LFI-IV; the most wicked training ever.

[Jeff White]

pax,
You are 100% correct in breaking down tasks into bite sized pieces and crawling before you walk and walking before you run. That's been the conerstone of effective training forever.

I still don't see the epi and dracula drill as anything more then a gimmick though. It almost would pass muster as a confidence building exercise, but I don't think it quite makes it People don't react to that type of stimulous the same way every time. So because you did it successfully one time isn't a guarantee that you will be able to again or ever be able to train yourself to do it on demand.

I don't think Ayoob is using an incremental approach to the subject. If I were planning a course that used the epi and dracula drills, I would use them as my attention getter at the beginning of the course. Sort of a wake up call to get the students into the right mindset of what a deadly encounter really is. If you made them aware that this was a poor simulation of what they might face in a gunfight, it could have the value of keeping them focused. To use it as the graduation excercise of the LFI program smacks of gimmickry to me.

I've got nothing against Mr. Ayoob as a trainer. I've never trained with him and I haven't heard anything bad about his courses. From what I've read of his courses they seem to be very thourogh and they certainly require enough ammunition to get the benefits of repetitive training. My only experience with him has been through his writing.

If I were running a course in gunfighting, my students would skydive, or do techincal rope work at 90+ feet etc. or some other dangerous activity that they couldn't just experience but would have to actually function to get through, to introduce them to their own personal fears. These things have nothing to do with the mechanics of shooting, but they have everything to do with learning about yourself and how you react to fear.

None of the commercial shoooting schools that I'm aware of have a program like that. I'm sure there are plenty of logistical and liability reasons why they don't. I think rope work would be the easiest to add to a course from the standpoint of how long it would take to teach someone to do it safely, but it may be hard to find a suitible place to do it near the range. Many places teach static line parachuting in 3 to 6 hours, but I think you'd want freefall parachuting to be the drill. All of the accellerated freefall programs I'm aware of use tandem rigs and once again that is more of a carnival ride them a true test of performing under stress.

Since there are no schools like that, I would recommend that you add a sport like skydiving, scuba diving, rock climbing, white water canoeing etc. to your training. Get off the range and out of the dojo and do something where you are responsible for your own life. Put yourself in a situation where the consequenses of panic can be fatal. There are plenty of ways to do this safely, there are good instructors in all these disciplines just like there are good shooting instructors. You'll learn a lot about yourself and really innoculate yourself against fear and panic. I really do believe that you haven't truly done all you can to prepare for the deadly encounter until you've done that.

Jeff

 

[444]

"If I were running a course in gunfighting, my students would skydive, or do techincal rope work at 90+ feet etc. "
"None of the commercial shoooting schools that I'm aware of have a program like that. "

Front Sight has a rope course and a rope towers. It is a course in itself and not part of a shooting course, but they have it.
They are also planning and may have high speed driving courses.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Unless I misread, I think we all missed on particular fact. Ayoob is doing these things separate from one another. That is no good. If your blood is draining out because you are injured in battle, your heart is going to be going a mile a minute. Nope, the students need to be hyped up and drained low so as to experience both together!

While students getting shot at ranges isn't new, I am thinking Ayoob's carrier may reconsider given the bizarre nature of some of the 'training' combined with the recent self inflicted injury. LFI is not showing a great pattern of responsibility.

 

[ctdonath]

Research involves studying individual components of something. LFI-IV is not just straight training (teacher passing well-understood knowledge to student), it's identifying what we don't know about the subject and studying it.



BTW: What injury are you referring to?

 

[Blackhawk 6]

Research involves studying individual components of something. LFI-IV is not just straight training (teacher passing well-understood knowledge to student), it's identifying what we don't know about the subject and studying it.

So for $1500 I get the "privelage" of participating in Mr. Ayoob's research project? I'll pass.

To be fair, I am still waiting for an LFI-IV graduate to share what exactly it was that they learned by conducting drills such as these. I am having a really hard time comprehending their value. Plenty of people have lept to their defense, but no one has explained in quantifiable terms what it was that they walked away with that could not have been learned in another manner.

BTW: What injury are you referring to?

An LFI-III student had an ND and shot herself in the leg.

 

[ctdonath]

If you don't want to go, fine. Some of us do see the value in outer-limits training. In my case, it was to experience training which I just am not going to get elsewhere in my life; some things may be obvious to others who have had comparable experiences and as such this training may not mean much to them.

