You don't happen to have those shooters' splits handy do you? Nice.
You don't happen to have those shooters' splits handy do you? Nice.
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
I'm on the way home right now, just want to say that I am very very grateful to taadski for organizing the class and giving me this opportunity, as well as to all the students who attended. Could not have asked for a better group to work with. Looking forward to reading everyone's thoughts, and I'll get up some of my own later on.
Technical excellence supports tactical preparedness
Lord of the Food Court
http://www.gabewhitetraining.com
My life and time would in no way allow for me taking a class right now (as well as my lack of practice taking me down a bunch of steps) but man I am jealous I missed out on the event.
Gonna hazard a guess 1.2 draw, .20 body, .40-ish head, A-B-A hits on mine. You can see that I didn't react to a timer immediately. I didn't let the gun fully settle on my second body shot too. My second run on this drill was 0.1 slower and same hits. This is a second tier pin performance by Gabe's standards which is where I hung in on 75% of the standards if I was shooting to my sights. If I tried to to push beyond my visual and control abilities I disintegrated in a spectacular fashion.
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
Depends how you look at this, J. In this case, one shot out of A zone on each run was the difference between top level score (pin, actually) and the one below if shot from concealment. In a context of face shooting, doesn't matter, all hits in, including heads. In a competitive context, not quite there yet. The usual saga of on-demand vs personal best performance: the day before the class I was running sub .20 splits in practice under the watchful eyes of Mr. and Mrs. GJM. Looking at this class and my recent Langdon class, I came to an empiric conclusion that i need to be able to do certain task about 80% of the time in practice to have a decent chance on replicating it on demand in class.
Last edited by YVK; 10-03-2016 at 12:21 PM.
During the class, something I was very interested in, was how would LE members react to some of what Gabe had to say, given he does not have a military/LE background. Gabe is very clear about what his experience is, and what his experience is not. He was clear that he was not there to teach use of force, and the topics that you would expect a LE or military trainer to have actual experience with. He went on to say that you should learn those things from people with those experiences. My perception is that the LE members of the class were very enthusiastic about improving their technical shooting skills, which is the core of Gabe's expertise, and recognized how developed Gabe's skills are in this area.
TD2, we started off with some warm-up shooting, and then Gabe gave a thirty minute lecture on dry fire, and how that is an integral part of increasing technical skills. The bulk of TD2, though, was all about movement -- not simple forward and backward movement, but the kind of aggressive movement we associate with Gabe, as he explodes while shooting, for example, a bowling pin on the dead run. This was one on one, you and Gabe. Gabe first demoed, and made a big point on being accountable for each shot fired, and how there is a human tendency to shoot faster as you move faster. The take away was, one to two shots to the A zone was a lot better than six shots fired, with 1-2 A hits, 2 C hits, 1 D hit and one that missed the paper completely. After getting dialed in on paper, we went to man on man moving opposite directions, while shooting on the move at a reduced IPSC sized target, with only hits counting. We finished it off with the same exercise on an eight plate, shooting on the run at ten yards.
This whole block took about three hours. At one level that seemed like a lot of time, on the other that instruction may have been the highlight of the course for me, as I have never been exposed to that level of movement while making accountable hits on a relevant sized target.
Last drill before lunch was test three, draw to two shots to the four inch circle on the A zone at 7 yards. I know Gabe felt stress demoing this, and I am pretty sure each class member felt the same, having to stand up in front of the whole class and shoot the drill twice, with your time and hits announced for all to hear.
We warmed up after lunch and got right to drill four, which is draw, four to the body, two to the head. Turbo pin time is 2.60 (2.85 concealed), so it is damn sporty, and nearly impossible to make without shooting 6 A hits. Here is YVK, going for it some:
The balance of the afternoon was spent shooting first using cover and then aggressive movement, man on man, to simulate how to change angles to your advantage, while hitting challenging targets on the move. All to soon, the day and the class was over, pins were given out based on test results, and we were all heading our separate ways.
Reflecting on the class, I have thoughts about the class emphasis, and thoughts about Gabe. On emphasis, it was extremely high level technical shooting, being accountable for every shot fired, extreme safety in your gun handling, and a commitment to continuous improvement. On Gabe, after seeing him in this setting, it is clear this is his art. And by this, I mean teaching high performance level, timmie oriented, defensive pistolcraft. He is incredibly talented, and this is only his first out of state class. I really hope he can organize his life to do this full time, and I hope as many of you as possible can get the chance to take a class with him.
On a personal note, even though I do not compete and take classes with an appendix holster, I think enough of Gabe and his style that I used a JM George from concealment for the entire class, and in the form of a USP Expert, ran as close to a Gabe-like Glock 34 as I could. I especially hate to admit the last part, but I really enjoyed shooting the USP with a LEM trigger, and it was only me and not the trigger holding me back from doing as well as I wanted to.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Sounds like my kind of class, I'm a little miffed I wasn't invited. :-)