Small world! I grew up in San Bernardino county and counted myself as lucky for being able to obtain a CCW permit in SoCal. I had heard Riv. Co. issued some too, but that it was a bit trickeir--not sure if that was true or not. Moved to No. Colorado in 2007. 15 yds with a reload on the clock would definitley be a challenge for many new shooters. How long (in hours) is your buddy's class?Originally Posted by Flamingo
His initial course is 4 hours on the range and 4 hours in the class room. The every two year requal is 4 hours on the range.
The time hack is pretty slow 30 seconds at 3 and 7 yards and 45 seconds at 15 yards on a b21 target. The required score to pass is 30/36. He regularly has people pass with J frames and two reloads per string.
He is a retired CDC Special Agent (he ran a lot of the range work for parole agents) and it took him almost two years to get the approvals from the county to teach the course.
When I visit him I usually help with the line if there are classes going. I am by no means an expert pistolero but I have been taking training and classes for 25 years. I went into the first beginner class with him thinking that requiring training for carrying was a ridiculous infringement of a persons right to self defense (and I still lean that way), but seeing how badly/ignorantly untrained people handle their handguns was eyeopening. He always tells his students (especially if they are new) to seek additional training, even if it is not from him, between requalification periods.
His webpage is: https://www.aftcllc.com/.
You bet. One difference in the way we might approach things is our ages - my kids are grown, and I've been retired four years (thank you uncle sugar).
At this point money isn't really a motivating factor, and neither is time. I might feel differently in a couple years when my wife retires.
I understand completely about the time thing, sometimes if time is the constraint you have to accept sub-optimal results.
Good luck.
Maybe recommend a virtual shooting range as an option for additional training.
--Jason--
I'm going to be blunt, but I'm not trying to be nasty.
(1) If I want to set someone up to receive more shooting advice from me, I don't coach hard at all. Briefly, I do "keep the muzzle pointed this way", "finger off the trigger", with basic loading/unloading and a super-short sight picture if they're super-new. If they're having fun and I'm approachable, they'll ask me stuff. If they don't ask me stuff, I might let them shoot for a bit and go, "Hey, try getting your hand higher on the gun and moving your support hand up here...see how the muzzle didn't jump as much?". Uber-intensive coaching is great when they're paying for and asking for super-intensive coaching, but for an intro, I focus on barebones safety and letting them shoot and have fun. That being said, I've gotten some stellar improvement out of folks with just a little nudge here and there. One lady went from not hitting the paper at 7 to one-ragged-hole in two or three pointers.
(2) After four hours of classroom instruction, even I'm ready to jam a pen through my eyes. I would also suggest that you're packing "CHL License I" with sample-size versions of "CCW Class II" topics like gun maintenance and ammo selection, and "Intro to Pistol" like different types of guns. Yes, by including less stuff, you're theoretically leaving them less prepared. But by jamming in too many topics, you're lowering the amount of instruction they retain. And now that they've had samples of ammo, cleaning, storage, etc etc, they feel like they've "covered everything". From your list, I would say that the only topics really deserving of a licensing-level class are storage (and the responsibilities thereof), legal requirements (including reasonable man standards, imminent/grave/unavoidable threats, and duties to retreat), and something like a "rule of stupids" talk, perhaps with a little "now that you have a gun, no more screaming matches in the grocery parking lot" and "you are not a cop". If you're not already, I would break the classroom portions up into 50-minute chunks with 10-minute breaks at the end.
(3) I have the same slide-racking problem with a minority of female shooters, and it drives me nuts how shitty my success rate is at that. I had a woman that I just could not help--push-pull didn't work, off-hand-over didn't work, taking out my lightly-sprung G34 didn't work. Couldn't work a slide at all, never had a hand or arm injury, no history of RSI. Now, that said, I find that a great many women (and more than a few men) who are new to shooting are afraid of hurting the gun--I think more so than the number that need help working on slide manipulation techniques. My usual approach is to explain that the slide moves more quickly and violently in firing than you could ever move it with your hand, move on to explaining "manipulating with confidence" and why it's important, and then demonstrate by handling my own guns while they watch. A smaller proportion of shooters, especially those that are very new (and, anecdotally, women that have overbearing "expert" and "safe" shooter husbands) are absolutely terrified of letting the muzzle wander, and are manipulating the gun gingerly because they're afraid of making a mistake, and benefit from being shown how to do things like index the trigger finger on the frame, controlling the muzzle while racking the slide, or even how to maintain a firm grip during a slide rack.
