Target Shooters all learn about SA&SP when they first pick up a gun, but in the Combat Focus Shooting program, we start people off with Kinesthetic Alignment as their primary means of controlling deviation for the most probable shooting problems they will face. This process not only works very well to get people quickly capable of defending themselves with a gun, it also mimics what we see people doing naturally in the overwhelming majority of video’d defensive shooting situations regardless of prior training.

CFS is sometimes mistakenly believed to be a completely unsighted or “point shooting” course, which is certainly is not. We teach SA&SP within the first hour of shooting and our students are taught to use their sights whenever they are needed and to experiment in the training environment to discover when that is… so that they can fire Combat Accurate shots as efficiently as possible using recognition and trained responses during a fight.

The clips below cover the most important aspects of understanding and teaching SA&SP in the context of Defensive Shooting. There are many misunderstandings and myths in regard to SA&SP floating around the defensive shooting world and some of the biggest are addressed in these clips.

PART 1: 

PART 2:

These two videos were taped during a lecture that I gave in November of 2011 during a CFS Instructor Development in Massachusetts. The video was taped by Down Range Firearms Training staff and the lecture was being given in the classroom at the G.O.A.L. Headquarters… thanks to both of those entities for their support of CFS!

-RJP

Next Month, I will be conducting the FIRST EVER Live Video-cast defensive firearms training event utilizing the six amazing new facilities that Gander Mountain has built around the country. If you are anywhere near a GMA Location, Sign up for this unique opportunity! Each location will have instructors that I have personally trained to support this course and I’ll be conducting the lectures and Q&A from the flagship location in Florida.

Gander Mountain Academies are located in:

Lake Mary, Florida

LaCrosse, WI

Lakeville, MN

Madison, WI

Spring, TX  

and the sixth facility will be opening on December 10th in Wichita, Kansas (And I’ll be there as part of the Grand Opening Event!)

The GMAs are truly world-class facilities with live fire ranges, state of the art  scenario simulators, full scale laser simulator ranges and top of the line classrooms….. And, they are all video-conferenced together, making this unique class offering possible! Spots are limited for this 6 Hour long course + 1 hour lunch break.  There are 24 seats in each Academy on each day (30 in Lake Mary).  Cost per student is $200

I’ll be talking more about this exciting team up on Armed American Radio during a live broadcast from Orlando on the evening of Sunday, Dec, 4th.

The Dynamic Defensive Handgun course itself is be based on I.C.E. Training’s New Introduction to Defensive Handguns program aimed directly at both those new to firearms and those who have been ‘shooters,’ but not done much formal defensive firearms training. This course covers practical equipment choices, fundamental home defense tactics and  Intuitive Defensive Shooting.  Attendees will leave this course with the knowledge and skill to be prepared to defend themselves and their families with a handgun in a worst case scenario.

-RJP

CFS Instructor Omari Broussard presenting his "Year in Review".

The 2011 Combat Focus Shooting Instructor Conference ended yesterday. An intense 4 days, averaging about 17 hours of activity each day, ended with an hour long debrief in our hotel lobby before going out for dinner and beverages one last time. The debrief brought out a lot of great points about the experiences the attendees had at the conference, but emphasized two key points that were integral to the long weekend: Foundational Principles and Evolution.

Combat Focus Carbine Instructor Certification was achieved by several attendees at this year's conference!

At first glance, it may seem like these two concepts might be at odds with one another… but, they have co-existed quite well together inside of our program. I think that too many people mistake simple beliefs, preferences or even techniques for Foundational Principles. This mistake leads to a resistance to changing those beliefs or evolving techniques because of a desire to maintain what are perceived as important

CFSIC Attendees were an impressive group this year! Including CFS Instructor, and world renown gunsmith, Grant Cunningham... who recently published his first book on Revolvers.

touchstones or facets of a program. “Reload without looking at your gun” is not a “Foundational Principle”, it is simply a technique (or part of a technique) that is based on a couple of them: Work well with what your body does naturally and achieve your goals with as little time, effort & energy as possible.  By understanding the difference, we are free to evolve our advice on whether or not you look at your gun during reload sequence based on those Principles and still maintain our integrity.

Alessandro Padovani (CA) watching Deryck Poole (MD) during APH Instructor Development.

The CFS Program has gone through much evolution and will continue to do so. Occasionally, people will condemn this as a failure of the program. They fail to see how constant inquiry, self-reflection and intellectual exchange with others can lead to productive improvement in something that was already “good”…but not “good enough.” Personally, when it comes to life & death skill sets, I don’t think that anyone should be happy with “good enough”. Evolve or Die… in this case, we could be speaking quite literally!