My experiences in LFI-IV included:

- Killing a large mammal (in a slaughterhouse; every critter there was about to die anyway). One can pontificate about what it's like to kill, but unless one is either a hunter, farmer, or "saw the elephant", theory just doesn't fully sink in. By my own hand, I was stunned at the "like a lighstwitch" results of shooting a cow in the head (missed the brain, but shockwaves caused total cerebral hemohrage), and observed my own surprisingly factual acceptance of the result (not everybody reacted the same); subsequent autopsy showed the reality of how a 124 grain 9mm hollowpoint performed, penetrating 5 full inches of solid bone (cow's skull is amazingly thick in places). Watching other students, I observed how instant death & cessation does not always happen (pigs suffer an nevous system "electrical storm" for several minutes, rather disturbing to watch), and how penetration can be a factor (a .45 hollowpoint required digging thru 4-5 feet of cow). Also observed the palatable anticipation of inevitable death: the last pigs to go knew it was coming, were resigned to the fate.

- Observing the adrenaline tests (doctors injected themselves, other students used lower-level inhalers). While I abstained from the exercise for medical reasons, it was enlightening to observe calm accurate shooters become jittery ansy not-so-accurate shooters. At no point did anyone come close to being dangerous to others. They did, however, exhibit and express adverse reactions which were starkly different from simple exertion/exhaustion exercises. Those who had never really felt such physiological symptoms (shaking, sweating, growing sense of impending doom) of a full adrenaline dump had a controled environment to do so, and found out how shooting performance suffered. Necessity of drilling the basics became more apparent and urgent. Theory is fine, but experiencing reality under controlled conditions prepares one to, when needed, think "I've been here before, this is not new/strange, I know what to do." This sort of testing/training had not been documented before (military had done so but had not released results), and trying/studying it makes sense to some. With training, one surprisingly functions better under such duress.

- Weapon retention instructor certification. Much time was spent learning how to keep control of your weapon, take a weapon from another, and how to teach these skills to others. Learning how to teach something makes one learn much more than standard learning. Course ended by teaching weapon retention to a class of police (who appreciated the very high teacher/student ratio).

- Kubotan instructor certification. Like above, learned non-lethal defensive techniques and how to teach them to others.

- High-speed shooting. 4x speeds seem impossible when starting LFI-I, become normal at LFI-IV. May be no biggie to race game shooters, but first time driven that far/fast for many. Many stances/shots/speeds used, such as weak hand 6 shots 2 seconds.

- Distance shooting. Handguns at 50 yards, shotguns at 100 yards. Certainly not impossible, but doing it well & fast is new to many.

- Live-fire video simulations. Realistic first-person scenarios are projected on a large paper screen in a dark room (in this case, a mobile shooting range). One's mind tends to give in to these rather deeply. Respond as appropriate. Interesting how one's base mind reacts, showing good/limited/absent training. One may pontificate about how to react to some guy suddenly drawing on you; is different when a life-sized video image of a real person does so. More than once (me included), students actually fired into the "attacker"'s barrel, showing a base reaction of tunnelling on the core threat (the weapon) (this must be unlearned). Also surprising is how one may still give into a sense of disbelief of being attacked, the base mind not reacting the way the rational/abstract mind has learned (my case: succumbed to not believing a guy with a knife would approach deliberately & slowly on a drawn gun). Also learned (again, theory vs. experience) how fast a scenario may go awry. Having "been there", one will be more confident about responding correctly.

- Being with high-level students & instructors leads to other interesting unplanned experiences. FWIW, Ayoob brought the Steyr Scout (Jeff Cooper's baby) he reviewed for an article, let students try it, and I ended up buying it - using it the next year in Cooper's General Rifle class. (May be nothing to you, meant something to me.)

- Machinegun qualifications. Everyone practiced & passed the DEA machinegun qualification test. All who used the Uzis experienced the same problems (both tended to shoot low & left IIRC). As such, I ran the test again with an MP5 - a far superior weapon, with superior results.

- IDPA tests. For those who had not done such matches, provided good "shoot-n-scoot" scenarios.

- Paintball. Various scenarios set up, letting all experience good & bad guy roles, with actually-getting-hit consequences. Darn paintballs sting - motivation to not get hit (a point lacking in most other dynamic training). One can theorize about how to clear a building; it's rather different to take control of a perp only to be ambushed by a second.

- Speed shotgun. Pass NH and FBI shotgun qualifications at 3x standard testing speeds.

- Role-playing. Using props, work on non-combat skills of observation, situation control, timing, judgement.

In all, over 70 hours of training in 5 days. Yes, some of this stuff surely could have been learned in other ways, or may not have been handled in an optimal manner - such are the growing pains of developing a new level of training. Maybe it's not for everyone; if not for you, please don't insult those who it does work for. It wasn't just $1500 for adrenaline shots and vampires; it's a chance to go farther in many subjects than most of us have.

 

[ctdonath]

An LFI-III student had an ND and shot herself in the leg.

As all decent schools emphasize: fire enough rounds and an accident WILL happen.

IIRC, this is the first such accident at LFI. Contrast this with other shooting schools, who have suffered multiple accidents - some lethal. (Gunsite lost a student last year.)

LFI is not showing a great pattern of responsibility.

Careful how you phrase what you draw from rumors.

