Teach = whyOriginally Posted by Jay Cunningham
Instruct = how
Teach = why
Instruct = how
But Tom is just so hard to get along with!
(Joking of course)
I've had one handgun class with him and attended the Tactical Conference this last year (Feb/March? I forget now.)
Anyway his class is excellent and provides a very solid foundation.
In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
First, I want to say something nice: Mr. Pincus has a really nice beard.
I always thought Mr. Pincus was, very similar to Mr. Ayoob in this one regard, a guy who was pilloried about the internet for any number of reasons. He was the keynote speaker at an instructor's conference that I attended last year. I very much wanted to get a firsthand look at his material so that I could evaluate it simply for the material and without the noise.
Now for my second nice thing: He said some things in his presentation on divided attention drills that I thought were good material.
Third nice thing: When Mr. Pincus wasn't teaching, he attended other classes as a student and actively took notes, and he was approachable during breaks to anyone who wanted to speak with him.
Unfortunately, I did not get one of the slots for the range portion of the class. There was an incident on the range that was personality driven.
Based on that incident and a few other things that occurred since then I won't be personally spending any training dollars with him or sending any of our personnel to train with him. I do not think that someone choosing to do so is wasting time and money. There will be a few nuggets of worthwhile information. I can't speak firsthand to his teaching of technique on the range. A few friends that had slot in the range session termed it as "alright".
I can instruct about anything if I have a lesson plan. A teacher doesn't only instruct, but understands the backstory of why and how. In addition, the teacher can suggest various alternatives to get the student to have a "lightbulb" moment.How do you define teaching vs. instructing?
TLG got me sorted out and moving in the right direction in this thread two years ago:
http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.p...udent-question
How did you choose this instructor for your first multi-day course?
I have taken combat focus shooting, advanced pistol handling and combat focus shooting instructor - all from Rob Pincus. I took them all when I was very "green" as a shooter (had been shooting once a month or so for about 7 years, and taken a handful of NRA instructor courses, CCW, local defensive courses, etc at the time). I was practically brand new as an instructor. I'd taught like 3 CCW courses at the time...
I say all this to say that at the time I took all of that, I knew next to nothing. I found Pincus's courses to be flush with information...but the reality is that The reason I thought he was full of information was simply because I was not.
On the positive side, he truly is a person who believes in independent evaluation, constantly growing, evolving and changing. He perhaps inspired me to become the same way about my shooting. I took notes and wrote down about 10-15 books to read and several instructors he recommended training with...
Unfortunately...reading those awesome books inspired me to continue learning and continue reading and continue taking those classes from other big-name instructors, and I came to see a lot of flaws in some of his arguments and beliefs about shooting, defensive mindset, etc. This is not something exclusive to him. I feel that way about many big name instructors...no one has the perfect way of doing something.
I came to see things like the Balance of Speed and Accuracy as new ways of thinking at first, and then I was challenged by another instructor I often train with who said..."Why can't you shoot at your max speed and still get really good accuracy?" I didn't realize that Pincus was in a way a crutch, because I didn't realize that most things that aren't possible for the average shooter, law enforcement/military member are possible for anyone who is willing to do a tiny bit of training. And as you constantly train, you are training your body new things it will do under stress...you don't have to always revert back to "what the body does naturally". If you say "think fast" and chuck a ball at a child's face, he won't be afraid, he'll get hit. Then, the next time, he'll be afraid...he will, the next time confronted, have a startle-flinch response, and react to mitigate damage from the ball that is incoming. Pincus teaches to use those natural responses and shoot in a similar method to what you already do in fear and under stress. But...what about the professional baseball player who you yell "think fast" and chuck a ball at? He won't startle, he won't flinch, he'll simply react to catch the ball. In this same manner, I think Pincus is onto something...until you evolve beyond it. If you shoot every day, the rules of stress and fear still apply, but less and less. It also depends on how realistic your training is. It's equally unrealistic to shoot non-moving cardboard cutouts all day and mistake that for the real thing.
At that time, where I was in my shooting abilities...if I could do it all over again, I absolutely would. Why? Because I knew NOTHING at the time. If today, however, someone told me he was hosting a free class, I probably wouldn't waste the ammo on it. I don't say that at all as a slander against him, I just feel that I have read all of his books, taken a few of his classes, watched many, many, many videos of his, and I still read or watch something from him probably once a week (sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don't). I say that it would be a waste of time for me simply because I'm very up to date on what he's teaching. There's no "nuggets" I feel I could hope to gleam. (Unless he taught something untraditional like explosive entry, or mechanical breaching or something)
Many people on this website don't agree with the specifics of what he teaches, but if it's the thing that spurs you on to be a better shooter, and encourages you to independently seek out your own answers, then how can it be bad?
If, on the other hand, you look at it as an "investment", you would be a lot better off spending the money going through some basic "fundamentals" courses over and over again until you have those hammered out. I would recommend something like a VSM course. Very "entry" level, cheap, low round count, and the ability to take 4-5 for the same cost as a pincus course, and you might get just as much out of them.
Shooting is a ridiculously expensive sport/hobby/recreation/practice. 800 rounds is very expensive for one person, perhaps several months worth of ammo, and to someone else it is called "Tuesday". The regularity with which you practice may also change your shooting habits/practices. I would very much recommend a Pincus course if you plan on shooting once a month or less, something like VSM courses if you shoot once a week, and something entirely different of you shoot every day.
Last edited by Josh Runkle; 07-10-2013 at 08:53 PM.
There was so much good stuff in this post I couldn't even choose which parts to quote.
No kidding.
That was very insightful josh, thanks for writing it out.
If I can offer a counterpoint, I think this makes sense for someone who has a good baseline, but for someone just starting out, I think it's almost better to stick with one school or person.
Sure, you might miss out on the single *best* way but if the school/instructor is any good you will have a unified approach into which they've put a lot of thought and get to a point where you have a baseline against which you can meaningful evaluate the other, often contradictory techniques and advice you learn from others. This certainly doesn't mean you need to regard the instructor you choose as infallible, just that you're admitting he has probably been at this longer and tried more things than you have. Your ultimate destination may be different, but it helps provide a known starting point.
Without this baseline, I think it's very easy as you go to one instructor after another of randomly changing what you're doing without really critically evaluating it and synthesizing it into a holistic approach. You never give one set of principles a change, it's like doing a scientific study and changing a bunch of variables all at once without any kind of control group.
My 2 cents...
Do you like what you see of his snippets on TV (Shooting Gallery, Best Defense, etc)? If you do, maybe it's worth it for YOU. Have you checked out his Youtube channel to see if the stuff he talks about is what you want to learn?
Personally, I have seen many instructors on TV that I know I would personally avoid. I don't care for their attitude on TV, so why would I train with them? I have also seen some techniques that I personally question on shows...do I want to learn that?
If you can't justify the $$$, I would move on.
Would I pay that much to take AFHF? Yeah, I would (assuming it was within driving distance), I have paid that much for Larry Vickers and Redback One and thought it money well spent. You just have to weigh the cost/benefit for YOU.
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