Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: AAR: Kinetic Consulting Weaponized Geometry, 17-18 July, Miami FL

  1. #1
    Site Supporter Casey's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    South Florida

    AAR: Kinetic Consulting Weaponized Geometry, 17-18 July, Miami FL

    Kinetic Consulting
    Weaponized Geometry

    17-18 July 2021
    Condition One Group, Miami, Florida
    Instructor: Jon Dufresne
    Class Size: 8
    Instructor to Student Ratio: 1:8
    Ammunition Requirement: N/A (UTM provided)
    Tuition: $500


    Introduction & Training Background

    This was my third Kinetic course, having previously taken Jon’s Stop the Bleed and LE RDS Instructor classes. I started training seriously in 2012 and I’ve taken a little over 20 classes since then, training under instructors like Randy Cain, Jeff Gonzales, Scott Jedlinski, and others, with a heavy focus on handgun. I’m typically at the range two or three times per month, averaging around 10,000 rounds annually. I work in security management and I ride a desk, so my reason for taking this class was purely to further my proficiency for self-defense, as I do not carry a gun on the job.

    This class was made up entirely of civilians working in fields like construction, fitness, real estate, aircraft maintenance, etc. Class size was supposed to be 12, but two students cancelled at the last minute and two more were no-shows. That worked out in our favor as we got more reps.


    Location

    The class was hosted at Condition One Group’s expansive 9,000 sq. foot facility in downtown Miami. This is a phenomenal location for indoor tactics classes, with a spacious classroom and a large NLTA shoothouse with an assortment of reconfigurable rooms. C1G offers a variety of training courses for civilian and LE taught by their in-house instructors, a great resource for South Florida area students.


    Gear

    This was not a gear-centric course. UTM Glock 17s were provided by the instructor, including one set up with an RMR for those of us who carry a dot. Long sleeves and pants were the order of the day with use of man-marker rounds; kneepads were a benefit as level-changes were encouraged if appropriate when working corners.


    Course Description

    From the Kinetic Consulting website: “Weaponized Geometry is single man Close Quarters Combat. CQC is more than just running around a structure with a gun. In this class, we will cover the basics to CQC, using geometry to your advantage, and the intricacies of working alone. This class will not be team based. It is solo clearance and skills that would also work in a team setting. Day 1 will be concepts, techniques, and tactics.
    Day 2 we will apply skills learned on day 1 with force on force NLTA.”


    About the instructor: “Jon served with 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, deploying multiple times in various capacities. The Ranger Battalion also provided Jon with training and first hand experience in small unit tactics, airborne operations, field medicine, breaching, foreign languages and small arms. Upon leaving the Army, Jon worked in executive protection and acted as a law enforcement consultant, molding his military experience into a contextual view of the threats faced outside of combat environments. Jon comes to the firearms industry with an ideal blend of military and citizen; shaping his courses to apply to Mil, LE and citizen students alike.”


    Course Summary

    Day 1 started in the classroom with a PowerPoint overview of the course material.
    • Instructor & student intros.
    • Weapon safety.
    • Weaponized Geometry basic tenet: minimize exposure while maximizing lethality.
    • The “3 Brains” as it pertains to how we respond to stimuli: deliberate, intuitive, and instinctive.
    • Jon’s equation for the perfect shot.
    • Common behavior and three deadly errors seen in FOF encounters.
    • Priority of life from the civilian and LE/MIL perspectives.
    • Priorities of work.

    Next, we moved into the house for practical demonstration on opening doors and working corners. After a demo we partnered up to practice pieing corners. Cell phone cameras came in handy for this to show your partner exactly how exposed he was. Jon shared a useful technique for scoping out a center-fed room with minimal exposure.

    Dry practice complete, we moved on to unopposed runs through the house working basic problems with a UTM gun. There was no opportunity to warm up, as Jon is a big fan of performance on demand. Jon provided a hotwash immediately after your run, then once everyone was done, we debriefed as a group so Jon could share his observations with the class and provide feedback on how he would have approached the scenarios.

    After the debrief, we discussed incapacitation methods (psychological and physical) and broke down the physical into timers and switches, then moved on to our second and third runs through the house.

    Day 2 started back in the classroom with discussion of the concept of negative angles and linear vs. non-linear problems. Then we suited up and moved into the house, this time with role-players. After completing their own run, students were encouraged to shadow other students on subsequent runs to see different perspectives and ways of handling problems. We also swapped out role players so that everyone got the opportunity to play bad guy. During the hotwash after each run, the role players got to provide feedback about what they observed. This was not a scenario-based course, although the role players were sometimes no-shoot targets. After a group debrief, Jon set up new problems and cycled in new role players, and we did our second run of the day.

