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Thread: Gabe whitr shooting solutions, waverly tn oct 27-28, 2018

  1. #1

    Gabe White, "Shooting Solutions," Waverly TN October 27-28, 2018

    https://civiliandefender.com/2018/11...he-kydex-slap/

    (Hit link for photos and imbedded video)

    
When you first see Gabe White shoot, you'll notice that there is an audible, "SMACK!" when he draws his Glock 17 from his Keepers Concealment appendix holster. In the days of yore, pistoleros who were quick on the draw were called, "leather slappers."
    
I first read about Gabe on PISTOLFORUM and then met him and saw him shoot at the RANGEMASTER TACTICAL CONFERENCE in March of 2018. I was lucky enough to make it into the, "Top 16," shooters of the competition, of which Gabe was the FIRST PLACE winner. The competition at the conference is always a good test of skill and wits, and it is a friendly competition without a tremendous amount of ego involved. I am always humbled to end up in the competition at all, but mostly, I enjoy seeing my peers do well. Gabe is one of the most humble competitors you will meet, and he will gladly dissect his own performance and describe to you in the smallest of details, where he felt his performance was less than perfect. Of course, to the casual observer, it looks like a masterful performance by any measure!
    
Gabe's flagship course is called, "Pistol Shooting Solutions," and I was honored to host him at the Humphreys County Sheriff's Office range facility in Waverly, TN. From the time I contacted Gabe about hosting, I was impressed by how precise and technical he was in his requirements for the range and hosting. Gabe designed his course from the ground up to be useful to the consumer. He has taken a number of classes himself, and understands what a good course of instruction should do for his clients. Gabe limits the number of students in the class to fourteen, so that he can closely monitor each student while still running relays that don’t cause too much down time for anyone.
    
THE ENEMY OF GETTING BETTER IS GOOD ENOUGH

    One of the issues with taking classes on a regular basis is that you get good at shooting…and while that is, in the BIG PICTURE, a good thing, for the dedicated student it often results in a plateau of skill development. If you are safe, efficient and consistent in most tactical oriented classes, you won’t get a tremendous amount of direction or coaching on how to improve. Gabe’s class was quite different in this regard. Immediately, I learned a number of actionable improvements from Gabe that I was able to incorporate into my shooting that resulted in immediate improvements, of which I will expound on in detail below.
    
We had students in the class of all levels, from newer shooters to professional gun users (law enforcement) who EACH received individualized feedback, independent of their experience level. In addition to the qualitative feedback, Gabe also provides a mechanism for systematized testing in a series of four graded standards, that not only reward a good skill set, but also let the student establish benchmarks for the future that they can compare their own performance to. Gabe gives three awards, in ascending order of achievement, the DARK PIN, LIGHT PIN and TURBO PIN. This class was the first in history to have two TURBO PIN recipients, Randy Harris and John Hearne. I’ve trained with both of them in the past, and both are PHENOMENAL shooters!

    THE RIGHT HAND OF DOOM

If you watch Gabe's draw, you'll notice that his hand immediately goes into this, "claw," configuration. To expedite the grip-building phase of the draw, Gabe recommended to start defaulting to setting your hand in this position, so that your path to the gun is quick, consistent, and uniform. Of course, mishaps in grip still happen, or garments foul the draw, but having a hard base from which to start, gives the user a reference point which can immediately be defaulted to.
I’ve been training now for 28 years, and in that time, I have gone through a number of life changes, including changes in work (and work gear), playing rugby, lifting weights, gaining weight/losing weight, conditioning exercise and various other activities and injuries that have left my body in its current state. Because of my almost daily repetitive work involving the forceful removal of human teeth from people, my wrists, elbows and shoulders take a literal BEATING that has transferred, somewhat unconsciously, into my shooting habits, and how I handle the gun. One of the things that has suffered has been my draw speed. Even when I think I am moving quickly to the gun, I am NOT. Gabe noticed this and told me that if I could speed up my draw, and get to the gun quicker, I would knock a good chunk of time off of my presentation. The exercise he showed me to get up to speed was to start from the ready position of my choice, and then swat my hand to the gun, quickly, like a karate chop (remember the audible SLAP when Gabe gets his hand to the gun?) and then acquire the firing grip. He had my try this several times, without drawing, and just quickly slapping my hand to the holstered pistol. After about the fifth time, he said, “NOW GET TO THE GUN THAT FAST.” I did, and HOLY SMOKES, it worked! I immediately saw an appreciable increase in my presentation/time to first shot. Once, later in the day, John Hearne noticed that my time to the gun was slipping again and I was lagging, which I’m sure was just force of habit returning and also fatigue, so I reverted back to the slapping exercise to restore my draw's vigor. In my past training, I’d never had anyone say anything like, “GET TO THE GUN QUICKER,” and then show me an exercise that is literally so simple to do, to illustrate how to make that happen. That was extremely helpful.
    
