TRAINING WITH ~spwenger

Instruction by ~spwenger

• Under the aegis of Defensive Use of Firearms, LLC, I offer private and semi-private training to students who have a serious interest in developing defensive skills with firearms. This training is geared toward using a firearm for fighting, not toward competition shooting.
• I conduct small classes so that I can ensure personal attention for each student. I teach one or two students at a time and, due to the amount of equipment that I have to truck to the range area in order to brace my range props against the wind, I have an absolute limit of two students for any range session. I encourage people who live or work together to train together.
• My ranking of the priorities to survive and prevail is quite evident in these courses. Also evident are my background in the Cantonese martial art of wing chun kuen and my belief that most gunfights (with handguns) will closely resemble fist fights, with the exception that you'll have a few stronger punches and, if you're fortunate, you'll be able to throw them from beyond contact distance.
• I live and teach in Show Low, in the pines and junipers of the scenic White Mountains of eastern Arizona. Show Low is about a three-hour drive from the Phoenix airport and about a four-hour drive from the Tucson airport. There are commuter flights to Show Low from Phoenix but both road routes into Show Low from Phoenix offer beautiful scenery.
• I don't schedule periodic courses and wait to see if anyone signs up. Rather, I schedule a course when I have one or two students who are ready to commit to a mutually agreeable date. As I still have a full-time job, I can usually schedule training more easily on weekends than during the week.

Training Offered

• I offer tactically oriented training that is intended to prepare people to use firearms in a fight, not a match. This training is available for handgun, rifle and shotgun although I see the greatest demand and have the most to offer with the handgun.
• My handgun training emphasizes a continuum of techniques from arm's length back to distances where sighted fire is feasible and appropriate. This continuum is taught as a series of building blocks, with most of the close-range techniques leading into the longer-range ones.
• While some similar close-range techniques are taught with rifle and shotgun, training with those weapons places a primary emphasis on the use of the sights as those weapons are more likely to be used at longer distances from threats.
• Having offered pre-structured tactical courses in the past, I now prefer to use a more flexible format, adjusting the exercises taught and the number of repetitions to the students in each course. What may be six hours worth of training for one student could take twelve hours for another. What may be a reasonable technique for an athletically fit young male may be unsuitable for a middle-aged woman who works at a desk for sixty hours a week.
• One of my students was instructed to bring his cane to the range so that he could train getting it out of his hand as he drew his handgun. Another student only had one hand. It makes mores sense to me to teach a student than to teach a method, when that method may not be suitable to a particular student.
• The tactical firearms training is available in three-hour blocks and I prefer to teach only two three-hour blocks in one day. In other words, a normal training day includes six hours on the range. (I do not count preliminary paperwork and introductory lecture material as part of the three-hour blocks.)
• With my currently limited facilities, I actually prefer offering the low-light handgun training indoors, with Airsoft pistols, which doesn't require a trip back from the local forest after dark.
• My Arizona Concealed Weapon Permit course has always exceeded the state mandate. I will continue to offer a two-day course even though the statutory mandate has dropped to eight hours. The first day's lecture portion should run around ten hours, depending on the number of questions the students have during the lecture. The second session, which includes the live fire training and mandatory testing, lasts about eight hours.
• While the CWP course is not primarily a shooting course, the range session includes some diagnostics, coaching on fundamentals and a strong tactical emphasis in those shooting exercises which are included. These include shooting from a protected-gun position at arm's length from the threat, one-handed shooting and shooting after having moved to standing and kneeling positions behind cover. One aspect of the tactical emphasis is the combination of movement and communication with shooting.
• I require a minimum of two students for a CWP course. I can schedule the lecture session for up to four students but cannot teach the range session to more than two students at a time. In other words, we could have several people take the lecture session on one day but would have to split the group to complete the course by doing the range session on different days.
• Feel free to contact me about matching your needs with my offerings. My specialty is close combat, not match shooting, a point I repeat to avoid any misunderstanding. I am very good at teaching skills but lack the facilities to set up fancy scenarios.