This year’s conference was held in Fernley, Nevada at the LMS Defense Combat Development Center. Located about an hour from Reno, the CDC is a complex of ranges located about 15 minutes outside the small town where LMS Defense is headquartered. Their shop includes a great classroom which we utilized 3 of the 4 days for “Year in Review” updates from the attending instructors, further instructor development and the administering of a written test as part of the certification process for a new course we are adding to I.C.E. Training Company: Introduction to Defensive Handguns. A course aimed at new gun owners or those who may be shooters, but not really understand defensive shooting or appropriate defensive firearms. This course is 4-6 hours long and includes Fundamental Defensive Shooting Skills, Home Defense Tactics and thorough coverage of different types of handguns and which are best for personal/home defense. Several of the attending instructors achieved certification as Defensive Handgun Coaches, entitling them to offer this course under their own companies with the backing of I.C.E.. While this may, on the surface, seem like a step backwards from full CFS Instructor Certification, there are some very specific topic areas that are not addressed in the CFS Program covered by IDH, so the certification is a great compliment to these already well-credentialed instructors’ resumes. Attendees also worked towards advanced certifications to teach our Advanced Pistol Handling and Combat Focus Carbine Courses.

Matt Munson walking forward to the shooting line after lifting 135lbs to his shoulders during a Team Development Exercise.

The most unique aspect of the weekend was our Team Development exercise, the creation of a new program called “Fit Shot”, a program that combines defensive firearms practice with functional fitness on live fire ranges safely with moderate training and minimal equipment. Over the past few years, I have become more and more interested in the importance of physical fitness to personal defense and general well-being and this new program will be an important part of how we share that interest with our students. I’ll be writing more about this program soon!

We had attendees from Europe and all across the country this year. From Maryland to California and from Houston, Texas to Washington State. It is a great honor to spend 4 intense days with a group of professionals dedicated to challenging one another so that we can make ourselves and our students more capable. The attendees were dramatically diverse in too many ways to list and all had achieved many great things inside and out of the CFS Program over the past year. The team’s focus this week on Foundation Principles has helped me to understand my own program at an even deeper level and definitely made our team stronger.  Look for any opportunity you can to train with a Certified Combat Focus Shooting Instructor… and, when you are thinking about your own training, be sure that you understand your own Foundational Principles and that you are always pushing yourself to Evolve.

The attending Instructors of the 2011 CFSIC... stronger, smarter and more motivated after a great weekend!

Just in case you didn’t know we had a new newsletter out, or if you missed this particular article, I wanted to share it here. While the 9mm vs. 40 debate probably gets too much attention, the underlying theme of this article probably doesn’t get enough. I look forward to comments and feedback!

In my last book, Combat Focus® Shooting: Evolution 2010, I took some space to talk about the importance of Evolving. I think one very important contributor to your ability to evolve is your ability to look backwards and see what you were wrong about… or, at least, being able to recognize the things that you have changed your mind about!

In the section of the book where I talked about how important this process of evolution was, I listed a few things that I had “changed my mind about”. What I did not do was explain specifically which way I felt on the topics today… Honestly, I thought at the time that my current position would be obvious. Many readers have asked my to clarify my position on a couple of the topics. The number one request is to clarify whether I prefer the 9mm or the .40S&W for personal defense. In the mid-90’s I became convinced that the 9mm was an anemic round not well suited to defensive duty. Now, I don’t think you’ll find any articles or even forum posts were I rant about how only a fool would carry it, but I personally considered it a great compromise. Particularly when I moved into a county that required anyone applying for a CCW permit to qualify with either a .38 revolver or a 9mm pistol. At the time considered the 1911 in .45acp a great choice for personal and home defense (another thing that I have notoriously changed my mind about dramatically in the past couple 15 years!) and was very frustrated by this restriction. I begrudgingly bought a Taurus PT series firearm in 9mm, which allowed me to carry “cocked & locked” in the manner I generally trained during those years. Luckily for me, and the other residents of the state of Tennessee, that restriction was lifted not too long afterwards and I was able to carry any firearm I wanted for personal defense. During that time, I had come to decide that the Glock 23 with 13+1 rounds of .40S&W ammunition was about as close to perfect a defensive pistol as someone could want… and I considered its rounds significantly superior to 9mm. This is definitely something that I now look back and I think I was wrong about.