THE 1000 YARD WINK

    During the lunch break on the first training day, Gabe gave an optional lecture on vision. Through a series of demonstrations, he showed us all how our eyes can focus on only one point at a time. In shooting, this is significant, since we normally look at the target, then draw our gun, find the front sight, then begin shooting once we have a hard front sight focus. This contraction of the ciliary muscle and bending of the lense in the eye takes time…and if you’re a bit older, it takes even more time! An over abundance of time is one thing you DO NOT have when either the stakes are high in a shooting match, or when the stakes can’t be any higher than in a fight to save your life! Gabe described a technique to the class that allows the capable student to be able to immediately change their focus to the, “intermediate focal plane,” or that empty cube of space that exists at about arm’s length distance in front of the shooter’s face, where their pistol’s slide and front sight will eventually end up at the final point of their presentation. By starting with their focus at this point, upon presentation of the pistol, the eye is already calibrated to see the front sight crisply and clearly, and the additional step of changing focus from the target to the front sight is eliminated. Gabe said that about one person in fourteen will be able to use this ability, and other people simply wouldn’t. Much to my surprise, I found that I COULD actually see in the intermediate focal plane, with relative ease. I attribute this to my years of using microscopes in the applied sciences and in surgery. After lunch, the benefits of seeing the sights more accurately and quickly was readily apparent! I wish that I had known about the ability before lunch, as it would have made the shot-calling drills easier, as well as determining what was an acceptable sight picture for a shot. Next time!

    People have been saying, “See what you need to see,” in the firearms training industry since at least the time of Jeff Cooper, and probably before! But much like, “PRESS THE TRIGGER,” it is something that is often said, but rarely understood. In the event that a novice instructor tells a student that phrase and it actually solves their problem, it’s probably more likely due to luck then to the acumen of the instructor! But with the ability to see in the intermediate focal plane, SEEING WHAT YOU NEED TO SEE becomes a genuine reality! I’ve never before experienced a feeling in shooting quite as acute as that. The closest analogy of precision I can liken it to is using an EOTECH reticle on an M4 type rifle. The large, aviation-grade reticle is so easy to see, superimposed over the target, that you know EXACTLY where the gun is pointed when you press the shot. With a hard front sight focus on presentation, you can see instantly where the gun is pointed and how you need to course correct to achieve the desired directional adjustment. Using a brightly painted front sight (I used Warren Sevigny sights with the front sight painted red orange with Birchwood Casey sight paint) I was acutely aware of not only the immediate location of my front sight, but also the detail of the sight, down to the horizontal serrations and the areas where the edges of the paint had rubbed off, or picked up the faux-suede lining of my Safariland duty holster. In years past, I never noticed such details.

If you remove the slide from your pistol, you can visualize and see your sights in a variety of lighting conditions, in places where pointing a gun about will draw a curious eye at the very least, and possibly illicit a law enforcement response at worst! So, in order to evaluate effectively and not upset the townsfolk, pull the slide off, and the casual observer thinks you're looking at a hard drive or a sexton. As you can see, in terms of shot calling, this press with this sight picture would take the shot a bit low and to the left. HOW low and to the left is variable on range. Gabe will show you exactly how to determine what your deviation is going to look like at commonly encountered defensive distances, from 5 yards to 25 yards. The results might surprise you!

