for a good long while. I certainly didn't perform well, but it was fun to run and finally have a time to start doing benchmarks from. Only 2 folks ran it clean that first morning, and that's when I personally realized just how hard it was going to be to try and ring up a good time. It was a bit eye-opening. Especially after watching TLG run it. WOW, that was impressive. After the FASTest we ran a few more drills that set up the lecture....
Moved on to the main lecture mid-morning and Todd covered off on most of what he would be hammering home and honing in us the rest of the weekend. I won't rehash it here, because that's why YOU need to take the class. None the less, I was presented with an alternate way of doing a couple things, and I tried them all weekend and think they were helpful. I still need to practice the heck out of them to make them second nature (it's going to take a while to "unlearn" my old left hand grip posture and my shooting stance). I'm sure I'll see some progress by fall with enough repetition and practices. Now it was time to go put it all in to practice....
The rest of the drills were very well thought out and built one upon another with the end goal of faster AND more accurate hits. Progressively building speed, but maintaining the accuracy standard that Todd set early on. Todd was very attentive to safety (thank you for that!), and also to each students needs. He'd surely come verbally slap you around if you needed it, but I saw him just as many times get right up in somebody's face, then throw 'em a huge grin and tell 'em "Great job! You did it, now do it again and keep pushing yourself!" That was cool to see. Personally, he was helping me with my stance ( I kept squatting straight down as if I was trying to sit in a chair, versus leaning forward a bit and getting my chin out front - I'm surprised I didn't receive a swift kick to the rear to help keep my weight forward!). He also helped me tweak my grip with my weak hand a bit, which in conjunction with working on those press outs lead to the positive results I would see on TD2.
Finished the day with FASTest, and most everybody's raw time scores went down - but by time you accounted for ALL of the misses, most everybody had a worse score than the morning. Hmm.... :D
INSERT REQUISITE DINNER AT CHILI'S HERE (which was a great time- lots of laughs and fun stories from all around the table)
TD2: We jumped right in to some of my favorite drills of the whole weekend. Lots going on, but we did take time to slow it down and run the Dot Torture Drill. Wow, that surely beat a few of us up. I managed to squeak by with a 45 (never shot that drill before), so I was happy. GooberTim rocked with with a clean 50 though. Way to go Tim! After Dot Torture we continued with great drills all morning focusing on watching the front sight, press outs (which ate me alive), and reloads. Got some great tips about reloads and various procedures, some pro/con on different methodology that was very interesting. Went on to some multi-target work, again trying to push up the time pressure while maintaining a high accuracy standard - lots of hard work, but LOTS of fun too.
After lunch we focused on multi-target, WHO & SHO shooting, and shooting on the move and working on movement. Not so much technique per say, but on general thoughts about shooting while moving- and again Todd delivered with some great tips and refinements to what we all naturally did already - walk! We ran the barrel drill in the afternoon which was quite a challenge- especially for this civilian who never really has been put to the test of shooting, moving, and problem solving all at the same time. It was intense, but an absolute blast! I personally rattled off 15 rounds instead of the requisite 13 rounds, and the extra rounds dinged my accuracy badly. Dang. Oh well, still turned in a respectable time and learned a lot by putting some of the techniques we'd been working on for the last day and a half to good practice.
Finished the day with a big bag of fun - FASTest & the Triple Nickel. The pressure was definitely on to turn in a good time, but moreover, to turn in a highly accurate score on the FASTest. I was proud to have shaved off 5.0 seconds off my first FASTest run, clocking in a decent but clean 8.85. I walked off the line with my head held high - thank you Todd, because without your instruction I still would have been floundering in the 12-13's and suffering from a few misses to boot!
The Triple Nickel was another new drill to me, and it's a great way to cap the weekend. Just blast away for a few seconds and see who can get business done the quickest! I didn't turn in the fastest time of the day with a 7.06, but I've rewatched the video a few dozen (yes, dozen) times and I must say I'm impressed with myself and how well I did. It would be interesting to see a video of myself running the Triple Nickel first thing Saturday morning versus last thing Sunday, just to visually watch the progression. Reload kicked my butt though- took a whole 3.0 seconds out of the overall time of 7 second... ouch! Gotta work on that somehow.
I don't know what else I can really say that hasn't already been said before. A few other highlights from the weekend:
- Kevin kept us in stitches at dinner with his stories of Army life - thanks for the laughs mate!
- TLG's Pro Tip #4 - drop your SIRT pistol to rezero said pistol. :D
- During one drill squad 1 was on the line. One shooter left, and suddenly a large bee starts floating around that students target. Not one to miss an opportunity to display his crack marksmanship skills, Todd quickly removed the bee from the equation while it was on the move, from about 7rds. Impressive my friend, very impressive.
- Right after giving a big safety brief as we started some movement drills where Todd had been hammering home what to do, and more importantly, what NOT to do in the event you fell during the evolution - GooberTim promptly displayed for us what it looked like to fall down on your keister while in full backup mode - but he kept it all safe and did a great job of recovering
- If Sam could get a clean reload in, he'd be in FASTest pin territory for sure. Those dang reloads kept eating his lunch unfortunately. But I think he's a sure thing next class to post a great time.
PHOTOS:
Saturday morning. "This is the FASTest. This is how it should be done."
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Lecture time, using Brad & Robert to demonstrate with the SIRT pistol.
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Running our first drills under the ever watchful eye of Todd.
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Tim getting to work and setting the bar high.
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"No Kevin, when I say chin forward, I mean like this...."
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More instruction
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Demonstrating grip procedure and pressouts
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cont'd...
