Gabe White: Pistol Shooting Solutions, April 1st and 2nd 2017, Watkinsville, GA
First off, thanks to Gabe for his willingness to share his knowledge and experience in an excellent, understandable way. Thanks also to those who worked to pull this off logistically (JLW and Karmapolice). Finally, thank you to all of the students in this class for showing up with a high level of excellence in skill, mindset, and gear, such that we were all able to keep the class moving at a quick and safe pace through multiple high level exercises.
I won’t try to go into detail about what exactly you’ll learn in this class for the following 2 reasons: 1, I believe it robs Gabe of the opportunity to deliver his message in his own wonderful way; and 2, what I got out of the class is likely to be very different than what you would get out of the class based on our different experience levels and frames of reference. Instead, I’ll share some of the things that I believe set Gabe’s class apart from anything I (and most others I’ve talked to about it) have ever taken before.
First and most unique is that Gabe absolutely WORKS HIS ASS OFF as an instructor. While we were grabbing water and topping off mags, he was moving targets, barrels, etc so literally we just show up and start putting in good reps on the next exercise. Every other class I’ve taken (indluding from big name instructors) has consisted of “Ok, go paste up a new B8 center and we’ll work on the next drill.” Gabe was running around working literally all day both days. You can tell that Gabe really cares about the quality, not just of his material, but in the way he’s conveying the material. In the same vein, Gabe’s precision of language is excellent. He doesn’t throw around industry slang or jargon. He presents a concept in a way that makes it easy to understand, apply to a problem, and then execute. After each explanation, he offered an opportunity for questions, but rarely was one asked because Gabe had done such a great job of explaining it already so no clarification was needed.
The second big standout was the number of reps we got on the exercises. There was very little stand around and talk/lecture in Gabe’s class. There was enough talking to convey the lesson to be learned, but then very quickly it was time to execute; and execute over and over and over again. Gabe encouraged us to execute at a couple of levels too: push yourself to see just how fast you really can do it. The trick is, you still have to do it. So, it’s a controlled push, but still a push to the edge of and perhaps just outside of your comfort zone. Then, there was a clearly-defined, “ok, now that we’ve pushed, let’s dial it back to your on-demand level.” The cool thing was that on multiple occasions, we now had a new, better “on-demand level” because we had not just pushed it, but had pushed it while still keeping the care to execute all of the components (draw, grip, sights, trigger, movement, etc) at the required levels. In other words, “push it” on a Bill Drill DOES NOT mean ignore sights and slap the shit out of your trigger. What it might mean is that you don’t need to wait for the front sight to stop on the target, but instead it has recovered “well enough” to go ahead and break the next shot with a high degree of certainty that it will be a hit. At some point, the only way you’re going to figure out where your “on demand” and “pushing it” levels are is to just go do it; and we got to do it in class, under the supervision of someone who has mastered these things. By contrast, most of the other classes I’ve seen consist of introducing a drill, shooting it 2-3 times and then the instructor saying something like, “ok, now go work that when you get home.”
Now that I’ve shared things about the class overall that were excellent and set it apart, I’ll delve into more specifics of my experience and observations:
We had 14 total students. Everyone shot a 9x19. Most shot Glocks 19, 17, 34. There was also a P30, a couple VP9’s, a P320, A PX4 Langdon Special and a Wilson 1911 in 9x19 (sorry if I forgot anyone). I shot a Gen 4 Glock 17 from a JM V3 IWB holster worn at 3 o’clock. I shot between 900-1,000 rounds over the course of the two days. I think others had pretty similar round counts. Over 600 of those were on day 1. By the end of day 1 I had a nice burn on my right side and my strong hand middle finger knuckle was painfully familiar with the Glock trigger guard. I was pleased with how my gear performed. The one gear lesson I did learn is that under-shirts and multiple Strongside IWB reps don’t match very well. Early on day 1, I attempted to execute a draw, got a bit of undershirt mixed up in my draw and ended up tossing my pistol into the dirt a few feet in front of me. It was an embarrassing and scary experience. Gabe handled it with grace and professionalism. I was 100% sure I was about to be sent home. Instead, Gabe called the line cold, ensured everyone was safe and that the pistol had not discharged, picked it up, handed it back to me and asked me to re-holster. He then expressed that “this is why we use drop-safe pistols,” and recommended I lose the undershirt, which I did.
In terms of performance I was able to earn a Dark Pin. Overall, of the 8 exercises fired for score, I managed 5 Dark Pin runs, 2 Light Pin runs, and had one run with a Mike. Initially I was a little disappointed with this. When I had run the exercises in practice a few times prior to the class, I had scored a number of Light Pin times and had hoped/expected to walk away with a Light Pin. However, the reality of the situation is that practice lacks the pressure of being tested in class surrounded by excellent shooters all watching you. Additionally, it’s easy in practice to remember the good runs and quickly forget the bad ones. So ultimately, I’m proud to own my performance as an on-demand, no-BS Dark Pin level shooter. I’ve also come away with some things to work on to improve my skill set and therefore performance moving forward. For the class overall I believe there were 5 light pins and 8 dark pins awarded. All but 2 of the shooters in the class are Pistol-Forum.com members.
In summary, this was far and away the best training experience I’ve ever had. Again a big thank you to the instructor, Gabe White, the hosts, and the excellent group of students. It was an honor and privilege to train with you all. If you get the opportunity to train with Gabe, I strongly recommend you take advantage of it. Heck, it’s well worth selling an extra pistol or something to cover the cost if that’s what it takes. What you’ll learn is THAT invaluable.
Here’s a video of a head-to-head shooting on the run competitive exercise from day 2. I’m the shooter on the right. If you’d told me I’d be able to hit 1/4 scale steel at 10 yds on the run before this class, I’d have called you crazy. It’s Gabe’s ability to break down a solution to the component level and then built it back up and apply it to a problem that allows you to execute things like this:
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Originally Posted by Poplin
