PRT - Fundamentals Course AAR

[bbtech]

Yesterday I took the Fundamentals course taught by Thomas of Precision Response Training. If you are already comfortable with handling a firearm this is a great class.
Thomas covers several topics such as grip, stance and dry fire techniques. We worked on transition form one target to the next as well as multiple shots on the same target in different areas. I came away with a lot of new skills to work on. This class will make you a better shooter.
My 64 year old body is feeling the effects of a day out side in the heat and my legs are sore from working on the correct stance but I would take this class again in a heartbeat. I went through just over 400 rounds of ammo so you get plenty of time to practice what Thomas is teaching you.
If you get a chance to take this course I can't recommend in enough.

Theron

[JTH]

Glad you liked it---and more importantly, glad it gave you some things to think about and practice!  You'll have to let me know how the dryfire goes, and what improvements you see. 

Hmm---I should start a followup course/drill set, to track that sort of thing.  Might be interesting to see how people's skills change as they work dryfire drills for the fundamental skills...

[SeanN]

Environment:
This day was very hot, and by the end of the day all of our brains were sufficiently fried. It was a good day to train though, if you stayed hydrated. It got up to a bit over 90, but it didn't rain, which was nice. I got sunburned, because I'm a fool and refused to put on suntan lotion until after lunch. Thankfully, the kindness of the father & son students there saved me (they gave me some suntan lotion) from severe sunburns and I just ended up with very minor redness. On the bright side: I now have a pretty awesome farmer's tan. 

The atmosphere at the class was very relaxed but serious in the important areas (safety and improving your technique), but we got to have a lot of fun too. The two ladies of the class almost falling over laughing when Tom was drawing the targets was pretty hilarious. Running two relays was nice, it gave me some time to bond with some of the other students. Unfortunately, I suck at names so I forgot almost everyones' names! Also gave me invaluable time to write notes. I felt like I was the only person taking notes sometimes, but I took about 5 notebook pages worth of very useful notes. I've gone over them a few times and it's been a great refresher on what I need to work on and what I learned.

Equipment:
What I brought:

• Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm full size
• Trijicon HD Nightsights
• 5x S&W M&P 9mm 17 round magazines
• Tactical Tailor Modular Belt
• 2x Tactical Tailor Double Pistol Mag Pouches (4 pouches total)
• HSGI Pistol Mag/Flashlight Pouch (didn't really come into play for this class, but I always carry a handheld light there)
• Tactical Tailor dump bag (good for holding the mag you intend to immediately load into the gun when making ready and to hold empty mags)
• Safariland ALS Holster attached with the MLS system to the MOLLE webbing

There weren't any specific belt or holster requirements for the class other than it has to be stable and the holster has to cover the trigger. I was one of the few running a belt that didn't in anyway attach to my belt loops or pants. While not "competition legal," my setup is pretty sturdy and I like it. I still do need to get a real setup so I can do competitions properly (I have a really lame belt setup that I used at the last steel challenge heh).

I, nor anyone else, seemed to have any equipment failures (that I noticed). Although, one student did go and get another gun. I wasn't sure if it was due to problems or because he wanted to just switch guns. Honestly, when Tom wasn't demoing or explaining the techniques, I was so busy taking notes and loading mags, I barely paid attention to what the other students were doing.

This was my first formal handgun class and the first time I had shot a good number of rounds with the new Trijicon HD sights installed. As Tom knows (he helped me diagnose the issue), I was having serious sight problems with my stock sights. I had messed with them to install another part and I didn't properly align the rear sight when I reinstalled it. This was leading me to shoot quite far left at longer ranges (we're talking like 8" here). That was a MAJOR problem for me at the last ENGC steel match, and it frustrated me a great deal. The new sights were installed by Trijicon (I sent in the slide), and they were spot on. As long as I did my part, the shots went exactly where I aimed. I was very pleased with the new sights. They were much easier to use and a I felt like I could acquire a sight picture faster, although some of that was due to the training as well and not just the sights.

Instruction:

As has been used as a metaphor to describe other classes, taking this class was like trying to drink out of a fire hose. There's just SO much to take in, you can't possibly get all of it on one time through. But dammit, I sure tried! Haha. Tom did an excellent job explaining everything and demoing it for us and kept a good eye on us while we were performing the drills. He noticed a lot of things about my stance that I never would've noticed myself. And he helped me work on a lot.

Things that I need to work on personally:

• Stance. Keep low (butt down!), lean forward more, relax my shoulders more (I was used to a more rigid "shoulders rolled forward" type of stance, it's going to take awhile to break that old habit)
• Proper trigger prep before firing (under pressure, I tend to mash the trigger, causing shots to be a bit off target)
• Trigger reset and prep during recoil
• Proper prep during and slowing down my press out so my first shot is 100% as soon as I'm fully extended (and not needing to pause)

I felt like I was 10x the shooter I was during the class with his guidance than I ever was on my own. In fact, I don't know if anyone overheard me or not but I said to myself "holy guano!" after I fired about 4 shots in a row and they were all on the 1" red dot (or damn close) of the 8" steel target that was a decent distance away (I honestly forget how far away we were shooting). In the past, I was simply incapable of that.

