BassCliff
Professional
Hey Howdy Hey!
I had the pleasure of attending another Advanced Defensive Skills Clinic at Fletcher Arms Lake Country. There was not a lot of motion at this session but we did multiple drills with multiple targets and low-light scenarios with our flashlights or WMLs. It's kinda fun to shoot in the dark. There were exactly 12 students in the class tonight so we each started off with our own lane.
We were working downrange beyond the booths. The first drill was a warm-up Bill Drill. We ran it twice. It was timed but we were not told our times. I guess the instructors just wanted to measure any improvements between runs. We each had our own B-27 IMZ silhouette.
This is my target in the middle. I got all but one hit inside the upper thoracic IMZ (Immobilize Zone).
OK, let's take a closer look. The first run has the marks. The second run had the flyer, high and left, but the other five hits were quite centered near the white dot in the IMZ. The instructor gave me kudos for my smoothness and accuracy.
For the next drill we split into two lines for the El Presedente, a 180° pivot, two hits center mass in all three targets, reload, two more hits center mass in three targets.
We each ran this drill twice.
It was timed as well but we didn't get our times. Hmm, I will ask the instructors, John and Ashley, next time I see them.
Next up was a box drill, two center mass in the left, then the right, followed by a single head shot in right, then left. We ran this drill twice too.
Then the session really got fun. We practiced several ways to hold our flashlight in a defensive situation, FBI Technique (up high with the off hand), Neck Index Technique (tucked into the neck with the off hand), and the Harries Technique (off hand behind the strong hand).
I know there are other techniques (Temple Index, Rogers 'Surefire' Technique, etc) that we did not go into. We had enough on our plate.
After several drills using the different flashlight techniques, firing strong hand only on the silhouettes, we progressed on to a "shoot/no shoot" scenario. The targets would flip, we would deploy our lights to identify, we would verbalize at the targets, and put rounds on targets where necessary.
Four students at a time would fire at the different pairs, some targets with bystanders and other no-shoot representations, then we would move down the line to the next pair of targets. This was fun, lots of yelling and shooting, just like a western.
Yeah, I guess we kind of made a mess.
We took a look at all the targets after this exercise and noticed that somebody shot the bystander and the character without a weapon showing. Oops. It wasn't me, honest.
We had an excellent debrief session with lots of good questions and answers, learned more about flashlights and how to use them. I also realized that my 300 lumen flashlight starts petering out at longer distances. A few of the students had 1000 lumen flashlights and WMLs and, boy, could you really tell the difference. I'll be shopping for a new O-Light or Surefire very soon, at least 600 lumens.
This was an excellently fun class tonight. Several of us have taken several of these classes together now and we are really starting to enjoy each other's company. Let's do this again sometime, shall we?
Oh, I forgot to mention. I did NOT use any WWB tonight, only Federal and Fiocchi. I had no malfunctions at all out of 150+ rounds.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
I had the pleasure of attending another Advanced Defensive Skills Clinic at Fletcher Arms Lake Country. There was not a lot of motion at this session but we did multiple drills with multiple targets and low-light scenarios with our flashlights or WMLs. It's kinda fun to shoot in the dark. There were exactly 12 students in the class tonight so we each started off with our own lane.
We were working downrange beyond the booths. The first drill was a warm-up Bill Drill. We ran it twice. It was timed but we were not told our times. I guess the instructors just wanted to measure any improvements between runs. We each had our own B-27 IMZ silhouette.
This is my target in the middle. I got all but one hit inside the upper thoracic IMZ (Immobilize Zone).
OK, let's take a closer look. The first run has the marks. The second run had the flyer, high and left, but the other five hits were quite centered near the white dot in the IMZ. The instructor gave me kudos for my smoothness and accuracy.
For the next drill we split into two lines for the El Presedente, a 180° pivot, two hits center mass in all three targets, reload, two more hits center mass in three targets.
We each ran this drill twice.
It was timed as well but we didn't get our times. Hmm, I will ask the instructors, John and Ashley, next time I see them.
Next up was a box drill, two center mass in the left, then the right, followed by a single head shot in right, then left. We ran this drill twice too.
Then the session really got fun. We practiced several ways to hold our flashlight in a defensive situation, FBI Technique (up high with the off hand), Neck Index Technique (tucked into the neck with the off hand), and the Harries Technique (off hand behind the strong hand).
I know there are other techniques (Temple Index, Rogers 'Surefire' Technique, etc) that we did not go into. We had enough on our plate.
After several drills using the different flashlight techniques, firing strong hand only on the silhouettes, we progressed on to a "shoot/no shoot" scenario. The targets would flip, we would deploy our lights to identify, we would verbalize at the targets, and put rounds on targets where necessary.
Four students at a time would fire at the different pairs, some targets with bystanders and other no-shoot representations, then we would move down the line to the next pair of targets. This was fun, lots of yelling and shooting, just like a western.
Yeah, I guess we kind of made a mess.
We took a look at all the targets after this exercise and noticed that somebody shot the bystander and the character without a weapon showing. Oops. It wasn't me, honest.
We had an excellent debrief session with lots of good questions and answers, learned more about flashlights and how to use them. I also realized that my 300 lumen flashlight starts petering out at longer distances. A few of the students had 1000 lumen flashlights and WMLs and, boy, could you really tell the difference. I'll be shopping for a new O-Light or Surefire very soon, at least 600 lumens.
This was an excellently fun class tonight. Several of us have taken several of these classes together now and we are really starting to enjoy each other's company. Let's do this again sometime, shall we?
Oh, I forgot to mention. I did NOT use any WWB tonight, only Federal and Fiocchi. I had no malfunctions at all out of 150+ rounds.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff