Having a record of your training and practice in self defense can help you in many aspects. It is a low possibility that you will have to use the training, but it is cheap insurance to keep a training record or log. In this article, I am going to provide some reasons why you should keep a training log and then discuss some options for how to format your training logs. This may be a dry topic compared to talking about ballistics or being John Wick, but this is just as necessary if you are going to reach a level of proficiency to be on par with John Wick…Just saying.
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After recently participating in both HEAT 1 & 2, I feel like I am qualified enough to give Max Velocity Tactical a semi-thorough look-through to inform you on the training opportunities they offer. They currently have 6 regularly scheduled class subjects, to include an Alumni get together in Texas each year, which I will attend, if able.
During the middle of April, I attended a four-day tactical training course run by Max Velocity Tactical. The class was Hostile Environment Advanced Tactics 1 (HEAT1). In a nutshell, the class is an introduction to team fire and movement techniques and procedures. Nearly all the skills you learn are published in the tactical manual, seen above. During my four days, I camped on-site in the parking lot, in the back of my RAM and I insisted on walking/jogging with all my gear to & from the ranges. The four-day course of instruction cost $1200. You will not find a better environment to learn and practice real light infantry TTPs under the supervision of highly skilled cadre (Max and Scott). In this review, I am not going to talk about the play-by-play of the HEAT 1 class, but rather discuss the big-ticket subjects that you should be taking away from this class.
Firearms skills is the only physical skill that I know of that is sold as something that can be taught in an 8-hour class. By the end of the day, depending on your learning ability, you will be shooting relatively well or even better than you thought you could. However, after 24 hours, a majority of that end-of-day performance will have vanished. Why? Because that is just how the human brain operates when it is exposed to a new physical skill. Sorry, but you will not just be able to shake off the rust in 10 years just because you took a particular class with someone who made you feel good about yourself for $300. My aim in this article is to expose you to the complexity of learning how to shoot. Even getting to the point of being ‘good enough’ will be trivial and difficult.
When most people encounter any amount of endured suffering, they talk themselves into quitting. Getting people to commit to something as simple as a workout schedule or consistently maintain a specific diet is virtually impossible, even if it is for their benefit. This is why people who make it through selections (Special Forces/SWAT) and tough schools (Ranger School) are so few in number. I believe that each of these organizations and schools can teach us how to suffer well and perform at our best.
“He is best that is trained in the severest school” -Thucydides New Zealand is a small country and yet their SAS regiment has to maintain the capabilities and lethality of their larger commonwealth SAS peers in Australia and Britain, to the point of seamless integration on joint operations. For this reason, I have been greatly inspired by the NZSAS, specifically their selection and training, for its high demands for constant performance. Though the NZSAS is closely modelled operationally off the British counterpart, their selections are different. Joe Hotai, who went through both the NZ (10 days + 9 Months) and Australian (3 weeks + 16 Months) SAS selections, NZSAS was much harder. All the information I am about to share is generalized for the sake of brevity, but there is more detail on msigwarrior.com or YouTube. If you take your shooting skills seriously, you will test your shooting skills periodically in order to see where you stand. The best way to do this is through what the industry calls “drills”. I personally call them “tests” because that is exactly what they are. Take a moment and look up what “drills” are so we can all be on the same page prior to beginning. So let us start out by making it clear that tests are meant to expose what you learned and drills are meant to help you learn a specific thing/skill. For this article, I am going to cover how to do pistol drills so you can test yourself with confidence.
Have you ever wondered if there was a way that you could sharpen some of your attributes like visual processing and reflexes in order to read your sights faster, shoot faster, process threats faster, and be able to handle stressful events with a cool head? Yeah, there are ways to program your brain and keep it sharp and performing at a high level.
When you come out of a training course that lasts one or two whole days, do you feel accomplished and a bit more prepared to defend yourself? What if I told you that your skill during that course is not only temporary, but basically an illusion based on decades of industry insanity? If this idea sounds preposterous to you, perhaps you should wait two weeks, and not practice at all and then try to perform a simple drill you did in the training class. I guarantee you will not only forget the course of fire, but will not be able to perform as effectively as you did. In this article, I am going to discuss training patterns and how to get your moneys worth instead of spending hundreds of dollars, only for your brain to be overwhelmed and for the skills to fade away practically overnight.
Being a student is not just something you do when you are completely unfamiliar with a subject. Many times we will find ourselves in a job that will require us to be RETRAINED or RECERTIFIED in something new or in something we already have used. Regardless of whether you know the material being taught, there is a method to learning that a lot of students completely ignore, to their own detriment. In this article, I am going to talk about aspects of learning that are relevant for people who are new to a subject, and especially those who are already familiar.
Ammunition seems to be slowly getting back onto the shelves, but people still are not able to fully indulge as they once did. In turn, people have made the judgement that without enough ammunition, they can’t train. This comes from the assumption that “Range Time” is the only way in which skills are developed or maintained. In fact, I would go as far as to start this article off by saying that 99.99% of you reading this would perform better if you started training off the range and stopped thinking of the range as a primary training ground. This lack of ammo on the shelves can be a blessing in disguise if you are serious about advancing your skills.
A gas mask on its own just seems like a collector’s item or a fine utilitarian piece of gear. Training on its own sounds like a good thing that encourages progress in a way that is challenging and rewarding. When you mix gas mask and training, you typically get people thinking about difficulty breathing, narrow vision, and absolute misery. This is a knee jerk reaction that unfortunately gets people to steer away from one of the best types of training that they could be getting exposed to.
ALICE is often labeled as old gear that is all but useless today. Perhaps ALICE is old and less convenient than the MOLLE system, but I have not found it to inhibit my ability to fight. Now throw on a plate carrier and a pouch for everything you think you need, and we have a problem. ALICE was not just created in a vacuum where people had no concept of the importance of comfort and speed reloads. In fact, the ALICE mag pouches were made to facilitate speed reloads in all climates and conditions without having to stare at the pouch.
I am not one for clinging to drills that are actually meant to be used as a test. I feel that it is much more reasonable and practical to conduct drills on skills that need to be rehearsed over and over again until they are second nature. Kneeling and presenting your rifle from the patrolling low ready is an important skill to develop. It is not as simple as taking a knee and aiming, but rather involves a few key steps that must be practiced often in combination. When done right, no matter the direction of the target, this technique will enable you to precisely engage in as little as 1 second. This requires speed, coordination, and good weapon handling skills. I personally use a 12lb rifle for this and every drill, so you don’t have an excuse.
The Legions of the Roman Empire still hold vast renown for their military might. I believe the core of this was the Roman Legionnaire training. Much of the Roman Legion characteristics are still used today, to include how they conduct training. Certain parts of their training has not been crossed over into the modern era, unfortunately. My goal with this article is to encourage a merging of some of the old Roman training methods. The desired outcome is you becoming more disciplined and truly fit to fight. The Romans had a particular way of training and maintaining the fighting capability of their army, and I believe we can incorporate some of these forgotten traits for our own benefit.
One of the sexiest displays of tacticool is switching from your primary/carbine to your secondary/pistol with great speed. I know a lot of people find it to be a sexy maneuver, but it is actually a basic and necessary skill that requires a lot of practice. There are a few reasons why someone would switch from their rifle to their pistol. Much like conducting reloads, it will be because they HAVE TO or WANT TO. The HAVE TO scenario is the rifle no longer functions due to no ammunition or a stoppage, and the threat is still active. The WANT TO scenario is clearing a small space where a carbine/SMG is too big to maneuver around. Now let’s look into the fine science of this sexy maneuver.
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