Combat Focus Shooting

[AJChenMPH]

www.combatfocusshooting.com

I haven't seen a thread started on this yet, so here goes. If you're over on THR and saw Rob Pincus' thread in the Strategies/Tactics/Training forum, this is essentially a copy/paste of my post there.

I took the course in Philly on March 22-23, 2011. I've known Rob for some 25 years or so (long before he got into this business), so the usual disclaimers about bias, etc.

BLUF: I thought the course was great, as did my boss (who's a part-time constable/court officer). The course took someone like me who is familiar with pistols and comfortable with them (but without any real formal training) and both taught me how to shoot well under stress (mainly simulated, some real) and give me the ability to develop my own training plan moving forward for when I go to the range.

This is not a shooting course. The course doesn't go over fine detail on how to hold the gun, which part of the finger to pull the trigger, etc. If you do IPSC/IDPA and you're hoping this course will help you with that, don't bother -- in fact, it'll seriously screw you up. This is a survival course designed to help you live through being ambushed in real-world situations.

Rob and his instructors don't just blather on about "you gotta do it this way because we've found it works"; they will take the time to answer your question(s) with empirical data and science to back up why they teach what they teach. As an example: my boss asked why reloads on semi-autos are done in the high compressed ready position without looking at the pistol. Instead of simply saying, "because it could be dark and you can't see the gun", Rob actually went into a detailed explanation of how the brain and the eyes work under stress (you know how time seems to slow down when you're under serious stress?) and why you're much more likely to screw up a mag change if you're looking at the pistol.

Again, if you're looking to simply shoot better, it's probably not the course for you. But if you're looking for tactics and techniques to improve your chances of surviving an unexpected attack (and you go into the course with that mindset), then by all means make the investment (time and financial) to take this course.

Check your ego at the door. While Rob is very light-hearted in how he conducts the course, he breaks you down to the fundamentals of how to shoot when your body is under stress. You can't assume you're going to walk in and nail the course without trying. Heck, he was making us do self-defense shooting scenarios while in the middle of doing wind-sprints up and down the range.

Be prepared to ask questions. There is an extremely high level of intellectual discussion in the classroom part of the course. There's actually very little teaching in the classroom part, it's more of a presentation of a concept and then having a back-and-forth discussion to make sure everyone understands the concept before going to the range to shoot the concept. One of my fellow students is a researcher at an Ivy-league university (and I'm also an Ivy-league graduate), and we both really enjoyed the intellectual discussions that were occurring back and forth. At the same time, the self-proclaimed "dumb construction worker" was just at home in the course and with understanding what was being taught. (By the way, the "dumb construction worker" was arguably the best pure shooter in the group.)

Be prepared to shoot a lot of rounds. The course description says 500 rounds -- I actually shot closer to 600 rounds. (Then again, I probably overloaded myself with mags and shot well beyond others who ran dry during courses of fire.)

Highly recommended -- again, not for competition shooting, but for real-world survival shooting.

[OldLincoln]

Wind sprints? Are you kidding me? Where can I find an old farts course that deals with real world stuff like an attempted mugging? Why would anybody need to run a wind sprint with somebody shooting at them?

I think this kind of stuff is great for those who can actually do it. If zombies attack I'll just save the last round for myself and call it good. But I'm more like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino than Stallone in Rambo.

[Longitude Zero]

The wind sprints attempt to simulate the stress/hyperbreathing of a life/death encounter. Or so I have been told.

[Chuck54]

I'm with you OldLinc !!

[Cash.45]

Great write up AJChenMPH. I have Rob's book on Combat Focus Shooting and found the information very thought provoking. It all makes sense. Us old farts who have never been in a true life of death situation aren't going to be prepared for the massive adrenaline dumb that's going to occur and the loss of our fine motor movement. If you haven't practiced drawing and shooting using gross motor movements while under stress (even self-induced stress), then you might be in for a big surprise when faced with that true life or death encounter.

