AAR at LightFighter.com (Defensive Pistol I Class)
Originally posted at lightfighter.net
Class: Defensive Pistol Class I - 8 hours
Company: Green Ops Inc
Date: May 2, 2020
Location: Stone Quarry Range in Culpeper, VA
Class Size: Approximately 12 students attended this class giving the instructors plenty of time to help students one on one. The value of this individual attention cannot be overstated as each student seemed to have different issues that needed to be solved from drawing, to accuracy, to magazine reloads. The class was comprised of varying different skills levels from beginner to competition shooters, however, this was the first firearms class for the majority of the students.
Instructors: Two instructors led this 8 hour class. The first instructor was Josh S, an Intelligence Officer with multiple deployments under his belt supporting US Military Counterterrorism efforts. Also is an accomplished competitive shooter that clearly demonstrated his mastery of the pistol platform during drill demonstration. The second instructor was Lucas D, a competitive shooter who started his training career by taking classes with Green Ops. Incredibly personable and a very proficient shooter who was able to identify problems with several shooters forms and help them improve throughout the day. Both instructors were incredibly knowledgeable, patient, engaging, and able to quickly develop relationships with their students.
Gear: Vedder Holsters Gunbelt, Ronin Tactical Gun Sleeve, 3 Esstac KYWI Pistol Pouches, 1 Esstac KYWI Rifle Pouch, 5 CZ P10C Magazines, 400 rounds of Sellier & Bellot 9mm 150g
Instruction: 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. The drills progressed in difficulty as we worked on drawing from the holster and obtaining a proper sight picture/alignment, completing effective tactical reloads, one handed shooting on both our strong side and our weak side, transitioning between targets, obtaining a proper grip on the pistol, handling malfunctions such as failures to feed, and shooting from longer distances. The instructors slowly added in shot timers in order to escalate the pressure and get us out of our comfort zone, which definitely highlighted our bad habits and showed us exactly where we needed to concentrate our efforts on future at home training. The day concluded with a qualification course of fire which consisted of four different drills under time; drawing and firing one shot to the head, drawing and firing three shots/reload/three more shots, drawing and firing two shots with the dominant hand and transitioning to the weak hand, and finally firing 6 shots from 25 yards. Completion of all four of these activities under the allotted time would qualify the shooter and earn them a coveted Green Ops Pistol Patch. These drills were incredibly difficult and no shooters were able to qualify during my sessions. We ended the day with an after action review to discuss concepts learned, opportunities for improvement, and the importance of dry firing and additional training.
Conclusion: I highly recommend this course and will be returning for Defensive Pistol II as well as Tactical Pistol I. This was my first firearms course but can say that this class definitely exceeded my expectations and I left knowing exactly what I need to work on to become a better shooter.
