This will likely be long, it was a busy 3 days. Grab a fine bourbon, scotch, cup of coffee .
. . put your feet up and let’s get rolling.
I have a purpose in doing AARs. First, it lets me sort through things, see
what I believe went well and not so well, provide a place for those that attend
to offer their thoughts, provides a place where those that attend can see the
photos I took, it gives those looking to take coursework that I teach some idea
of what the heck they’re getting into coming to me . . . and it offers up what
I do to other instructors, to see how I do things, to see if there is anything
of value in it for them. We are all it “this”
together, we all want to become better shooters, safer shooters, better
instructors, better students . . . and sharing thoughts, ideas and results is
one way to help make that happen. All
IMNSHO – of course.
Let’s get a couple items out of the way first. I am NOT A FAN of the changes coming to the
NRA. I like taking new students from the
beginning to the end. I see a number of
problems on the horizon (I’ll detail them later) that I pray are being
addressed. And I keep hearing rumblings
that BIT will also move on-line as well – I would consider this a near fatal
decision when considering teaching new Instructor Candidates how to teach. I will continue to voice my displeasure and
to encourage being more hands-on for such fundamental coursework.
That said, I like the Phase II coursework very much. I took the ICs through it and we spent a
great deal of time both on a SIRT range and the live fire range working through
what it will take for a new and inexperienced shooter to pass the Red shooting
test. I will cover this in its own
section farther on in this post.
A quick comment about the weather . . . it was brutally
cold! -7*F at the start of the day with
little wind. Still sub-zero after around
3.5 hours on the range but the wind had picked up and wind chills were
-20-ish*F. The ICs knew what was coming,
dressed for it and sucked it up. Pretty
impressive to watch and I’m very proud of each and every one of them – good job
guys!
Alrighty, enough chit-chat – on to the AAR!
Basic
Instructor Training (BIT)
BIT is foundational information for all instructors. It is where the TC teaches inexperienced
instructors how to actually “teach”. To
transfer their knowledge, their lesson plans to the student. Of all the coursework Instructor Candidates
take – this one is, without question, the most important course. Everything from their personal grooming
habits, the clothes they wear, their demeanor, how they represent the NRA and
shooting sports in general to cautions about their words, comments and writings
is touched on and covered.
Add to that how to organize training teams, prepare to
teach a course, promotion of their coursework, how to finance it, what training
aids are available and how to integrate them into their presentations is also
covered.
And, the actual art of teaching; taking a lesson plan,
organizing their thoughts and actually standing in front of a room of students
and presenting a portion – in this case
the Basic Pistol course – of the coursework to the “students” (their fellow
ICs). I’m not sure how this would ever
transfer to an on-line course only. And
it works so well as it is now – I pray they reconsider moving this to an
on-line course.
BIT is a “6-hour” course.
We began at 8 AM, pushed hard all day, and ended at 5 PM (including a
1-hour lunch). This is pretty typical
for me. The guys worked hard, made solid
presentations, asked great questions. I
had a couple that were genuinely surprised when we finished, that it had run so
long. Day 1 was in the can!
Basic
Pistol Course Instructor Course – “Old Course”
From a Training Counselor POV this is where I really get
to evaluate the Instructor Candidates – their actual knowledge of firearms,
their “personality” (are they quiet, BSers, are they “shooters”, can they talk,
do they listen, are they willing to take feedback). It is at this point that the 1,400-ish TCs in
the US shape the touch and feel of the instructor community. I’m hopeful we all take it seriously.
I genuinely enjoy teaching this course. This is typically an IC’s first course that
they choose to teach. They’re excited,
they’re typically “here to play”, and they jump in and give it their all! I like it!
And these six guys – Braxton, Rod, Michael, Jim, Peter and Ron – were no
exception. They played hard and
willingly added nearly a full day to walk through Phase II – who could ask for
more?
The BP Instructor Course pencils out at 10 hours . . . we
ran about 12 by the time we wrapped it up. Through the many IC teaching presentations,
the feedback sessions, the suggestions that were made – their progress from the
first day and “Introducing a Speaker” to the lesson that was taught on cleaning
a firearm – their progress was fast, consistent and – best of all – they could
recognize the change in their own capabilities.
Honestly, I could not ask for more out of any IC.
As part of the Instructor Pre-Course qualification –
there are various exercises. Loading and
unloading a single action revolver, double action revolver and semi-automatic
pistol. Each did these with ease which
is a good sign they’ve dealt with each type of firearm to some extent.
Then we moved on to clearing a misfire with a
semi-automatic pistol. Again – hands worked
smoothly and the words that went with the description of the clearing process
were spot on.