    IN CLOSING
    
Take this course. Regardless of where you feel you are in your study of shooting, if you are safe, and capable of good accuracy on demand, Gabe will make you better. In the graded standards we shot, I was able to score in the LIGHT PIN range, which I hope to continue to improve on, and return to retake this course again, and earn the vaunted TURBO PIN. Prior to this course, I think I was a strong DARK PIN shooter, but honing my skills with just a few additional input changes from Gabe made all of the difference. It seems silly that only a few minor tweaks could have such a profound effect, but really, when you consider what technical and combat shooting is, it is really a simple series of motor skills and eye-hand coordination events that culminate in the symphony of light, sound and downrange effect that we see and take for granted. Shaving fractions of a second off of the draw and presentation by increasing efficiency (it doesn't take many shaves before your NEW time surpasses your BEST old times) is only to the betterment of the shooter...nothing is lost in the pursuit. And when you consider that to excel at Gabe's drills you still have to strive for 100% accuracy, or else suffer the time penalty consequences, then it makes the pursuit all that more attractive.
This was just a cursory discussion of the course. Much of what I learned I'll keep to myself, as I think it does both you (the reader) and I a disservice; there's too much to tell! Get to Gabe's class and see what you can pull out of it! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Gabe and I with my certificate and my LIGHT PIN. This was one of the most mentally fatiguing, physically demanding, shooting courses I've ever taken. There is no, "spray and pray," in this class, and every shot, even the ones fired quickly, are done so with a great deal of thought and precision. I'll see you in the future for a TURBO PIN Gabe White!

My training partner and battle buddy, Chris Norville. In addition to being an accomplished peace officer, and police firearms trainer, Chris is a Rangemaster-Certified Instructor in both shotgun and pistol, AS WELL AS being the recipient of the TOP GUN AWARD in both classes. Chris also earned the LIGHT PIN in Gabe's class, and did so from a Safariland ALS duty holster. Chris and I have attended about six classes together over the past years, and it is always a pleasure to shoot with a professional like him!

M&P 2.0? More like M&P 1.5, but more on that later. I've learned over the years that more people tend to read my essays if there are gun pics. It's fall here...but that doesn't mean I am using anything other than my old standards, the original M&P 9mm. I've had this pair since ~2008. I used the top piece for Gabe's class with the Sevigny sights (the bottom is identical except the barrel is OEM, and the sights are the Warren type, NOT Sevigny and is generally packed along as my backup trainer) with the brown backstrap. Yes, FDE is all the rage lately it seems, but I find it particularly useful to distinguish one gun from another, when you own a fleet of identical (or nearly identical) pistols. The top gun had the factory guts replaced after 30K rounds with new factory guts, as well as swapping out the old barrel for a Storm Lake drop in barrel. It has been utterly reliable with a variety of magazine vintages, floor plates, and capacities (17, 20 and 23 in OEM configuration, Samson Mfg floor plates (+3) and Taran Tactical (+6), respectively). I used a case of Federal American Eagle 115 grain ammunition in Gabe's class. I've discovered over the past year or so of using the 2.0 that I like the 1.0 better. I need to devote a bit more time to the 2.0 with a sanding block and really dial in the grip the way I prefer, to provide traction and not abrasions. The super aggressive texturing is hard on clothes, and it is SO grippy it doesn't easily allow for grip adjustment on-the-fly, which, despite what the proponents of the absolute FULL FIRING GRIP crowd will tell you, needs to happen from time to time. Rarely does life work out perfect...and ever more rarely do things done in harm's way work perfectly. Expect the best, prepare for the worst!

    THANKS FOR READING!
-DR. HOUSE




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    Last edited by Sherman A. House DDS; 11-08-2018 at 06:07 PM. Reason: Because Tapatalk...

  2. #2
    MODS PLEASE CORRECT TITLE...not sure how I fat fingered that!


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  3. #3
    Leopard Printer Mr_White's Avatar
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    What a wonderful review, Sherman! Thank you so much, and thanks again for hosting me in the first place. Same as with Randy, it was great to meet you and train with you after all these years only knowing you on the internet! You shot very well. It makes me very, very happy, that a person as developed and trained as yourself finds value in my class. That's a huge success to me.
    Technical excellence supports tactical preparedness
    Lord of the Food Court
    http://www.gabewhitetraining.com

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    Sherm, Thanks for the kind words (and the dinner and PIE on Friday night!). Sherman is a funny dude and I was constantly laughing at something he was saying. He's also a SOLID shooter snagging a Light pin and he's one of the guys I mentioned in my review that is on the verge of shifting gears to the next level. Thanks for hosting and bringing Gabe so close. Next time we need to talk about and compare wheel guns....

  5. #5
    Yeah, but did it snow?
    I had an ER nurse in a class. I noticed she kept taking all head shots. Her response when asked why, "'I've seen too many people who have been shot in the chest putting up a fight in the ER." Point taken.

