A good instructor should know why he teaches certain techniques instead of others. If he uses a particular stance or grip, if he favors a particular type of reload or process for drawing the gun he should understand and be able to communicate that to students.
Some instructors go beyond that, though. Rather than explaining what they do and why, they insist students comply. Some even throw temper tantrums (or throw other things) when students choose a different approach. Some examples:
- at the end of class, students shoot a test (similar to the F.A.S.T.) … even though he easily beat the required time for “expert” rating and got all his hits, a student was told his score didn’t count because he was shooting from an isosceles-like stance instead of the instructor’s preferred Weaver stance.
- a student was purposely putting his magazines into his mag pouches backwards from the way the instructor taught… when the instructor complained and the student explained he preferred it that way after trying both methods extensively, the instructor pulled all of the students magazines out of his pouches and threw them on the floor.
I’ve got a pretty simple rule in my classes that I tell everyone at the beginning of day one: I’ll show you what I do and tell you why. Every time you don’t do it right, I’ll try to correct you. But as soon as you tell me, “Dude, I’m not going to grip my gun that way,” I’ll stop bugging you about your grip. You’re an adult. The lesson plan isn’t a bible. Take what you want and leave the rest.
The easiest example is how to drop the slide during a slidelock reload. I certainly have a strong opinion on the subject. I discuss it in class. The majority of folks choose to do it the way I teach and demonstrate. But every class or two I get a student who insists on racking the slide manually. When I see it, I point it out. Sometimes, it’s just habit and something he genuinely wants to change. Sometimes, though, he’s made up his mind and doesn’t want to change. That’s perfectly fine. He’s heard my reasoning. He has his own. They’re in conflict. He makes a choice.
It doesn’t bother me as an instructor because it doesn’t hurt me. I’m not offended. I don’t somehow lose out when he disagrees with my approach. My reload doesn’t get worse just because his is slower. My job is to explain my approach and then help students learn it… not indoctrinate people and force feed them Kool-Aid.
This past weekend I attended the Rangemaster Combative Pistol class taught by Tom Givens. Tom teaches people to overhand rack during a slidelock reload instead of using the slide release. Do you know how many times Tom told me I was doing it wrong? Zero. Do you know how many sleepless nights Tom will have because I didn’t do it his way? Also definitely zero. I learned a number of things from Tom’s class both as a shooter and an instructor. That is the goal, both from the student’s standpoint and the instructor’s.
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Pulling mags and throwing them on the ground? If an instructor were to put his hands on me in a negative way (or maybe at all depending on a few variables), I have no problem packing up and walking.
Good stuff.
There are obvious safety issues with how some students want to do things. Taking your finger off the trigger while moving or reloading and placing your support thumb in line with the gun rather than wrapping it behind the gun. Lots of bandaids have been issued for the latter.
And that is exactly what quality training is. Searching out and trying different methods with an open mind, sorting through what works for you and what doesn’t and building your training base accordingly.
I recently heard from a local instructor that he went to Gu…I mean a large academy in a desert, b/c he won a 4 day course there and it wasn’t as bad as the story you shared, but he had some…ahem, trouble with his stance and reloads and it was educational.
Thanks for being open minded. I’m a lefty and I can hit the slide release lever with my trigger finger pretty darned fast. As a matter of fact, my pistol is usually in battery before my support hand is back home. I would definitely argue with any instructor that made me rack the slide.
Sometimes the reason I don’t do it the instructor’s way is because there is too many changes at once. If I am on the bleeding edge of keeping up I will fall back on the old way of doing things and save trying to do a new method for a later time. When I did my class with F2S I got some good pointers on improving my stance, but trying to change that at the same time I was learning the LEM trigger threw me into overload.
I don’t have a problem with an instructor saying “while you’re in my class, you should do it my way, and you don’t get credit for whatever rating unless you do it my way” as long as that is spelled out.
That said, that should not involve force, shouting, or tantrums like throwing someone’s mags on the ground. If someone decides that not picking up your way is how they want to go, you still need to treat them as an adult.
I know I fell into the category of “manual slide manipulation out of sheer habit” when I attended AFHF back in 2010.
I’d usually realize I’d done it about 2-3 seconds after it was over, though. Then I’d resolve to remember for the next drill (or repetition)….and realize just afterward that I’d forgotten again, except a few times.
Todd was quite easygoing about it, though I wish I’d mentioned that I was looking to have slide-stop manipulation rather than slide-racking. I could have used the instructor help…but I think he figured I was determined to keep doing it “my own way” and left me alone about it.
Since then, it’s gotten easier to keep track and remember in advance, but between workplace training, Academy instructors, and similar influences, probably 75% of the instruction I’ve received leaned towards manual slide-racking rather than slide-stop (or -release, or -lock, depending on your preferred nomenclature) manipulation during reloads.
I keep making slight progress, though. Dry practice has been a huge help in that regard.
I guess I’ve been fortunate that only police academy instructors have been the truly dogmatic ones I’ve encountered…and not even all of them were that bad. Some, sure (especially on the Weaver vs. Iso bit), but on the whole still not as bad as it could have been.
Andrew,
I think that a fact based doctrinal approach is a good way to run an academy firearms program. Most folks that come into LE have no useful firearms knowledge when they arrive and therefore need a very solid foundation of skills and fundamentals. Now…., if the instructors are dogmatic, don’t know what they don’t know, etc., then that’s another matter. I’ve run quite a few academy firearms programs and looking back, I don’t have any heartburn on what I taught and expected during those classes. I also spent lots of years and lots of my own money finding out what would work best for those new cops learning how to manage firearms for street carry and was my own worst critic about what was taught.
