Since I posted previously on this thread, I've gotten Clint Smith's and Gabe Suarez' DVDs. I posted a review of the TR DVD earlier, I really like Clint Smith's 'style' of teaching a lot- it's more or less what I'm accustomed to after a long time watching military instructors at work, and doing my own fair share of platform time as well.
I'd still have to say, for an outright beginner focused on handling a pumpgun, I like Louis Awerbuck's DVD best. I'd like it even more if he updated the version that's available- as Louis says, "The state of the art is a moving target" and what he teaches has evolved some - inevitably - since this DVD was first produced.
As an all around introduction to gunfighting with a shotgun, I think Clint Smith gets the nod here. His emphasis on 'learning to run the gun you got' resonates with me a great deal. Louis always makes the point in class that "It's the Indian not the arrow" but Clint lays it all out on film for anyone who has a single shot, a double barrel, a pumpgun or a conventional design tube fed semiauto.
Louis and Clint share strong instructional backgrounds, as both were senior staff at Gunsite at one time. That provides a strong foundation in the gunfighting instruction game IMHO. There aren't a lot of bells and whistles in what either of them teach- both are firmly grounded in practicality.
I've trained hands on with Louis more than once, I haven't ever had a chance to make it to Thunder Ranch. And given the constraints of life as a retiree, I probably never will. Doesn't mean I wouldn't like to go, though. The good thing about the itinerant instrutors is that they bring the classroom to you, not the other way around. But the constraints of life in the modern age are telling on the itinerants, some of them are having to cut back on their travel for various reasons.
I'm a firm believer in 'sampling' the teaching of various instructors and taking away the part of their curriculum that applies most to you, or that works best for you. For anyone who wants to compare and contrast instructors who have videos available, watching their offerings and running their drills is a reasonable way to see if you like what they teach and if it works better for you.
The simple economic reality is that it costs less to buy a DVD than it does just to buy the ammo for a live class, not to mention the tuition and travel expenses. Videos are a good way to sample what different instructors have to offer, but they can't really compete with having a live, world-class instructor at your shoulder. Formal training with a good instructor will ramp up your learning curve faster than anything else you can do short of going looking for firefights to get into, and the former is a lot more surviveable. Don't overlook the fact that there are a lot of good local instructors who are teaching as well- it's not necessary to spend may hundreds of $$ and go all the way across the country to go to the Big Name Gun School to get good training.
To bang on my own tin pot here for a bit, I've been working on a list of instructors over in S&T- take a look at
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=396584 . If you know of any good folks who are teaching in your area/region that aren't on the list yet, please PM me and let me know so I can add them. It's a fairly time consuming process to find them via search engines.
Thanks,
lpl