The drills were on a mixture of steel targets and paper targets. At the beginning of the class, Tom didn't give us any tips on stance or anything and just had us do some shooting so he could get a base line of our abilities and our techniques, so he could give us some individualized feedback and tips. Then, he taught us all of the fundamentals he wanted us to work on at once. As he joked, it's hard to remember all of them! However, having it all laid out for you does remind you of everything you need to be thinking of. The drills he chose for the rest of the class all focused on improving those fundamentals. It's almost like the class was about the fundamentals! Oh wait. It was.

I've never been a fantastic handgun shot but I think Tom gave me the basic skills I need (and I took a boat ton of notes!) to work on it and become a better shooter overall. In fact, I mentioned to him (and he agreed) that a lot of the skills we were working on can be directly transitioned to rifle shooting as well, and that is generally my favorite type of shooting.

It's pretty amazing what you can learn in a short time. It is definitely difficult to break old habits, however. Sometimes, I almost wish I had just started shooting that day, so I was a total blank slate. It's difficult when you're under pressure as you almost always revert to your old ways that are so ingrained from years of improper (or not optimal) shooting. This was readily apparent when we all did the last drill of the day. It was an individual drill that we were timed on. A lot of us fell back to our old ways, and it was a strong reminder that to retain what you learned, you have to practice it a lot! Practice doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent. Tom gave us a great training tip: Do as many proper repetitions as you can, but once you start messing it up, stop. If you keep going, you just build bad habits up and you're probably too tired to do it properly anymore. Just quit and come back to it the next day. You only want to do as many drills as you can do without messing them up repeatedly.

Final Thoughts:
I left the class feeling like there was a ton to work on but feeling like I had already improved a lot on my fundamentals. Now it comes down to me practicing what he gave me and hopefully (someday) mastering it. Everything comes back to the fundamentals, so if your fundamentals are weak, you'll never become the best shooter you can be.

As far as endorsing the class: I fully intend on getting into another one as soon as I can scrounge up the money for the class and ammo. 

Thanks Tom (and everyone else at Precision Response Training) for the very reasonable class fee and for teaching this class! I hope to be in another class very soon!

[JTH]

That was one detailed report. 

Was there an issue with learning all the fundamentals at once?  What, trying to remember and apply 16 things simultaneously under time pressure and stress is a problem?   Who knew?!   

(Glad the class was useful----just keep doing that dryfire practice!)

[SeanN]

Haha, yeah, I tend to be very detailed. Almost to the point of it being a flaw.

Anyway, not so much a problem with learning them all just hard to concentrate on them all. I think it was a good idea to lay them all out for us though so we know everything we're going to be doing.

I need to sign up for another class with you. 

BRB, going to your site. xD

[OnTheFly]

I had a lengthy AAR, albeit not as lengthy as SeanN's, for this course, but it was lost when my computer crashed.  So here is a quick summary.

Safety
The training was conducted in a very controlled and safe manner.  Thomas maintained positive control of the class at all times.

Quality of Instruction
Thomas is a very good instructor.  Every question was thoroughly answered to the satisfaction of each student.  The material was presented using the building blocks method.  Starting with individual, simple concepts and then slowly building on them. 

Subject Matter
None of the material was difficult to grasp, but implementing it was a different story.  The muscle memory of bad habits was working against each of us.  While the information presented was simple, it is not something you are likely to come up with on your own without years of trial and error.

Conclusion
If you have not taken a similar class, I urge you to do so.  However, I don't think that you can expect to see considerable improvement over the course of one day.  As the shear length and heat of the day was wearing on us, it was difficult to see our personal improvement.  The most important things you walk away from the class with are fundamentals to implement and drills to practice.  The combination of these will help you to become a better shooter.

Fly

[JTH]

Conclusion
If you have not taken a similar class, I urge you to do so.  However, I don't think that you can expect to see considerable improvement over the course of one day.  As the shear length and heat of the day was wearing on us, it was difficult to see our personal improvement.  The most important things you walk away from the class with are fundamentals to implement and drills to practice.  The combination of these will help you to become a better shooter.

I agree.  If you are expecting instant results, this isn't the class where it happens.  Most people who come to this class "know how to shoot" and as such, what I teach works when I stand there and make the student do it my way.  Then I walk off and old habits start to creep back in (particularly under stress)...which is why I spent a lot of time walking from person to person the whole class.  (Hm.  I wonder how many miles I get per class?)

This type of class tries to eliminate old habits and install new ones--and that just isn't going to happen in 8 hours.  We can get a good start.  We can get enough drills so you observe how it is done, know what it feels like to do it correctly, and see the results of it being done correctly----but just not enough for anyone to ingrain it for use under stress.  A one-day class just won't have that happen, unless we just concentrate on one aspect only.  (That would be quite a class, wouldn't it?  Five-day class, Fundamental Shooting Skills, 8 hours a day, one skill per day---I wonder how much we could do in that time?)

People have hundreds (if not thousands) of reps-worth of built-in habit that they revert to under stress.  In eight hours, I can change some of those a little, and build enough awareness so people know what it should feel like and how it should work. 

The rest, unfortunately, is up to the student after the class, when they go home and work dryfire drills to to get the reps in to retrain their stress responses.  (Which is why we spend so much time talking about dryfire training--that discussion at the end of class is important.)

If someone wants a class that has large learning curve throughout---pick a class subject where you DON'T already have lots of habits.  Or "knowledge".