Revere's Riders/ACT Defensive Pistol 145 March 20, 2021: AAR

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  • TheJoker

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    Mar 9, 2010
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    Shelby County
    Another great Revere's Riders event in the books. Many thanks to John Viray, @obijohn for bringing his Defensive Pistol courses to the Revere's Riders' offerings. The Pistol 145 course is a natural progression from Basic Pistol 100 classes.

    After a few hours of lecture covering safety on the line, the defensive pistol mind set, situational awareness and the aftermath of a defensive situation, the students gear up, come to the line and learn the 4 point draw with emphasis on safely reholstering. We shot some warm up drills and got individualized coaching to improve our groups.

    From there, John begins layering in emergency reloads, using a dummy round to simulate a malfunction, movement during reloading and threat scans. At the end of the day, we put all the aspects of our training into a single drill called the Henk Drill which we all got to run 4 times each.

    The value of the class is coming home with a comprehensive drill that only requires 10 rounds and a dummy round to complete.

    It was my third time taking Pistol 145 and my fourth training with John. I took the more advanced Defensive Pistol 209 last Fall. I'm always picking up something new despite taking the class multiple times. I struggle with complex courses of fire during training and especially when shooting IDPA. I get so caught up in trying to remember every step that I can't seem to focus on the basics. On Saturday, John told a story about using visualization in preparation to run drills. While I waited for other participants to run the course of fire, I closed my eyes and visualized each step in the drill. When it came my turn, I had much less difficulty remembering the steps and could better focus on my shooting fundamentals. My groups got smaller and my time got faster throughout the day. I'm looking forward to repeating the process at my next IDPA match.

    The weather was chilly in the morning; but, warmed up nicely in the afternoon. It was great to see everyone and awesome to see my old friend and mentor @ATM back in the Revere's Riders fold.

    There is another Pistol 145 on the Revere's Riders schedule in Fall. I highly recommend Pistol 145 along with Pistol 209.
     

    ATM

    will argue for sammiches.
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    Jul 29, 2008
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    Crawfordsville
    Nice AAR, @TheJoker , what a day! Everyone did very well and it was great to meet a few folks and catch up with several old friends again.

    I found my original AAR for this class and will post it to contrast and compare just how well this course was established and how little it has needed to change over the course of a decade. It was and is still a stacking of solid defensive fundamentals and pertinent information with individual coaching and adapting along the way.

    From 2009: https://www.indianagunowners.com/threads/act-defensive-pistol-and-rifle-courses-aar.27835/

    Defensive Pistol 101

    John (obijohn) lead this class with assistance from Joe (rhino) and Aron (Coach). The morning was mostly discussion and demonstration covering a wide array from safety, handgun types, ammo selection, attitude/mindset, awareness, controlled agression, OODA loop fundamentals, holster types and carry positions, grips, stances, sight pictures, aiming and anatomy, presentation in steps out and back into the holster, trigger pull and reset, shot follow through, reloads, malfunctions and remedies, etc.
    It was stressed that there is no "right" method for some of these skills but many were chosen for the best blend of efficiency and effectiveness. Alternatives were also explained. The suggestion was for us to try these methods as instructed to formulate a good objective with which we could compare other methods.

    After a lunch of gourmet hotdogs, chips and cookies (and my usual extra large Starbucks Doubleshot) we headed to the range.

    Started slow with drawing in steps to some slow shots and received fine tuning and suggestions on individual basis. Then we sped up and began servicing target areas with multiple shots and mixing up the called target areas. Then, (and I knew it was coming) MOVING. Moving off the line of attack, drawing and servicing the called area. Then snap cap malfunction clearing while MOVING and reengaging target. Reloading from slidelock while MOVING.
    MOVING, shooting, MOVING wile reducing malfunction, shooting, MOVING wile reloading, shooting, MOVING while scanning for further threats. Of course by scanning I mean SEEING what you need to see.
    Wow. Simple to read but anyone who does this whole exercise really well while even remotely treating that target as a real threat in their mind has put in the practice. And practice I shall...

    Again, great job everyone, and thanks for coming out! Now pass the word along to those you think would benefit from this type of instruction and send them or bring them back with you to one of the fall classes!
     
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