For those of you who are getting your gunfighting training from Clint Eastwood movies...well, good luck to you. Not trying to start anything here, just stating my opinion and you know what they say about opinions...

[Longitude Zero]

If you haven't practiced drawing and shooting using gross motor movements while under stress (even self-induced stress), then you might be in for a big surprise when faced with that true life or death encounter.

I can tell you that your are 100%+ correct.

Been there...Done that

[Rob Pincus]

Thanks for the AAR, Andy!

Hey Old Guys: It wasn't real "wind sprints" .... it is just the name of the drill. The point isn't running to raise the heart rate or anything like that... it is a dynamic drill that gets everyone moving and A LOT more aware of the fact that people around them are moving too while they perform the drill. No one actually sprints... no old guys were worn out during the the completion of the windsprint drill.

:-)

[AJChenMPH]

Damn you, Pincus -- now you tell me. I was sprinting from line-to-line during that drill. No wonder I couldn't put any rounds on paper.

In all seriousness -- if you're not moving while countering an ambush, you've become an easy target. (The caveat there is that CFS teaches you stop moving when you do decide to shoot so that you have a stable platform from which to shoot.) While the goal isn't to get your heart rate up, it is to simulate what your body will be experiencing during that critical dynamic incident.

For the mugging scenario that OldLincoln brings up: you have to decide whether to stand there and draw/shoot vs. running away if the mugger is inside a certain distance with a contact weapon (knife, baseball bat, etc.). Rob covers that in the course.

[AJChenMPH]

Dragging this thread back from the dead. I just took the follow-on course to CFS (known as Advanced Pistol Handling) taught by Paul Carlson (of Safety Solutions Academy) and Deryck Poole (of Echo-5 Training Group) this past weekend (Nov. 1-2, 2013) and thought I’d share my opinions.

The course builds off the CFS course and is essentially broken into two major categories: the first is the shooting from unorthodox positions (kneeling, seated, lying prone and lying supine), and the other is unorthodox manipulations of the pistol (one-handed reloads and malfunction clearances, both strong hand and weak hand). We also covered a few “low possibility/low plausibility” situations, such as shooting a handgun from 50 yards to see if you could get hits on target, and how to improve your chances of doing so. This all built up to the final exercise where we shot out of a vehicle, both out the front passenger’s window and the driver’s window.

So, a few observations:

1. This is a *tough* class. The shooting itself isn’t all that difficult, but Paul (who was the primary instructor) and Deryck really push you to your physical and mental breakpoints. Because of the unorthodox shootings positions, you’re constantly getting up and dropping back down on the ground. And some of the positions contort you around -- such as lying prone (on your stomach) and having to arch your back so you can see and put rounds into the target. Although I had kneepads on (I had the 5.11 kneepads inside my cotton 5.11 tac pants), they didn’t come low enough to really protect my knees, so my legs just below the knees and above the shins got tore up a bit from all the gravel. Suffice it to say that I had the seat warmers on both afternoons after shooting (and the air conditioning on as well, since it was still on the warm/humid side).

2. Mentally, it’s tough because you’re getting up and dropping down, so your heart rate gets worked up pretty good...and then they throw in a Balance of Speed and Precision drill, and all of a sudden you can’t hit the precise targets when they call for it. I can’t tell you how many times I was nailing a small target prior to doing the physical stuff, but then because I was huffing and puffing, I couldn’t get anywhere within 3 inches of a target afterwards. I was also having a tough time with one-handed strong side shooting -- I kept pulling shots low and left.

3. You will get dirty rolling around the ground. Deal with it, prepare for it (particularly if you have plans that evening, like I did...I brought a change of clean clothes with me to the range each day). Throw a big towel or coverall in the car so you can cover up your seat and not dirty up your interior if you decide not to change after the day’s shooting.

4. Make sure you test your kneepads and other protective gear out before the class (note what I just said above about tearing up my knees). I also wore long sleeves and gloves when going up and down -- shooting with the gloves actually did two things for me: protect my hands from the gravel, and validate whether I could effectively shoot with those gloves on (since I bought them specifically to wear in the winter so I could still handle my pistol in an incident).

