The next Instructor Zero?

[Doc_Glock]

He exposes tons of people to the fun of shooting who otherwise would be ignorant.

He's crazy fast. He is having a good time shooting and it is attractive.

He is safe except for a tendency to speed holster.

He works hard at his IG feed.

I find any of that hard to criticize.

[MVS]

With all due respect to Mr. Fawbush, it seems like his approach to the retention position differs pretty seriously from the approach demonstrated by many of the credible instructors here like Craig Douglas, Paul Sharp, or Cecil Burch. Personally I don't particularly care to learn about retention shooting from someone who shoots well but has no martial arts experience, because "shooters" (using this term to refer to gun folks with little to no H2H training) tend to focus more on shooting fast A-zone hits and not enough on protecting their heads, protecting their guns, and staying on their feet in a fight. Mr. Fawbush demonstrates a retention position that I'm sure gives him good fast chest hits but it appears quite unsafe to stiff-arm someone from that position, and his backwards lean puts him at risk of tumbling tail over teakettle if his assailant presses the attack. Also, using the support hand to clear the cover garment for a draw to retention makes a lot of assumptions about your assailant not being fast enough to hit you or stuff the draw.

I don't really know jack shit about this stuff beyond what I've learned from reading on this and other forums, but it seems to me that retention shooting is an element of H2H fighting, and therefore when it comes to choosing instructors to teach retention shooting, I'm looking for fighting related credentials moreso than shooting credentials. I'm open to correction if I got anything wrong. To be honest I'm very hesitant to post about this because of my inexperience, but I think this is information that is valuable even if I'm only passing it secondhand. You can find this kind of information straight from the relevant instructors quite easily.

You are not incorrect. I will say though that after watching a number of his video's, he does seem aware of the "proper" combative retention position and states that it may be the correct type of retention shooting to use sometimes. One of my problems with his spiel is his statements of fact that 90% of deadly force encounters occur between 1-9 feet. To me that ranks right up there with those who claim the same about "low light" encounters. To be fair though, there is a lot of disagreement on these subjects even among the informed.

[JV_]

I've watched a few of his videos. I can always find something to criticize, like the safety of the fireworks video and speed reholstering. Overall, he's is far better than most local trainers. He's able to convey his message without unnecessary profanity, which I appreciate. From what I've seen, he has far more positives than negatives.

Being overly critical of everyone else gets old.

I wish I had some of his speed.

[TGS]

With all due respect to Mr. Fawbush, it seems like his approach to the retention position differs pretty seriously from the approach demonstrated by many of the credible instructors here like Craig Douglas, Paul Sharp, or Cecil Burch. Personally I don't particularly care to learn about retention shooting from someone who shoots well but has no martial arts experience, because "shooters" (using this term to refer to gun folks with little to no H2H training) tend to focus more on shooting fast A-zone hits and not enough on protecting their heads, protecting their guns, and staying on their feet in a fight. Mr. Fawbush demonstrates a retention position that I'm sure gives him good fast chest hits but it appears quite unsafe to stiff-arm someone from that position, and his backwards lean puts him at risk of tumbling tail over teakettle if his assailant presses the attack. Also, using the support hand to clear the cover garment for a draw to retention makes a lot of assumptions about your assailant not being fast enough to hit you or stuff the draw.

I don't really know jack shit about this stuff beyond what I've learned from reading on this and other forums, but it seems to me that retention shooting is an element of H2H fighting, and therefore when it comes to choosing instructors to teach retention shooting, I'm looking for fighting related credentials moreso than shooting credentials. I'm open to correction if I got anything wrong. To be honest I'm very hesitant to post about this because of my inexperience, but I think this is information that is valuable even if I'm only passing it secondhand. You can find this kind of information straight from the relevant instructors quite easily.

What he's doing might not be what Craig teaches (which is also what I practice), but it is a commonly accepted method for retention shooting and is taught by LE agencies, including both of the LE basic firearms programs I've been through.

Might not be your favored method, but it doesn't really qualify in my mind as a reason to join in some dogpile thread on the guy.

Short version (sorry I'm in the middle of something and can only but keep it short): he has a gun only solution to a tactical problem where it may be the worse answer.

How on earth can you make that judgement based off of two videos of him shooting drills?

I've watched a few of his videos. I can always find something to criticize, like the safety of the fireworks video and speed reholstering. Overall, he's is far better than most local trainers. He's able to convey his message without unnecessary profanity, which I appreciate. From what I've seen, he has far more positives than negatives.

Being overly critical of everyone else gets old.

I wish I had some of his speed.

I agree.

Watching another one of his videos. I actually like the way he speaks to people and his teaching method.

[TGS]

Just so I don't keep editing the same post........

.....I'm watching another video now.

He's a staunch advocate for performance based training, objectively measuring performance, admitting to/knowing your performance cold versus performance after rehearsing, annoying his wife by routinely practicing draws/dryfire in the house, and his short spiel on why we need to be fast makes me think he took a course or two from Todd.

Yeah. Let's pile on him and ostracize him, because noob.

right.

[markp]

Baret's latest FB post

"I see a lot of people who have taken it upon themselves to begin training for up close and personal contact drills, shooting from retention, and under stress of timers. This is a good thing. But it's only a good thing if we lay a solid foundation from which the fundamentals are built upon. A lot of people want to be fast and I think that is a noble thing to want to accomplish while shooting anything. The reality is that the consistency does not come from a shaky foundation built upon the desire to go fast, but the discipline of going slow and being intentional and deliberate. When you learned how to walk up steps you did so one foot at a time. When you learned to run, you started slow or fell trying. If you want to incorporate movement, shooting from retention, and overall defensive and dynamic movement to your training, please go slow. Not only for your safety but also for the purpose of training and getting those movements into your autonomic memory. I strongly recommend you take a class from a professional on fundamental training and close retention shooting before you attempt anything like you see here.l"

Looks to me like his head is in the right place, ymmv.

[Clobbersaurus]

He's crazy fast. I'll give him that.

[orionz06]

He'd probably clean me out at a local IDPA/USPSA match.

He's busy that weekend.

[rob_s]

He exposes tons of people to the fun of shooting who otherwise would be ignorant.

He's crazy fast. He is having a good time shooting and it is attractive.

He is safe except for a tendency to speed holster.

He works hard at his IG feed.

I find any of that hard to criticize.

The shooting community is interesting. Having certified real-world experience is a requirement to be an instructor teaching gun fighting, until your favorite instructor lacks said real-world experience in which case having real-world experience is not required.

[rob_s]

You are not incorrect. I will say though that after watching a number of his video's, he does seem aware of the "proper" combative retention position and states that it may be the correct type of retention shooting to use sometimes. One of my problems with his spiel is his statements of fact that 90% of deadly force encounters occur between 1-9 feet. To me that ranks right up there with those who claim the same about "low light" encounters. To be fair though, there is a lot of disagreement on these subjects even among the informed.

Ken Hackathorn says something similar about deadly force encounters and then spends two days training at that distance (or, did when I took his class).

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about in my post above. Ken says it and everyone takes it as gospel, some preacher with a flashy metube video says it and it's all wrong.