BullfrogKen
Moderator Emeritus
I posted this on The Firing Line in response to a question about choosing a trainer or a school, and I thought I'd cross-post it here. It goes on for a while, but for anyone wanting to take some training and doesn't know how to evaluate which one, or even if the one you're considering taking is worth the investment, this might be of help.
Rather than tell you where to go, or that I liked XXXXX school/trainer with nothing besides, "I think he's the best" by way to substantiate that endorsement, I'll share some thoughts about how to pick the place you want to go.
First and foremost, I'd recommend avoiding anything to do with a heavy bent on flashy marketing and super-secret techniques. There is nothing super-secret. Good quality training focuses on acquiring and mastering fundamentals. The really good schools and trainers have programs and instructors who are just really good at teaching those fundamentals in their course syllabus, drills, and sometimes individual instructor personality.
I strongly suggest avoiding a school you come across that surrounds itself in a cult of personality. If you come across one with that cult of personality surrounding a particular person, well let's just say I hope he is the Messiah that he truly believes himself to be. His students might need his powers of resurrection.
I'd be suspect of anything you come across that seems like it offers a lot in the way of "gimmicks". You know gimmicks when you see them. We've all been exposed to marketing many times a day in our modern lives. It's hard to describe, but like the Supreme Court concluded when it tried to differentiate between art and pornography, "you know it when you see it." Remember point number one - good quality training concentrates on acquiring and mastering the fundamentals.
Before I took a class, I'd investigate to see if they have a strong preference for a given weapon system that they can't articulate and substantiate the benefit for why they advocate for it. Gunsite's program is known as having a preference for the 1911. They can articulate the reasons well. They point to it as having the best trigger system of any handgun - it doesn't change from the first to the second shot, and the path it travels -straight back - means the student has less to try to master - vs. the pivoting trigger. Notice they say nothing in the way of "hype" about it chambering the big and powerful .45 ACP. The reasoning is emminently practical and mechanical.
Cirriculums and schools that place inordinate weight on the lesser benefits of a system - like capacity - over the more important ones - like gun fit and control - should be investigated. More often than not you'll find the reason they favor their system has more to do with limited experiences coupled with a personal preference that doesn't take into account the life experience, abilities, and limitations of others.
Look for schools and instructors that have a well-rounded background. Your local cop, or the veteran of a 20 year career on a SWAT Team might be a great guy, and great shot, and seem very knowledable about what he knows. But cops are generally young and fit, not old or plagued with health problems. The strong and fit can often just power through a drill or use a weapon platform that someone who isn't young and fit can't. Make sure the instructors have the experience and background that enables them understand and empathize with those sorts of students. Otherwise the cirriculum and techniques will be built around a subset of the population - the fit and strong.
Look for someone not married to a gun, system, and training regimen to the exclusion of something else unless they've got a good reason for their preference. Trainers who go out and get training themselves from other trainers should bump their program or school up to the top of your list. Lots of shooting competitions, awards, and inter-police/military service training by itself doesn't count for consideration. You're not interested in what he can do, you're interested in his ability to teach, and to have successfully taught it to a wide and varied range of students.
High round count courses don't equal better training. In fact, there reaches a point where the student becomes fatigued by recoil and merely begins going through the motions to complete the next course of fire and get it over with. The effort to get through it starts to supercede focusing on learning the point of the exercise. It depends on the caliber, physical strength and simple endurance, but generally at some point around 800 rounds recoil fatigue sets in.
While I'm on the topic of caliber, take the class with a 9mm or .38 Special. Yes, they're considered meek in today's world. But remember this is training, not practice. You're there to learn the material, not master it. You master the material in practice. You need your mind and body fresh to learn.
Also on the topic of round count, remember to look for breaks built into the syllabus for classroom instruction. There better be some built in. At a minimum you should be provided a legal briefing on the concept of justification. Try to find out what the justification model is, or is based on. Avoid justification models lifted solely from policing sources. Police are duty-sworn and have a mandate to act, so their justification models are written and begin with an assumption of that duty to act. The appropriate model for the Armed Citizen stems from an assumption of necessity.
Lastly, and probably most important - remember you mission. Remember your mission. Remember your mission. As you do your research you'll begin looking at lots of schools, cirriculums, and programs. Don't allow yourself to get caught up in it. What's your mission? What's the goal of your training? Someone living in a Shall Issue state and intends to carry outside the home on a permit/license will have a different mission than someone who cannot. And someone who carries as a duty will have a different mission than both of them. The best high risk civilian contractor course might be very appropriate for a certain group of people, while being completely mismatched to another group of students. Again, remember your mission.
I've given out a lot to consider. But like I mentioned from the outset, rather than pronounce someone or some school "the best", if you use those criteria you'll be able to judge for yourself the wheat from the chaff. I don't know what's best for you. No one does. Only you can determine that. Once you know what to look for, you'll be able to guide your own training path, in the way that's best for you.
