Teaching

You're ready to instruct.  But are you?  Here's a reality check based on my 20-plus years of teaching courses involving an introduction to firearms, CCW, IDPA, and carbine skill sets.

Do you have something to teach?  Having five years in the Marines, ten years as a cop or years of bulls-eye competition doesn't mean you have the material for your target audience.  Perhaps you've developed your own tactical skill set.  Great, you’re not the first to do so.  Good luck.

I've set up both targets the students are going to use and marked off the firing line.

But you’ve done the homework to explore your tactical doctrine, right?  You can do your reload in the darkness with your eyes closed, right?  Does your draw stroke work when seated at a table?  Do your reloads run smoothly and efficiently for left or right-handed shooters?  Have you played it out allowing your fictional targets to make a move for every move you make, and your concepts remain valid?

Are your tactics civilian-based or police/military based?  Are they appropriate for solo individuals or just for teams?  If your ideas depend on stunning everyone in a room with a flash bang, you may want to think it over.

Finally, are you able to communicate your ideas on several different media?  We don’t all learn the same way.  We lecture, but students may also need diagrams and demonstrations.

So, you are ready.  You've got a range, a date, and students are signing up and sending you deposits.  Congratulations!  Your course is going to happen.

Here’s the advice.

Make sure you have speed dial for the local EMS or medical help.  Who else do you need to notify immediately if there is an injury?  Is a first aid kit available and accessible in under 30 seconds?

Get the firing line set up in advance.  Put the targets in place before the students show up.  Mark out the distances you plan to shoot from.  Directions of travel should be marked by cones at the start and stop locations.  Have spare targets, bases, and supports available on site. 

Do you have enough help for the shooting portion of the class?  Are you walking each student through a drill while the others wait?  This can create problems.  The size of the class is a significant factor in this concern.  The students are there to shoot, not watch everyone else shoot.

At least 20% of your students will not listen to your drill instructions.  All of your students will have some level of difficulty in performing the drills to your expectations.  Expect this.  If they could do what you are teaching, they wouldn’t be in your class.

Build your skill sets on each other.  If your goal is to reload with an injured hand, make sure they know how to reload with both hands first.  Group like concepts together.  Pistol shooting stances, Weaver, Chapman, and Isosceles, benefit from grouping, unlike the diverse tactical reload, urban prone, and weak hand shooting.

Some groups flow into each other beneficially.  I teach rifle jam clearance, followed by transition from rifle to handgun.  There is a logical flow to this.  Engagement by tactical order fits well with pieing corners, but pieing corners and jam clearance need a full stop between them. 

Expect that some students will not have all the equipment you specified.  The participants were told to bring a tactical-type flashlight on a recent low-light fun shoot.  A number showed up with a simple flashlight the Energizer Bunny would use to check the fuse box.  Have the resources to help them overcome these deficits.  Very often, you can share tools among students.

Expect at least 10% will show up with new equipment and not fully understand the operating controls.  The proprietary nature of these systems may make it difficult, if not impossible, to assist them.

Some students will be unable to accomplish a specific goal.  Transitioning to weak-side barricade shooting is an example.  Some students will not pick up that skill in the allotted time.  Do you have an alternative path for them?  Or do you ignore that student’s problem?

I always ask students to try, but to respect their own physical limits.  After going prone several students wants to sit out sitting and kneeling.  Fine with me.  I'm here to help students not hurt them.

Just a couple more points.  Be flexible in your program and skip over some aspects of your training due to time and stamina considerations.  Students often take longer than you anticipated and simply run out of gas towards the end of class.  Better to take a break or end the class than to promote poor gun handling.

Stay upbeat, encourage and congratulate your students as they accomplish skill sets.  You have no idea what internal battles they are struggling with.  Encourage them to work on skill sets and to enjoy their milestones.

In the end, you should also have gained insights about teaching your concepts.  You've polished your teaching skills and seen problems and limitations of which you were unaware.  I had a shooter whose green laser stopped working below 40 F.  It was an icy cold, snowy day, around 20F.  Neither of us expected that problem.

I typically tell students what I want and then demo the skill

Lastly, you're helping train people with skills that can help keep them alive.  Good job!  Be proud of that.