School: The Firearms Academy of Seattle
Class: Night Ops 1
Night Ops provides around 16 hours of low light training with the handgun. Class entry is limited to people who have already taken at least one shooting class (FAS-2 or higher) and who have already mastered the basics of shooting in normal lighting conditions.
Getting ready for the Saturday morning 10 am check in, I looked out the window and saw torrents of rain mixed with sleet coming down hard. Ugh. "Maybe I've made a mistake signing up for a class this weekend!" I thought unhappily, as I pulled several extra layers of clothes over my long johns. I hate being cold.
At the FAS classroom, I met my classmates, several of whom were old friends or at least familiar faces from other classes we'd taken together. There were a dozen shooters in the class, which was taught by FAS owner Marty Hayes. Marty was assisted by longtime assistant instructor Rick Bressler. After checking in and getting up to speed on the FAS range rules and safety instructions, the class adjourned to the low light range to begin work.
The low light range at FAS is large enough to accomodate 15 shooters on the line at once, at distances up to 15 yards from the targets. With a merry fire crackling in the range's woodstove and the exhaust fans going, the room was almost cozy -- especially with the sound of heavy rain battering the roof to remind us how nasty it was outside. It wasn't exactly warm on the range, mind you, but it was a heckuva lot better than being outside to weather what Mother Nature was doing.
For those who haven't met him, Marty is a large, gruff man with a very straightforward but easy-going style of instruction. He is very good at diagnosing shooting problems and communicating what the shooter needs to do to fix it when things aren't working right. For those of us on the line, it often seems as though Marty is everywhere at once, and it's almost a guarantee that if you mess up in some way, Marty will somehow instantly materialize at your elbow to let you know what you need to do to keep it from happening again.
We began shooting with the lights on, so Marty could see that each shooter on the line was familiar with the basics of good marksmanship and was capable of drawing and reholstering the gun without committing any safety violations. In fact, throughout the weekend, the instructors were very conscious of range safety. This was particularly important because of the nature of low light shooting, and more so as we began doing some of the more difficult activities on the schedule.
After making sure everyone was drawing and reholstering safely, the class worked on low light draw & fires. Marty started us out by helping everyone find or remember their optimum stance, and did what tweaking was necessary to get everyone into the A zone at five yards slowfire. Once that was accomplished, he had us doing D&Fs, not under time stress, but just to make sure the hits would still be there once we started moving around a little.
And we did move around! One drill we did later in the day involved starting roughly two yards from the target with the gun in sul position (we worked either from holster or from sul all weekend). On command, we fired one shot into the center of the target. Then we came back to sul and as a group, took one single step back from the target so that we finished with the "wrong" foot forward. The command to fire was given again, we fired and stepped back one more step (leaving the "right" foot forward this time) We repeated that procedure, one step back at a time, until we were near the rear wall of the building. The purpose of this drill was to show us that we could get good hits independent of foot position, and that what we needed to worry about was the geometry of our upper bodies. It also showed us that it is possible to get good hits in low light even without night sights or lasers.
An aside about lasers. I have a Crimson Trace laser on my Glock 26, and I really love it. Out of the dozen shooters in the class, probably ... hmmmm, four or five ... of us had lasers. Two of the students work for Crimson Trace and of course they were laser equipped. At the beginning of class, Marty talked a little bit about how cool and useful lasers are both in low light and in regular light. Then he said, "If you want to leave your laser on all weekend, spend a dedicated weekend training with the laser, that's fine and I won't give you any grief over it. But if I were taking the class, here's what I'd do to maximize my training dollar. I'd go back and forth between using the laser and not using it, so that I could get full benefit from the low light shooting instruction. If you have the basics down, it won't be hard to add your laser into it, but if you don't have those basics down and your laser quits on you for whatever reason ... anyway. It's your class, you do what you want, but I think you'll get the most benefit if you work without the laser as much as you can."
Following Marty's advice, I ended up working without my laser for probably 90% of the class, and I'm glad I did. Gotta point out that lasers are really a radically unfair advantage in the dark. (Always cheat, always win...) In any case, it was obvious that you don't need a laser to take this class and that's a good thing for most folks.
Other drills? One involved standing about 5 yards from the target, with our left shoulders towards the target (so we were facing the side wall). On command, we would then turn and fire one shot at the center of the target -- without moving our feet. We repeated that drill facing the other direction, too. Very interesting ... and yes, it is possible to get good hits that way.
Later, Marty had us starting with our backs toward the targets. On command, we would pivot to face the targets and fire. Again, it is possible to get good hits that way.
Of course we did multiple target drills too. Later in the class we were shooting while moving (right, left, back, and forward), and then shooting multiples while moving (back). Shooting multiples while moving was incredibly intense, but yes, it is possible.
As we walked out of the building for lunch on Saturday, I was shocked to discover that at some point the rain had stopped and there was even some sunshine peeking through the clouds. Wow, I must've gotten really wrapped up in what we were doing in there!
After lunch break, we worked on one handed shooting, both left and right handed, and then did a few drills with flashlights. Of course we'd been using our flashlights to scan after shooting all along, but up until this point we had not used lights to shoot at all.
We worked on using flashlights around left and right side cover, a surprisingly stressful and difficult task.
We had a nice long dinner break, which was great. It was just beginning to get dark when we got back onto the range. Marty directed us over to the moving targets and explained the three basic methods of shooting a moving target. Marty had each of us shooting the movers while it got dark. Toward the end, when it was fully dark, we had a little class competition on a BLEA-1 target. Folks with lasers had to be back at (what is it, 10 yards at the back of that range?) while folks without lasers could shoot from a couple yards foward. I opted to use my laser for this one, shot a 107 out of 120. Should have been a 117, but I had a gun-juggling malfunction and held onto one of my shots ... darnit.
After that, we went down to action alley (a run-n-gun bay) and shot it in the dark. That was quite the challenge.
Several embarrassing moments happened to me during the day Saturday, but the most embarrassing happened Saturday night during my run through action alley. There's one shot there that must be taken while crouched down behind a barrel. There are two poppers to be shot from behind this barrel, about 35 yards downrange.
I crouched down, doing something awkward and stupid with my light so I could see the targets, blessed the laser, got the first popper in one shot. Cool! Okay, lined up the second target and... wait a minute, something didn't feel right. Sure enough, I'm out of ammo. Okay, I can reload. Flashlight? In a fumbly fingered moment, I dropped it ... and it stayed on. Crap. Well, my hands are full, and I'm crouched so I cannot safely reholster, so what the heck. I finished my reload, picked up the light, shot the target, headed down toward the next shooting station. Marty remained suspiciously quiet.
Finished my run. Rick says to me, "Great run, Kathy."
Marty says with a chuckle, "Heh, yeah, all except the part where you got killed cuz you left your flashlight on."
(Point taken, Marty -- I won't make that mistake again. Of course I've got dozens of others you can expect me to make next time I'm there!)
We walked off the range Saturday night at 10 pm, and were suppposed to meet back at 11 am Sunday. This of course was to give us enough time to get a good night's sleep -- a great idea in theory, but maybe a little weak in practice.
We started out with some dryfire practice, D&Fs, with Rick blowing the whistle and running the line. After awhile the lights went out, but the dryfire continued while Marty shuffled papers in the back of the room. Eventually he finished, shut off his light, and the range went hot for timed D&Fs -- Marty declared a 2-second par time, 2.25 from concealment. Everyone was pretty well getting under the time so then Marty said, "Okay, now it's two shot drills. Two seconds, 2.25 from concealment, must have good hits." Ohhhkay. And away we went.
We set up the barricade barrels and Marty & Rick stapled up some cartoon target problems for us. With five shooting stations, the idea was that you would simply move from one station to another, solving each problem in "the most appropriate manner," as they say. Five shooters got on the line to shoot targets, and the rest of us were hustled out to stand in the northwest sunshine (that's the wet stuff) and shoot the breeze. As each person moved down the firing line, the last shooter on the line would simply cycle straight out the door to stand in the back of the waiting line outside. Worked well enough.
Eventually, Marty called a halt to the shooting and called everyone over. "Okay," he said, "we're working on a qualifier for this class. I'm not quite sure about the times yet, so you guys are the guinea pigs. We're going to run through and test you on everything we learned in this class, like we do for FAS-2. Heh, we'll find out how it works."
The qualifier was tough. Especially the one-handed stuff.
After we shot the qualifier, we were done shooting for the day, but weren't done with class yet. Marty sent us all up to the low light tac house and we did a bunch of hide-n-go-seek in there for awhile. That newly remodeled tac house is Da Bomb. Very nifty cool. There are a number of different tactics appropriate for low light situations, and the new tac house will let us practice them all. It's amazing how sneaky one of them homo sapiens beasts can be ...
Once we were all thoroughly humbled in the tac house, Marty handed out certificates and gave the wrap up discussion.
