AAR: Frank Proctor 1 Day Performance Pistol Cresson TX 21 Apr 2017

[RJ]

Ok, in terms of things that could be improved or constructive criticism:

While overall I thought it was a good class, and I'm glad I went, two things contributed to it not being as effective as it could be "for me":

With only Frank teaching, and 20 students, it was perhaps not as personal a class as it might have been. I've seen AARs where folks indicated the one-day course is really the two day course crammed into one day. I believe that could be true.

By my notes, we went through 9 blocks of instruction. Each block was presented well, with adequate and effective explanation. However, after the instruction portion, we were generally left to work out how to apply it individually, with minimal feedback (again, due to 20 students on the line, I felt.) The feedback I did get was useful, and on point; there was just not a lot of it.

The other was the absence of any emphasis on shot accountability. Contributing to this was the above student to instructor ratio, but also the fact we were shooting at paper targets (blank, 8 1/2 x 11 paper on an IPCS cardboard) which were not replaced except at lunch. Meaning that after a single mag, it was pretty much impossible to tell where your shots were going. Now, I understand that I should be negative taping, and shooting into a single ragged hole, but honestly, at 8-10 yards I'm not there, and judging by the state of the backers and targets after 10 minutes, neither were any of my fellow students.

While I felt was that I received good instruction, there was not enough time during the class to adequately perform any remediation drills, with coaching, to ensure knowledge transfer and reinforce the teaching points. Perhaps in a two day class, or with fewer students, this might have been ameliorated to some degree.

Ok, so these are fairly minor points, however. I absolutely did feel like I got what I paid for the class ($275) and the information was useful and I can apply it. I also think it was a good class for my skill level, and came at a good time in my training. I am an 'ok' gun handler, but I was challenged during the class (a good thing) with several useful concepts to internalize.

Clearly Frank has thought about the process of shooting and he is worth listening to.

If you are an independent thinker and willing to do the work to follow up and apply the concepts in subsequent practice, I would highly recommend this course.

[JHC]

That was a superbly crafted AAR.

The note about drawing fluid and comfortable resonates. It has occurred to me I jacked up draws in my recent class flying to the gun.

[MVS]

Ok, in terms of things that could be improved or constructive criticism:

While overall I thought it was a good class, and I'm glad I went, two things contributed to it not being as effective as it could be "for me":

With only Frank teaching, and 20 students, it was perhaps not as personal a class as it might have been. I've seen AARs where folks indicated the one-day course is really the two day course crammed into one day. I believe that could be true.

By my notes, we went through 9 blocks of instruction. Each block was presented well, with adequate and effective explanation. However, after the instruction portion, we were generally left to work out how to apply it individually, with minimal feedback (again, due to 20 students on the line, I felt.) The feedback I did get was useful, and on point; there was just not a lot of it.

The other was the absence of any emphasis on shot accountability. Contributing to this was the above student to instructor ratio, but also the fact we were shooting at paper targets (blank, 8 1/2 x 11 paper on an IPCS cardboard) which were not replaced except at lunch. Meaning that after a single mag, it was pretty much impossible to tell where your shots were going. Now, I understand that I should be negative taping, and shooting into a single ragged hole, but honestly, at 8-10 yards I'm not there, and judging by the state of the backers and targets after 10 minutes, neither were any of my fellow students.

While I felt was that I received good instruction, there was not enough time during the class to adequately perform any remediation drills, with coaching, to ensure knowledge transfer and reinforce the teaching points. Perhaps in a two day class, or with fewer students, this might have been ameliorated to some degree.

Ok, so these are fairly minor points, however. I absolutely did feel like I got what I paid for the class ($275) and the information was useful and I can apply it. I also think it was a good class for my skill level, and came at a good time in my training. I am an 'ok' gun handler, but I was challenged during the class (a good thing) with several useful concepts to internalize.

Clearly Frank has thought about the process of shooting and he is worth listening to.

If you are an independent thinker and willing to do the work to follow up and apply the concepts in subsequent practice, I would highly recommend this course.

I hate to say this, but you have to be prepared for this type of thing at any class from a "big name" instructor. Almost all of those classes I have been to are 20 plus students.

[RJ]

That was a superbly crafted AAR.

The note about drawing fluid and comfortable resonates. It has occurred to me I jacked up draws in my recent class flying to the gun.

Thanks JHC.

Weird, but Frank did not *look* fast. Just real smooth. Real smooth. And accurate.