I have heard many an instructor say that they are “always a student” or that they “never stop learning,” but over the past couple of years, I have had the opportunity to ask dozens of professional instructors to identify some specific things that they have changed their minds about. Often, I have been disappointed with the trouble that so many have had with the question. At one point during the taping of our second season, I even considered giving the topic up as a “Question of the Week” on the S.W.A.T. Magazine TV show because it was so difficult getting guests to answer the question directly. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that my peers are being insincere where they claim the badge of “student” or say that they are “open minded,” but I have seen enough stuttering, confused looks and awkward body language to know that this question strikes a nerve. Let me give you an idea of how it often goes:

Me: “What is one specific thing that you have change your mind about since you’ve been instructing?”

Instructor: (after a pause and settling back into their chair a little) “oh, well…we are constantly evolving.”

Me: “Can you think of anything specific?”

Instructor: (often with a look of relief, like they found the exit hatch…) “Well, there’s been a lot of things.”

Me: “Of course, but is there any one thing that you can look back on, which you actually used to teach, that you would now say is ‘wrong’”?”

Instructor: (shifting glance or two, more settling) “I wouldn’t say that anything was “wrong”, but some things are better than others.”

Me: “What are some of the things you’ve actually taught in the past that you now believe are ‘worse’ than other things?”

Instructor: “uh….”

Now, certainly, that isn’t verbatim for any dialogue, nor would it be fair to characterize ANY of the instructors I’ve posed the question to as being evasive. There is a huge difference in someone who is trying to hide the fact that they have been wrong and someone who has simply not thought about it that way and is not used to being asked to articulate it. Especially with a camera in their face or standing in a group of peers at a conference! I have come to realize that the many of these guys, including friends of mine, have trouble articulating the fact that they once taught something that they do not today believe is the best information… or, put more simply, they aren’t used to publicly admitting they were wrong about something specific. It is very easy to admit that you have been wrong in general or that you are open to changing your mind, but there is definitely a stumbling block for many people when we try to get to a detail level.

For me, while it may be frustrating and/or disappointing to find out I was wrong about something, I have learned to balance that negative with what I think is a much more significant positive: Learning Something Better. While this isn’t always the case, at the very least I can celebrate the intellectual experience of knowing that I need to seek out a new answer when a theory or technique has been rendered invalid.  Some instructors have articulated to me that they feel like changing what they teach is somehow a disservice to those whom they have taught before. While I understand that gut reaction, it is at least as much of a disservice, combined with an integrity issue, to not teach your future students things that you believe with conviction are the best options.

I've been slowly but surely converting many of my .40s, including this Glock 22, over to 9mm.

So, why do I think the 9mm is a better choice for personal defense than the .40 S&W?

1. The Myth of the “One Shot Stop”, Part 1: Faster Strings of Fire are Better.

I don’t believe that it is likely to take only one shot to stop your next threat. With this in mind, the “data” that we collect (and sometimes obsess over) about the difference in potential terminal performance from one bullet to the next or the relatively few examples we have of single pistol hit results in human beings suggests to me that we should plan on multiple shot strings of fire. If we are planning on needing more than one shot and we know that we want to stop the bad guy as soon as possible, then it makes sense that we should seek the fastest string of fire possible. Physics dictates that the 9mm is going to be a more manageable round (lower recoil) than the .40 S&W out of any particular firearm. So, no matter how much you train and how much you practice, everyone should be able to shoot a string of Combat Accurate 9mm rounds faster than they can fire a string of .40. Of course, if you consider a 4×8 sheet of plywood your “combat accurate” area, you’re going to have to go to a relatively long string of fire to be able to measure a difference in time, but if you stick with a probable target size (high center chest) at a plausible distance (10-15’), it shouldn’t be hard to see a difference at a reasonable number of rounds (3-6).

2. The Myth of the “One Shot Stop”, Part 2: Higher Capacity is Better.

Again, keep in mind that we are counting on needing more than one round. In any given size package, 9mm firearms hold more rounds than their counterparts chambered in .40 S&W. This gives you a greater potential for defense against one or more targets for the same practical cost in size & weight.

9mm or .40 ?? Bet you can't tell. In a recent test, the PDX1 .40 and 9mm performed almost exactly the same in the gelatin.

