Central Virginia Tactical Fall & Winter Group Classes

[billprudden]

Oh, yes, sorry. One class for both.

Viva la difference!

Bill

 

[Drmsparks]

Oh, yes, sorry. One class for both.

Viva la difference!

Bill

In that case I'll bring both!

 

[billprudden]

Greetings -

1) Request for payment went out to the November 19th Close Combat guys - if you didn't get my email please bump me.

2) January 28th Carbine is now closed, though reserve list requests will certainly be honored as a lot can happen between now and then.

Thanks all

Bill

 

[querty]

9/9/11
November 19th: Concealed-Carry Handgun at Contact Distance. Delmarva Sporting Clays, 9am – 5pm.

This course is specifically designed for the worst-case scenario: He or they, the Threat, are well inside the “magical” 21 foot barrier and either actively engaging you or positioning themselves to do so soon. Your handgun is either on the belt or already in hand – the tactics really don’t change much. You will learn:

• Movement and spacing to frustrate their initial attack
• Immediate-action defenses and counter-strikes to reestablish reactive distance and get them damaged and off script
• Lethal and non-lethal retention techniques
• Contact-distance shooting techniques

While there will be some whole-group demonstration, most of the class will be taught in two squads of one instructor and four students each, with half of us “cold” in a slow-paced weapons-cold environment and the other half doing live-fire drills at increasing levels of intensity. We’ll rotate the two squads frequently to allow our brains to learn / practice / stress-fire / reflect over and over again – a kind of pedagogical OODA loop.

This class will be taught with a 180-degree safety rule in effect. It will be completely safe. It will, however, at times, feel really uncomfortable, such as when you fire your handgun with my hands fisted all over it denying it the ability to recoil and cycle normally, or when you engage paper targets with your muzzle only an inch or two off of them so that the exhaust gases shred the paper and tiny little hot powder chunkies bounce into your face, or when I, well, hit you, but it is worth the discomfort. Worth it because you will leave with a lot of good mental and muscle memory for how to win a fight involving a handgun that you became aware of way too late.

Equipment list is a handgun or two, a couple of mags, 150 rounds, and a holster (or not if you never).

...

Again, please post questions, calendar counter-offers, and any other thoughts, and feel free to contact us as well.

Bill Prudden

Ed Shell, Lead Instructor, Central Virginia Tactical

Any openings left?

 

[billprudden]

Hello Querty -

That class is closed, but shoot me an email reminding me to put you on the "remind" list when we set the spring calendar?

Bill

billprudden@hotmail.com

 

[querty]

Hello Querty -

That class is closed, but shoot me an email reminding me to put you on the "remind" list when we set the spring calendar?

Bill

billprudden@hotmail.com

Okay. Thanks for the quick reply.

 

[billprudden]

Update:


The November class will be at Peacemaker National Training Center https://peacemakernational.com/ instead of Delmarva Sporting Clays.

Further, the proposed December natural point of aim in low light class is cancelled (not enough students). The two January classes are a go, and I'll contact those students after Thanksgiving to begin organizing payment, determining when to hold the armorer's segment, etc.

Thanks all

Bill

 

[Deepwoods]

Review of "Concealed-Carry Handgun at Contact Distance"

Yesterday, 6 of us took Bill's Conceal Carry at Contact Distance class. I drove home a little sore, but pleased with the new skills to which I was exposed. This is a class I would recommend to others.

Page one of this thread has a class description, and at an end-of-class assessment, a few students admitted that even given the description, the experience suprised us. I think many of us thought shooting was the focus of the class.

Looking back, and having time to think, I believe the class description is accurate. However, while shooting was part of it and the experience of shooting with the muzzle tucked in by your chest is both eye-opening and headache causing, the focus was really that time between first contact (visual--the bad guy visual targets you and starts his approach, or physical--the bad guy hits you or grabs the gun) and first shot. "First Contact to First Shot" could be the course subtitle...

To that end, students learned some basic techniques with the ideas behind them, and then we drilled them as well as watched others drill. After lunch, one group drilled--same techniques, more practice--while the other group started the shooting drills.