Give us a follow-up! I'd really like to hear how things have been going with you and your students in the last couple months.
A few comments, and I'll start by saying that I have relatively little firearm instruction experience, although in my RSO role I'm increasingly having new shooters who want to learn handed off to me by the lead RSO, and I've also brought several female colleagues from the office to the range and spent time getting them started. So these are in many cases observations.
First, thank you for exceeding state standards. I've never had the slightest hesitation advocating for reasonable training requirements. With freedom comes responsibility. Firearms are potentially dangerous, so there's nothing unreasonable about demonstrating a basic level of competence... in the same way that some training is required before we can legally get behind the wheel of an automobile. It won't always prevent someone from doing damage to others, but I'm pretty sure it greatly reduces the frequency.
For comparison, California's CCW requirement is 16 hours of training with a live fire requirement, it's almost always one long classroom day and then the second day on the range, that second day in practice is usually more like 4-5 hours depending on class size. Renewal every two years requires a short legal refresher, usually we show up for that hour of day one, and then a slightly shortened live fire component. Standards vary greatly; one of the local instructors only requires 20 of 25 in the black on a torso-sized bowling pin shape at 12 yards, while another has students work from the holster on an outdoor range at distances from 5 to 15 yards, with smaller targets, number of shots at each distance announced seconds before the beep, and more challenging scoring. I encourage more experienced shooters to do their quals with that latter fellow.
We get a lot of new shooters at the range where I RSO most often, and our lead there brings a case of various pistols and revolvers every evening we're open and he allows shooters to try a variety of things under his close supervision. I agree that on average, women have been better students in that situation and some become respectable slow-fire shooters after only a few visits. Certainly I've seen hand strength issues and few do well with a J-frame, although more than a few have done well with K-frames, especially older S&W's with smooth triggers.
We... the lead RSO, and me when I'm coaching friends or helping out... both tend to start first time shooters with 22 LR, great way to teach basics and check on attention to safety. It's hard to get some of them to move up to anything bigger, and a few take one shot with a service pistol caliber and say uh-uh, not for me. A few weeks ago an off duty Sheriff's deputy asked me to coach him, which I thought was admirable (that he still wants to learn), and it was an eye opener to see that he had an obvious flinch and poor accuracy with his duty .40 Glock, and shot his son's TDA 9mm a whole lot more effectively.
The really frustrating ones are the handful of regulars who show up every week, spray a box of ammo downrange, and still can barely stay on the paper. I've watched a few do this for years with no improvement, still patterns rather than groups, and no interest in learning. Even among the shooters who want to get better, only a handful of us have sought out serious out of the area training. So, not sure what to say about that one, I haven't figured out a way to make them both want to learn and then follow through and do the work.
The other range I RSO at (mostly long guns, plus a few 25-yard pistol stations) has a lot of old timers who are excellent shooters, as well as some younger guys who are recent military or are into competition. Different demographic, different level of motivation and attention to detail. And that range is members only, which has got to be a factor.
Last edited by Salamander; 09-12-2020 at 02:46 AM.
I've just recently gotten my certification to instruct concealed carry in ohio and I'm putting together my curriculum ( which by the way is a bit more intensive than I had thought it may be).
I've done a fair amount of coaching and I've to this point never had someone not be able to operate the slide the method that I teach, on my very well worn p250, is support hand over, and rotate at the hips while keeping the firearm in the same place. A persons hips are significantly stronger than their arms or shoulders.
This does bring me to another question, however. I have been asked about doing some "first shots" classes with several elderly woman. A few of them are... small. At ~100 lbs, and 80+ im working on trying to figure out if they have the strength to safely handle a firearm without actually putting one in their hands. I've reached out to several mentors who have come back with " thats a really good question. Let me do some digging" one did tell me to have them hold dumb bells out in a firing position to see if they have the ability to hold a pistol, which I like. Perhaps starting each of them with a moderately heavily frames .22 lr in single action with one round may work? Does anyone have any ideas?
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You have to accept a hard reality:
There is only so much people can absorb in a day.