All shooting schools involve a lot of people, many inexperienced, wielding deadly weapons for prolonged periods. Someone is going to get hurt. Turns out LFI is by far one of the "safer" schools.

 

[Blackhawk 6]

Observing the adrenaline tests (doctors injected themselves, other students used lower-level inhalers). While I abstained from the exercise for medical reasons, it was enlightening to observe calm accurate shooters become jittery ansy not-so-accurate shooters. At no point did anyone come close to being dangerous to others. They did, however, exhibit and express adverse reactions which were starkly different from simple exertion/exhaustion exercises. Those who had never really felt such physiological symptoms (shaking, sweating, growing sense of impending doom) of a full adrenaline dump had a controled environment to do so, and found out how shooting performance suffered. Necessity of drilling the basics became more apparent and urgent. Theory is fine, but experiencing reality under controlled conditions prepares one to, when needed, think "I've been here before, this is not new/strange, I know what to do." This sort of testing/training had not been documented before (military had done so but had not released results), and trying/studying it makes sense to some. With training, one surprisingly functions better under such duress.

Thanks. That was exactly what I was looking for and confirms my suspicions of the value of such a drill.

 

[Blackhawk 6]

Maybe it's not for everyone; if not for you, please don't insult those who it does work for.

The Emperor should not feel insulted when he's told he is not wearing any clothes.

 

[444]

"Gunsite lost a student last year"

Can you give the details ?
The only one I am aware of was one student shooting another student in a hotel room during the week they were both attending a class at Gunsite: but it did not occur at Gunsite.

 

[Badbunny]

I read the thread and would like to share a few opinions. I've heard about mr. Ayoob and have no doubt he's a competent fellow. But I've seen things like that in martial arts. I mean that certain instructors with undoubtedly great skill and talent resort to some not-too-sensible tricks to boost their credibility and help with their marketing. Take knife fighting for example. Two guys demonstrate knife fighting skills. One does it with a rubber training knife and the other does it with a mean-looking black übertactical commando knife. Your average Joe has no way to estimate the skill level of the practisioners, so he'd think that the one with the real knife was the better one; after all, he had a REAL knife, right?

One of the best exercises to simulate fighting while under pressure that I've seen was a knife drill. The defender would stand with his eyes closed and the attacker would slap him in the face and directly after that attack him with a (rubber)knife. After the slap the defender was allowed to open his eyes. Very simple, very effective and I don't know about the rest of you, but my adrenaline was pretty high as I waited for the slap. No epi needed.

 

[Curare]

First do no harm.

As physicians, I do not understand how those LFI4 students could give themselves or other physicians epinephrine injections.

What condition were they treating?

As I physician, it is unethical to medicate yourself. It is also unethical to treat others unless there is cause.

Those physicians risked their medical licenses. What if a dangerous arrhythmia had developed, as pointed out by THR members, requiring treatment or resulting in death?

A simple jog or a pint of coffee could have created a similar effect.

 

[The Rabbi]

Here's my idea for my new Supreme Height In Tactics XXIV-VII Course (????-24/7):

Students will be seatbelted into sedans with the gas pedal bolted to the floor and the brakes set to fail any second. They will have to maneuver the car through the plate glass window (ala Dirty Harry). Upon stopping they must extricate themselves from the car using only a Leatherman tool. Standing up (if they can) they will use the car for cover as they engage 15 instructors armed with full-auto AK-47s pouring live fire into the now-smoldering vehicle from behind concrete barriers. The student will be required to make head shots to stop the instructor, firing 14 rounds (includes one shoot-through) from a Smith Centennial and reloading from a dump pouch, all within 2.5 seconds. Even Jerry Miculek could not pass this course.

Guys, people who actually train for bad situations (FBI, military, SWAT) dont do the things mentioned in Ayoob's course. Why should anyone else? Chalk me up a subscriber to the gimmick theory as well as the theory that Ayoob tends to exaggerate to enhance his own standing and generate buzz.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

ctdonath, I was not drawing conclusions from rumors. The LFI-IV descriptions seem accurate based on the course description and your description. Plus, there was definitely a student that got shot.

I am not convinced that hopping people up on epi or draining off a pint of blood is responsible when you turn them loose with a firearm. As noted by Curare, why were the doctors doped up as well?

The ND that occurred was by a supposed 'experienced' student that Ayoob described as have very good gun handling skills. Even so, she was doing off hand drills (for which she was not experienced in performing with her off hand) wearing a borrowed holster that did not fit her body form properly and was not the right holster for the gun she was using. In a class of just 5 students, I would have expected that her gun, gear, and handling be a little more closely scrutinized.

As for your comment on the student getting shot, that if you "fire enough rounds and an accident WILL happen," I don't buy it. This seems to be some post of post-hoc rationalization that is basically saying it is no big deal for a student to get shot because it is something likely to happen anyway.

Once again, one time events such as drug ingestion and blood loss are not training.