I always am a bit apprehensive of an IC being knowledgeable
on how to clear a double feed in a semi-automatic pistol, but my concerns were
unfounded and each performed the process with ease.
This left the shooting portion of the pre-course
qualification. For this course I shifted
the shooting portion around a bit.
Because of the cold, I held it to the end of the range work for the
Phase II and had them shoot the target provided in the Phase II booklet. The only issue here was simply the cold. By the end of our 3.5 hour range session the
temps were dropping, the wind picked up a bit and the wind chill was in the low
-20s. I also had a brain fart and had
them shoot two targets with 20 rounds each target. Heavy sigh.
The results were very good though with each instructor easily staying
within a 6-inch group at 45’ with only handful of dropped shoots for the entire
group. I could have not asked for more –
especially considering the nippiness of the weather. Again – great job guys!!
We cleaned up the range, headed back inside for a wrap
and handed out certificates (my own, from e.IA.f.t.). The wrap went well – I am hopeful they will
forward their own AARs and I will attach them to this post as they come – or they
will do it themselves. Total course time
– 25 hours. A very busy weekend and a
fine time was had by all.
Special
Mention Topic – SIRT Pistols
No . . . I don’t sell/market SIRT pistols in real
life. No, I don’t own part of the
company. But I am a very big fan. I set up a SIRT range at the back of the
classroom. We used ad hoc items for
shooting bags – one real shooting bag and a couple range bags. This is what I used to teach the ICs how to
run a range and to evaluate and correct their shooting positions. I find them an invaluable tool to teach new
and inexperienced shooters. Add to that
weather conditions such as we had and you can get between 80-90% of your range
instruction done with a SIRT pistol and range in the classroom. If you are not using these, if you don’t use
them in your own day to day dry fire training, I would strongly encourage you
to add them.
As an aside, the way one of the ways I justify them is
that they cost about the same as a 1,000 round case of 9mm ammunition. I probably roll through 3,000 rounds of 9mm
every year between my own training and coursework I take. My last case of 9mm cost around $240. As an NRA instructor you can purchase a SIRT
from NextLevelTraining for less than $220.
I have one on the desk behind me as I type this. When I get out of the chair to move somewhere
I pick up the SIRT and send about 25 “rounds” downrange to a LE SEB
target. I probably move out of my chair
a dozen times a day leading to about 125-ish “rounds” of practice fire every
day. I can work on stance, grip, sight
alignment, sight picture, multi-round engagements, my balance of speed and
precision, and on very precise shots . . . all without spending the $0.24 per
round of 9mm required on a live fire range.
Once the SIRT is “paid for” – I save about $30 per day in my shooting
costs . . . and I actually do much more “range work” simply because of the SIRT
pistol. Let’s assume I do this 125
rounds 3 days a week . . . that comes out to 19,500 additional “rounds down
range”. And that, folks, has a real
effect on your shooting capabilities . . . just sayin’. By the end of our weekend everyone had
decided to pick up a SIRT pistol for their own use and use in the
classroom. I even ordered an additional
pair as well. Check them out – I think
you’ll be happy with them.
“Basics
of Pistol Shooting Phase II”
Couple thoughts up front here . . .
I took a bunch of crap from a few instructors that I was
even going to share this material with my new Instructor Candidates. There wasn’t a lesson plan . . . how are you
going to cut time out of the old stuff to teach this . . . (simple . . . I didn’t,
the ICs invested nearly a whole extra day of their own free will) . . . this is
way outside the box . . . “I’ve copied this whole thread and I’m thinking of
sending it to T&E . . . . Heavy sigh
. . . Really folks, is that where we are as professional firearms
instructors??? For the record Ander
Lander and I had a FB conversation about my plans and his only caveat was that
I make it plain that this was preliminary and that it may well change before
final release. I had no problem with
that. My approach was that I taught BIT
in its entirety, BP Instructor in its entirety and then . . . after that was
all done . . . we went through Phase II.
That is how I got to this point and frankly if any other TC is looking
to do this, I don’t see another way to do it and still pay justice to the NRA
coursework as it is today and as it will be tomorrow . . . so put on your big
boy/girl panties and just do the work.
Let me say outta the box . . . I like this
coursework! It’s well thought out, the
flow is good and it will accomplish the overall goal of turning out a safe
shooter that is a reasonably accurate shooter as well – I give this a very well
done. All NRA instructors that have
accounts on the nrainstructors.org website have access to this material, it is
on the front page of the “Manage the course” tab.
