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Thread: Gabe White, Pistol Shooting Solutions, Florida, February

  1. #11
    Member
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    Jun 2014
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    Tennessee
    Quote Originally Posted by SouthNarc View Post
    In a community awash in Instagram posers, talentless copycats, washed up SOF dudes riding on that last deployment, or old SWAT cops who just WILL NOT fucking go away, Gabe is refreshing in that he actually is more interested in doing some-THING than in being some-body. That's truly rare in this age of technology driven narcissism.
    AMEN!

    Craig and I have discussed this ad nauseum.... that unfortunately in this business one can put in the work for years toiling in obscurity and at the same time some johnny come lately but appropriately tattoed and stylishly bearded hack can throw up some flashy instagram crap and have to turn away students....

    Congrats on the successes Gabe, I KNOW you have put the work in and it is good to see that pay off. Looking forward to the Tac Conference and to Waverly TN in Oct.
    Last edited by Randy Harris; 02-13-2018 at 02:06 PM.

  2. #12
    Member John Hearne's Avatar
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    Mar 2011
    Location
    Northern Mississippi
    In the past, I have written fairly extensive course reviews with details on what happened every day, what exact drills were run, etc. There have been several detailed reviews about Gabe’s class so there isn’t much need for another. Also, I don’t have that kind of time any more but wanted to put down some thoughts on Gabe White’s Pistol Shooting Solutions class I recently completed.

    For those who haven’t read the other review, Gabe has a great model of working on technical shooting skill in an unadulterated form, then spending an equal amount time applying that skill in the context of the combative use of the pistol, this wrapped up with a man-on-man exercise to work the skills under stress. The results are amazing with huge gains made in raw shooting ability and also one’s ability to use that skill for truly practical purposes.

    Overall, I thought the course was excellent and one of the top shooting courses I’ve ever attended.