I try and do as an instructor tells me if not only because I am paying my money to learn from them. IF that’s the case and the point of me being there and shooting then I will attempt to do it as the instructor teaches on. That said, If something goes wrong and I default to the way I have arguably done it as standard for me its no bash on the instruction given. Changing a long running standard TTP is very hard to do.
Here battery is when you “strike, or touch someone in a rude, angry or insulting manner”.
Grabbing someone’s mags off of their body and throwing them to the ground would be a battery here.
Just sayin, there might be a punch in the snot-box or arm-bar take-down following said display of jackassery.
Wayne,
I wasn’t intending to criticize the Academy instructors–mea culpa, should have been more careful with my word choice. Now that I have a little hindsight, I agree with your perspective.
I just was pointing out how well it stuck, even though I was consciously trying to do things Todd’s way during his class. OK, and the LMS Defense class I took a few years back also preferred manually racking the slide during reloads etc. Though a buddy didn’t use that technique in the class, and they didn’t exactly jump him about it; the instructors were able to articulate why they did what they did, and the relative merits of both methods.
But I was mostly intending to remark that I’ve been the guy on the other side of the “student persistently does his own thing” coin, though I didn’t exactly mean to be there.
I suppose it was partly navel-gazing on my end, though, as I didn’t think to say anything during the class and instead just tried to work through it myself. So my fault there, too.
It’s simple-people hate to be wrong. They hate the way they’ve always done it maybe wasn’t the best because then it’s evidence they weren’t smart enough to fix it themselves. So people keep ramming a square peg into a round hold. It’s when someone can’t turn off survival/ego brain and turn on learning brain. Learning brain is where people feel safe to explore, experiment, and try it all without fear of embarrassment or anything bad. Students can have difficulty turning off survival brain for learning brain but its also important to recognize the more someone knows about a subject (or thinks they know) the less likely they are to turn off survival brain and switch on learning brain. We all do it. A good challenge to anyone is the next time somebody tells you something that goes against the way you do it; have always done it; resist the urge to retort and without hope the idea fails-give it an honest try. At least that’s what I learned from this book (seriously). http://www.amazon.com/Shifting-Gears-brain-based-approach-engaging/dp/0966910826
Andrew and Matt:
You guys are both correct. One thing that really concerns me is when a student comes in to ostensibly learn how to run a gun and already has some type of foundation of knowledge and skill and it’s been badly taught or learned by that student. That guy is going to struggle to overcome what he initially learned and to correct it. I’ve believed for a long time that the first way you learned something is likely the way you’ll execute it under stressful conditions. That’s the driving impetus (to me) to make sure that what I’m teaching is the best possible TTP for stressful encounters.
I hate with a white hot passion “instructors” who haven’t a clue why they are doing or teaching something. If a trainer can’t give you a logical and simple explanation of why they’re doing something, they are stealing your money and your oxygen…
Its my way or the highway lol JK…..There are plenty of ways to skin a cat. Just some are more efficient, as long as your safe and you do what ever you want. I was once a rack the slide guy then was shown and taught a different method it took a little while to learn it but it is one reason for my coin.
BaiHu,
Are you sure the school was not Fronts@&*.
I ask as a review of the course schedule only shows 5 day classes for pistols for on site courses out west. The off sight offerings are only 3 days. Indeed, the school you reference tends to have 5 day courses in other platforms as well. Ex. Carbine /Shotgun
I have shot a modern Iso at Gunsite classes for a decade or more, and never heard diddly about my stance.
So, why does Tom Givens teach the overhand rack for a slide lock reload?
Two reasons:
1. Different pistols have slide latches in different places. If one does enough rep’s to reliably use the slide latch to release the slide, one tends to fumble if given a different pistol. The overhand rack works with almost anything.
2. The pistol and or magazine may not be clean and debris free. If dirt, mud, tissue or other crud is on the gun/mag, the odds of a malfunction are greater with the slide latch release method. If you pull the slide back and let it go, that fully compresses the recoil spring and gives the slide a running start before it hits the top round of a full, and therefore pretty tightly loaded magazine.
Pick the method you feel works best in your world. As Todd noted, it’s not a big deal either way to me.
Good reasons, clearly explained. Thanks.
Reminds me of when I went through the police academy back in 1980. The FI kept yelling at me that my grip was wrong and I could not shoot that way. I knew I had developed some bad habits shooting my revolver at running jack rabbits, and even hit some from time to time, but was real comfortable with my shooting. After a couple of days of him yelling at me, I challenged him to a shoot off. He took the bait and after I shot a perfect score and he missed two, he stopped yelling at me.
That being said, I later learned to be a bit more flexible and try things that different instructors brought to the table, surprisingly I did learn how to shoot better using some of their techniques.
When I became the FI Supervisor, I required my staff teach techniques, let the students try them and then let the students decide which way they shot best. Found out that under stress they reverted back to how they wanted to shoot anyway, so they may as well learn how to shoot well that way. Less contention in the classes and happier shooters.
Also, I agree with the reasons to rack the slide instead of fumbling with the slide release. In times of stress, missing that little release increasses your chances of missing it a second time… and time is deadly when in a shooting. But, those of you that practice with the one gun and can hit it everytime, keep on doing it.
Yep what works for me, may not work for thee.
Instructors who follow to tight of a line, have closed their minds and have likely stopped learning, if it works for the student then let it be.
Now never blow off what an Instructor shows you, just because you don’t get it during class, take it home and practice it, (You already paid for it), when I trained with Todd Jarrett, I couldn’t seem to get it, then about a week after the class, I went to the range with just 50 rounds and concentrated on what he had shown me, in another week the groups were smaller, and I was shooting faster.
75% of the learning takes place after the event, but only if you apply it.