I got everything out of this class that I expected, and a whole lot more besides. The class was fun, challenging, thought-provoking, and applicable to real life. What more could you ask for?
pax
Class: Night Ops 1
Night Ops provides around 16 hours of low light training with the handgun. Class entry is limited to people who have already taken at least one shooting class (FAS-2 or higher) and who have already mastered the basics of shooting in normal lighting conditions.
Getting ready for the Saturday morning 10 am check in, I looked out the window and saw torrents of rain mixed with sleet coming down hard. Ugh. "Maybe I've made a mistake signing up for a class this weekend!" I thought unhappily, as I pulled several extra layers of clothes over my long johns. I hate being cold.
At the FAS classroom, I met my classmates, several of whom were old friends or at least familiar faces from other classes we'd taken together. There were a dozen shooters in the class, which was taught by FAS owner Marty Hayes. Marty was assisted by longtime assistant instructor Rick Bressler. After checking in and getting up to speed on the FAS range rules and safety instructions, the class adjourned to the low light range to begin work.
The low light range at FAS is large enough to accomodate 15 shooters on the line at once, at distances up to 15 yards from the targets. With a merry fire crackling in the range's woodstove and the exhaust fans going, the room was almost cozy -- especially with the sound of heavy rain battering the roof to remind us how nasty it was outside. It wasn't exactly warm on the range, mind you, but it was a heckuva lot better than being outside to weather what Mother Nature was doing.
For those who haven't met him, Marty is a large, gruff man with a very straightforward but easy-going style of instruction. He is very good at diagnosing shooting problems and communicating what the shooter needs to do to fix it when things aren't working right. For those of us on the line, it often seems as though Marty is everywhere at once, and it's almost a guarantee that if you mess up in some way, Marty will somehow instantly materialize at your elbow to let you know what you need to do to keep it from happening again.
We began shooting with the lights on, so Marty could see that each shooter on the line was familiar with the basics of good marksmanship and was capable of drawing and reholstering the gun without committing any safety violations. In fact, throughout the weekend, the instructors were very conscious of range safety. This was particularly important because of the nature of low light shooting, and more so as we began doing some of the more difficult activities on the schedule.
After making sure everyone was drawing and reholstering safely, the class worked on low light draw & fires. Marty started us out by helping everyone find or remember their optimum stance, and did what tweaking was necessary to get everyone into the A zone at five yards slowfire. Once that was accomplished, he had us doing D&Fs, not under time stress, but just to make sure the hits would still be there once we started moving around a little.
And we did move around! One drill we did later in the day involved starting roughly two yards from the target with the gun in sul position (we worked either from holster or from sul all weekend). On command, we fired one shot into the center of the target. Then we came back to sul and as a group, took one single step back from the target so that we finished with the "wrong" foot forward. The command to fire was given again, we fired and stepped back one more step (leaving the "right" foot forward this time) We repeated that procedure, one step back at a time, until we were near the rear wall of the building. The purpose of this drill was to show us that we could get good hits independent of foot position, and that what we needed to worry about was the geometry of our upper bodies. It also showed us that it is possible to get good hits in low light even without night sights or lasers.
An aside about lasers. I have a Crimson Trace laser on my Glock 26, and I really love it. Out of the dozen shooters in the class, probably ... hmmmm, four or five ... of us had lasers. Two of the students work for Crimson Trace and of course they were laser equipped. At the beginning of class, Marty talked a little bit about how cool and useful lasers are both in low light and in regular light. Then he said, "If you want to leave your laser on all weekend, spend a dedicated weekend training with the laser, that's fine and I won't give you any grief over it. But if I were taking the class, here's what I'd do to maximize my training dollar. I'd go back and forth between using the laser and not using it, so that I could get full benefit from the low light shooting instruction. If you have the basics down, it won't be hard to add your laser into it, but if you don't have those basics down and your laser quits on you for whatever reason ... anyway. It's your class, you do what you want, but I think you'll get the most benefit if you work without the laser as much as you can."
Following Marty's advice, I ended up working without my laser for probably 90% of the class, and I'm glad I did. Gotta point out that lasers are really a radically unfair advantage in the dark. (Always cheat, always win...) In any case, it was obvious that you don't need a laser to take this class and that's a good thing for most folks.
Other drills? One involved standing about 5 yards from the target, with our left shoulders towards the target (so we were facing the side wall). On command, we would then turn and fire one shot at the center of the target -- without moving our feet. We repeated that drill facing the other direction, too. Very interesting ... and yes, it is possible to get good hits that way.
Later, Marty had us starting with our backs toward the targets. On command, we would pivot to face the targets and fire. Again, it is possible to get good hits that way.