The shooting drills were designed to get the shooter away from the static "gun range firing line" mentality. Safety was always maintained but we got to shake things up a little.

Bill and Marc were good sports to actively encourage us to escalate our level of force. I have a background in martial arts and feel comfortable hitting hard. But put me in a group of new people, with a teacher, and my "civilized" self is telling me "don't hit the older gentleman next to you." I think other students had a similar feeling (either not knowing what it is like to hit hard, or knowing and not feeling comfortable doing it).

This, I believe, was the hardest part of the course. But Bill made the point that your body won't register the technique as "good, and a good default" if it doesn't really feel that it works. This requires some physical feedback which itself requires a level of force beyond the "polite."

Also, thanks to Peacemaker National Training Center for use of their excellent facilities.

I look forward to a Part 2 and recommend this course to anyone whose handguns spend any appreciable time outside the gun safe.

 

[sbmike]

Yesterday, 6 of us took Bill's Conceal Carry at Contact Distance class. I drove home a little sore, but pleased with the new skills to which I was exposed. This is a class I would recommend to others.

Page one of this thread has a class description, and at an end-of-class assessment, a few students admitted that even given the description, the experience suprised us. I think many of us thought shooting was the focus of the class.

Looking back, and having time to think, I believe the class description is accurate. However, while shooting was part of it and the experience of shooting with the muzzle tucked in by your chest is both eye-opening and headache causing, the focus was really that time between first contact (visual--the bad guy visual targets you and starts his approach, or physical--the bad guy hits you or grabs the gun) and first shot. "First Contact to First Shot" could be the course subtitle...

To that end, students learned some basic techniques with the ideas behind them, and then we drilled them as well as watched others drill. After lunch, one group drilled--same techniques, more practice--while the other group started the shooting drills.

The shooting drills were designed to get the shooter away from the static "gun range firing line" mentality. Safety was always maintained but we got to shake things up a little.

Bill and Marc were good sports to actively encourage us to escalate our level of force. I have a background in martial arts and feel comfortable hitting hard. But put me in a group of new people, with a teacher, and my "civilized" self is telling me "don't hit the older gentleman next to you." I think other students had a similar feeling (either not knowing what it is like to hit hard, or knowing and not feeling comfortable doing it).

This, I believe, was the hardest part of the course. But Bill made the point that your body won't register the technique as "good, and a good default" if it doesn't really feel that it works. This requires some physical feedback which itself requires a level of force beyond the "polite."

Also, thanks to Peacemaker National Training Center for use of their excellent facilities.

I look forward to a Part 2 and recommend this course to anyone whose handguns spend any appreciable time outside the gun safe.

I too attended Bill's class and agree entirely with Deepwoods' comments. Being the old-timer in the group, it felt good to be able to take the same licks as the younger folks, but I must admit, I did wake up on Sunday moving considerably slower and with a few lumps and bruises that hadn't been there before the class. Nothing serious, and I looked at them as battle scar trophies for a great class. I never thought I'd spend $200 to have someone beat the crap out of me! That's an exaggeration, of course. Bill took the majority of hits, by far and he is definitely a game guy for taking the abuse that he did. A friend of mine ended up with slightly bruised ribs... self-inflicted when he "dove" in on an "attacker", buy we both agreed it was an eye-opening experience in which both of us came away with a much better sense of what to do in the event of a close-in attack. I too thought it was going to be more shooting-intensive but was very pleasantly surprised with the hand-to-hand portion. The shooting portion was very informative and very much a good learning experience. I had to change some good habits I learned for shooting at a static paper target and adapt to shooting at a target that may start out at target range but end up in my face. Thanks Bill and to Marc as well! and I hope we can hook up again for refresher training in the future. BTW, thanks also to the other five guys who took the class with me. It was a great group!

 

[E.Shell]

Thank you guys for attending, and especially thank you for taking the time to comment.

Bill and Marc do an excellent job with this.

FWIW, and I suspect Bill will comment shortly, but there definitely IS less emphasis on "range work" (firing your pistols) by design. The surrounding skills are what we really need, quite probably before the handgun itself.