3. Negligible Difference in Practical Wounding Potential.

 Pistol bullets really aren’t great stoppers. There is a reason that hospital emergency rooms successfully treat Gun Shot Wound patients on a regular basis. Having talked to many EMTs and trauma doctors, and examined a significant amount of pictures/medical reports, there is a negligible difference between the wounding capacity of the 9mm and the .40 S&W. The idea of “energy transfer” is misplaced in regard to wounding potential because the net amount of energy contained in a pistol bullet is pretty low when we think about really having dramatic effect on a human body (knocking someone down, for example). The damage that is done is created through cutting and crushing. The difference of a few grains of weight, a few feet per second of speed or a millimeter (literally) of diameter are not worth giving up on the faster strings of fire or the higher capacity mentioned above. While the .40 S&W round, especially in heavier versions, has more potential for penetration of intermediate barriers, the data on actual personal defense shooting suggests overwhelmingly that there are not likely to be any hard barriers to be penetrated.  (Law Enforcement Officers face barriers much more often, presenting a stronger argument for the .40 in the role of police duty gun). Tom Givens’ Lessons From the Street DVD is a great example of real world self defense shooting data of the type that should be influencing our choices.

There is also a large body of testing evidence that modern bonded hollow points in 9mm will penetrate an adequate amount of tissue to cause a maximum amount of damage inside a human body. In fact, manufacturers such as Winchester are now designing their defensive rounds to have consistent performance across the most common defensive calibers (9mm, 40, .45, .38). I recently participated in a ballistic gelatin demonstration of that company’s PDX1 line of ammunition and saw for myself that they are achieving this goal.

It is important to note that I am not arguing that a single .40S&W bullet doesn’t hold more potential to stop in any event, rather I believe that the small increase in potential is not worth the absolute known detriments in recoil and capacity. As I discussed in point number one, for all shooters, at some point, there will be a moment when they can fire one more round of 9mm in any given period of time. That extra round’s capacity to wound will far outweigh the miniscule difference in potential for any individual bullets.

4. Lower Cost, High Value Practice

It is significantly less expensive to shoot 9mm in training than it is to shoot .40… that means more reps and more training in general for any given budget. This is the last reason I’m going to offer here, but there is no doubt that it is a factor in favor of choosing the 9mm. This is not an argument for training with loads that aren’t what you actually carry just because of budget (training with a .22lr, for example), it is an argument for training with your actual carry caliber and carry gun as often and as realistically as is practical.

There you have it. Those are the four primary reasons that I now recommend 9mm as the personal defense round of choice, have been converting my own personal .40 S&W firearms over to 9mm and would never purchase a .40 S&W firearm for personal defense if I were starting all over today. I let anyone who asks me about defensive guns or bullets know how I feel today, despite years of recommending the .40 and talking about how it was a great compromise between the 9mm and .45. In the mid-90’s I was wrong about the advantages of that round and I have definitely changed my mind about the inadequacies of the 9mm. Acknowledging that I was wrong in the past, is the only way that I can share what I now believe is the best recommendation I can give.

-RJP

I have been a member of the US Concealed Carry Association Board of Advisors, along with my Best Defense co-host Michael Bane, for over a year now… and I am more convinced than ever that the educational benefits of being a member are more than worth the price.

I am committed to helping The USCCA become the leading organization of its kind when it comes to educating those who carry concealed for the defense of themselves or others. In fact, I recently agreed to write a regular column for their members only  Concealed Carry Magazine. I have also been contributing to the training discussions at their forum off & on for some time… but will definitely be there more frequently as feedback from my articles begins.

Here’s a quick video explaining what I like most about the organization and why I think you should join the USCCA along with me. Check it out:

Educational Benefits for Members of the US Concealed Carry Association

See you on the Forum!

-RJP

Mike Seeklander is a World Class Instructor with an extensive and diverse shooting background.

Michael Bane made the official announcement a few days ago that Mike Seeklander will be stepping into the Firearms Instructor/Host role in the Best Defense Series starting in January 2012, as I step aside to create space for this new perspective as well as create more time for the many of other projects that I am involved in (including some exciting new ones!). Honestly, I cannot think of a better person to step into the role.

Ironically, I first worked with Mike Seeklander several years ago when he was a guest in the early days of The Best Defense! When we first started the show, as usually happens, it was still a work in progress and the format wasn’t really developed. In fact, that type of development is always a constant process. At that time, we were considering following the traditional “gun tv” format of having guest instructors on each episode. We quickly decided that the chopped and stop/start type of presentation that a different perspective every week brings isn’t conducive to presenting a cohesive body of work. It was certainly no reflection on Mike (or Phil Strader, who was also a guest that season) that we chose to go with a more consistent “one voice” approach to presenting the firearms training info on The Best Defense. Well, now that voice is changing.

