Over the past few months I’ve received emails from three different students about a safety issue that is becoming more prevalent in classes from big name instructors: too many students on the line at once with too few staff to watch them all. Each of the students who contacted me has easily taken a dozen classes or more each from a variety of instructors and knows when they see something going downhill. In two cases, the students actually expressed enough concern that they stepped off the firing line during some drills in the interest of their own safety.
A lone instructor cannot watch 20+ people on the firing line safely by himself. Period. It’s not just irresponsible it’s downright negligent. And that’s assuming the instructor is even watching the line instead of talking to a student or — as was the case in some of the classes referenced here — actually shooting drills while the students were supposed to be getting instruction.
There is an easy solution for bad student:instructor ratios. It’s called squadding, running the students in two or more relays. One small manageable group shoots; the others wait their turn. It might sound like it slows things down but it really doesn’t. I’ve been running AFHF and AFHS this way since the beginning. With a well thought out course of instruction you’ve got half your students on the line and the other half loading mags, resting up, or — best of all — watching the shooters on the line with you both for safety and for their own learning benefit.
Is it a little harder on the instructor? I suppose so. You’ve got to explain things twice sometimes. You’ve got to stay out on the line all the time because there are a lot fewer “breaks” for the whole class. But it’s not a major hardship and makes a huge difference in terms of maintaining control and safety on the range.
And if you are the kind of instructor who diagnoses and helps individuals instead of just calling out drills, it’s infinitely easier to watch four to six people at a time instead of 25. If you’re on a firing line with 20+ other people and just one instructor, the only chance he’ll see you doing something wrong and correct it is called “random.”
You can also have fun with relays, creating some competitive spirit to see which squad can get the best hits or have the fewest misses. If you know your students in advance you can group them or link them (first guy on squad 1 and first guy on squad 2, for example) for specific reasons like team building or to put two high achievers against each other to push one another throughout the class.
There is absolutely no justification for an instructor to have more people under his immediate control than he can, in fact, control. Relays are simply safer, more efficient, and better for students.
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Good point. When teaching brand-new shooters, my club sometimes has a 1 instructor : 2 shooters ratio, and never worse than 1:3. Even at 1:3 there’s a *lot* to watch.
I feel cheated if all the instructor does is call out drills, and then charges me a few hundred dollars a day. There’s benefit to having someone push you to try new exercises, and teach you new drills, but it’s not worth the rates some instructors charge. (I have a local club that does drills together for $5/person once a month, and it’s a fantastic deal).
Todd:
As Redchrome says above there is another aspect of this as well. Too many students on the line means that there is little individualized instruction.
I recently was at a range next to two young women who worked for a federal alphabet agency that is currently part of DHS. Both were practicing for their qualifications, and were hindered by the fact that they had flinches so bad that their eyes were closed each time they fired.
I asked about their training, and they described long lines of students being yelled at by a few instructors. I don’t know how they qualified in the first place, but the no doubt expensive “training” they had been given had left them scared of their pistols and even more scared of their instructors.
This is the same type of “training” we were given on .45’s in the Army four decades ago, but the Army didn’t much care about pistols and our training reflected that. If we actually wanted to learn how to shoot a pistol we had to teach ourselves.
I imagine that in the classes you are describing no one goes home scared of the instructor, but how much can you learn when the instructor is so overwhelmed that constant safety violations are going on? I note, however, that increasing the student/instructor ratio can be quite profitable for the instructor.
Good points. The last LAV class I took, Larry broke the class into four teams of four or five people each, and all of the drills became competition. It had all the benefits you described, and allowed Larry and his assistant to better diagnose and train the individual student while maintaining competitiveness as a driver for performance.
When I take a course,I want “coaching”. Not just demonstrating a technique.
Coaching inherently requires very small groups.
SteveJ, I work as an instructor for DHS. The problem with a lot of female shooters is a .40 cal DAK pistol. They are rough on smaller females. Unfortunately, when you try and help many female shooters, they either don’t want the help, won’t listen, or refuse to personally purchase a Glock 9mm to help improve ergonomics.
We have seen several female shooters come straight out of FLETC and not qualify. It seems the academy is worried about the lawsuits, and female shooters somehow get a “pity pass” and the send them to the field for us to try and fix.
On our line, we run 12 shooters with two instructors. If someone is struggling, we have 3 “practice days” per quarter where the person can pracice all day long without the pressure of everyone staring at them… most do not want to come out for the practice days. (note, they get PAID to come and practice).
Many people are impressed with the IDEA of being a cop, but are not happy with the actual amount of effort it takes to master some skills.
If quals were strictly enforced, I think we would lose about 10 to 20% of our total work force. As it stands, people are given multiple chances to pass, and shoot until they score the bare minimum…
In the end, it all seems to be due to the threat of discrimination lawsuits.
1 to 20 Instructor/Student Ratios are great for the instructor’s checking account but that’s about it. Students… You should be doing the math. If you are paying $200 per/day and there are 20 student’s that instructor can afford to hire competent instructors to “fly his flag” and teach the same TTPs as the lead instructor and not go ‘off book”.
Are you paying to “hang with a name” or are you paying to receive training? Training happens in a structured environment with a student to instructor ratio that is more on the 1 to 5 level so that your time is spent learning and not turning money into noise by means of ballistic masturbation.
All of the instructor’s cool clothes, patches and custom guns won’t mean jack shit when an injury occurs on the line that could have been prevented by having more instructors on the line. Range safeties and other students don’t count. I don’t know about you but I don’t go to a class to be coached by a dentist or housewife who is taking the same class as I am.
