LFI-IV; the most wicked training ever.

[esheato]

Lethal Force Insitute, Massad Ayoobs training academy offers some pretty exciting classes from what I hear and from a guy that has "been there and done that." But I've never heard of anything like this before. Anybody ever taken this class?

Ed

Lethal Force Institute's most advanced program. Mastery of handgun retention advances to instructor level, and on the last day you will train career cops in this critical survival skill, and certify them yourselves. Mastery of the Kubotan/Persuader you learned in LFI-III advances to instructor level also, and you will teach a class and certify the students. Shooting progresses to an extremely fast level: quad speed qualification,

And "impossibly high standards," two courses of fire that have never been Maxed (shot 100% ) by ANYONE. (At one LFI-IV, IPSC's "double duty standards III" was won by a student with a higher score than Rob Leatham shot that year at the Single Stack Challenge; the same year, the Hackathorn Standards were won at LFI-IV with a higher score than what won the same event at the National Tactical Invitational that year.

Each student will kill a large animal with his/her carry gun and load, and then participate in its post-mortem dissection to see what the bullet did. Feedback from the previous 40 graduates indicates that this may be the single most profound exercise in the program.

LFI-IV is where we "go beyond the envelope." It was here that we injected people with epinephrine and monitored their vital signs as they shot double speed to replicate full-blown fight or flight response in 1998. It was here that we did the "Dracula Drill," draining a pint of blood from each student immediately prior to them shooting a qualification while experiencing blood loss. We won't tell you what 2001 brings…until you get there. Suffice to say the tradition will continue. Now you know why we only offer it once every three years…

 

[Wilhelm]

Wow.

 

[OF]

Yikes.

- Gabe

 

[Blackhawk 6]

LFI-IV is where we "go beyond the envelope." It was here that we injected people with epinephrine and monitored their vital signs as they shot double speed to replicate full-blown fight or flight response in 1998. It was here that we did the "Dracula Drill," draining a pint of blood from each student immediately prior to them shooting a qualification while experiencing blood loss.

I fail to see the training value of either of these exercises other than to reinforce that doing it for real is significantly different than doing it on a range.

Allow me to save interested parties an injection or the loss of a pint of blood;

Doing it for real is significantly different than doing it on a range.

 

[Archangel]

True, doing it for real is different from doing it on the range. But there is still value to the drills.

For one, it validates your training. When you start getting distracted by something other than your shooting technique (like your heart racing from all the epi they just shot into you, or the lightheadedness from blood loss, or the clock running in competition, or some guy shooting at you) all your concious efforts at technique or whatever go out the window and you revert to your training. When you actually manage to hit the target under those circumstances, you know that your training has worked. And possibly more importantly, you know that if it happens again in the future, your training will work then, too. This builds confidence.

Also, if the first time you experience adrenaline dump or major blood loss is in a crisis situation, you may be at a loss for what to do, or you may panic, or be to distracted to stay focused on what you need to be focused on. But if you've already experienced it on the range, and shot a successfully shot a qualification course under those conditions, you will know that you are capable of doing the same if it happens again. Again, this builds confidence. This confidence will hopefully help you survive should you ever be in a real gunfight.

No training exercise will ever be exactly like the real thing, but does that mean that we shouldn't try to make some training exercises as close as possible?

 

[Devonai]

I give blood pretty close to the minimum safe duration, which is 56 days. Despite the dour predictions of the ARC staff, being a pint light does not effect me at all. Then again, I'm a healthy, athletic 27 year old.

As for the adrenaline boost, who knows? I think running three miles as fast as I can before shooting would be a better (and less expensive) test.

 

[Blackhawk 6]

I can appreciate the need to validate training. But, there is little to no validation going on as far as I can see.

Suppose I have graduated from every shooting school, Gunsite, Thunder Ranch, you name it. I have spent the GDP of Sweden getting professional firearms training. Then I dutifully get my epi-injection, give my pint of blood and shoot the qualification. I score 70%. What have I learned? My performance goes down when my heart rate is up and I am missing a pint of blood. What is it that I can do based on this new found information to improve my performance? I can't give blood prior to my weekly range sessions and I am not going to shoot up with epinepherine. It looks like I am going to have to focus on improving the basics, which I should have been doing all along.

Suppose I blow the qualification? Where does that leave you? You have trained at the best facilities money can buy and you fall apart after giving a pint of blood. Are you going to quit? Hang-up your guns? Invest in more training which evidently let you down the first time?

You want to check your performance with your heart racing? Run five miles and then shoot. Being injected with epinepherine is dangerous, even if supervised by medical professionals. Any time you participate in an exercise where medical professionals are required, you should carefully weigh the potential gain vs. the risk and determine if the gain can be accomplished through alternate means with less risk.

Removing a pint of blood is a lousy way to replicate the trauma of a gunshot wound. There is no pain, no accompanying loss of mobility, no difficulty breathing, no concern for one's welfare etc.

Also, if the first time you experience adrenaline dump or major blood loss is in a crisis situation, you may be at a loss for what to do, or you may panic, or be to distracted to stay focused on what you need to be focused on.

