INSTRUCTOR SELECTION

Why Do You Need an Instructor?

• If you agree with my ranking of priorities, most people have their priorities backward. They concentrate on the equipment, not the mind set and skills of the operator. Let's face it, most Americans who purchase guns for defense don't even carry them; they regard them as talismans which will ward off evil.
• If you're trying to get together the money for that new gun you've just got to have, it's difficult to commit to spending money on instruction. After all, you can read about how to do it in books and magazines, so why spend the extra money for instruction?
• Like anything you buy, instruction has got to be of a minimum quality to give you your money's worth. Quality instruction can give you some of the following:
  1. A mind set which will help you avoid violent encounters and prevail in those you can't avoid;
  2. Documentation that you have been trained in that mind set, as opposed to your having dreamed up some fantasies in front of your TV set;
  3. Skills and tactics both to avoid and to win violent encounters;
  4. A professional eye to determine if a technique is working for you, how to make it work if it's not or an alternative technique which may suit you better;
  5. Documentation that you were taught these techniques by someone with some kind of credentials and that you demonstrated some degree of proficiency with them.
• Why does documentation keep coming up? If you have to shoot someone, a crime will have been committed - either you committed a crime shooting him or he committed a crime which justified your shooting him. You will definitely be investigated; depending on the outcome, you may be prosecuted; regardless, you may be sued. Is documentation starting to make sense?

What to Look for in an Instructor

• What you seek in an instructor may vary according to what training you already have. Beyond that, however, let's discuss prospective training, first from its likely content, then from the quality from the source you're considering.
• From the perspective of using the firearm for self-defense, there will probably be four basic "models" of training available to you:
  1. The NRA Personal Protection Course or a similar state-mandated concealed carry course;
  2. The law enforcement model;
  3. The military model;
  4. The competition model.
• The "Models":
  1. It certainly would behoove you to have some documented instruction in the judicious use of deadly force. The NRA Personal Protection course or a state-mandated course for a carry permit should give you a start in this direction. Such courses are generally too brief to give you much instruction in tactics and technique. The people who teach these courses can vary from some with minimal training of their own and who are just looking to supplement their income to some who have some very relevant - perhaps unique - training and experience to do so.
  2. While law enforcement officers generally have a duty to seek out and engage criminals, the armed citizen will generally be expected to seek disengagement. Nonetheless, when the citizen cannot avoid engaging, the tactics of the peace officer may be the most relevant ones. This is particularly true if it includes training for plainclothes or off-duty encounters. In those cases, encounters are most likely to occur at close range and the officer is likely to be carrying discreetly and may not be immediately discernible from any other citizen. I have had some great training of this sort but most agency instructors are oriented primarily toward getting every officer to shoot a passing score on whatever "qualification" they agency or the state requires. For many years, I feared that training in specialized law-enforcement techniques such as entries and searches would encourage private citizens foolishly to attempt "clearing" their own homes. Faced with an increasing likelihood of mass shootings - possibly politically motivated - in public venues, it occurred to me that some of those skills may be valuable to safely exit a venue that has come under attack.
  3. For many years I saw a dichotomy between military tactics and those appropriate for law enforcement and the private citizen. I have come to see more of a continuum between them as our troops have had to deal with increasingly strict rules of engagement and the civilian population becomes increasingly aware of the eventuality of Mumbai-style terror attacks on American soil. I suspect that most visitors to this website would benefit most from some of the rifle training offered by instructors in the military model. Again, there are instructors with military backgrounds who were primarily focused on getting troops to shoot a passing score on a "qualification" and others who were actually teaching fighting skills, for different scenarios.
     
     For a few years, NRA offered a Carry Guard training program that emphasized the SEAL and Special Forces backgrounds of its designers. Of note:
     
     
     • "NRA Carry Guard Level One is designed for training with a semi-automatic handgun (Glock 19/17, Sig P227/P228 or equivalent). We will not allow revolvers or 1911s as your primary firearm in this class."
     • The photos depicting this course show open carry - an incongruous way to train for concealed carry on the street.
     • How much of this handgun course is truly oriented towards the role and needs of the armed private citizen?
     
     
  4. An instructor with a background in competition may help improve your accuracy or your speed. However, competition "tactics" are usually oriented toward beating the clock while shooting at cardboard targets which can't shoot back. If an instructor's background is competition, you may find yourself being instructed in techniques and tactics which could be hazardous if used against targets which do shoot back.
• The quality:
  • On the shooting skills side, you may need someone to teach you the basics. In this case it may be more useful if the instructor is not wedded to a particular "method" of shooting and will adapt to your attributes, rather than expecting you to become his clone. On the other hand, you may be looking for someone to round out your skills with a specific method you believe may be a useful tool in your toolbox. Additionally, you may have learned to shoot with one type of firearm then decided that a different one may be more suitable for you needs. Additionally, just as with specialization in professions such as medicine and law, there are some instructors who develop a reputation for or specialization in teaching the use of particular types of firearms, such as compact revolvers, shotguns, magazine-fed autoloading rifles, etc.
  • How do the instructor and his staff conduct training? Do they behave like drill sergeants? Some students do well under those systems, most do not. This one is a totally subjective judgment.
  • What is the ratio of students to instructors? Watch this one closely if the school offers courses with large numbers of students. Will the "name brand" instructor do most of the teaching or will it be done by assistants? (Believe it or not, sometimes the assistants are better instructors.)
  • What is the overall class size and how many students shoot per relay? Many instructors limit movement in order to keep students from bumping into each other or from crossing each other with muzzles. That sort of adaptation may lead to unsound tactics, such as standing in one place as you draw and fire and standing on the same spot from which you have just fired while you scan for additional threats.
  • How tightly are the course offerings structured? Will there be time to ask questions? Will there be time for individual coaching for the student who may not learn quickly?
  • What kind of facilities does the instructor have available? Are they adequate for his program of instruction? I once had a fellow student tell me that he would not pursue further instruction with a particular school because its range was a "sand pit." He was planning to return to the school where the conversation took place because of its excellent physical facilities. I opted not to return to the school where the conversation took place because I felt that the program was sport-based and encouraged bad tactics. Clearly, I don't believe that facilities are primary, but they can certainly limit the training that the instructor can offer.
  • By whom is the instructor certified to teach? If you have to subpoena the instructor to testify as to what he taught you and why he taught it, he may carry more weight with the jury if he is certified to train law enforcement officers. Speaking of certification, will the instructor issue you a certificate of training? I knew of some experienced LAPD officers who would accept carefully selected "civilian" students but would not certify that they had trained them.
  • Evaluation of teaching style may be subjective but credentials are fairly objective. On the flip side, to borrow some phraseology from Matthew, many are certified but not all are good teachers.

Does Your Instructor Need to Have Survived a Gunfight?

• There is at least one big-name school that has required instructor applicants to have been involved in some sort of gunfight and a not a few other instructors who believe this is a crucial criterion.
• There is some merit in the implication that the wrong tactics and inadequate skills greatly minimize the chance of surviving, much less prevailing in such an encounter. (After all, why are you seeking training?)
• For better or for worse, surviving a gunfight might have depended, to varying degrees, on luck and is not a guarantee that the survivor used good tactics or great skill. Thus, the crucial element is whether a gunfight survivor drew appropriate lessons from the experience. Further, not all gunfights are the same:
  • A military engagement, in which several people on each side fire several rifle rounds at each other, at the distance of a city block or longer, may not teach much about using a handgun at much closer distances.
  • A police officer who served on a special unit, in which he typically had advance notice that he was likely to have to fire shots, allowing him to use the traditional marksmanship skills in which he had trained, may not be aware of the need to train in arm's length quick-reaction techniques.
  • On the other hand, someone who prevailed in a "yank-and-crank" incident at close range may not appreciate the need to develop and maintain skill in sighted fire.
• Not to minimize the value of personal experience, but not that many people have had the full range of it. Most serious instructors will have made it a point also to learn from the experiences of others, regardless of the scope of their own.
• So, how crucial is that element of personal experience of actually having a shot at another person? I don't think that there is a black-and-white answer to this question. Again, I urge you to use the ruler of common sense. If the instructor makes a point of having won a gunfight, what did he learn from the experience? Did the experience make him a better teacher? If the instructor has not had that experience, what qualifies him to prepare you for it?
• In the long run, what will benefit you the most is what you learned, not from whom you learned it.
• A related issue is how many students an instructor has trained. While an instructor who's only trained a handful of students may lack the experience to deal with the challenges of a student who "doesn't get it" right away, having trained a few hundred or a few thousand students may not mean much. After all, the real issue is what those many students were actually taught.

