Looking Back, Part V

Inspired by Kyle Defoor’s “Paying Homage” series, for the past few weeks I have been writing about those people who played the biggest roles in my development as both a shooter and an instructor.

• Chuck Davis and the COM-TAC instructors
• Ken Hackathorn
• Ernest Langdon
• Rich Verdi

It is fitting, then, to end the series with my close friend and long time shooting partner SLG. Readers familiar with pistol-training.com will have seen SLG’s initials before.

SLG and I met almost a decade ago at a dinner organized, ironically enough, for another instructor. While the rest of the party talked about fun and family, SLG and I gravitated toward one end of the table and had an hours-long debate about some esoteric issue or other. I want to say it was whether tactical reloads were worthwhile… seriously.

Having found perhaps the only person on Earth capable of tolerating my opinions for that length of time, I immediately realized I had to keep this guy close.

SLG had just left a huge metropolitan police department where he’d served for years as a patrol officer and part of their firearms training program. When we met, he had just begun his career as a federal agent. Since then, he has served on part- and full-time tactical teams with two different major agencies, spending time operational in Iraq, Afghanistan, and even less fun and less safe parts of the world (like New York City). He’s benefitted from literally years of formal training, much of it focused on shooting and tactics.

During the years SLG was assigned to the Washington DC area, we were constantly at the range together. “Constantly” doesn’t mean a couple days a month. “Constantly” means on average 3-4 times per week… some weeks, we shot every single day. We practiced, we took classes together, and we attended matches together.

At the same time, the .gov was sending SLG to training, some of it not available to private citizens, for weeks and sometimes months each year. And my employers sent me to classes here or there, as well. Afterwards, SLG and I were sure to be found at the range or running through one or another’s home with blue guns, trading lessons and ideas.

But while I learned some new things about shooting and tactics from SLG — and I certainly did — the real impact he had was as a training partner. Because while it is certainly important to learn the right way to do something, having someone who can work with you over years to master those skills is unbelievably valuable.

Easily as good a pistol shooter as I am (and orders of magnitude better with a carbine or bolt gun), a day at the range with SLG was like a free one-on-one lesson with a world-class instructor. We traded ideas, experimented with all sorts of new equipment and new techniques, and most importantly we constantly pushed one another. Every drill, we compared results. You got six hits in three seconds? I got eight. I got a 3.5″ group… but you did 2″! And so on. It wasn’t a rivalry, it was just two buddies motivating one another to be better, every day.

After most range sessions, we’d grab lunch or dinner and spend another hour or two discussing guns, shooting, tactics… again bouncing ideas and possibilities off each other, talking out new ideas, working through problems.

SLG also played a key role in refining the F.A.S.T. and helping me establish the criteria for different classifications. When we first started shooting it, neither of us could clean it in under 5.0 seconds. Rather than use our own skill level as a measure of elite shooting, we set that standard in no small part as a way to push ourselves. Then, in the very first class I taught after forming pistol-training.com, what did SLG do? He went and earned challenge coin #01. (we didn’t even have the coins yet, actually!)

For all the tremendous training and opportunities I’ve had, there is no question that SLG had the single greatest influence on me as both a shooter and instructor. Practically every technique, every teaching point, and every instructional method I use was polished and refined by thousands of hours of range time and discussion with SLG. Now that he’s living halfway across the country we don’t shoot together very often, but to this day I call SLG weekly (sometimes daily!) to discuss ideas with him or get advice.

SLG also serves as an important example in my classes. I tell students all the time: the single most useful tool a shooter can have is a regular training partner who is a little better than you. Not so much better that he’s bored being on the range with you, but someone who is able to watch what you do and fix problems. Someone who will pat you on the back for shooting a 6-second F.A.S.T. and then do it himself in 5.5, challenging you to push harder rather than rest on your laurels.

SLG was also one of the people who helped develop the Garrity In-Victus, and is the “Shaggy” behind the Custom Carry Concepts aiwb holster of that name.

Between his case load and S.W.A.T. team duties, SLG doesn’t compete or do much in the way of public sector instruction. But I continue to twist his arm, and perhaps one of these days there will be a TLG/SLG pistol-training.com class.

And that wraps up the Looking Back series. There are literally dozens of other people who’ve helped me and influenced me over the years, and trying to list all of them would be a futile act. Every instructor and every student brings something new to the experience. My greatest wish is to continue the journey with friends, mentors, and partners who push me to be better tomorrow than I was today. To each and every one of you, I give my sincerest thanks.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG