TESTIMONIALS
The class was very well run and the instructors were all very professional and knowledgeable. I was already well versed in several of the class topics but Josh and the guys really helped me refine some things that made an immediately noticeable improvement.
The class was very well run and the instructors were all very professional and knowledgeable. I was already well versed in several of the class topics but Josh and the guys really helped me refine some things that made an immediately noticeable improvement.
The instructors at GreenOps are of the highest caliber! World class instruction at the hands of patient, kind and extremely skilled teachers is what you’ll find at this school.
This is a quality company with superb instructors....they will be able to help you go to the next level regardless where you are, from a day one shooter, to an experienced 'door kicker.'
I just finished up a 4 hour defensive carbine class with these guys. This was a great class for beginners or even experienced shooters looking to get a refresher on the basics. The instructors were very knowledgeable and professional. I’m looking forward to taking more classes with them.
I attended the Defensive Carbine I course in July, 2015. I was very happy with the quality of instruction and the skills that were taught. The staff taught useful, practical skills and didn’t waste a moment of time. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and would recommend the course to anyone who wants to become more familiar with using their carbine safely and effectively.
AFTER ACTION REVIEWS
I’ll be straight with you: this was without a doubt Type 2 fun. But it was fun, in addition to being educational, not to mention a great opportunity to go spend a day with a bunch of like minded people. If you live near any of the Green Ops training locations in Virginia, North Carolina, or Texas I highly recommend you go tune up your shotgun skills with their cadre.
Advanced Application of Pistol Mechanics (AAPM) methodically covers handgun fundamentals in context for experienced handgun shooters. It can also be viewed as an introduction to higher performance shooting. The first portion of the coursework is spent combing over all core elements. Those elements were grip, stance, trigger control, sight alignment, drawing and presentation. Each topic gets an instructor demo and lecture, and students shoot relevant live fire as it pertains to that topic.
Josh is a Grand Master pistol shooter and has been shooting competitively since 2015. He is among the most humble and approachable instructors I could have asked for. I have had private instruction from Josh on two separate occasions, and he begins each course by asking the students about their goals. I see this as a crucial step that most instructors ignore. We spoke over the phone before I attended each course, and he designed a full-day class around achieving my goals. In both cases, he surpassed them (by far) at the end of the day.
A few weeks ago, I had the chance to attend the Green Ops 2-Day LPVO Carbine course at The Ranch in Dilley, Texas south of San Antonio. Although I will not deny my bias in favor of the LPVO and find them both useful and fascinating, I also understand that like with anything else, these scopes have trade-offs. To be successful with LPVOs, it’s crucial to understand their strengths and weaknesses which is why this Green Ops course has been a huge interest of mine. The course is focused on the entire effective range of the modern carbine and its use with an emphasis on the LPVO as the principal aiming implement, from 0 to 500 meters. I felt quite fortunate after finally attending the course and training under keen instructors.
I was most impressed by the camaraderie and supportive atmosphere in general. There were lots of smiles (not egos) and friendly advice (not condescending comments). The “tech support” was amazing, with instructors really going above and beyond to help students get their rifles back up and running to stay in the game. When there were any actual issues/broken parts rendering guns inoperable, multiple students came forward with their spare rifle to act as loaners for the rest of the day. It really felt like a team, which was great.
I see why all the instructors say this is their favorite class to teach. Because it really drives the importance of good fundamentals, and just how much better you should when you practice it. I know I have taken only 3 pistol courses so far, but this is the one class where I saw some impressive improvements from majority of the class. Even some of the seasoned shooters seem to adjust on how they were shooting.
The course started with a discussion of bleeding, and we all know bleeding = tourniquets. Besides thorough discussion of application (including the difference between hasty and deliberate), the comparison of tourniquet types was absolutely excellent. David covered CAT, SOF-T (regular), and SOF-T (wide). Most classes seem to stop at the CAT, which is unfortunate.
As a newer AK shooter, I benefitted from actually getting out there and putting myself and my carbine thru the paces. Having basic safe gun-handling skills, knowing how to bring your weapon on-line, how to handle reloads and malfunctions and the like are unspoken minimum expectations. I got to see which accessories worked with it and which ones were rubbish. Also saw how others had theirs’ dialed and what they recommended to get/avoid.
BEST PARTS OF THIS CLASS
1. The teacher: student ratio of 4 instructors for 15 students was incredible. This afforded incredible safety and personal instruction and attention.
2. The care and attention of the staff. The instructors were very attentive to not only our learning but also our health. Chris especially moved the shaded canopies around throughout the day so that we could stay in the shade.
3. Performing in 108–109-degree heat. This really tested my stamina, hydration, and equipment. The clothing was essential. My Crye combat pants were horrible in the heat. So were my Propper hot weather pants. Both seemed to trap the heat in. However, the Kryptek Sonora pant was perfect. It felt cool and breathable as well as protective.
Although all levels of shooter would benefit from this fundamentals class…
Having basic safe gun-handling skills, knowing how to safely draw/re-holster, reloads, malfunctions, and the like are unspoken minimum expectations.
If I’m being honest with myself, I’d have to say that I am a “good-enough shooter” except in reality, there is no such thing. I inconsistently hit the target more/less. The problem is that recent events have placed a burden of performance on those who should carry to do what Eli Dicken did at distance. “Good enough” doesn’t get the job done, doesn’t save lives and worse. Game. Must. Be. Upped. Period.
I learned so much about movement (a key weakness of mine), and definitely got context as to why certain skills were so important to practice. I pushed myself hard, and sometimes the wheels fell off a bit, but even when I failed, I felt like I was gaining insight into the important concepts I was trying to master.
The instructors deserve a ton of credit. They competently demonstrated what they were teaching every time, and it was clear they had complete mastery of the subject matter. But the fellow students deserve a bit of credit, too… the atmosphere was positive and encouraging, with really good shooters to push yourself even outside of a strictly competitive context.
Despite the fact that many of us were running various optic systems with various zeros the instructors took the time to work with the students who were newer to the platform. We then moved into magazine reloads and malfunctions, and followed this with various other live fire drills, including the Green Ops Rifle Standards drill. We took lunch and listened to further light instruction while eating, which I thought made very good use of the time we had. After lunch we moved into more advanced type shooting positions and class competitions. This is where I had the most fun.
As a student I enjoyed being led by instructors through the transition from studying the theory of medium-range shooting to real experience of shooting up to 600 yards with wind. This was personally one of my favorite parts of the class, as I had read about all these fundamentals countless times but hadn’t been on such a large range with varying targets and terrain features since attending Army Basic as an 18 year-old who had never shot a centerfire rifle before. It’s a great feeling, and really is the reason why I attend training like this – to make sense of what works in the real world and put all the fudd lore and internet rumors to bed as I become more proficient and confident with my own equipment and shooting abilities.
When I signed up I didn't necessarily understand the course name "Advanced Application of Pistol Fundamentals"--but after taking the class that is the best way to describe it. The course outline of warming up with the basics--reviewing grip, stance, proper trigger press, and other fundamentals; then applying these fundamentals to an "advanced" shot like hitting a Green Ops target from 50 yards exposes all of the weaknesses in your fundamentals and clearly illustrates what you need to work on.
“I grew up with shotguns” is a veritable cliché within the firearms community. It certainly holds true for me. From skeet to upland birds to deer, many of my earliest hunting and shooting experiences revolved around shotguns.
However, like most people, I had never taken a defensive shotgun course. While I had numerous firearms classes under my belt, they had all revolved around pistols and/or rifles.
Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is what GreenOps preaches! Last weekend I attended the Green Ops LPVO class with former special forces Chris Alvarez (lead instructor) assisted by ranger legend Grenada raider Jose Gordon and Michael Green (also former special forces). These instructors have over 100 years (combined) of knowledge in competition and military operations.
I was remarking to an acquaintance a couple weeks ago that “I’m not a shotgun guy”. And it’s true. I have shot zero rounds of clays/skeet/trap in my life. I respect the shotgun as a weapons platform, especially in close range capacities, but I’m a pistol guy when it comes to home defense. Most of my shotgun shooting is in 3gun, where it’s definitely not my strong suit, Yet, when I look in my safe, I’ve got six shotguns in there. To your usual non-gun-ethusiast normie, this would make me the shotgun king.
For women I encourage all to take the training. You won’t be disappointed, you won’t feel left out and you won’t feel as though it’s male dominant. Everyone is treated the same, everyone gets the same training, everyone gets the same attention. If you don’t understand some thing, my goodness they spend the time with you until you get it! ALL the instructors are Very generous and patient with their time.
I can’t say enough wonderful things about the instructors at Green Ops.
The final event of the day was the capstone drill, which was prefaced by a really abbreviated explanation of how to shoot around cars. I felt it was so perfunctory I would have just skipped it and said “the car is cover”, but Max demonstrated such a clever way of shooting across the hood without exposing yourself as much to skipped rounds that it really felt worthwhile. Sometimes, it’s really the small details that demonstrate the value of the instructor expertise that you’re paying for, and this felt like another one of those moments.
Before I start, let me say that this was during their very first time running the class so it may have changed. Chris Alvarez designed the class from the ground up and he did an amazing job with the design and flow. Additionally, the other instructors are Max Delo and Jose Gordon (who is the feature guest on Episode 1 of Modern Samurai Project) and with any Green Ops course, the instructors are the best part. There is not only a wealth of information but all 3 have different personality types so there is sure to be an instructor for you and with any Green Ops course you will work with and receive feedback from all 3 during all/most drills for a variety of performance improvement.
Over the past 11 years I have been a professional gunsmith and gradually learned the skills and my shop had acquired tooling for building and servicing the AK platform. I have built and re-built several AK rifles, pistols and SBRs. I even have some experience with select fire variants. I feel I am fairly well-versed in the history, cycle of operations, and fairly knowledgeable about the minutiae of differences in several AK pattern rifles produced by countries around the world, some which no longer exist as they did during the Cold War.
I haven’t taken commercial courses before but have attended a few short military trainings as a civilian. Basic stuff like weapons maintenance and operation in live fire, dime and washer drills, room clearing with dummy guns, marksmanship qualification simulators, sighting in iron and magnified optics, and very limited full auto with just 5 in the mag. Even then there’s very little opportunity in civilian life to get a taste of practical shooting and a teaser of what competition feels like.
As I’ve commented in other AARs, Josh is an excellent instructor, and was able to perform all his drills with the level of skill you’d expect. But he also didn’t showboat, which is a refreshing trend I’ve seen from other instructors as well. The Green Ops instructor cadre has a surprising level of humility given their accomplishments, and I find them very easy to learn from.
I try to take a lot of Green Ops clinics, but unfortunately, due to my Sabbath observance, I don’t necessarily get a chance to take a lot of their classes. This year, I was lucky: Green Ops offered their Defensive Pistol II class on a Sunday, and I was able to sign up for it. I think the clinic format is phenomenal, but getting that full 8 hours of class in pushes you just a little harder to improvement. I’ll tell you what I thought of it after the jump!
Always the student is a phrase I have heard repeatedly over the years, and in that phrase, I have always sought out opportunities to learn new skills, improve on skillsets I already possessed, and how to inject life lessons and experiences into those.
Not too long ago I attended the Green Ops Tactical Rifle II course which was held at Shadow Hawk Defense in West Virginia, and I can tell you this about Shadow Hawk, it is by far one of the best training facilities I have ever been able to train at. Great location, range setups, and a plethora of training courses and competitions are held there monthly.
The day started off with a safety brief, medical evacuation plan, and discussions about justification for the use of force and gear setup. We then moved onto the range which was comprised of ~12 different shooting lanes with a large stone quarry wall as the backstop. The shooting started off with simple exercises to help us warm up such as slow firing 5 shots into a small square target from 3-5 yards away with no shot timer.
Based on things I’ve read on PF, I reached out to the folks at Green Ops to inquire about a private lesson. Green Ops teaches nationwide but they are headquartered in VA. Communication from Green Ops was excellent. They were very responsive to my questions and eventually put me in contact with their training director Chris. I told Chris that I was looking for pistol/carbine training focused on my wife, a beginner, and that I would like to participate. I could always use a tune up on the fundamentals since I haven’t been shooting much lately. So we agreed to meet at a private range for half day rifle/half day pistol format. So far, we have done 2 days.
Well, this course was a little bit different! One of my goals this year, when it comes to training, was to get out of my comfort zone (“get comfortable being uncomfortable!”). Starting with this first course of my training year, I can honestly say: mission accomplished! These two days of training took me, for the most part, far outside of my comfort zone and into a place where my prior knowledge, training, and practice could be integrated into a totally new (to me) paradigm.
“Why should your training be any less special”? I remember those words as clearly as they were spoken to me the first time, I met Mike Green of the training company Green Ops. When Mike and I were put into contact a few years by a mutual friend in the training community. I would say it was one of the most significant encounters of my lifetime.
A topic that gets precious little coverage on this blog is concealed carry. I live in MD; there’s functionally no concealed carry for average people here unless you meet some very specific criteria. This is compounded by having a job where concealed carry is not a viable option. Thus, I have the gear, but the topic is essentially theoretical to me.