Panic is the result of a poor mind set, which these exercises do not address. An injection provides no guarantee that you will have the personal courage to act when your life is threatened and staying in a fight after a pint of blood has been removed through a needle in your arm is a far cry from staying in the fight when a hot piece of metal has ripped a hole in your flesh. If you are looking to validate your mindset, take up activities that force you to perform when you are afraid like sky-diving or rock climbing. If you want to validate you ability to stay in the fight after being hurt, take up boxing or some other full-contact martial art. These things take time and effort to cultivate in ourselves, they can not be bought and paid for over a weekend.

But let us assume for a moment that both of these techniques are of value. What is it that I am being required to do? A police-style qualification. Qualifications are evaluations of skill. Qualifications do not require you to think of what to do, what you must do is prescribed so your performance can be evaluated. That's not a gunfight. Gunfights require you to select the appropriate skill(s) and merge it/them with the appropriate tactic.

Objective assessment of shooting skill does not require elaborate gimmicks. Your ability to hit your target and manipulate your weapon under stress is an important to validate. As you mentioned, competition is an excellent venue to do this. Shooting after exercising is another.

To my way of thinking, these are gimmicks, and potentially dangerous gimmicks at that. They would have a modicum of legitimacy if the particpant was required to conduct a force-on-force exercise rather than a qualification. Unfortunately, it would require extensive effort to identify the proximate cause of a student's poor performance. Was it a lack of skill, bad tactics, the inabliity to select the appropriate skill/tactic? Was this the result of poor training, poor assessment of the situation or the pseudo-chemical cocktail you were shot up with prior to the exercise?

As I stated earlier, as far as I am concerned these things are gimmicks. I am all for injecting reality into training, but I fail to see the reality and I fail to see the benefit. If it makes you feel better about your ability to perform then go for it. Personally, I am going to stick to focusing on perfecting the basics and maintaining my mindset. Its worked so far.

 

[mlomker]

There's always a group of people that want to go one step further. I recently took LFI1 and I thought it was excellent...I've heard good things about LFI2 because it covers shotgun and SMG. I know a couple guys that did LFI3 last Spring and they weren't impressed. The first two classes are worthwhile, after that you should probably go to Blackhawk or join the miltary and be done with it.

I've tried their qualifier at quad speed and it's no joke...you have to be awful good with your handgun to even get the rounds off, much less get a good score. AFAIK nobody has ever shot a perfect score...I know a guy that got a 299 on it.

 

[444]

"When you start getting distracted by something other than your shooting technique (like your heart racing from all the epi they just shot into you...."

Like ventricular fibrillation and sudden death ?

".....or the lightheadedness from blood loss"
Do you realize how much blood loss it takes to get lightheaded and that the reason you are lightheaded is because you brain is becoming hypoxic ? Keep in mind that your body will shunt blood from the rest of the body to keep the brain and the heart oxygenated. So, when you get to the point that your brain is hypoxic, that means little incidental things like your kidneys are not being perfused.



This has to be a joke. This stuff isn't even legal. What doctor prescribes the epinepherine ?

 

[Correia]

I bet I could design a course of fire that nobody could score perfectly on either. You just make it impossibly hard. So that doesn't really prove anything either.

For example, I present to you the Correia Drill.

From the holster, draw and fire ten shots into the two inch target at twenty five yards in 1.5 seconds. GO!

Even Rob Leatham only scored 60%. It is that HARD!

 

[HankB]

From the holster, draw and fire ten shots into the two inch target at twenty five yards in 1.5 seconds. GO!

Gee, I just maxed it. Take my word for it. Can I be a gunwriter/instructor now, drain blood from people and pump them full of drugs before handing them loaded guns to try their skill by shooting large animals and getting their hands wet afterwards in the blood and guts?

And of course, I'll have other students downrange so they can see and hear what it feels like to have incoming rounds fly past . . .

 

[sturmruger]

I don't care what anyone says it sounds like fun to me. If I ever do need to use my gun to defend myself I hope I have enough training to do it wisely.

 

[Island Beretta]

You can get the lightheadness from being hungry, you can get the adrenaline pump from being in a fight, or sprinting, a study of anatomy is sufficient for you to know effective shot placement, I don't see how a dead animal (other than being melodramatic) helps this cause.. wound tracking does not make you a better shooter..

My point: absurdities abound as everyone tries to out do everyone, take your choice!!

 

[sendec]

This is a joke, right?

Nobody seriously believes this, do they?

I guess I am just low-speed high-drag, but this seems to be just, well, wrong, something akin to the Nazi's research on hypothermia. I can appreciate experimentaion, as long as it is bounded by well constructed research, review and oversight. After terrorizing us with the prospect of civil liability and the danger of viscious gun names, Ayoob appears to be branching into vivisection.

Whats next, force on force training with live rounds - "This training is so tough only 50% survive it"

I am certainly no expert like Ayoob(and I hope never to be) but I was under the impression that expertise flowed from a mastery of the basics. Chasing me around with a cattleprod may increase my heart rate and sense of excitement, but I fail to see how it will help me press a trigger better.

 

[CZ-100]

I cant wait to here PETA response to that.