    After the debrief from the second run, we gathered in one of the rooms for a quick duel to illustrate use of cover. Starting facing away from each other in doorways on opposite sides of a room, upon command, two students moved to cover, then tried to shoot each other without being shot themselves. Oh, and you only had five rounds in the gun. Get shot or run out of ammo without shooting the other guy, you lose. I found that patience paid off big time as most of the students ripped through their five rounds quickly.

    The third run through the house was the most complex of the day, this time with three role players and much more ground to cover. After the third run, we had another duel, much like the first, only this time you had to move from one side of the doorway to the other after every shot. This wasn’t being recommended as a tactic. It was more intended to show how exposed you are when crossing an open door. Again, patience paid off and after my opponent’s first shot missed, I was able to ambush him when he moved across the doorway with relative ease. Gaming it a little, sure.

    We wrapped up the day with one last quick and dirty run through the house. I won’t share exactly what it was, but suffice it to say it was different from any scenario we had faced yet and definitely required some positive target identification.


    Summary and General Observations

    This was a solid class. I’ve taken Randy Cain’s Indoor Tactics twice now, which is a live-fire solo shoothouse class. This was an entirely different level of stress. Between a fogged-up face shield, heart racing, unfamiliar room layout, and the stress of live opposition, it was remarkable I managed to get good hits on target and didn’t shoot anyone who didn’t need to be shot. Having good flat-range fundamentals helped in that regard. I didn’t need to think about weapon manipulations, which freed up my conscious processes to deal with the problem. I did notice one gap in my skillset, which was acquiring the dot in awkward positions. I spend more than enough time acquiring the dot on the draw, but rarely practice working from the low ready or similar positions. That’s something I need to fix on the square range.

    I was happy to see that the techniques Jon taught dovetailed nicely with what I had learned in Randy’s classes. There wasn’t really anything that was dramatically contradictory, and Jon taught some additional techniques that weren’t covered in Randy’s class, which I look forward to applying next time I’m up at Southern Exposure. I walked away from this class feeling much like I did after Randy’s class: solo structure clearing sucks and it’s not something one should do voluntarily. That said, there may come a time when it’s necessary, like moving through your own house to get to family members during a home invasion or trying to evacuate a business safely during an active killer event. Adding to the stress was the sheer size of the facility. Every run started in a different room, the direction of travel changed each run, and the location of the role players (and whether they needed to be shot) varied.

    Jon’s style as an instructor is very laid-back, and he’s a personable guy. He tells you up front that he believes memory retention is much better when someone is having a good time. I dig that.

    Overall, I felt ok about my performance in class. I didn’t have any issues with gunhandling or accuracy, and setting aside the time as a role player, I managed to only get shot three or four times. I was not happy about how stressed I felt going through the house with opposition. That improved throughout the second day, but it’s going to take a lot more repetition before I ever get to a point where that’s going to feel routine. I know it’s unrealistic to expect to be cool, calm, and collected by the end of a 16-hour class.

    I recommend this class without hesitation. If you can take an unopposed live-fire (or NLTA) indoor tactics class first before moving into force-on-force, do it. I felt more comfortable with some aspects of the class like working doors and pieing corners because I already had two live-fire shoothouse classes under my belt. But I don’t think that’s a prerequisite. Having solid fundamentals is a nice-to-have, but not a deal-breaker, as long as you’re safe. If you have the ability to take this class at C1G’s facility, you’ll definitely appreciate the air conditioning. I don’t normally take classes in Florida in the summer, but an indoor climate-controlled shoothouse makes the summer heat a non-issue. Note that I'm leaving out a ton of detail from this AAR—you need to take the class to experience things firsthand and understand the nuance.

    All things considered, I’m glad I took this class, and I got enough out of it that I signed up to repeat it before I even got home from day two.

  2. #2
    Nice write up. Terrible name for both the company and the class.

  3. #3
    Great write up. I need to up my skill set for this class but it sounds like it teaches what I aspire to learn and execute. Appreciate you putting these guys on my radar

    Thanks

  4. #4
    Site Supporter Casey's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    South Florida
    Quote Originally Posted by BigD View Post
    Nice write up. Terrible name for both the company and the class.
    Well, it’s a game of angles, so…

  5. #5
    Member Sal Picante's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    SunCoast
    Jon has taught a number of these classes here in Sarasota/Bradenton... Great stuff - I always learn a lot.

User Tag List

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •