Extra training....

[Boom-stick]

I, for one, can say that my eyes light up at the newest shiniest gadgets, and have all manor of guns and weapons to hand, just in case...

But how many of us actually practice or even know the basics, like map reading, first-aid, real-world self defence ( not Sports based systems) defensive driving techniques???

Or are even fit & healthy enough to attempt them:confused:

I'm familiar will all of the above, but not as much as I'd like to be.

DW

[hso]

My wife and I just took Paul Gomez's AK course. We also took the Tac Med combat gunshot wound course the next day. We're both trained in first aid. She's a Nurse Practioner. I'm First Responder Wilderness trained. We're signed up for Brownie's Quick Kill basic and advanced full 2-day course next weekend and the knife course the evening in the middle. We've trained in knife. We're certified in ASP baton. She's studied Wah Lum and Tai Chi. I'm a student of Chinese Boxing, Escrima and Kali. We're both trained to work in radiation and/or chemically contaminated environements and are certified to wear respirators, airline and scba (and have). We've both studied western sword fighting with Eddy Floyd. I've taken 4 Simumition force on force handgun courses taught by Rob Stewart (7th Group retired). We both know rapelling (absailing for you), SCUBA, rock climbing, whitewater kayaking, firemaking, shelter building. I was liscenced in Sail Plane (glider), but have let that lapse due to lack of time.

Training Trumps Toys

What else?

[Boom-stick]

I'm IMPRESSED!!!!

My first aid is next thing I'm going to brush up on, the last course I done was back in '97 when I worked over your side of the pond, where I taught riflery, rock climbing, absailing:) and wilderness survival.
I think I still may have my American Red Cross Certificate?? (expired)
I've studied Judo and boxing along with a few other styles here and there.

My wife isn't as 'up for it' as yours, it took me nearly 2 years of convincing for her to attend my Freediving classes (where I teach) and now she loves it!!
I've taught her to absail but she hates it:mad:
and we're both SCUBA certified:) although freediving has taken over completely now and have recently studied yoga together??
I'm hoping to attend a combat shooting school over there next year just before the Shot Show and make a good trip out of it:)

HSO, you do seem to be lacking with your defensive driving skills???

[Lee Lapin]

There's no such thing as "extra" training. It's just... training. More training perhaps, but not 'extra' training. A person never really knows enough, never is really as good as they might be at all there is that might need doing. You can't learn it all or master it all, but that shouldn't stop you from being as good as you can manage to be at as many things as you can manage to learn.

lpl/nc

[hso]

HSO, you do seem to be lacking with your defensive driving skills???

Oh, that.

DOE Non-Paved Road Driving certification, DOE Vehicle Operator certificate, National Safety Council Driver Safety certification, SAIC Vehicle Operator certification, unimproved and off road driving experience.;)

I have to admit the physical fitness level has gone to pot for both of us, though.

[Boom-stick]

Hso,

you can go now if you want:rolleyes:

I have recently started back down the gym as I don't want my fitness to slip any further.

Lee,

'Extra' was the only word that came to mind when I was thinking of title, I suppose I could have put 'Prerequisite Training' Or 'Don't Stop Learning...'

But I was really looking for actual abilities rather than reasons for doing them and when training in is done in addition to other training I believe it is indeed 'Extra' :)

[hso]

Boom-stick,

If you can get a ticket to Knoxville (TYS) next week you can take the point shooting class that weekend. I'll loan the gun and holster to you. All you have to do is get here, pay for the class and ammo. You can stay with us. Will a CZ 75 do or do you prefer a BHP?

[Boom-stick]

Hso,

That is a truely tempting offer that I'm only declining on the grounds I'm flying out to Egypt next week for a Freediving safari.

I've been promised a dive witha whale shark and I can't say no:)

[hso]

I understand.

Manta night dive in Hawaii was great a few years ago. I'd love to get a dive in with a whale shark.

BTW, what's your favorite Single Malt?

[Thefabulousfink]

I was in the Scouting program for 16+ years (cubscouts, boyscouts, explorers). I go backpacking every chance I get. I was one of the founding members of my highschools rockclimbing team. I have taken a 1 year mountaineering course and have climbed 2 mountains over 10,000 feet. I have sleep out in the woods in everything from a heated RV to a shelter that I made out of a fallen log and some branches.

I generally consider myself able to survive in the wilderness for as long as I can find food (it gets kind of hard in the winter months around here).

Edit: Thats what happens when I only read the first part of a post.

As far as non-survival training, I have been studing various martial arts on and off for the past 3 years with different master. I have just decieded on one who I am going to stick with for a while.

I still need to find a defensive handgun class.

[Boom-stick]

BTW, what's your favorite Single Malt?

At the moment its 10yr old Bushmills (Ya can't beat an Irish Malt:) )

but in the past it's been between Laphroaig & Dalwhinnie.

Why'd you ask?

I have sleep out in the woods in everything from a heated RV to a shelter that I made out of a fallen log and some branchesLOL

When I taught wilderness survival in North Carolina, I'd take out a small group with nothing but a plastic sheet, the folks would look at me and say "yeah, right where's the tent???"
BIG wake-up call.

[Azrael256]

I'm headed off to the PD just as quick as I can. I could pass the PFT for the test in three weeks right now, but only just. I'm training until I can pass it without breaking a sweat. I've got a long summer of running, running, and more running ahead of me.

I figure I'll pick up a good bit more firearms training, some spiffy driving techniques, and of course a good bit of training in wrestling resistant suspects. That, and probably a whole lot more PT.

I assume that I'll have to go through CPR, First Aid, Bloodborne Pathogens, Auto Defib, and other stuff at the academy. It's a good thing, too, since most of my certifications are about to expire. Anything I don't get at the academy, I'll go find. I would love to certify as an EMT if I could find the time and funding to pull it off. Maybe the PD will help with that, and maybe not.

I'm a fan-frickin'-tastic map reader. I held the Circle Ten Council Camporee Rabbit Award for three years. After that, they made me run the orienteering course. I've never had a problem reading any map to go anywhere. I can tie knots, build shelters, purify water, make fire in the rain, find edible plants, and all that other Boy Scout stuff with no problem. Dad taught me that when I was a tot, so merit badge camp was real boring.

If it has skin, I can skin it, and if it has scales, I can scale it. I'm not super-proficient at it, but I can go from a single gunshot to a deer wrapped up in little packages in a day. A friend of mine can do three in a day with time to build the fire and cook it. 'Course, he and his dad do 300 a year. I even learned how to trap beaver, and how to make knives out of old trap springs.

If I can find fuel, I can make an engine run, even if it requires bailing wire and JB Weld. I can change U-joints with a Leatherman (and a whole lot of profanity), and I didn't know stabbing a clutch was supposed to be difficult until somebody told me it was.

I've changed diapers, butchered animals, designed buildings (pole barns count, right?), written some awful sonnets, balanced my checkbook, built fences (no walls, to date), set bones, comforted the dying and their families, taken orders, given orders, cooperated, acted alone, solved an equation or two, analyzed many new problems, pitched lots of manure, programmed way too many computers, and I assume that fighting dirty so I always win is "efficient."

I haven't had to plan an invasion lately, the last "ship" I conned was a 20' sailboat, I haven't learned to cook "tasty" meals (but they're nutritious!), and I don't have any plans to die, gallantly or otherwise, in the near future.

Unless I'm terribly mistaken, all a person really needs to do is live on a farm and then take one oath or another to be pretty well covered in the event of an emergency.

The only two men I have ever truly envied are Sylvan Hart and Dick Proenneke.


Boom-stick, try taking folks out with a good knife, a tinderbox, a length of rope, and about a quart of water. Teach them to stay warm, dry, fed, and hydrated for about a week. If you want to witness a "transformational experience," it's a really good way to go.

[Boom-stick]

Azrael256,

I had a good knife (SAK) and a short length of para cord (& a tinder box, but that was for me not them:evil: )
Water came from a stream and food normally wound up coming in the form of potatoes hidden in my back pac when the whimpering started:confused:

[Karla (Threadbndr)]

Az - read Heinlein much? <G>

Let's see, First Aid and CPR, camping and hiking - girl scouts and parent for cub scouts and younger boy scounts, defensive driving - all check. Theoretical knowledge (and practical on animals) enough to midwife in an emergency if a better trained person is not available.

If you give me enough of any 'fluff' (hemp stalks to handfulls of hedgerow gleaned wool) I can, in time, take it to a finished garment or blanket, cordage ditto - sized from dental floss to rope. Baskets. And I can make all the tools to do the above tasks. I can knit socks and sweaters to measure without a pattern (and repair them, which is a much rarer skill).

In my area, Harvest Wild food and herbs (except mushrooms), natural dyes. I know HOW to butcher and dress fish, fowl and mammal, but not nuts about it. Good campfire cook, though. Can milk a cow/goat, pitch hay, make butter and cheese and bread without a bread machine (on a campfire, even). Can, dehydrate and otherwise perserve most common foods. I shocked my survival instructor by actually finding and sort of refining salt on my course (deer lick = duh, but nobody else figured it out).

No marital arts to speak of except basic women's self defense classes, very basic proficency with revolver and shotgun, no rifle (the Marine!Goth is supposed to teach me next time he's home on leave).

My problem is that I'm on the far side of the big 50 (duh - have a son in Corps, so obviously NOT in my 20s). So the knowledge is there, but the body is not so limber these days, so no mountain climbing or rapelling for this gal any more. But I'd make a strong stab at being one of the local 'wise women' in a pinch.