Tactical Performance Center - Competition Super Camp Sept 12-16

[GJM]

My wife and I just finished up TPC’s Competition Super Camp, held over five days at their excellent facility near St. George, UT. After shooting five straight days in near 100 degree heat, it might take me a few days to get all the info out. About 50 students from “Unclassified” to GM, and 15 instructors, including Ron Avery, Brian Nelson, Max Leograndis, Glen Wong, Ken Nelson, Rossen Hristov, Aaron Berke, the Williams sisters, and many more who would be known to SW US based shooters.

The five days was roughly broken into three parts:

1) quick review of the key points from TPC’s excellent Handgun Mastery course.

2) technical shooting knowledge blocks like the draw, reload, transitions, moving into and out of position, swingers.

3) competition specific skills of breaking down a stage, determining the most efficient plan for your skill level, and executing the plan.

The course culminated in TPC constructing five national championship level stages that the instructors broke down for us, and we got to shoot as a match with the TPC instructors and our fellow students on Sunday, putting into practice all we learned throughout the course.

More later but that was a truly outstanding course that showcased the best of TPC. Every student I spoke with was equally as enthused, with many planning to return in February when the course is next offered.

[MVS]

Can't wait to hear all about it.

[GJM]

I need to get with the program and knock this review out. In the mean time, here is an interesting observation. Fifty students, 15 instructors, approximately 150,000 rounds fired over five days, a wide variety of handguns and divisions, and I didn’t hear a single hardware discussion, just people completely focused on software.

[Drang]

I need to get with the program and knock this review out. In the mean time, here is an interesting observation. Fifty students, 15 instructors, approximately 150,000 rounds fired over five days, a wide variety of handguns and divisions, and I didn’t hear a single hardware discussion, just people completely focused on software.

That's interesting. Do you think it was due to the focus of the instructors and the nature of the course?

[LittleLebowski]

I need to get with the program and knock this review out. In the mean time, here is an interesting observation. Fifty students, 15 instructors, approximately 150,000 rounds fired over five days, a wide variety of handguns and divisions, and I didn’t hear a single hardware discussion, just people completely focused on software.

Jealous. Looking forward to the AAR. If you want, you can send it to me and I can edit your OP and add it in.

[GJM]

Day one, TPC Competition class

On the first day, they crammed three days of a TPC handgun mastery class into one day. Unlike handgun mastery, where the first morning is spent with TPC staff describing and demoing, here it was ten minutes of classroom and then off to the range with our class divided into four squads of twelve each. TPC has an interesting approach as they kept the same two assistant instructors with each indidual squad, but every ninety minutes rotated around the lead instructor. Their theory is different people learn in different ways, and having different lead instructors maximized the chance the info would get through.

First, an aside on the handgun mastery class. Like many shooters that use Practiscore, I had seen TPC banner ads, and generally knew Ron Avery was involved. What got my interest, is when I was speaking with a Las Vegas shooter I knew who went from B to GM in a year. I asked what his secret was and he said he dry fired, live fired, shot matches, but the big thing was he took the handgun mastery class four times in a year. He also mentioned that his Air Force team was formally integrating the TPC reactive shooting cycle approach into their shooting. Since I had no idea what their reactive shooting cycle was, my wife and I decided to take the class last spring. We both thought it was the best foundational technical shooting class we had ever taken.

TPC doctrine is that stance controls recoil, grip controls muzzle raise, and their fire control triangle consists of stance, grip and trigger control. Here are some of the class handouts describing this.












The day was spent running a series of drills to systematically work through the material, starting with stance, then grip, then trigger control, and then putting together the entire reactive shooting cycle. My wife realized she was getting moved some in recoil and adjusted her stance to be slightly more forward, with her strong foot back a tad more. Instructor, JoAnn Bradley, showed me how she keeps the second knuckle of her trigger finger bent at a 90 degree angle to help press the trigger straight back. On one drill designed to assess muzzle control, TPC used a rainbow colored target that allowed you to see what color your muzzle rised to, and then worked on grip to maximize control.

In a late afternoon session, we got to pick whatever target we wanted and I choose a page of one inch circles that from five yards, I worked to draw and as quickly as possible fire a hit to five across one inch circles. I think we shot about 750 thoughtful rounds, and by the end of tape I saw a lot of tape on various parts of my classmates’ hands! After a long near 100 degree day, the instructions were to “hydrate, rest and Do Not drynfire.”

[GyroF-16]

Thanks, GJM - keep it coming!

[Norville]

Very interesting, thanks for posting GJM and please continue when you have time.

[GJM]

Day 2, TPC.

Day 2 was filled with many knowledge blocks. Things we covered were the draw, reloading, one hand shooting, table starts, transitions, and determining an acceptable sight picture for difficult targets. Like day 1, our assistant instructors stayed with us, and the leads rotated through the various groups. Lots of great info, but my absolute favorite block was transitions taught by Max Leograndis. Besides being PCC national champion, Max is extremely smart and an excellent instructor. A credit to Ken Nelson, is over the last six months I have seen his course curriculum and instructor abilities continue to improve. My wife especially liked the reloading block, their table start technique where you use two hands with your support hand scooping under the barrel just ahead of the trigger guard, and the concept of holding a full glass of water as you transition between targets. Her absolute lightswitch moment was when Ken Nelson described leading with your strong elbow as you start the draw.

Day 3, TPC

We started with a block led by Glen Wong, who I affectionately refer to as the third Williams sister, on movement into and out of position. The second block was shooting on the move taught by Rossen Hristov. The third block was shooting movers led by Max. The final block was on continuous flow throughout a stage led by Aaron Brekke. All were excellent. Max’s block was my absolute favorite of the entire course. Max explained the idea of shooting movers is to shoot them at the point they are stationary, and took us through ambushing and tracking, which by the end of the block I was equally comfortable with.

[Jesting Devil]

Lots of great info, but my absolute favorite block was transitions taught by Max Leograndis. Besides being PCC national champion, Max is extremely smart and an excellent instructor.

I take a tiny bit of pride that I took Max to his first match, his progression has been crazy to see. He thinks about things very unconventionally and practicing with him on and off pushed the level of my shooting dramatically.

I'd love to take one of these TPC camps.