SCENES FROM RANGE TRAINING
Complex skills are learned step by step. Here the students practice drag-stepping off the line of the threat. This is the first step in dealing with an attack at arm's length	Now the students are ready to use a palm strike as they acquire a firing grip on the holstered handgun. Soon they will be ready to draw and to fire from the protected-gun position.
Even though the students have used the opportunity to move laterally to cover before shooting, they still move through the protected-gun position on the draw stroke for consistency. Hick's Law says that the fewer decisions you have to make under stress, the faster you can respond.	After engaging the threats, the students do a 360-degree scan to check for other threats. They are verbalizing to identify themselves as the good guys to potential witnesses. By moving their guns to the "navel position," they can safely move in any direction with a loaded gun in hand.
Many intermediate-range shootings go down one-handed. Students sample a couple of techniques to determine which works better for them. After this photo was taken the students were reminded to shift the shoulder forward of the hip joint, to ensure faster recovery from recoil.	Even the best technique might not fit every student. This 4'7" woman struggles to get her pistol aimed high enough to hit the pelvic region of an adult of average height. If this protected-gun technique won't work reliably for her, it's better to learn it on the range than on the street.
If the non-dominant hand is wounded it's useful to have some practice drawing, shooting and reloading with the dominant hand only. Not too tough - both students are on the same sheet of music at this point. These wounded/return-fire techniques are only performed behind cover. If you don't do it right on the range you probably won't do it right on the street.	If the dominant hand is wounded things get more interesting - the non-dominant hand has to do it all. The student on the left is wearing an open-top holster right at the hip. His gun is in action while the student on the right, with a thumb-break holster behind the hip, is still working to clear leather. With his equipment he had an easier time drawing across the back than across the belly.
Whether you've been knocked to the ground or surprised in bed, you still have to be able to hit your assailant. This is one of several unconventional ground shooting positions taught.	This technique, borrowed from the Center Axis Relock system, is particularly useful if you have to shoot out the left side of your vehicle and your safety belt has locked you in place.
	This 4'11" 60-year-old woman was short on strength but long on determination. It took several sessions to find the right combination of gun and technique for her. Among the challenges she presented, she is right-handed but very strongly left-eye-dominant. It turned out that the weapon-silhouette point was a much more reliable method for her to aim the gun than using the sights, with only a small increase in group size. By using a shooting position that emphasizes relaxing on the gun, rather than muscle, she is already back on target before the ejected case has reached the apex of its flight to the ground. A dogmatic insistence on the first or second shooting position she tried would have resulted in an unhappy student lacking the confidence to fight back. A similar insistence on using the sights would have slowed her response unacceptably.

A Note on Stages of Training

• My friend Ralph Mroz, in his book Defensive Shooting for Real-Life Encounters, discusses the stages of firearms training:
  1. Grounding in the Basics: This is the fundamentals of marksmanship, such as position, sight alignment, sight picture, trigger control and breathing.
  2. Range Drills - Simple to Complex: Ralph describes the progression in complexity of range drills, including shooting from cover, shooting from different positions, shooting with the non-dominant hand, multiple targets, etc.
  3. Force on Force Scenarios: This involves students actually shooting at each other with non-lethal projectiles, such as Simunitions or Airsoft pellets, to simulate the stress of real-life encounters.
• I cannot quarrel with Ralph about the desirability of incorporating stage-three training but I have limited physical facilities. I am currently evaluating the use of Airsoft pistols to offer this training safely. (There have been several tragic accidents in law enforcement due to procedural breakdowns in maintaining an absolutely "sterile" environment for this type of training.)
• While I have always been successful in teaching fundamentals and most of my students leave the range shooting better than when they arrived, I currently concentrate on providing high-end stage-two training with an emphasis on street-relevant tactics.

Miscellaneous Notes

• I strongly discourage the use of handguns with ported barrels in my courses. When shooting from the protected-gun position, one of the most valuable techniques I teach, porting can vent hot gases into your own body or face. The same concern applies to at least one other of the close-quarters techniques I teach. (If this is a concern in training, it should also be a concern on the street, where, in addition, it is not likely that you will be wearing hearing protection.)
• I discourage, the use of handgun-mounted laser sights in my courses. The temptation to look for the red dot on the target seems to discourage students from concentrating on the body-index components for the close-quarters techniques. There are arguments in favor of laser sights on the street or in the home. If you are persuaded by these arguments, please be prepared to turn off the laser while training with me.
• I discourage the use of Magnum ammunition, at least for close-quarters work. The concussion from the barrel-cylinder gap is a serious matter and, at close range, the muzzle blast quickly destroys the printed paper targets I use. (If the former is a concern in training, it should also be a concern on the street, where, in addition, it is not likely that you will be wearing hearing protection.)
• I strongly encourage minimum calibers of .38 Special in revolvers and 9x19mm (Luger or Parabellum) in autoloaders. However, I have noted that some students who are comfortable shooting larger calibers, such as .40 S&W and .45 ACP, in autoloaders, with their usual two-handed shooting position at their home range, may no longer be comfortable when shooting with some of the one-handed techniques I teach.

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