  6. #6
    Leopard Printer Mr_White's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jlw View Post
    Yeah, but did it snow?
    The only precipitation was a RAIN OF PINS!
    Technical excellence supports tactical preparedness
    Lord of the Food Court
    http://www.gabewhitetraining.com

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr_White View Post
    The only precipitation was a RAIN OF PINS!
    It's raining pins, Hallelujah...
    I had an ER nurse in a class. I noticed she kept taking all head shots. Her response when asked why, "'I've seen too many people who have been shot in the chest putting up a fight in the ER." Point taken.

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    Now THAT'S funny....

  9. #9
    Member GuanoLoco's Avatar
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    For me the class was loaded with subtleties that I wasn’t able to fully absorb in my first class in the spring of ‘18. Let me see if I can capture some of these things:

    - Gabe’s Dry fire techniques for quickly pulling the trigger from finger in register, lightly touching the trigger, and trigger near the break, closesly monitoring for any induced deflection in the sight picture. I’ll be honest - I have NOT spent enough time doing this for DA, SA and striker-fired trigger pulls.

    - Dry fire techniques from reset, simulating recoil and transitions. Again, I had completely ignored this after the first class, and careful application in the windows where we had dry fire opportunities yielded immediate returns on my body to head transitions - and, as Sherman points out, immedaitely PAID when I hit 2 Turbo Pin times on the split Bill Drill test.

    - The “Opening the Aperture” technique when your blind defensive positon is being over-run. I’ve probably played 1000 games of paintball, and used every technique you could imagine on either side of this scenario - but I never used or saw anyone use this technique. Bravo.

    - Defensive Shooting-on-the-Run. I honestly spend a fair amount of time practicing USPSA competitive shooting-on-the-move drills, but Gabe’s concept of moving more agressively, firing a minimal number of shots and being highly accountable for them, moving Left and Right, is novel. In the spring ‘18 class I really struggled with this but in this most recent session I felt that I was moving faster and getting surprisingly good/tight hits. Based on my results this time around, Gabe even suggested cranking up the difficulty with distance and/or smaller targets.

    - Watching Gabe shoot. Why? Speed. Consistency. Listening to his analysis of every nuance of what was going right and especially what was sub-optimal. Seeing his hits at that speed. Listening to the dedication over time that led to this level of skill. I prefer instructors that SHOOT because frankly, if they can do it then maybe I can do it.

    - The class training style for the drills: Warmups like the Rheostat / Top Rock drill and draws (although I am always testing my cold skills and getting irritated). Testing at full speed, pushing for a while, then in ‘test/match’ mode for a while, then a sample test, then a test. I usually do the exact opposite: Cold Runs, warmed up ‘Test’ Runs, and finishing with speed runs trying for new Personal Bests.

    - Using cover in a variety of creative ways, and trying hard, once again, to be accountable for every shot and put ALL of them high in the lower “A” Zone. Controlling the space. Trying to be super-aware of what I am exposing. Again, back in my (pump gun) paintball era, ANYTHING you left sticking out from cover was likely to get hit, and get hit quickly. The best players were even able to pull this type of precision shooting off while on-the-move. You can’t assume your adversary is unskilled.

    - For the Figure-8 shooting on the move drill I felt like I could just hammer it, moving quickly around the barrels, nailing good hits in the body and even the head much more aggressively and accurately than I did in the fall.

    - The vision thing - I THINK I can do it (pre-focusing at front sight distance), but I am also experimenting now with using a single contact to corrrect my non-dominant eye for nearsightedness, while leaving my nearsighted dominant eye uncorrected with a front sight focus. I just came back from a Ben Stoeger class where he is is shooting EVERYTHING target focused, while Gabe is shooting EVERYTHING front sight focused. I am fortunate to have such gifted instructors offering me a plethora of viable, proven techniques to choose from. The trick is chosing and PROVING which, or what combination of these techniques is most effective for me.

    That’s all for now - more may come to me as I ruminate on the subject.
    Last edited by GuanoLoco; 11-12-2018 at 01:39 PM.
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  10. #10
    Leopard Printer Mr_White's Avatar
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    It's great to read your thoughts on the takeaways from class @GuanoLoco - thank you!
    Technical excellence supports tactical preparedness
    Lord of the Food Court
    http://www.gabewhitetraining.com

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