Has your instructor " been there and done that"?

If an an instructor can't learn except by experience, then neither can you, and you're wasting your time taking classes when you could just go out to a few bars and learn by doing.

That pretty much puts it all in perspective.


I was wondering the same thing. Let's say you are instructed in a technique that later works for you in combat. Do you have to immediately stop using it because it was taught to you by someone that had never been in combat, so it couldn't possibly work ? What if someone told you, I have never been in combat, but as I understand it you want to put the front sight around the center of mass, align it with the rear sight and squeeze the trigger. Do you have to ignore any of that garbage, because that guy has never been there. What if you take two different training classes and both teach exactly the same thing but one instructor has survived one SHTF situation and the other instructor hasn't ? What if you have a rookie that survived a close brush with death his first day on the streets and another guy who has worked for 25 years but has never actually had a live or death struggle ? Who do you believe ? The rookie with all his vast combat experience or the 25 year vetern ? How about if you have a shootout where a guy never fired a shot but was wounded as soon as he showed up ? He is a combat vertern, hell he is a wounded combat vetern surely he knows it all ?

The stuff in this thread is what makes a mall ninja a mall ninja.

I am not saying that you have to discount anything that anyone is saying. My point was that a person who has "been there, done that" is in a position to comment on what has actually worked from personal experience.

"...the instructor needs to project enough self-confidence so that students will pay attention and follow his or her instructions."

"I hope this clarifies my point."

Kevin, Yes it does & it's a point well taken. I agree.

I realize that I am beating a dead horse here and am being obnoxious about it but I have to keep going.
Once upon a time I was in the reserves and we had a guy join our unit that had been a member of the 82end airborne and had just got off of active duty. He was a combat verteren; he was part of the invasion of Grenada. He was very switched on and taught everybody a lot about basic infantry combat operations. But what made this information valuable was that he had been in a highly motivated front line unit that trained hard, trained seriously, and trained everyday. In other words, he really knew his profession. The stuff he was teaching was stuff that had been totallly ingrained in him through constant training. And, it was stuff that had been proven in combat all over the world by other men who taught it to him. The fact that he was in combat for a week or so didn't really add anything to it at all.
Let me give you another devil's advocate point that is basically the same as the one above. Let's say I got to a triaining program and all the instructors are combat veterens. And they are teaching a course that was developed by a team of combat veterens. I soak up the skills and knowlege like a sponge. A couple weeks later, you and I are out on the range and I pass some of this information on to you. Is the information now invalid because I have not been there done that ?

Speaking of been there/done that, I have been reading and writing for many years now but that doesn't make me any kind of an expert, I obviously still can't spell.

I think that one incident does not qualify a person as a expert. I'll use knife fighting as an example.
I have been in fight with a guy with a knife twice. I got extremely lucky in the first one and I still have the scars from the second. The second incident taught me that knife wounds are nasty and bleed a lot and what to expect if make a mistake. After being cut, I can say I do not want to be involved in another one. I have carried a knife for a long time, I'm a combat veteran, I've taken knife fighting/disarming classes and I'm a police officer in a large city, yet I don't consider myself qualified to teach knife fighting/ or disarming. The reason why is I thought I knew all of the disarming tactics and successfully disarmed the guy in my first incident and in the second incident I got sliced pretty bad.

So at the very least a instructor should practice what they teach and have some sort of evidence what they teach actually works because a deadly force incident is not a good time to discover what you have been taught is totally useless.

7677, agree completly

I have been in fights with two different guys that had pulled knives on me (on the job). In neither case did I pull out my knife. In the first case I wrestled with the guy for awhile, the police pulled up and unleashed a canine; fight over.
In the second case I briefly defended myself with an oxygen bottle against a swiss army knife. Again, the police responded and I blended into the senery.

I could say that I have survived two knife fights, or at least could say that I survived two knife attacks.

In reality, I don't have the slightest idea of how to fight with a knife or defend against a knife attack. The fact that I did it doesn't make me knowlegable in any way. Both guys were severely intoxicated, and I was bigger than them. It wasn't any real challenge.

I long time ago I had a martial arts instructor that told me he had never been in a fight.

I, at the time had been in several (and not come of best hence the search for instruction).

In sparring and practice, the guy (without ever hurting me) demonstarted very clearly that he could kick my butt, even kill me.

After training with him for several years I had the unfortunate experience of defending myself against four attackers. The techniques I had been taught and had drilled for so long, were effective. Probably even more effective than I had anticipated they would be.

In this case he hadn't seen the elephant, but taught me what to do if I did.
I saw the elephant and the things he taught worked very well.

Seeing the elephant can help an instructor gain a perspective that others do not possess. Whether or not this is valuable to his students depends on the instructor, not on his experience.

Or something like that...

I would not be a very good instructor, although I saw the elephant, I am sure I couldn't teach anyone how to fight their way out of a wet paper bag... I lack a fundamental attribute for an instructor... patience with others.

Regards,
HS/LD

Gents,

An article I penned a few months ago in The Tactical Operator Newsletter. Enjoy.


THE (TRUE) VALUE OF EXPERIENCE

Experience! Without bothering Mr. Webster, we can loosely define it as the sum total of what we've done. Experience can lead to knowledge, but not the reverse. When what we've done is combined with what we've learned, we have that valuable commodity sought by every interested party from sea to shining sea - the expert's opinion.

My long time friend Jeff Cooper once remarked that of all the desirable (we can hardly make them required) attributes of a "range instructor", one of the most important was experience - personal combat experience. "A range instructor", he said, "should have seen combat otherwise he has no authority upon which to base his opinions. A man without experience can only restate what others have told him, and that is often not sufficient. He must be able to say 'I've done it and so can you'".

But there is more to the issue here. Experience in itself does not provide this "expertise". For example, I personally know several latter-day shootists (now retired like myself) who participated in many gunfights. Yet, their skill at arms was marginal at best. These men had an intense desire to kill their adversaries, and with luck often succeeded. Their methods didn't win the day. Rather their shoot-first attitude and their very real disregard for their own mortality made the difference. And it didn't hurt that their adversaries missed more often than not. You won't learn marksmanship from these guys. We can certainly learn things from these men, but their lack of technical ability won't give us the complete package.

On the other side of the coin, we have the many pistol artists out there. These men have studied the art of the pistol like Michaelangelo studied painting. Such pistol virtuosos can do wondrous things with a handgun that border on the magical. Oftentimes, these men can teach others these same feats of dexterity. While they can teach speed and "surgical" marksmanship, they cannot tell you how it is to face a live and angry human adversary. They can't describe the tingling feel of death's icy clutches as they've never shot for a prize as precious as life itself. We can still learn a great deal from these men, but as before, the picture isn't quite complete.

These two are extremes of course, and there are teachers on either side who are quite marvelous at teaching their specialty. A very small percentage even have the complete package of ability and experience.

It's been common in recent years for some to question the importance of combat experience. Most often, the value of experience is questioned by someone who lacks any such real world experience, and who feels threatened in some way (business, ego, etc.), by those few who have it.

Does the fact that an instructor lacks any practical experience disqualify or somehow diminish his ability to pass on information? Certainly not. But that does not diminish the very real importance and value of the combat experience itself.

The big question is simply this. Does a firearms instructor need to have combat experience? As one whose been on a first name basis with Ol' Jumbo the Elephant, my answer may surprise a few. No, combat experience is not essential to be a good firearms instructor...but it can be very very helpful.

In our Age of the Lawyer, where right and wrong are blurred by a foggy miasma of socio-political smoke screens, and where you might find yourself a political scapegoat just because your beliefs don't go along with the masses, most intelligent people would rather avoid accruing any such experience.

And even for those who make it a profession of going in harm's way, combat experience is a rare thing. Even those who spend their time in the most hazardous of environments, and who for sake of discussion, "actually go looking for trouble - professionally speaking" - will rarely face more than one or two incidents in their entire lives.

In today's world, combat experience is like blue eyes, or freckles…you either get it or you do not, but there's very little you can do to influence things either way.

Experience…true combat experience is elusive, dangerous, avoided if possible, and often very expensive.

Are there substitutes?

Thanks to modern training methods, and to the few who dare to think outside conventional means, there are ways to obtain some of the benefits of experience. The use of Red-Man suits, force-on-force training, and the training provided by those with experience go far in taking students to the edge of the abyss for an artificial glimpse at what its like without the risks and ramifications. Students so trained, and thoroughly grounded in the fundamentals, incidentally, have done very well in actual confrontations when their turn came up. Artificial experience obtained through well-designed training programs, and administered by those with an intimate knowledge of combat, is not the real thing, but it is the next best thing.

The value of combat experience lies in the simple fact that it allows those who possess it to speak from a position of authority, and it legitimizes what they preach.

When you tell a novice to keep things simple, you can explain about the confusion and terror of incoming rounds whistling their song past your ears from an unseen adversary in the darkness.

When you tell them to focus on the sight while shooting, you can relate the unforgettable time when you and the armed robber both shot simultaneously…you did not miss.

And when you teach them a Murphy-proof technique, you can explain about the high-voltage adrenaline surging through your veins, literally vibrating the muscles in your limbs like electricity while you tried to reload the empty pistol as the thick smells of death and gunsmoke hung in the air.

No, experience is not essential, but it is helpful. It is also often a dreadful and expensive thing to possess as many of those who really have it will confirm.

Aside from validating what you teach, the true value of combat experience is that it gives you, and by extension your students, a real perspective of the ugliness, the reality, and the finality of combat. A reality and finality that cuts through all the shooting school dogma, guru doctrine, style disputes, and all the miscellaneous clap-trap that clogs our collective combative consciousness and professional journals.

It allows you to convey the feel, smell, and texture of an ugly and violent death at the hands of another, at close range, in 2.3 seconds, and the very real difficulty of prevailing in such an environment. But above all, it allows you to say with a confidence born in the fiery crucible of combat, "I've done it and so can you…let me show you how".


Cheers,


Gabe Suarez
Suarez International, Inc.
http://www.suarezinternational.com

I think you have offered some excellent reasons, Gabe. The hard core combat techniques taught by Fairbairn, Sykes, Applegate, et al would be extremely valuable in a combat setting but would get you housed under the slammer if you were caught using them in today's polite society.

That said, I think a lot of what the instructors prescribe today is marketing hype, plain and simple. To differentiate themselves from the generic "shooter finishing school" they market themeselves as "I've seen the elephant and he hasn't." Survival in a deadly contest (especially war with the stray bullets, explosions, etc.) is a 50/50 chance. Applegate and others advocate a first strike that would be called murder in any court today but it stacks the odds in your favor.

Charley Askins claimed to have done just that on a number of occasions and look how his reputation is viewed by the handwringers.