Might have been tied to this post from @Shawn.L:Originally Posted by Dan Lehr
Ft. Harmar Home Defense Course 09/26 Grant Timberlake
For those that dont know me on here a little background:
Ive attended courses in Pistol, Carbine, Edged weapons, Retention and Disarms, Tactics, comabtives, ect ect ect from a diverse list of instructors including but not limited to Peter Georgiades, Giles Stock, Randy Cain, Ken Hackathorn, George Mathis, Red Zone Solutions, and Tony Ferrazoli. I currently hold a NRA Pistol Instructor certification and have assisted instructing for the FIRE Inst. One Day handgun Clinic and done new shooter orientations at club events. I shoot both USPSA and IDPA but am not currently a member of either orginization.
I was invited to this class by Grant and welcomed the offer. This was to be the first class of this sort he was offering and I was interested to see what TTP's he was going to instruct and to check out the new Ft Harmar shoot house. I figured for one day and a nominal $50 fee (I belive his intended price for these classes once they go public is $150-175) it was well worth the short 2.5 hour drive.
I met Grant and the other students (12 in total) and the predesignated meeting point, BS'd a bit, Grant handed us off maps to reach the range as it was hidden way way back in the middel of nowhere and we caravaned off down some windy and dusty "roads" to the club.
When we arrived at the range and got out of our cars Grant instructed us to "Get out our Kit" and go over to the table.
Guys where uncasing guns, pulling guns from holsters, loading, unloading. Immediately I was uncomfortable. One student took a pistol out, sprayed it down with lube and started to swing it in the air to shake some of the lube out. I went around to the far end to put as many bodies between me and all the muzzles as I could and fully expected the intructor to quickly regulate the situation. Not only did that not happen, but the entire day was a field day in poor gun handling and lack of safety protocol.
I am used to the first thing an instructor does on the range is instruct his student on how they are to behave on the range, what safety protocol is to be followed, and what the range rules are as well as what the consequesnces for breaking those rules are.
The safety protocol consited of being told to keep our fingers out of the trigger guard. Throughout the day during both the flat range and house segments many of the students couldnt even do that.
We started with some basic "see where you are" type drills. "The Test", 5-5-5, some slow fire stuff, SHO, and WHO flat range shooting paper. I saw not only student who didnt have in a basic level of marksmanship skills but some downright scary holster work and questionable gear choices. I have to wonder how this list of invitees was formulated. It came up later that some of these guys only exposure to the subject of the defensive use of arms was attending some free group "study sessions". While that may be a nice way to introduce new shooters to the subject, and a great way to spread a little knowledge it does not make one ready to enter a live fire shoot house.
In fact even attending well recognized courses doesnt make one ready. Most people can survive a 2 or 3 day course and not do anthing stupid enough to get kicked out, get a certificate, write up an "AAR" and learn nothing, practice nothing, and be no better off that had they just bought another gun with the money. You cant buy competence, even by paying for classes. It takes time and effort, and theres just no other way around it.
Grants assistant was a Sgt. Watson. Throughout the day I saw him pull his gun partly or fully from the holster, fiddle with it, and put it back away. At one point on break he came close (or did, I couldnt tell from my point of view) sweep the head of another student who was kneeling next to him getting some items from his bag.
After the square range drills we where heading over to the shoot house with Grant for some instruction. On the way over we where told to clear our guns. On the way over. Again, at any class Ive ever attended there is a protocol for this. Students should be told to line up facing the berm, make clear, and check each others guns. Instead again everone milled around the table unloading, drawing, sweeping one another, laying guns down, putting them in bags, ect.
I should have just left. In all honesty I feel like an idiot for staying. I have a wife and child at home and theres nothing any instructor can teach me thats worth me taking a bullet. But I did not, I stayed.
We went to the shoot house and Grant gave us some instruction using a blue gun. This part of the course was very well done. His instruction was clear, he explained how he wanted us to treat doors, about pieing corners, using cover/concealment and some basic tactics. Again he mentioned about fingers in trigger guards and then that there would be people above you on the catwalk so dont sweep them while reloading.
Our groups where split into 2 and mine was the first to the house. We where originally told we would do dry runs with blue guns first. Grant asked who wanted firsts and I jumped on it. I picked up a blue gun and he told me "No, lets just go live." Now, Im fine with that for me. Ive done this stuff before. But Grant doesnt know me, hes seen me shoot maybe 50 rounds, and even from what I saw not behind the line some of these guys gun handling is suspect at best.
The house was a simple set up. I didnt expect much more for a intro course. Basic shoot/no shoot and hostage targets. I went about clearing the house. Twice I had to ask Grant to move so he wouldnt needlessly be downrange of me. Once he was down the end of the hall I hadnt cleared yet on the other side of a door I was about to work, and once as I exited a room. To be clear I could have easily not swept him, but I could easily not sweep him standing next to a target Im shooting too, that doesnt mean its the best place for him to. I essentially felt like he was just wandering around the house while I cleared it and when i would exit a room he would be in the hall somewhere.
After my run he tried to "instruct" me to use a compressed high ready........ I gotta wonder why he wants me to sweep everything in my path if hes going to be wandering around in front of me. He also tried to tell me I should ahve taken more shots on a hostage target when my one shot put a 45 calliber hole right through the BG's eye socket.
he instructed in the house that "Only good hits count." Fair enough, and I agree completely, but he then went on to instruct the student that if theey see bad hits they should "keep shooting until the get good solid hits, it may take 15 hits on a target." To me this sounds like instructing students to look over there gun at the targets and walk in rounds, forget about the fact that in real life youll never see hits so training to look for them is a bad habit at best and negligent at worst. I was not suprised to see the majority of students shoot low and often.
After my run I went to the catwalk to watch. You know..... I felt safer up there........
One student when going through a doorway went into a full Sabrina and muzzled the shit out of us. The couple of us up there yelled MUZZLE MUZZLE and he brought it down. After Grant commented "Thanks for catching that, I couldnt see him from where I was at." Beacuse he in the hall busy taking video instead of instructing. The video of in the shoot house posted online is the instructor videoing, as well as many of the not from above pictures. In my opinion an instructor in this enviroment needs to be able to comepletly focus on his one student, esp taking care of safe gun handling with total new guys, and work with them.
On the one video you can see a student do a reload in a doorway pointing the gun right at the cameraman/instructor/Grant and once the reload is done he comments calmly "watch your muzzle".
The attitude seems to be this is "no big deal" and "we play by the big boy rules" "people get swept". Well, this aint my first rodeo, Ive done shoot houses before, Ive done partner work before, ive done live fire simulators where role players grab you and you work and move in a 360 degree world and NO ONE GETS SWEPT. why? because the first thing we did was learn how to do that, and because our instructors where on top of the class at all times doing there best to not only look out for everyones safety but paying more attention to the students and if they are learning than to themselves.
Im not sure that anyone got out of that clas without being swept, wether they know it or not.
The day fnished out with more flat range stuff as the other students ran the house. We shot on the move, around barricades, and did drills like the compass and figure 8. Many of the atrgets where shot up, not all pasted.
At the end Grant told us all how he is a student of Ken and Larry and how hes going to submit all our names so hopefully we will get invited to a HD course with one of them, and how this class was to prepare us for that experiance. Sales pitch much?
Im not sure after my review here Im getting invited to anything.
But I had to tell the truth. I was speaking to a friend after the class and I mentioned to him "Ever wonder about how much bad instruction, and unsafe stuff we never hear about?"
Source: https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/...ge=9#i36666281
There used to be video that showed how egregious it was, not sure if it's still floating around for easy access.
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