I would consider this to be much more of a “shooting
course”. Much of the foundational
material has been shed and placed in the on-line portion. So defining parts of a handgun, some of the
material that deals with things that don’t go “bang” are gone. However – ALL of the stuff that deals with
safety, eye dominance, shooting positions, sight alignment, sight picture,
trigger press, loading and unloading a handgun and – to a much greater extent –
marksmanship are very much alive and well in this course. From the booklet – there are four primary
exercises:
Exercise 1: Firearm
and Range Safety Review (60 minutes)
Setting: Classroom and/or
range
Learning Objectives:
1. Review the three NRA rules for safe
gun-handling.
2. State range rules.
3. Identify range commands.
Exercise 2:
Fundamentals (60 minutes)
Setting: Classroom and/or
range
Learning Objectives:
1. Determine your dominant eye.
2. Assume a proper two-handed grip.
3. Demonstrate the five fundamentals
of pistol shooting: aiming, breath control, hold control,
trigger control, and follow through.
Exercise 3: Loading,
Cocking, De-cocking, Unloading, and Pistol Maintenance (60 minutes)
Setting: Classroom and/or
Range
Learning Objectives:
A. Load, cock, de-cock, and unload a
single-action revolver.
B. Load, cock, de-cock, and unload a
double-action revolver.
C. Load, cock, de-cock, and unload a
semi-automatic pistol.
D. Review how to safely clean a pistol.
Exercise 4: Shooting
Positions and Shooting Qualification (2 hours)
Setting: Range
Learning Objectives:
A. Demonstrate the five learning steps
to shoot from the benchrest position
B. Demonstrate the five learning steps
to shoot from the Isosceles position.
C. Shoot the course qualification.
For all the consternation my decision to include this in
this Instructor Course caused since there was no specific Training Guide, if
you pass through each of these exercises you will quickly note that ALL OF THEM
ARE COVERED IN THE CURRENT COURSEWORK.
So, if you teach the standard BP Instructor Course, everything is
covered – no worries.
So . . . some thoughts . . .
You
need to be a shooter.
What do I mean by that?
(All my own opinions – not meant to reflect the NRA position AT ALL –
just my take-away after running this thing.)
This particular module is “shooting centric”. With the exception of the safety aspects and
teaching the “Big Three” – this is a “range centric”, “shooting centric” piece
of coursework. While the old BP course
got the shooter to safely get rounds on paper . . . this course is much, much
more shooting focused. The instructor
needs to be fully familiar with running a range, running a course of fire on a
range, with fixing shooter problems from their stance to their trigger press
and all things in between.
And . . . if you can’t actually shoot – meaning walk out
to the range now. . . right now . . . with your favorite firearm . . . and
shoot a qual target – you might need work.
If the NRA Instructor Course was your last professional
development course – you might need work.
If you don’t send a couple hundred rounds down range each
and every month – you might need work.
It is very difficult – IMNSHO – to truly assist a new
shooter with becoming a better marksman if you don’t work at refining that
skillset yourself. In the old BP course
there was hours and hours of “other things”.
Things that consistently got brushed aside by student comments by the
two questions on the review sheet that asked . . . “What did you like best?”
and “What would you like more of?” The
answer, hands down, was always “I want more range time!” Phase II answers that request in spades. And if you, as an instructor, aren’t up to
the task of truly moving a new shooter to a reasonable marksman in 3-4 hours on
the range . . . please take the time to polish your skill set, it will help us
all.
I’ll skip all the classroom time where the two courses
overlapped and move to the actual shooting portion.
Phase
II Range Work
I began with the SIRT range in the classroom and ran my
standard “drill”. As well as introducing
the words I use on the range. A brief
summary . . .
Firearms begin on the bench, ejection port open, slide
back and canted 45-degrees to the right with an empty magazine next to the
firearm.
“Load
your magazine with xxx number of rounds.” Shooter loads the magazine, DOES NOT TOUCH
THE FIREARM.
“Pick
up your magazine, pick up your firearm, step to the firing line” Shooter follows the commands.
“Load
and make ready”
Shooter inserts the magazine, racks the slide and comes to the high
compressed ready.
Shooter is now ready to shoot the dill. Shoots the drill and stands at the high
compressed ready until they hear . . .
“Unload
and show clear”
Shooter drops the magazine, cants their firearm so the ejection port is
up and then butts the end of the empty magazine next to the open ejection port.
“Thank
You” As I pass behind each shooter at the end of
the drill and check their firearm to insure it’s empty I say the words “Thank
You” so they know they are empty. The
remain in this position until all shooting positions have been checked.
“Ground
your firearm and your magazine” The shooter leaves the firing line and
returns to the table grounding their firearm, chamber up and canted 45 degrees
to the right. Then they lay their empty magazine
next to it and wait for the next loading command.
