AAR - Green Ops - Defensive Carbine 1 - Jan 17

[chrismark420]

Course: Defensive Carbine 1
Instructors: Green Ops
Location: NRA Range, Fairfax VA
Class size: 12 students
Date: January 17 2016

I recently had the pleasure of attending a Green Ops training class at the NRA Range in Fairfax, VA. The crew was recommended to me by a friend. As it's the start of a new year, I was looking to test run a new SBR, and also to reacquaint myself with the basics. I've been using cold winters the past few years to work on shooting basics while using summers for outdoor, more intensive dynamic trainings.

Enter Green Ops. We started off in a classroom with general introductions of the team. Brett Harnish, Eddie Stapleton, Mike Green, Ty Cooper and Andy Lander. Each had over a decades worth of military or LE experience and tremendous shooting talent and imparted some basic information about shooting justification and real world legalese applications of the law as it relates to self defense. Having attended many, many courses, this is the first time I've had it presented like this. And I thought they did a great job. Brett told some real-life instances that he had encountered in law enforcement and how even as police officers, certain criteria needed to be met in order to justify the use of deadly force. The class seemed engaged and asked questions throughout. Mike spoke about training mentality and how to approach training and some tools to use. After about an hour in the class room, we headed out to the range.

On the range, we started with a confirmation of zero. Now it was a pre-requisite to have a zeroed weapon prior to getting to class. We confirmed zero, had a discussion about holdover and then began with basic snap up drills at 3x5" at 15y. A simple drill that focuses on sight picture, form and repeatability. The class was broken up into 2 relays of 6. The main reason being that it allowed essentially a 1-to-1 instructor to student ratio. I was really impressed immediately at the amount of attention being paid to each student, and each student received direct feedback. We continued to shoot at 3x5" with various instructions, including multiple targets, double taps, emergency reloads and kneeling. Each time I observed Andy and company talking with students, offering up pointers and new concepts. In talking with some of the other students, most were new shooters, taking their first class, and all were enjoying themselves. We talked about what we were hearing from instructors and talked about gear. We also ran barricade drills, strongside only, multiple target engagement, and pieing the room. We ended on an El Prez drill, giving the students their first drill against the clock.

I thoroughly enjoyed my 4 hours with Green Ops. I am not a beginner shooter, so for me, this course offered me the opportunity to reinforce my existing training and observe Green Ops teaching methodology rather than being my initial exposure to firearms training. And I walked away learning quite a bit. A personal thanks to Eddie and Andy, who each pointed out something in my shooting technique that I hadn't seen before, and giving me something to work on. I am very impressed with the time spent with each student, particularly ones that were struggling. I loved seeing those students given extra reps in order to try and correct an error or mistake. Too often I see classes and instructors just try and get through the material, rather than genuinely interested in seeing the student retain the material. As I observed the relays, you could see improvement across the board, and the targets were looking more and more like targeted hits, rather than shotgun spread rounds in the general direction. I highly recommend Green Ops training. I am looking forward to taking their more advanced classes

[Al T.]

Nice AAR, thanks!

[Mr Pink]

Sorry we missed this thread earlier. Thanks for the AAR and we look forward to seeing you in future classes!