Mike taping for Personal Defense Network in 2010.

If you hadn’t heard yet, I announced earlier in the week that I was going to be saying “Goodbye & Good Luck!” to The Best Defense series at the end of the year. Now that the new “TBD Gun Guy” is announced, I wanted to let those of you who are familiar with me, but not with Mr. Seeklander, rest assured that I think the show is in great hands!

In fact, since meeting while taping in 2008, Mike and I have spent a fair amount of time together and worked together often.

Last year, Mike attended a Combat Focus® Shooting Course that he also hosted at US Shooting Academy in Tulsa, joined me as a guest instructor in the Personal Firearms Defense DVD Series and we really got to compare notes and understand a bit more about each other’s approach to training. Mike also joined me as a guest on the second season of S.W.A.T. Magazine TV and did a great job. More recently, I’ve brought Mike in as a regular contributor to The Personal Defense Network, where his articles are helping us to maintain our quickly established position as the highest quality source for diverse personal defense & safety information on the Internet.

Mike and I got together a couple of days ago and taped a quick video clip announcing the change, which you can see HERE.

As I said in my “goodbye” letter linked above, I am extraordinarily proud of my work on The Best Defense and The Best Defense: Survival. It is only natural that I would want a professional to step into my role their and he inherits the legacy. It is a privilege to be able to say that the pro stepping in as I step out is a good friend. Thanks to Mike for agreeing to take over the reigns at a project that has been, and will remain, very important to me!

So, I hope that everyone enjoys the look that they are going to get at the guns I would pick for a worst case scenario survival situation on the new season of TBD: Survival that starts in July. I am definitely looking forward to the feedback. I am at least as anxiously looking forward to sitting back and watching The Best Defense in January 2012… you should be too!

-Rob Pincus

In case you are not familiar with this training series, since 2006, we have taped an average of 10-12 DVDs per year for the Personal Firearms Defense DVD Series. These videos are primarily distributed directly through our Branding Partners, including The National Rifle Association and The Second Amendment Foundation. Many clips from the series are available for free online at the Personal Defense Network website as well. To date, almost 50 DVDs have been released covering topics from the fundamentals of defensive pistol shooting to setting up an electronic alarm system. While I am the primary instructor on most of the DVDs, many top names in the industry such as Mike Janich, John Chapman, Mike Seeklander and Tony Blauer have been guests in the series. In addition to the core handgun related content, the series now has branches dealing with long guns, non-firearms defense and home security. To date, we have shipped over 3 MILLION DVDs!

I usually don’t take up blog space with announcements about every new title that comes out, but this month we have two additions that are really important and worth talking about. The first is “Lessons from the Street” featuring Tom Givens of Range Master. Tom has been teaching defensive firearms, and evolving his program based on empirical evidence from his student’s real world experiences for a couple of decades. The information that he shares on this DVD is an overview of 10 real incidents that are a fair sample of the scores of incidents that his students have been in and survived! Tom reviews the details and draws some conclusions that will help you figure out WHY you should be training in very specific ways to be ready for your most likely (and other plausible) defensive situations.

The second DVD that will help you understand how to get the most out of your limited training resources (time, budget, ammunition, range access, etc.) is “The Body’s Natural Reactions“. This DVD is the first time that I have presented this information this thoroughly outside of Instructor Development Courses. In the CFS Program, we develop our curriculum and training methods with these six most important natural reactions in mind. This DVD features an explanation of exactly how your brain enacts this phenomena  and then goes into detail about the physiology, natural world survival positive and the effect on our training for all six reactions: Lowering our Center of Gravity, Orienting Towards the Threat, Moving our Hands to Protect, Increase in Visual Acuity in the Center of Our Field of Vision, Distortion in the Perception of Time and a Decrease in Blood-flow to our Extremities. I have spent more than a decade studying, learning and finding the best ways to explain the information on this video!

If you are serious about your training and not willing to blindly follow the advice of an instructor without understand the facts and observations that underly the methods you choose, then both of these DVDs are for you!  If you are already receiving the PFD DVD Series, you can look forward to the arrival of these titles….if not, visit the I.C.E. Online Store to get your copies.

-RJP

You can also check out several other new releases this month (including Combat Focus® Carbine and Fundamentals of Defensive Striking) and the entire series while you are at the store!