    Random Thoughts in no particular order:
    • Gabe is a wonderful instructor to watch. Not from how he teaches but from the standpoint of class logistics. Gabe has obviously put a lot of thought into making sure the class runs at maximum efficiency and it’s amazing to watch if you know what you’re looking at. Gabe is also a slave driver who makes sure you get your money’s worth. Class started promptly at 8:00 and finished up at 6:15 on Saturday and 5:15 on Sunday (we lost two students to an early flight)
    • There is a dearth of classes that really deserve to be called advanced. Most advanced classes end up being a rehashing of previous courses because very few people work on their skills between classes. I found this class to be a push well beyond the basics of shooting and a great way to move someone towards master class performance.
    • A lot of this has to do with the presence of objective standards. Gabe is very clear on the levels of shooting performance he’s looking for as an end result and the course announcement includes a minimal standard to benefit from the class.
    • Rather than try to encompass a wide variety of drills, the class focused a few drills that had the most return and taught the most. I found this specific versus general approach to be very useful in improving performance. One could argue that this was the result of block versus random practice but I believe there was more to it than that. The way Gabe ran the class is that you repeated a drill about 25 times in a row, with intermittent taping to help you stay in the A zone.The time and rounds spent actually provided sufficient repetitions to allow genuine learning to occur, especially if the student paid attention.
    • Shooting with discipline was a heavy emphasis throughout the course. As best I can tell, “discipline” means shooting within the limits of your sights and trigger. It’s a form of shooting within your limits and not going outside of them, no matter how much you feel time (or other) pressure to do so. It seemed to me that a major unstated focus of the course was to develop and enhance your ability to read the sights and work the trigger with sufficient control so as to be able to do solid work as fast as you could.
    • I had allowed my shooting skill to stagnate for some time. I had reached a point where I was looking to maintain what I had, versus pushing for further gains. This class really convinced me that there are benefits to really advanced (like Master/Grandmaster) levels of shooting. I repeatedly saw that those people with the best “square range shooting skills” were also the best shooters when movement was involved, or when one shot from a sub-optimal shooting platform such as when you’re using cover with maximum effort. For instance, those folks who could post turbo ratings or light pin runs very close to turbo, consistently hit while moving aggressively and still shot very tight groups on the cover drills.
    • I liked the use of demanding targets throughout the course. Chest hits had to be to the A zone of a USPSA target and we were encouraged to keep them in the top half. That particular A-Zone really penalizes any lateral errors and encourages shooters to keep hits along the center line where they’ll do the most good. The head shot was a 4” circle which is ~15% smaller than a 3x5” card commonly used for a head zone.
    • Gabe is a very introspective shooter and promotes this in others. When Gabe was working his demos, he would talk us through what he experienced on every run. Given that we were often chasing small improvements, this introspection was critical since most shooters had “gross” or readily observable errors already worked out of their technique. I found this to be a very valid instructional technique but I’m not sure how it would work on less introspective people, especially those toward the bottom of skills and abilities.
    • We tend to argue about minutiae here – stuff that only the top 1% of shooters even ponder. Before this class, I had been luke warm about the Bill Drill. I didn’t think of drawing and firing six rounds to the chest as a very valuable response and I didn’t think the splits necessary to perform at the master level to be crucial. I have since revised my opinion of the Bill Drill. First, let’s be realistic, it’s the Bill DRILL, not Bill Street Response. Gabe even stated that it would not be the idea response to a threat.
    • So, why does it matter? I’d say that the Bill Drill combines some street relevant skills in one exercise and this combination has a synergistic effect. For instance, a Master level Bill Drill is going to require a 1.0 second draw AND HIT from open or 1.25 AND HIT from concealment. That is a level of speed that that will be hard to process as a threat indicator and give the initiator a huge head start. The speed of shooting WITH HITS required puts a very large demand on the shooter. The shooter has to clear concealment flawlessly and obtain a proper master grip on the gun in order have enough control to shoot at the required speed. The shooter has to be working the sights in a practically continuous track and using enough trigger control to keep the shots from spreading laterally and causing misses. The .20 split is faster than we need to be but working at the speed really seemed to give me a huge cushion if I slowed down just a bit. There is something to be said about exploring the outer limits of your abilities and then backing down just a bit – that pesky “discipline” rears its head again. It seems to me that if you can deliver a master/turbo level Bill Drill then anything else is going to be pretty easy.
    • To put it more coarsely, there’s two ways to shoot the Bill Drill. You can whip the gun out of the holster, hold on for dear life, and hope for the best. (While recognizing that hope is a suboptimal survival strategy). The alternative is to make the gun your bitch and make it do what you want. Once the gun is your bitch instead of you it’s, there’s very little you can’t do with it. Gabe’s approach is a lot more of the latter.
    • While I didn’t earn a Turbo Pin, I was really happy with my performance. I never “melted down” on any of the tests and kept my feces coagulated. If I can decipher, Gabe’s coded chicken scratch, I had one B instead of an A on one run and one C instead of an A on another run so the accuracy was there. My non-Turbo runs were the result of being a smidge slow versus throwing a wild shot or two. The rest of my runs were very solid light pin runs. I ended up with three Turbo runs and everything else was a solid light pin run. My light pin runs were tantalizingly close to turbo with two runs .04 over and one run .02 over. I think my most gross over time was a .10. I hope to retake the class later this year and I’m thinking I’ll run it with a straight open holster – I’m not sure the 0.25 bonus for concealment works on in my favor for a strong side hip holster from open front concealment. I can see where the 0.25 would be great for AIWB.
    • I would be utterly remiss if I didn’t mention guns at some point in my comments. I shot a Sig P320 X-Five that I bought used for a great deal. The gun arrived four days before class and I ended up scrambling to get an appropriate holster and magazines. The X-Five ran flawlessly, shot like a laser, and I really enjoyed my first foray into fiber optic sights. There were at least three or four other P320’s in class and I think everything else was Glocks except for one M&P and one 9mm 1911 (out of 14 shooters). One of the P320’s double fed at least three times. I ended up pulling the extractor and cleaning behind the hook which did have a fair bit of crud. The gun never fumbled again but the problem was so intermittent that you can’t tell if I did any good. The X-Five will likely end up as my new uniform duty gun once we finally transition to the P320 family.
    • It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
    • If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
    • "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG

  3. #13
    John, thanks for taking the time to put your thoughts on paper — great summary and I enjoy your analysis, and how you relate things you did in the class to succeeding in defensive situations.

    My only small point is that I don’t think you can directly compare performance on Gabe’s test to USPSA ability, as Gabe’s test is extremely draw intensive, and USPSA requires a pretty wide range of technical skills, while in relative terms underwighting the draw.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  4. #14
    Leopard Printer Mr_White's Avatar
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    Many thanks for the report John Hearne! It was great to meet you and have you in class.
    Technical excellence supports tactical preparedness
    Lord of the Food Court
    http://www.gabewhitetraining.com

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