 

[RevDisk]

Paying to have blood sucked out of my body, artificially raising my blood pressure?

I thought this was firearms training, not marriage training!


Seriously, no thanks. I do not see the training being worth the risks. I have no desire to prove how "hardcore" I am. Dissecting the animal would be interesting, however.

 

[Jonathan]

Each student will kill a large animal with his/her carry gun and load, and then participate in its post-mortem dissection to see what the bullet did. Feedback from the previous 40 graduates indicates that this may be the single most profound exercise in the program.

Isn't that called "hunting"?

 

[444]

To me, shooting an animal in captivity isn't hunting.

 

[Dionysusigma]

444: To me, shooting an animal in captivity isn't hunting.

Didn't you hear? The animals aren't in captivity....

You are tied to a tree out in the woods, with only a Kel-Tec P32 for company. The pint of blood they pulled from you is used as bait for the velociraptors they've secretly been raising on Isla Sorna, of which you are required to shoot one for the dissection study (but you'll only survive if you kill all three raptors they send out to find you).

 

[goalie]

As someone else said: it isn't legal to administer epi without a prescription.



I won't even get into why it isn't safe.

 

[c_yeager]

Paying to have blood sucked out of my body, artificially raising my blood pressure?

technically losing a pint of blood would decrease your blood pressure (perhaps dangerously).

This test could be BETTER performed by simply having the recruits job a mile before doing the shoot. It would be easier, less dangerous and in fact a BETTER representation of stress than this stupid blood letting thing.

The whole injection and blood letting thing sound like the LAZY MANS way of getting similar results to a nice long jog.

Asside from that i am actually going to call complete and utter BS on the epinephrine thing. Epinephrine WILL raise your blood pressure, as will physical exertion, as will performing under stress. No physician in the world is going to embrace the absurd risk of losing his license and getting sued for some guy having a stroke/heart attack/asnuerism as a result of his irresponsible perscription of prescription drugs.

 

[Preacherman]

Folks, those of you calling BS on Ayoob's techniques, and on incidents like the epinephrine shooting test, need to be careful - some of you are going to have to eat lots and lots of crow! The epinephrine test is absolutely true: it was done under medical supervision, and the shooting occurred under a doctor's watchful eye. Much was learned.

I've graduated LFI 1, 2 and 3. I went back to Mas for 2 and 3 precisely because he does not teach "shooting" as such, but rather "mastery of the use of lethal force in a defensive environment". He goes into heaps of things other schools don't even touch - the social, psychological, legal and other environments within which self-defence takes place; weapon manipulation under stress and with various distractions; etc. He teaches weapon retention and disarm techniques, use of handcuffs, mobility under and while firing, use of various weapons (complete LFI-3 and you'll have used a minimum of 20 different handguns and long guns, guaranteed!), etc.

I haven't done LFI-4 myself, but that's only because I was unable to get time off for the latest course. Count on my being there for the next one!

(If you would like to read my review of LFI-2 and -3, see here.)

 

[Blackhawk 6]

Having never taken a class from Massad Ayoob I can not comment on his abilities as an instructor or the quality of his programs. However I do feel qualified to comment on the sensibility of some of his exercises, which I did.

The epinephrine test is absolutely true: it was done under medical supervision, and the shooting occurred under a doctor's watchful eye. Much was learned.

I'll bite. What was learned?

 

[444]

Peter: I am not going to go so far as to say it doesn't happen, but if it does I am surprised on many levels: First of all, epinepherine is a perscription medication. That means that a doctor has to put his license on the line to write the perscription and/or administer the drug. I would find it amazing that a doctor would take the risk of losing his license and being sued in order to conduct a shooting class. I have to question whether this is a violation of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act since this is using a perscription drug for recreational purposes. Second, epinepherine certainly has it's uses in medicine: it is a first line drug in cardiac arrest, Anaphylactic Shock, and breathing problems such as asthma, but it also CAN have side effects such as cardiac dysrythmias including ventricular fibrilation/sudden death. In fact, epinepherine can cause a form of ventricular fibrilation which can not be reversed with drugs or electricity (defibrilation).
This is NOT something to be played with.
I can't understand the point of being worried about getting shot in a gunfight, so you allow someone to inject you with a potentially lethal drug to prepare for it. It also makes me wonder about the point of range safety. You go to great lengths to prevent someone from having an accident on the range, then take a chance of killing yourself through the misuse of a drug. To me, this is similar to playing russian roulette. You get several attempts at killing someone, a number of people will get away with it, then someone with undiagnosed heart disease gets injected and dies.
To me, this is totally irresponsible. Brush up on your CPR before you go.

As a paramedic, I carry and administer epinepherine. We carry 1:1000 epineperine and 1: 10000 epinepherine. We give it both sub-q and IV. If some clown came up to me and asked me to inject him with it just to see what kind of reaction he has what do you think I would tell him ? Is my job and everything I own worth it ?

 

[Ashendale]

Dracula drill.... *laugh*!!!
epi shots.... heh hehhehh

That's great!
I'd pay to watch that.

man... it'd take me a couple of reincarnations to reach that level of tacticality.
Ian