I run every course of fire this way . . . without fail .
. . every time.
Shooting
Drills – Standing, Two Hands
1 round engagement – magazine is loaded with a single
round – fired to the commands DRIVE, TOUCH, PRESS. This is repeated 5 times.
1 round engagement – magazine is loaded with 5 rounds – fired
to the commands DRIVE, TOUCH, PRESS.
This is repeated 2 times.
1 round engagement – magazine is loaded with 5 rounds – fired
to UP command. This is repeated 2 times.
1 round engagement – magazine is loaded with 10 rounds – 5
rounds fired “slow fire” on each UP command.
This is repeated 2 times.
Clearing malfunctions is done along the way and as
required. We had the “typical” problems
I find with .22 ammunition and then the weather with -20-ish wind chills
contributed. But, all in all, things
flowed well.
Perhaps more of an explanation of my DRIVE, TOUCH, PRESS drill.
From the high compressed ready the shooter DRIVES the muzzle directly at the
center of the target. It is during this
step I correct “casting” and “bowling” issues as well as maintaining their muzzle
straight forward.
At full extension they TOUCH the trigger taking up the slack only, but not pressing off a
round. Here I can refine their finger
placement.
And finally – PRESS
– the trigger slowly and smoothly straight to the rear. Here I can work on jerking the trigger or
anticipation. If I do this for 15 to 20
rounds I have plenty of time to tweak the presentation and trigger press of the
shooter.
When we get to UP
– the shooter simply executes the DRIVE,
TOUCH, PRESS on their own including the follow-through at the very end.
Each IC ran a flight of 3 shooters through this set of
drills to smooth out their range skills.
And I have to repeat – in spite of the cold temps – each of them did the
job very well!
Each IC shot the “RED” drill set, you can see their
results in the photos as well as the included Instructor target – though,
again, I had them send 20 rounds at each target rather than 10 . . . my
mistake.
And that ended our day!
They were pretty happy to leave the range, the wind was coming up and we
were approaching -30 with the wind chill . . . time for a warm classroom and
the last of the coffee!
Questions
and thoughts that came up about Phase II
Cost came up almost immediately. This is a full day range course with around
200 rounds of ammunition being required if someone shoots the entire set of qualification
courses of fire. I have traditionally
included ammunition since it was typically limited to around 50 rounds. This course steps into the realm of
marksmanship – a step past just safely shooting their firearm. In fact they’re required to pass the RED
course of fire. I expect I will require
them to bring ammunition or charge them an additional $28 for ammunition costs
. . . we’ll see. Time wise, it’s as long
as if I were teaching the old course so my standard charge will not change -
$95 including range fee.
So the big question here is what is the NRA going to
charge for their portion? I would guess
$50 to $100. That would bring the cost
to my student up to $145 to $195 range.
Honestly, that’s going to be a hard sell. In many states – and please, I KNOW THAT WAS
NOT THE INTENT OF THE BP COURSE – it is used for the CCW permit class, or at
least a portion of it. I can sell a $95
course over a $40 online course that gets the person their carry permit . . .
but not much more. Just a reality. So we’ll see how that all shakes out, but
here in Iowa it is a real concern.
While thinking about this I did have a thought . . .
simply make Phase II the NRA Basic Pistol Course. Just pull the plug on the on-line course all
together. As a PPITH and PPOTH
instructor I want a new student with a good foundation in handling their
firearm and being able to shoot. Phase
II will accomplish that is spades. Lengthen
it a bit, formalize the shooting drills, move it to about a 5 hour range day .
. . and the product that would be sent forward to PPITH and PPOTH would be
awesome! If the NRA wants to move
forward with the online information – make it just that – supplemental online
information . . . not required. Just a
thought.
Another question revolved around folks that took the
online course, passed it but know nothing when they come to class. Whether they pencil whipped it, had a friend
do it – whatever, they just come to class essentially knowing little to
nothing. What to do with them? Time taken to bring them up to speed will
take away from folks who played by the rules, do we really want to take time
away from them to bring the laggards up to speed? The general feeling was that they would be
sent home, their money would be kept and they could come back to the next class
actually prepared. Bottom line, this
will need to be worked through.
So there you have it – BIT, BP Instructor and Phase
II. A very busy weekend but honestly
Phase II was a pleasant surprise. Very
good piece of coursework, just have to see how the online stuff and it play
together in the real world market place.
Photos are below . . . yep, it was nippy. Thanks to Braxton, Rod, Michael, Jim, Peter
and Ron – very good job gents! Thanks
for coming!!