The Square Range and Other Limitations

• "Square range" is a term that is usually used for a range where the targets must be located toward one end, so that all shots are fired in essentially the same direction. Those who use the term generally imply that one can only do limited training in such an environment. Often the term is used in contrast to "shoot houses," "simulators," "jungle lanes," etc., where a student can be sent into an unknown environment, where he will unexpectedly be presented with targets from different angles.
• Clearly, a square range is appropriate for Stage 1 training - grounding in the basics - whether learning to shoot or polishing shooting skills. This is true whether one is working on traditional marksmanship or learning some form of point shooting.
• A square range may be appropriate for Stage 2 training - range drills, simple to complex - depending on how far they go and how they are conducted. Shooting from cover and unconventional positions can be done satisfactorily on a square range. My concern is on how tactical movement - or lack of it - is taught.
• This issue is often as much an issue of class size as it is of square range. If student are taught to remain planted in the position from which they fired as they scan for other threats, they are being taught poor tactics. Likewise, if they are only taught movement straight forward and straight back, they are being taught poor tactics. These poor tactics are typically taught in order to have several students shooting simultaneously, with reduced risk of getting in front of another student's muzzle.
• This last issue closely relates to the concept range mentality, which, in turn, has two major aspects. The first one, as seen above, is the substitution of poor tactics in the interest of minimizing the instructor's liability on the range. Another example of this is the placement of the non-gun hand on the belly during the draw stroke. This keeps the student from getting that hand in front of the muzzle, particularly as he acquires a two-handed grip. However, on the street, that hand could be performing more valuable functions, such as warding off a close-range assailant.
• The other major aspect of ranged mentality involves viewing all problems as shooting problems and threats primarily as stationary targets that cannot really fight back, with gun fire or otherwise. I remain skeptical of variations of the "Mozambique drill," where two shots are fired into the upper chest, followed by one shot to the head - generally an unrealistic target on a mobile, aggressive human. The worst variation reported to me is at a highly advertised school where students are taught to fire two shots to the head, depress the muzzle to a "low ready" position, glance left and right, then fire one shot to the head.
• When you evaluate what you are being taught, think about how it would work in a real fight, with someone bobbing and dodging or charging you screaming that he's going to rip off your head or slash your throat. If you are not being taught sound tactics, such as shoot-and-scoot, you're probably not getting your money's worth.

Private vs. Group Instruction

• It's easier to generate income as an instructor if you teach a group of students at a time. Most people who take professional firearms training do so in a group environment. If you are physically fit and learn readily, this is fine. Having to keep up with the rest of the group requires that you learn to function under some degree of pressure. Some people like the "bragging rights" of having completed what is recognized as a tough course of instruction.
• Some people may not be in good physical condition, may be challenged by physical disabilities, may be slow learners or may not learn well under the pressure of observation by their peers. Some of these people may do better with private instruction, where the curriculum and pace can be adjusted to their particular attributes.
• While one-on-one training can be very efficient, there are advantages to training alongside other students. One's learning can often be enhanced by observing errors made by a fellow student and how the instructor corrects them. It is particularly useful to train with a partner if the training partner is also a partner in some aspect of daily living - that way, each student will have some insight as to how that partner will respond in an emergency. In such cases, semi-private training may be a great option, so long as one partner does not try to dominate the other during the training.

"Can You Recommend an Instructor Here in East Podunk?"

As I have suggested elsewhere, one of my biggest frustrations in the years that I ran my own school was the repeated requests to recommend other instructors, particularly in specific locations. Personally, I have only trained with a minuscule proportion of all the people who offer training. On top of that, some of the most useful training I received was at conferences or seminars, from instructors employed by public agencies, who did not run schools of their own.
• When I arrived at the painful decision to close my own school, I expanded the Sources of Training section of this site's Links page. In only a small number of cases do I have personal knowledge of the training offered by these various sources. In most cases, the schools are listed because they were recommended to me by people I trust. In those cases I asked my references to explain why they were recommending that particular school - which information I have tried to summarize briefly with each link.
• As my own training was taken from many instructors, over many years, I do not believe that any one instructor can provide you with all of the instruction you should have. I hope that this site (and my book) can help you make wiser selections and avoid some of the costly detours that I took for lack of similar guidance.

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Also available DEFENSIVE USE OF FIREARMS: Revised and Updated Click image for free download or purchase of print copies

Questions? Comments? Stephen P. Wenger P.O. Box 4227 Show Low AZ 85902-4227 U.S.A.