I hate to say this, but you have to be prepared for this type of thing at any class from a "big name" instructor. Almost all of those classes I have been to are 20 plus students.

Gotcha MVS.

No worries, I'm motivated to follow up, for sure. I got plenty of material to try and digest it before my next class. I have a chit for one more training event from The Boss in 2017. Right now I think the leading candidate is Tom Givens two-day signature class. Just need to identify a time/place where I can connect up with one of his future classes.

We're back in Clearwater by Nov/Dec, so it may have to wait till this winter.

[JHC]

And thanks for the "Let it do" follow up!

[RJ]

Just reviewed my notebook from class, these are some additional points I wanted to record before they evaporated:

"See through the sights". Frank discussed the classic "focus on the front sight, the rear and target will be blurry." Well, his point was that the target may be close, medium, or far away. You may also be focusing on the next target as the gun is cycling (cycling the slide takes 60 mSec, apparently. I found that interesting he had a metric on that.)

You may see the target, then the slide will appear in your periphery, then you will become aware it has bumpy things on top. Then, you may pick up the front sight as the rear sight hoves into view. Either way this happens quickly. His point being your vision perception in terms of awareness (perhipheral) and information (in terms of focus) on the sights is what you should be looking for for the "shoot" decision.

I am not explaining this well, but it made sense at the time.

Gotta see it, to shoot it On the same theme as above. If you drop your chin and do the tac-turtle thing, your awareness may be reduced. As humans, we are engineered to stand upright. Same for shooting. I think I've heard it described by Mr. Miculek as the same thing; bring the gun up to your dominant eye and press the trigger. Easy. (well, easy for Mr. Miculek lol.)

Boom to Ding Ratio Just a saying he used, I thought it was useful. As in, approaching 100% would be good.

Allow recoil to flow through He had me unlock my elbows a bit more than I was previously. This was part of a drill where he asked whether we had callouses on our shooting middle finger. (I do). His explanation/solution was to subtly change the shooting hand grip slightly forward on the grip. (It may be the anthropometry for Frank; but with my size M hands I can't really seem to do this.) I thought it was an interesting point and I might experiment with it some more.

Vicing the grip This involved putting my strong hand thumb down onto the web of my support hand, and pressing strong side with my support hand thumb (I think this was the source of my FTLBs. Today I changed my strong hand thumb to point down, but outboard a little by one thumb width. I am off the slide release doing this. Again, something to explore in dry practice.) He mentioned the press with the support thumb as something he stole from Dave Sevigny. Obviously I am no Dave Sevigny, not even close, but I am interested in whether this will help my persistent low and away shots when firing "The Test".

Walk like you walk We did a couple barrel drills walking and shooting. He pointed out we all have a tendency to do the "walk like a ninja" as soon as we put a gun in our hand. I do lol. He said if you can walk around the house with a cup of coffee with no conscious thought, you should be able to walk with a gun in your hand.

Further, bending your knees moves weight rearward, which we compensate for by bending at the waist. His point was biomechanically, we have been walking since we were about 1 year old, so why change when you have a gun? Made sense.

Scoring speed vs. Trigger Speed The related to getting scoring hits as you need them, not necessarily as fast as you can press the trigger. Sometimes your scoring speed needs to slow a bit and "let your sights shoot the gun". This may be blindingly obvious but as a noob, this resonated with me. For my part, I am not able to see the sights and blaze away accurately (yet), so my trigger speed probably is my limiting factor.

[Evanrocks]

Great write up! Enjoyed shooting with you and these notes are golden.

I found the lack of shot accountability frustrating as well. My guess is that this course is best run at his range in Alabama on lots of steel targets, so you keep the fast pace work with 20 students and have the audible feedback.

[RJ]

Great write up! Enjoyed shooting with you and these notes are golden.

I found the lack of shot accountability frustrating as well. My guess is that this course is best run at his range in Alabama on lots of steel targets, so you keep the fast pace work with 20 students and have the audible feedback.

Very much enjoyed meeting you as well.

Hope you made it out alive...I could see a few cars behind me at five PM, but I kept it in 4WD all the way up to the paved road lol.




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[Pennzoil]

I attended this class back in 2012. I was also frustrated with the lack of shot accountability and how the class was ran with the large number of students. Along with a few other items. I ended up emailing him an AAR after the class as he didn't ask for feedback at the end of the day.

[David S.]

Glad you enjoyed the class.

I wonder if Spenser Keepers class, also here in DFW the same weekend, may have been a bit better for you. C'est la vie. But at least you had a good time and got something out of it.