This past week I had the great privilege to assist Ernest Langdon with his final class. Ernest has unfortunately (for us) decided to stop teaching and focus completely on Langdon Tactical. I met Ernest 20 years ago, through TLG of course. We shot together while living in VA, but when I moved out west, I wasn’t able to hang out and shoot with Ernest, so TLG and I took a class from him shortly before TLG died. It was an excellent class, and I was pleasantly surprised at just how similarly we looked at various concepts.
Fast forward to the creation of LTT, and Ernest and I discovered that we really do approach shooting and teaching in a very similar way. LTT became a sponsor of Pistol-Training.com, and I have competed with LTT guns for the past couple of seasons. Last year Ernest told me he was planning to stop teaching in 2024, and so we made tentative plans to teach together before that happened. We were not able to make that happen until now. Ernest’s final class.
The class itself was excellent, which should come as no surprise to anyone. Ernest is one of the better teachers in the field and it shows. In the first 5 minutes of shooting, Ernest was able to demonstrate how to quickly and correctly identify a shooter’s problem, show that shooter (and the rest of the class) how to fix it, and then let them practice the fix. After that though, the weather did not want to cooperate with us, and it was cold and rainy for most of the rest of the day. Nonetheless, we adjusted the schedule and finished out with a very good night shoot.
The second day of class was pretty special. Aside from more excellent instruction, Aimee Langdon, Ernest’s better half, came out to the range and recorded us while Ernest ran the class through the FAST test. Amazingly, 5 people earned their advanced pins, and 2 people earned a FAST coin! That is a record setting class as far as I know. When the class was over, Ernest passed the FAST coin back to Pistol-Training.com. To say I’m happy and honored to have the coin back at Pistol-Training.com is an understatement. Going forward, the FAST test will be a feature of Pistol-Training.com events. Speaking of which, a new page on the site will detail the available courses, so look for that soon.
Ernest was a tremendous friend and mentor to TLG, and has been a supporter of Pistol-Training from the very beginning. That has continued to this day and we wish him and everyone at LTT the greatest success going forward.
I guess I am going to have to continue the tradition and bring you north for classes good sir. We had Ernest up 3 times and Todd up twice (or maybe he came 3 times too, my memory sucks).
Congratulations on being the new coin tester, Iook forward to seeing your classes!
Thank you, I would love to visit you guys.
I have been fortunate enough to train with Ernest a couple of times. He was the first instructor I remember who made a convincing argument to not shoot from reset. That was probably the biggest change I have made as an already experienced shooter about 10 years ago now.
Ernest has convincing arguments for everything he teaches, no doubt about it. I learn something everytime we talk.
I still big Ernie about how his first class with us back in 2004, he specifically taught us the trigger reset drill. I usually get smacked for bringing it up lol
SLG, although I have never met either you, Ernest, or TLG in person, I feel I know all of you by reading everything I could that you gentlemen have put in print. Your work with pistol-training comes from your heart and I feel would make TLG very happy. Most sincere thanks to you from my heart.
That means alot to me, thank you very much. I hope to meet you in a class in the future.
I’m glad I trained with Ernest when I did. He was my first class back in 2014 (met MVS there too). He is a great shooter and instructor. So bummer on that front, BUT if there are Pistol Training events on the horizon I’m definitely in for that. Would love to train with SLG.
Thank you, that would be great!
Had the honor and privilege to train under TLG and Ernest. I hope to do the same with SLG in the future .
It’s good to see the FAST coin go where it belongs!
Thank you!
It was a great class. I am now in double digits for how many classes I have taken from Earnest. Having been familiar with the history of TLG, pistol-training.com, and the FAST, it was really a treat to have you in that last class. I was grateful for the time you took to talk with me individually and sprinkle some of the pistol-training.com mojo into my training with tips you offered. Hope to train with you again soon. Ben
It was great meeting you and I hope to train with you in the future.