This was originally supposed to be a Pistol 1.0 class, which is a marksmanship course; everything after 1.0 is an integrated weapons combatives course. I was the only forum member to show up for the full weekend (VoodooMan showed up TD2), and performed to their standards, so Tom took advantage and used the weekend as an instructor development course and moved onto 2.0 and even a couple drills from 3.0 on TD2. There were about 6 other dudes in the course who were instructors for STG; mostly FMA guys. STG likes to keep their instructors competent in all disciplines other than their own, thus their presence in the class. Given it was an IDC of sorts, Tom did a lot more talking during some points explaining things to instructors. Thus, it was not a full 1.0 or 2.0 class.
This review will have three parts: an overview of STG's training methodologies, my personal assessment, and then a detailed play-by-play of the training days. If you want the tl;Dr version, just check out the overview and assessment.
Overview of STG's Warrior Pistol:
The concepts I heard were similar to things I heard from SouthNarc, but different terminology. STG focuses heavily on confronting initiative deficits and correcting them. Tom defines a fight being influenced by three factors: time, space, and force. Tom teaches to try and be the feeder (feeding the adversaries OODA loop, basically, and making your environment a product of you) instead of the receiver (having your OODA loop disrupted and being a product of the environment). Moreso, how to reverse roles if you start out as a receiver, and contextually situated ways of using time, space and/or force in order to gain a position of dominance. Honestly, I outright love their purpose of revolving around this. They accomplish this through a very intensive 5 course curriculum, with each course building on the last.
My Personal Assessment :
I loved the weekend. Absolutely loved it. These guys generally train people who are carrying concealed in NPE's where if they're made, they get beheaded. I felt the material was completely 100% relevant to being an armed citizen or LE. The Sayoc boys had a really tight relationship, and they welcomed me in without reservation instead of treating me like an outsider. The weekend ended with a deep mutual appreciation for each others involvement in the course.
As for 1.0, my assessment is that it's a bombproof marksmanship course that will get you making accurate hits under time. I wouldn't call it a beginners course, but rather a finishing school; you should already know how to operate your firearm competently, and how to safely draw your pistol. I did not do enough of 2.0 or 3.0 to make an assessment, other than I am making training with STG in these areas a priority.
I felt that terminal learning objectives were accomplished well by enabling learning objectives; aka, they did a good job at building base skills of an action before completing said action in its complete form. Overall the terminal learning objectives to one day's training are enabling learning objectives for the next course. There was a solid progression.
What did I not like? I didn't like their 3 count draw compared to how SouthNarc teaches a 4 count draw. I definitely do not like the #2 retention shooting position as taught, and I much prefer the pectoral index as taught by SouthNarc instead. I feel it is more effective in preventing your gun from "floating," as well as inherently safer. I prefer more traditional ways of clearing the garment as well, mainly using a claw grip for a single handed draw. While not as fast as a thumb-hook, I feel it is more reliable. I saw several fouled thumb-hooks over the weekend, especially when it rained and the qualities of your garment changed.
I really liked how other things I've learned from other courses, like the press out (especially one handed), ended up becoming vital in my performance of STG'S coursework. It's almost as if all courses I took prior to this were skill builders for the things that STG wants you to accomplish. Taking Todd's Speed Kills course would be a very benificial skill development to making the sorts of hits during combatives that STG demands.
Overall, a HUGE thank you to Tom and Wolfe for having me. They are class act dudes, very dedicated to training, and I 100% hope to be part of their training in the future. I want STG to become a major part of my firearms/combatives training over the coming years. Defoor and Langdon are still on my bucket list for firearm specific training, but STG covers much, much more which I feel is good to practice for real life encounters. Imagine SouthNarc's ECQC, but much more in depth, varied, and over a 5 course curriculum.
TD1
This covered the first day of 1.0. I was left impressed with their marksmanship program. It was very comprehensive and intensive; some rough standards being a 170 on the 200 drill, and a 1.7s draw. There was a heavy focus on solely on diagnosing marksmanship issues. It started with a 200-drill cold, and moved after that to talking about their basics:
Methods of sighting: full sight picture, front sight, "back plate" sighting.
Stance: This was great for me. Lots of instructors teach to lean forward, but doing so causes fatigue. STG teaches leaning forward as not a function of the hips up (nose over feet as commonly taught), but as bending at the ankles and maintaining a relatively erect upper torso. It wasn't as fatiguing, was stable, and found myself naturally doing it on TD2. Stellar technique, which is super simple but I've never actually had it explained to me in any other course.
Grip: This was the most drastic departure from most commonly taught iso grips I've encountered. Do not "clamp" the grip.... rather, grip with bottom two fingers, and leave the middle finger loose. Use a locked wrist with your support hand.
Draw stroke: 1) Establish master grip, 2) Draw to the retention shooting position (side of body, below the pec) with offhand cupping below the pec, 3) Extension to press shot. STG views a pressout and picking up the front sight in the periphery as critical.
Clearing garment: Single-handed; use a thumb to hook your cover garment. STG was big on training methods that work single-handed, as opposed to training two handed drawing methods and only rarely training one handed drawing.
TD2
Tom decided to roll into 2.0 in the morning and some of 3.0 in the afternoon. Here is where we started integrating the marksmanship of 1.0 with combatives. There was a heavy focus on one handed shooting, shooting on the move, shooting from adverse angles, and shooting after making a strike or two. All drills were built up to by practicing individual components before trying anything straight through or at full-speed.
Tom gave some speeches about mindset, which was basically being intellectual about forcing your will on another human being instead of having blind aggression and labeling it "mindset." He brought up the point that if you want blind aggression, go get thrown into caged knife fight with a wild boar...an animal more pissed off, that will end your life without giving a shit more than most any human. Yet, even still, the most dominant animal on the Earth was still the human being because we possess intellect.
TD2 also focused a lot on being the feeder instead of the receiver, and specific fighting methods which could be used to reverse roles in an initiative deficit.
Adverse Angles: We fired while facing 8 different directions from the targets (front, front right, right, right rear, facing 6 O'Clock, ect). Shooting from the 6 was awesome.
This all rolled into STG's methods on shooting on the move: prioritize what is important, which many times may end up being moving off the X with full speed and compromised accuracy. This usually results in shooting from an adverse angle.
Thus, our shooting on the move focused on moving at a full sprint side to side while drawing and shooting a 40% IPSC plate at 5 yards from an adverse angle. For right handed people, moving to the left proved immensely more beneficial in making hits. Shooting while moving to the right, shooting cross body, led to very little hits. The action of switching hands while moving at a full sprint after drawing was considered too risky for the current class as we needed significantly more skill building reps to do such safely, thus we only shot using the strong hand.
This all played into our final evolution, which was making 1 or 2 strikes on a partner (holding pads), then drawing single handed to engage steel at 10 yards; either a full IPSC plate or a 40% plate. This was an awesome drill, as we got to experience the difficulty that the stress of making hits placed on our accuracy. It was awesome to see how that temporary "trauma" (for lack of better words) to your joints and muscles, as well as shifting gears with your mind, ended up making the shot on demand extremely difficult. It's also where doing a one handed pressout paid dividends, as I (along with everyone else) found it absolutely necessary to make a pressout and track the front sight in order to make hits. Most of our missed shots were from trying to push ourselves too fast/sloppy, and punching out. For whatever reason this resulted in misses, just as I observed it doing while drawing on 25 yard targets in Todd Green's Speed Kills class a few years ago.
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Originally Posted by DanM
