Teaching Personal Protection

Keep it simple and real, say two leading ranges

By Peter B. Mathiesen
From The Range Report (Fall 2007 Issue)

With civilian personal protection occupying the majority of most range training programs, The Range Report wanted to compare how two prestigious training facilities manage their programs. Here's what we found.

Valhalla Shooting Club

Resting at 10,000 feet near Montrose, Colo., the Valhalla Shooting Club at Elk Mountain Resort offers live-fire, personal protection training that attracts visitors from all over the world, including those who have never fired a gun before in their lives.

Shooters discharge live, lead-free frangible ammunition while experiencing reality-based, self-protection scenarios in 360-degree rooms—enough to raise the heart rate of the most seasoned shooters. Although this facility has highly experienced government agencies as regular clients, it teaches identical techniques to civilians and markets the club's uniqueness to appeal to those resort patrons interested in self-protection.

Motivating a defensive shooter requires a show of complete safety and confidence, without any sense of arrogance. However, as Rob Pincus, director of operations and head of instructor training, said, "The most important aspect in creating a protective shooter is to keep it simple...real simple."

Some instructors project their personal shooting preferences during the first contact with a client. Pincus rejects that approach, observing that most new shooters are not interested (at least not initially) in whether a gun is a single action or double action, or if the Special Forces use it.

Pincus says the most effective way to teach shooting is to start with the basics, quickly and efficiently. The client needs to understand how to point the gun in a safe direction and to keep his or her finger off the trigger until ready to fire. After the client is comfortable with handling the gun, and the instructors are in total control of the process, it's time to move to shooting holes in paper.

"Extend, touch and shoot. The goal is to engage the student in a shooting environment where he or she can be highly successful. We don't worry about foot placement or developing fine-tuning habits until later. Our role is to teach them to fire a marked 10-inch area from six to 12 feet. This is where ‘real' self-protection happens, and at these distances the student will be successful," said Pincus.

One common mistake that Pincus says some instructors make is to fire a demonstration series first. "It can really shake up a shooter when an experienced instructor fires off a clip with an impressive grouping," he observed. "Never embarrass a client. Chances are very good that the client will not have the skills to even come close to the instructor's pattern, and then the follow-up experience will be frustrating."

If there's one aspect to customer service that Pincus believes in, it's accommodation.

"If we have a new client who has taken the time to show up at our door, we find a way to accommodate him or her, and it's rare that we can't," he said.

Gunsite

Founded in 1976, this gun club is 20 miles north of Prescott, Ariz., covers 2,000 acres and employs 75 full-and part-time instructors. There are few scenarios this full-service facility cannot replicate for the most demanding shooter, whether military, law enforcement or civilian.

"All instruction in our operation has evolved from years of clear training doctrine, and it continues to evolve," said Ed Head, operations manager and training director. "We do not demonstrate the latest and greatest methods. Instead we focus on what works in the real world."

What concerns Head is that many instructors throw in demos of entertainment that do not add to the student's body of knowledge.

"We train within a carefully proven written process. All of our instructors are relaying and teaching the same fundamentals," said Head.

The goal is for the student to emotionally "buy into" the instructor's concepts while forming a vested stake in learning the prescribed technique. All training at Gunsite is built on a progression of skills that requires the previous lessons to be incorporated.

"This process keeps the student from making mistakes and builds on a foundation of skills that improves confidence and knowledge. It is complete when the client can create a reflexive act that can be efficiently achieved under the most stressful circumstances," Head said.

One of the classes the instructor team is especially proud of was a threeday class made up of young women in their twenties. None had ever handled a pistol before. When the class was complete, their combined newfound skills surpassed that of many military and law enforcement students who were fighting to break old habits.

A Shared Vision

Although Gunsite and Valhalla differ in teaching styles, they clearly agree that the goal is to instill confidence while giving consistent, clear instruction, without arrogance or instructor ego.

Thousands of shooters have been trained in these clubs and developed effective and safe shooting habits that have made them valuable assets to the shooting community.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

SIGHT-IN ON 'THE RANGE REPORT' . . . Products and services that target the shooting range market have a good chance of being noticed in NSSF's "The Range Report." It's the exclusive quarterly magazine of NSSF's range division the National Association of Shooting Ranges that attracts a readership of nearly 30,000 shooters and reaches key decision-makers from more than 7,500 ranges across the country. Every issue includes a classified section that is also posted to NASR's Web site and, of course, ads from industry advertisers. Sight-in on "The Range Report" at www.rangeinfo.org to get an advertiser media kit, read past issues online or qualify for a free subscription.