"Tactical Athlete" Jeff Martone demonstrating the use of kettle bells to develop functional fitness.

Functional Fitness is all about exercising in a way that efficiently prepares you to use your body to participate in sports, live your daily life, perform you job and, possibly, get through a life threatening situation with as little trouble as possible. “Functional Fitness” is a buzz-term that has been made popular by Crossfit and similar programs. Crossfit has become the preferred choice for law enforcement, military and others who are interested in being fit to survive. Jeff Martone’s Tactical Athlete programs are the epitome of Functional Fitness and are aimed directly at those who would remain safe in the face of extreme danger.

Martone has an amazing ability to juggle kettle bells... flipping, tossing and spinning them almost effortlessly.

I first met Jeff several years ago at a training conference, where I attended a short seminar that he conducted. His seminar was fun, informative and represented a very different approach to exercise from what I was used to seeing. Personally, I’ve never been much of a “fitness” guy. I am lucky enough to have genetics that have lead me to find most typical programs offered a very little return for the time invested. Of course, as I get older, the “just get it done and be a little sore the next day” approach is giving way to a “soreness lasts longer and injuries come more often” response from my body.

I took the opportunity to attend Jeff’s Kettle Bell Instructor Certification Course at Atlas Crossfit in Chicago last weekend. I wanted to learn more about the proper use of kettle bells in a fitness routine and, most importantly to me, how to teach it to other people. With a really low financial investment (less than $100) and for very little time every day, many people believe that kettle bells are the most efficient way to achieve “Functional Fitness”.

While only becoming popular in the USA over the 8-12 years, kettle bells have been a staple of strength & conditioning work in Russia for decades. Jeff was a typical Type A athlete and law enforcement officer who pushed himself to injury and beyond and was facing some harsh realities about his body, his limits and the damage that had been done when he discovered kettle bells. He has become a firm believer in their use in training programs, teaches their use all over the world, has written articles and produced several DVDs. Most importantly, he formed the company Tactical Athlete to help him spread the word about kettle bells and the importance of fitness in general. The company name, and Jeff’s approach, come from a conversation he had with a doctor many years ago. In that conversations, the doc pointed out that Jeff needed to think of himself as (and train like) an athlete if he was going to expect to be able to perform his job at the highest level.

All Kettle Bell exercises combine aspects of strength and balance... but some are very simple, like the floor press.

Many people rely on the idea that skills or tools will get them through worst case scenarios… especially in the law enforcement and personal defense arenas. The professional military man has long held that physical fitness was important, but I get a lot of people coming through classes who seem to think that the type of gun they have or the group size they can shoot will overcome a clear lack of physical conditioning or strength if they really had to defend themselves. The most frequent excuse for lack of fitness I hear is being busy or being injured. Kettle bells, used properly, can overcome both hurdles with their efficiency and scalability. Kettle Bells are available in a variety of weights, allowing anyone to use them safely and productively, moving up as their injuries heal or their strengthening allows.

The two day course with Jeff was truly instructor development, including a block on program development and teaching motor skills. Of course, a lot of work was done as well. We spent the majority of the two days moving kettle bells around while performing various prescribed exercises and learning the fundamental teaching points, common errors and corrective measures. The course ended with a certification test.

-RJP

The First Class of the Spring 2011 Training Season. Combat Focus Shooting, Philadelphia, PA.

This week, the Spring Training Season kicked off in Philadelphia, PA with an over-full course of 14 students at Frank’s “Double Tap” Indoor Range. It was a great course with a motivated and diverse group of students, including some guys from the area I grew up and one friend I’ve known for about 25 years! In

Bruce hosted and participated in the Philly CFS Course!

April, I’ll be teaching courses in Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee & Arkansas and then I’ll continue teaching courses as I make my west until I end up at the Firearms Academy of Seattle in Washington and finally teaching near Portland, Oregon in mid June.

Of course, it isn’t a perfect schedule… I’ll be leaving the car at some stops and flying back to the east a couple of times for events, Taping (Season Three of S.W.A.T. Magazine TV & Personal Defense Network DVDs!) and some courses that just couldn’t be passed up regardless of the location!

I am really looking forward to making my way across the USA this spring teaching, learning from and getting know a couple hundred students… I hope that some readers of the DRTV Blog will be included! There are still some slots left in some of the courses, for a complete course schedule check out the Combat Focus Shooting website calendar!

-RJP