Last week, I ran the first Four Day version of the Combat Focus Shooting Instructor Development Course. The CFSID course has been available to those interested in teaching the program since 2005, but it has almost always been a 3 day program. Occasionally, experienced instructors who had trained with us extensively went through a 2 day program. Generally speaking, the course has always been well received by students, but we have historically had less than a 50% certification rate. The goal statement of the course has always been something like “to educate students in the principles and methods that underly the Combat Focus Shooting program”, as an aside, we’ve also said that a secondary aspect of the course was to “provide an opportunity for the student to be certified as a CFS Instructor”. When viewed during the lucid moments of the registration process, I think that these goals, presented as they are, have always seemed reasonable. Understandably, however, in the environment of the course itself, almost every student has elevated the secondary goal to one of high importance by the last afternoon of the course. That last afternoon has always featured both a written test and a subjective teaching demonstration test, neither of which are known for being easy.

We have always strongly recommended that students train in the end user course, study the book, DVD, podcast and any other available material related to Combat Focus Shooting prior to attending the Instructor Development course to increase their odds of certification and make the learning curve as negotiable as possible. I believe that students who have taken this advice have almost always passed the written test of knowledge. The subjectively graded teaching demonstration test, however, has always been the tougher hurdle. Even students with extensive teaching and speaking backgrounds have sometimes failed this test rather horrendously. This was something that I really wanted to see change, without lowering the standards of the program. Afterall, the more qualified certified instructors we have, the more students that we can reach with the program. Add to these the consideration of wanting students who have invested significant amounts of time, effort and money to do well and it was pretty obvious that we needed to expand the portions of the course that dealt with teaching skills and opportunities to practice presenting the information.
As many readers of this blog will also know, the CFS program itself has developed considerably over the past 6 years and the information being provided to Instructor Candidates has almost literally doubled since the early days… yet another factor dictating a longer course schedule. Still, it was not easy to make the shift to add another day to the course. Adding another day without raising the price much (we went from $900 to $1000) was relatively easy from my perspective, but I knew that the extra day meant another day away from family, work and in a hotel. The costs of attending the CFSID increased significantly for the attendees with this decision, which made it imperative that the extra day was valuable.
In addition to expanding the opportunities to practice teaching and giving the core CFS fundamentals more time for discussion and exploration, the new four day schedule includes about 6-7 hours of entirely new content discussing adult learning, instructor professionalism and related areas of study that are important for a defensive firearms instructors to have an understanding of (anatomy, decision making under stress and classical physics, for example).
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of the four day course was 30% more time for the student to acclimate to being on the instructor side of the program, my expectations as the program director and, especially for new instructors, the realities of teaching people how to more efficiently defend themselves with a firearm. An extra day to process the information before being tested on the ability to convey it was certainly one of the simplest and most important aspects of the change.
The course itself was held in Virginia Beach, our home base, and utilized both the C2 Shooting Center and the main classroom at the Blauer Tactical Systems training facility. Students came from 7 states, including California and Washington, as well as several in the mid-atlantic region. The students themselves ranged from a couple law enforcement professionals with over 20 years of instructing experience to a financial planner looking for a career change. Several students were already involved in private sector firearms instruction and were looking to expand their ability to teach practical defensive programs. In the end, we had 9 out of 10 achieve certification last Friday, significantly better than our average, and the highest percentage ever for a class with that many students. There have been a few small courses with extensively prepared instructor candidates that achieved 100%!
One thing that has always been done to encourage students who did not get certified during the course to continue their education and interest in teaching CFS, is the opportunity to re-take either portion of the test at a future date. The one student who did not get certified last week has already expressed his interest in re-testing in the near future, and remains dedicated to achieving certification and beginning to work as a firearms instructors.
The next CFSID Course will be held in Minnesota and is being hosted by the Rice County Sheriff’s Office. There are still a few slots available. We will also be conducting our Annual CFS Instructor’s Conference in Farmington, New Mexico in October. The Annual conference serves as an update for active instructors, provides opportunities to teach associated programs (e.g.- Advanced Pistol Handling, Combat Focus Carbine, etc), and a general networking and team-building opportunity for some top notch professionals. There are also end user courses scheduled during the Conference, which provides an opportunity for new students to work with a variety of instructors and a chance for team teaching and teaching technique discussions amongst the instructor attendees.

Thanks again to all of the CFSID Students from last week and, at least as importantly, thanks to all of the CFSID students from the past 5 years who have contributed to the development of the program. Congratulations to the newest CFS Instructors!

Related posts:

1. Staying True to Foundational Principles while Evolving, The 2011 Combat Focus Shooting Instructor Conference
2. Meet the Combat Focus® Shooting Instructor Team at our new website!
3. Shooting Industry Masters Raises $5,200 For USA Shooting Team
4. Introducing the All New Wilson Combat X-TAC 1911
5. S.W.A.T. Magazine TV: Super Dave Harrington of Combat Speed