5. The class really vets your gear and your setup. Coming into the class (in addition to the gloves I mentioned earlier), I had been carrying AIWB with a primary spare mag in my weakside front pocket and a backup spare mag on my belt roughly at my centerline/midline. What I discovered was that unless I was standing or kneeling straight up, it was much, much faster to go for my backup spare mag on my belt as opposed to the mag in my pocket. In addition, I run the ICE CLAW rear sight, which worked great when doing the one-handed manipulations -- definitely validated that purchase. Finally, I also run the Glock OEM extended slide stop lever. With the thumb-over-thumb grip I use, there’s always a chance that I’ll accidentally engage the lever and prevent slide lockback when the gun runs dry -- and while it hadn’t happened to me in a really, really long time (I think the last time it occurred to me was *before* I had installed the extended slide stop lever), it happened to me during the shooting-from-the-car drill. I’m now looking at the Ghost Bullet forward lever to replace it.

Paul got some really good video of me shooting from the car when the dreaded “click-no-bang” incident occurred. You see me immediately go to tap-rack to clear the malfunction only to have the slide lock back, so I go for a spare mag. I initially start to reach for a mag in my pocket only to realize that it’d be much faster to grab the mag on my belt, and I complete the reload and get the shot off. Total elapsed time from “click-no-bang” to getting the gun reloaded and ready to shoot: 5 seconds, and then I took an additional two seconds to break the shot since we were shooting under a very deliberate, step-by-step process. (If you’re interested in seeing the video, shoot me a PM with your email address and I’ll email you the 900k .mp4 file. I have Paul’s permission to share.) This is what I mean by vetting my gear setup -- my training going forward will be to go for the mag on my belt first, then the mag in my pocket.

Paul and Deryck were terrific instructors. Rob Pincus was supposed to teach the class, but had to back out -- as annoyed as I was by that (and I teased Rob about it, we go back to when we were teenagers), there was never a moment where I considered backing out. I know Rob well enough to trust that if Paul and Deryck were qualified and certified to teach APH, I knew I’d be getting quality instruction regardless of who actually taught the class -- and Paul and Deryck didn’t disappoint. They joked, they cajoled, they yelled at us -- all keeping in mind what were the most effective techniques for each of us (there were five students -- a great student-to-teacher ratio) to get the most out of what they were teaching us.

Highly encourage all to take CFS and APH if you’re interested in self-defense shooting training. As I said in my AAR for CFS, this won’t make you a better pure/competitive shooter, but you’ll be a much more capable and effective combat shooter. Feel free to ask questions, and I’ll answer them as best as I can (without giving away trade secrets).

[Paul Carlson]

Thanks Andy!

I appreciate you taking the time to put together such a detailed AAR of the course. I look forward to training with you in the future.

[AJChenMPH]

Thanks again to you and Deryck for putting together a fantastic two-day training session!

[garyb]

Thanks for the post. I'll take a serious look at this. I passed it along to a bud who does training locally and was looking to hook up with something like this. Looks like it is worth their rates. Some guys complain about the cost of training, but f it saves lives, how can dollars be considered? I like to do various training sessions each year and this might fit in nicely. Thanks again.

[AJChenMPH]

Without a doubt, it is not an insignificant investment. In addition to tuition, you have to factor in travel, ammo, etc. I happened to use hotel points, but otherwise I was looking at about $1200 when all was said and done (not counting the cost of the pistol or any sort of amortization).

However, this is some of the best money you'll spend on training. There are also other good/great programs out there, but I have yet to find another program that's based on empirical evidence (i.e., camera footage) combined with anatomy, physiology, neuroscience, and efficiency principles.

[AIRret]

I really appreciate all the info.!
Thanks

[RRP]

I had never heard of these guys. Your review would encourage me to give 'em serious consideration if they ever offered training in my neck of the woods.

Thank you.