Of course we did multiple target drills too. Later in the class we were shooting while moving (right, left, back, and forward), and then shooting multiples while moving (back). Shooting multiples while moving was incredibly intense, but yes, it is possible.
As we walked out of the building for lunch on Saturday, I was shocked to discover that at some point the rain had stopped and there was even some sunshine peeking through the clouds. Wow, I must've gotten really wrapped up in what we were doing in there!
After lunch break, we worked on one handed shooting, both left and right handed, and then did a few drills with flashlights. Of course we'd been using our flashlights to scan after shooting all along, but up until this point we had not used lights to shoot at all.
We worked on using flashlights around left and right side cover, a surprisingly stressful and difficult task.
We had a nice long dinner break, which was great. It was just beginning to get dark when we got back onto the range. Marty directed us over to the moving targets and explained the three basic methods of shooting a moving target. Marty had each of us shooting the movers while it got dark. Toward the end, when it was fully dark, we had a little class competition on a BLEA-1 target. Folks with lasers had to be back at (what is it, 10 yards at the back of that range?) while folks without lasers could shoot from a couple yards foward. I opted to use my laser for this one, shot a 107 out of 120. Should have been a 117, but I had a gun-juggling malfunction and held onto one of my shots ... darnit.
After that, we went down to action alley (a run-n-gun bay) and shot it in the dark. That was quite the challenge.
Several embarrassing moments happened to me during the day Saturday, but the most embarrassing happened Saturday night during my run through action alley. There's one shot there that must be taken while crouched down behind a barrel. There are two poppers to be shot from behind this barrel, about 35 yards downrange.
I crouched down, doing something awkward and stupid with my light so I could see the targets, blessed the laser, got the first popper in one shot. Cool! Okay, lined up the second target and... wait a minute, something didn't feel right. Sure enough, I'm out of ammo. Okay, I can reload. Flashlight? In a fumbly fingered moment, I dropped it ... and it stayed on. Crap. Well, my hands are full, and I'm crouched so I cannot safely reholster, so what the heck. I finished my reload, picked up the light, shot the target, headed down toward the next shooting station. Marty remained suspiciously quiet.
Finished my run. Rick says to me, "Great run, Kathy."
Marty says with a chuckle, "Heh, yeah, all except the part where you got killed cuz you left your flashlight on."
(Point taken, Marty -- I won't make that mistake again. Of course I've got dozens of others you can expect me to make next time I'm there!)We walked off the range Saturday night at 10 pm, and were suppposed to meet back at 11 am Sunday. This of course was to give us enough time to get a good night's sleep -- a great idea in theory, but maybe a little weak in practice.
We started out with some dryfire practice, D&Fs, with Rick blowing the whistle and running the line. After awhile the lights went out, but the dryfire continued while Marty shuffled papers in the back of the room. Eventually he finished, shut off his light, and the range went hot for timed D&Fs -- Marty declared a 2-second par time, 2.25 from concealment. Everyone was pretty well getting under the time so then Marty said, "Okay, now it's two shot drills. Two seconds, 2.25 from concealment, must have good hits." Ohhhkay. And away we went.
We set up the barricade barrels and Marty & Rick stapled up some cartoon target problems for us. With five shooting stations, the idea was that you would simply move from one station to another, solving each problem in "the most appropriate manner," as they say. Five shooters got on the line to shoot targets, and the rest of us were hustled out to stand in the northwest sunshine (that's the wet stuff) and shoot the breeze. As each person moved down the firing line, the last shooter on the line would simply cycle straight out the door to stand in the back of the waiting line outside. Worked well enough.
Eventually, Marty called a halt to the shooting and called everyone over. "Okay," he said, "we're working on a qualifier for this class. I'm not quite sure about the times yet, so you guys are the guinea pigs. We're going to run through and test you on everything we learned in this class, like we do for FAS-2. Heh, we'll find out how it works."
The qualifier was tough. Especially the one-handed stuff.
After we shot the qualifier, we were done shooting for the day, but weren't done with class yet. Marty sent us all up to the low light tac house and we did a bunch of hide-n-go-seek in there for awhile. That newly remodeled tac house is Da Bomb. Very nifty cool. There are a number of different tactics appropriate for low light situations, and the new tac house will let us practice them all. It's amazing how sneaky one of them homo sapiens beasts can be ...
Once we were all thoroughly humbled in the tac house, Marty handed out certificates and gave the wrap up discussion.
I got everything out of this class that I expected, and a whole lot more besides. The class was fun, challenging, thought-provoking, and applicable to real life. What more could you ask for?
pax