I know what you're trying to do. The urge to give them what they absolutely need to know, in your opinion, is strong.
They can't absorb that.
What we end up doing is packing way too much into that single day, and they don't enjoy the experience. So of course they don't want to train again.
You can roll in with 20 pounds of material, but the people showing up to this who are new at it are utterly bewildered by what's happening just in terms of safely managing a live weapon. We are asking them do to things we have spent decades becoming proficient at, and often they are physically unskilled. By that I mean that most people are not doing any sort of athletic physical endeavor. Whether we think of it in these terms or not, shooting is a form of athletic endeavor. We are asking them to apply kinesthetic skills that they do not have. It literally takes mental concentration for them to activate their muscles to, for instance, grip a gun. When they have to actually consciously work to coordinate their muscles to grip a handgun. And oh, by the way, they're being asked to do this around a bunch of other people with guns who are just as bewildered as they are, and they're actually pretty fucking worried about negligently endangering someone else's life.
You can present all 20 pounds of material, but most are showing up with a 2 pound pail. Some less than that. Some have a thimble.
You have absolutely no control over what specific material they take with them.
Meet them where they are. Make them a little bit better than you found them. Ensure that they have fun in the process.
One of the reasons people don't take more than one class is because well-meaning instructors jam a firehose in their face and try to cram 80 hours worth of material into 8. It doesn't work.
In 8 hours with newbies, if you can get them to understand how to live the four rules of firearms safety in their daily lives, and you can get them to draw a gun without shooting themselves and actually hit a target with it, then you have achieved all it is really possible to achieve with a typical newbie to this. Even then, that's STILL a great deal to actually get done in a single day.
Yes, they should know pre-assault cues, police interaction when armed, pepper spray, stopping bleeding, and all the other skills we've collected over a long period of intensive study.
But me throwing all that out there doesn't make them know it any more than you sitting in 8 hours of classroom and lab with a neurosurgeon will give you any real hope of performing neurosurgery.
One of the best things you can do for yourself is go take a class in something you know absolutely nothing about designed for beginners. Something that is alien to anything you know. Put yourself in the shoes of the people coming to you and have their experience and use that as a reference for how you structure your classes.
If you have state mandated curriculum then you have to cover that...but cover it with an eye towards the realities of adult learning.
Make peace with this simple truth: You cannot make them what we want them to be in a day. All you can do is leave them a little better off than they were when they came to you. You can build a solid foundation they can then build on later. Build the foundation of safe handling and basic competence. They need to know the gun is there for Immediate Defense Of Life.
That's about all you can do in a day.
During this entire time you are alternating your role between presenting authority, coach, and cheerleader. You present material with brevity and authority. You coach where it is necessary. And you make sure you celebrate success. When they get something right, no matter how small, you point that out and you make a big damn deal out of it. Especially in front of others. Coach to correct softly, but shout the successes from the rooftop. When you take the time to recognize success and the eyes of the class are on them for having done well at something, it changes the experience for them and for everyone else. They get to be recognized in front of a group of people for success at something they were nervous to approach in the first place. Everybody else gets to see that you're jazzed about their successes.
Everybody comes away believing you are on their team.
That is what will make them come back to other classes. I can't scare someone into taking more training, but I can make sure they taste success and get the impression that this is something they can do.
LE and military training, at least in theory, is designed to weed out the unworthy. (Although failing people in either endeavor is unacceptable these days) In private training we're here to help the willing. If they come away with useful skills and the entire time the vibe they got from you is "Let's do this together!" then they're highly likely to see you again so you can dig deeper and develop more skills and knowledge.
Craig's ECQC is a good model.
It's not someone's first class. It's usually their "I've already got a dozen certificates" class. Or they're coming at it from a combatives background.
Even so, every person that takes ECQC tastes success. Yeah, there's crushing defeat, but every person gets to experience a moment or two where they think "I can do this", and that's what keeps them from quitting.
That taste of success needs to be there for beginners. Not to lie to them. We're not lying to them. We're making them understand that with work and good coaching, they can do this. And they need that to lean on if they're going to pursue more training...or if they actually have to use these skills for real.
Last edited by TCinVA; 11-06-2020 at 12:48 PM.
3/15/2016
Dayum! That was a very, very, informative post. Put words to things most of us have to learn by trial and error. Thanks for taking the time!
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