There are a lot of instructors on the road who do this right. They hire and work with the same core cadre of adjunct instructors, keep class size small, etc. 2 relays is acceptable for most classes as one relay is loading and hydrating while the other is shooting/training. Any more than that or running excessive single man drills creates a lot of down time for students who are paying for training and not paying to watch the instructor and other students.
Gadfly — I was actually hired by DHS to work with a female agent who failed out of FLETC for firearms her first time through; somehow squeaked by on her second academy; then got to the field and was unable to qualify. She ended up making a PTSD claim saying that the act of qualifying was too stressful because of her memories of being recycled. Yet she thought she would be kick ass in a gunfight.
Gadfly:
Thanks for the explanation–which I don’t find surprising at all. I’ve taught a fair number of women who are initially scared of guns to shoot but I’ve never tried doing that initially with a .40–much less a .40 DAK–and it has always been one on one instruction. Unfortunately the suffocating political correctness in the government is probably going to leave this issue unresolved, and hopefully no one gets killed because of it.
I am not a certified anything, but have a private range known to many LEOs in the area. I have found there to be a good amount of personal stress these folks feel when they have to qualify, especially those with some seniority or street experience. It’s pride, ego and age.
So I work with them. I am a decent enough shot myself, but have learned to watch others and to help them get better. Their scores went up quite a bit, and I attribute that to more time at the range and in at least two instances having someone (me) watch their hands and muscles and breathing as they shot. Some remedial words and they spiked in hits.
I don’t see how any of that can happen with a huge roster on the line at the same time.
Todd, your story about the lawsuit does not surprise me at all. We only have about 10% female agents, so the Gov is very motivated to hold on to them all, even if they can’t shoot. I have seen two female agents removed over the years. Both sued. Both got a pay day.
I had the joy of helping work a firing line at FLETC a few years back. I was helping with some secret service trainees. They were shooting a “downed/disabled officer” drill. Shooting one handed from the fetal position. One female could not seem to grasp the “lock your shooting hand between your knees” part… on shooting, her 229 in .357sig would recoil up and point at the back of the shooter lying next to her. I warned her twice, then told her she was done and off my line. I was taken aside by a senior instructor and was told that she was not done, and that she had already filed on people during training… He told me and I should stand close to her and use my leg to block the pistol from moving too far. I said no. I was not asked back to help with that class…
This is the reality of most Fed training. It is not so much about YOU learning anything, as it is the AGENCY saying we presented the material… our quals are to defend the agency from lawsuits, not to teach students (thanks Popow V City of Margate). And it is depressing. I try and give good advance training to those who want it. Most don’t.
Gadfly — I’d say “unbelievable” if not for the fact that I am 100% sure it’s true. As soon as instructors start worrying about EEOC liability over safety liability it’s time to find a new line of work.
“Dude, it’s cool, just stand in the line of fire and, you know, tap her with your foot. But don’t tap her on the butt or legs or back or chest because then she might sue for harassment. In fact, just lie down next to her — without touching of course — and be a bullet shield. That’s a good RO. Good RO, here’s a cookie.”
Ok, I’m going to be officially sick. The Secret Service is now compromising its training in order to meet gender quotas? And, of course, it is precisely the same politicians who want to take guns away from civilians on the grounds that we can’t be trusted who also insist that federal agencies lower standards and allow people who close their eyes when they shoot to carry guns.
Sorry for the thread hijack, Todd, but its been clear I’ve been kidding myself–I thought that agencies like the Secret Service and the Border Patrol had managed to maintain uniformly high standards.
SteveJ, there is a standard for the males. Not a super high standard, but they do expect the males to work that pistol in the BP and Secret Service. But with 52% of the population female and 10 to 15% of police female, they have to make “adjustments”. Are there some squared away hard charging females who can shoot and fight?? Of course there are many. More females can shoot than can’t. But for the sake of window dressing, sometimes the pretty girl just gets to pass… Got to have the females on presidential protective detail to get that female vote!
On a serious note, males are usually not allowed to thoroughly search females, or even wrestle around with them. It is very helpful to have female officers on scene to deal with female crooks.
From a fed standpoint, if I have a female who is a computer forensics agent, who scans for evidence in cell phones, iPads and laptops, is it important to me that she is a great shot? I can’t do what she can with a computer. So I would kick the doors or roll around on the ground cuffing, she looks for digital trails. We all have our function and a place to fit in. That is the usual justification. Most Feds do FAR more paper work cases than door kicking and fighting.
Sorry for the thread hijack Todd. I usually read a lot and post very little…
Gadfly — No worries at all. Good discussion.
I’m an additional-duty part-time FI for one of the XYZs and can attest that the problem is not limited to female shooters. I have some here and there who are completely disinterested in shooting until they shoot a course and fail. Then, when the job is at stake, will pay enough attention during extra skill-building sessions to achieve a barely qualifying score. When additional skill-building range sessions are offered, they’re usually too busy to attend. The next qualification comes around and they’re back in the same boat. I recommend a lot of dry firing, but not many actually do. You can tell those who did dry fire because you see an increase in scores, or at least a qualifying score the first time around. I hate to let people who fail to qualify the first time around keep shooring till they get it right because it is a waste of good bullets. I do not yell at shooters even though some severely test my patience. I listen to bad shooters from other agencies assigned to a metro TF badmouth their parent agency instructors as yelling and displaying general “range-Nazi” mentality, and assume I also get cussed. Some agencies offer their cops options to carry guns that are better suited for them at their own personal expense. The problem is that most folks who hate going to the range in the first place also see no reason to own a gun if their own and will balk at the idea of spending their money to buy one and the accessories required to carry it. Now a word of positive encouragement for all the guys and gals who actually do like to shoot regardless of skill level and make my time spent as an instructor seem worthwhile. You make me enjoy working with you.