 

[billprudden]

Hey all -

Yes, nothing like teaching a gang of grown men how to beat you up, and then insisting they spend the afternoon doing so!

I hope it left you able to visualize and execute responses to worst-case no-situational-awareness assaults, including, as you described above, "a shooting target that may end up at your face".

Thanks for the write-ups and the good thoughts at the debrief about the next iteration.

Bill

 

[photoshooter]

Excellent class. I was bruised and sore but I smiled all the way home. Where else are you going to practice that "Oh #&% moment"? Bill offered real life scenarios and expertly guided us through them. We practiced slow, then faster, then into full reality and improvised as Bill changed stuff on us. Very tricky guy.

A close quarter encounter never really follows a script. It's always unexpected. You can read about it and watch videos but experiencing it is totally different. I think this class is about as close as you can get to the real thing.

Thank you Bill, Marc & Ed. Looking forward to the next Central Virginia Tactical classes.
Photoshooter

 

[JeepDriver]

Any idea when you'll be taking payment for the Jan 28 class ?

 

[billprudden]

Morning -

Yes, "soon". I reached out to the guys in the first January class earlier this week, to re-check my head count and will then ask for their checks, and will do the same with your class starting next week.

Further, spent time yesterday with Ed and our calenders plotting out the spring, and hope to post those courses soon as well, including a wider variety of rifle work.

Bill

 

[JeepDriver]

Morning -

Yes, "soon". I reached out to the guys in the first January class earlier this week, to re-check my head count and will then ask for their checks, and will do the same with your class starting next week.

Further, spent time yesterday with Ed and our calenders plotting out the spring, and hope to post those courses soon as well, including a wider variety of rifle work.

Bill

I'll have the check waiting.

Looking forward to the spring class schedule. Hopefully some beginner long range classes will be included.

 

[normbal]

I'm in. Sunday works best for me.

 

[rrjones22002]

Great Training: Concealed-Carry Handgun at Contact Distance

Bill and Marc,
I just wanted to say thank you very much for the Concealed-Carry Handgun at Contact Distance training. I actually needed this course more than I thought I did. I would not call it a “pleasant surprise” but more like a “needed surprise”, i.e. I was exposed to get out of my comfort zone and be seriously physical, and smartly utilize my primordial instincts and energy. It was great! I applaud you for the “actual” hands-on aspect of teaching how to react in physically undesirable “S&!T “ happens situations. Like most of the guys I had a perceived notion that the class would be focused in more on shooting, but after you explained your rationale for presenting the course of the who, what, and why, the how made a lot of sense.

As a middle-aged guy it was an eye opener that my past experience and having the “old body that could have, but has not in a long time” probably won’t get the job done to be able to protect/defend myself successfully. Through this class I learned that I really have to improve my situational awareness with or without a concealed firearm or knife and more importantly to practice under conditions that are going to give me the best chance of making it to the next day.

Honestly two weeks later the center of my chest is still sore (lol) but a great reminder that I am glad it was you that put it there and not someone with bad intentions out in the street. As Mike Tyson once said “Everybody’s got a plan… until they get hit!” I have talked to my older children and my friends to really ‘get off the couch’ and take this outstanding course (or ones similar taught by Bill) the next time it is offered next Spring…I would highly encourage the avid readers of this forum to consider the same.

Richard

 

[photoshooter]

What is the show up time and place for the Jan. 21 & 28 classes? Meeting for breakfast?

 

[C45P312]

Just joined up and would like to see a Feb/Mar schedule since everything is Jan is too last minute for my wife lol

 

[E.Shell]

What is the show up time and place for the Jan. 21 & 28 classes? Meeting for breakfast?

Hate to miss breakfast...

If you're on the 21st roster, you KNOW where you're supposed to be...right?

For the following weekend, I'll get an e-mail out everyone in the next day or two to discuss gear requirements and when/where to meet.

Just joined up and would like to see a Feb/Mar schedule since everything is Jan is too last minute for my wife lol

Check your PMs shortly.