This morning I sat down to reply to a post on one of the forums I frequent. Error this, error that... it's starting to become par for the course on this particular forum. Which makes me wonder, if a forum can't operate as a forum, does anything else matter? They can have all the SMEs in the world, all the great members in the world, but if they can't get one nerd on staff to keep this shit from happening, is immaterial who is hiding behind the wall of 502 errors (or whatever they are). If we take away Stephen Hawking's little voicebox thing, does it matter that what goes on inside that head is some of the most brilliant shit ever?
As usual, I find correlation to shooting and the shooting sports, and training for same, in the strangest places. What this got me thinking about was, if an instructor can't make YOU better, at what YOU want to get better at, and with the resources that YOU have available, does anything else matter? Do all the scalps, or all the trophies, in the world amount to a hill of beans for YOU?
I have been pretty vocal about the fact that resume matters little if the person can't teach.
I was wrong about that.
What matters is if they can make you better or not. They may be the best teacher in the world but if they don't get through to you then it's irrelevant. and that may be their fault, and their inability to adjust to the student(s) in front of them, it may be the venue is wrong, and it may be that you simply shut down and don't listen. I'll give you examples of all three.
For the first example, I give you... virtually every single organized, group, open-enrollment shooting class I've ever taken. Yup. As a student, there is nothing I hate more in a class than hearing "alright, hurry up, we have a lot of shit to get to!" We do? Is this a department qual course? Or a Red Cross CPR course? Or an NRA First Steps course? No? Then what the hell do we "have to get to"? If the student body as a whole isn't getting something, why do we have to move on at all? I understand that there will always be ~10-20% of the class that can't be helped (too dumb, too new, too... whatever) and 10-20% of the class that are above what's being offered, but if that middle 60-80% aren't getting whatever it is you're teaching, STOP. Stay on that topic. We don't "have to" get to shit. I'm not suggesting that every student needs to perfect the drill, but if they aren't grasping the basic concept(s) that the drill is designed to teach, stay on that drill and try harder to make them get it. I can go home and work on the drill, I need you to teach me the concept(s).
For the second example, I give you the un-vetted open-enrollment course. Everyone thinks they are "advanced". Everyone wants to do "advanced" stuff. Nobody wants to take "intro" or "level 1" courses because they are beyond that. Newsflash, you may be the world's best marksman, but if you've never taken a single open-enrollment course before, you belong in the intro course. My company, Goal-Oriented Training, doesn't even offer a level 1 course... we offer a 0.5 course. It's below a level 1. and it's what most people with no prior training really need. Stop signing up for shit that's above your head. As a fellow student, I don't give a damn what the coordinator or the instructor told you, stop it. You're not ready. They just want asses in seats generating dollars. and you're just going to fuck it up for everyone else. Even if you're a selfish prick and don't care about everyone else, I'm here to tell you that you're also only fucking yourself. A proper foundation in the fundamentals is what you need, and if you skip ahead you are going to be fighting bad habits a lot longer than if you get the fundamentals down pat first. How do I know? Because I did it wrong with the handgun. Big time. and I still fight with trying to go faster than my marksmanship skills can support.
For the last example, I'll give you a specific person, who shall remain nameless. He shot next to me in a carbine course one time. He was a cop. He had survived a gunfight, and may have even shot the badguy, because the badguy's round hit his watch. His watch saved his life, not his training, not even his vest, and certainly not his "sheepdog mindset" or whatever else you think means you don't have to train. The instructor could not tell this guy SHIT. At one point we walk downrange to look at the targets and the instructor says "what kinda choke you got in that thing?" To which a few bystanders lightly chuckle as they start to get the joke. Watch-guy just stares at him, confused. So the instructor repeats himself, louder this time. Now more people are starting to get the joke, and more and louder laughter ensues. Watch guy still ain't gettin' it. Which makes it even funnier. That guy spent three days and probably $1k doing nothing but wasting his time and money. He just flat wasn't going to listen. you know, because he's a badass gunfighter.
There's these things called "fantasy camps". They have them for baseball, for rock & roll... I'm sure they have them for golf and other shit too. From what I can tell, having never been to one, the point of these "camps" isn't to get better at baseball or guitar-playing, but it's to get a chance to go and pal around with the celebrities, doing what the celebrities got famous for doing. Starting to sound at all familiar?
There are dozens of factors involved in what makes for a good student:teacher relationship. More than I could possibly go into here. What you first need to get over is this "I don't learn that way" bullshit idea. You were lied to. You just didn't pay attention and hence sucked at Algebra. Oh well. But if you believe it to be true, then it does matter, and if you're actually looking to get better, and not looking for Sheepdog Fantasy Camp, then you need to find an instructor that can reach you, regardless of resume. The whole point should be whether or not they make you a better shooter, for your application, within your personal real-life limits. Nothing else.
My one caveat here is this... if you're training for something that is unlikely to ever happen to you (like a gunfight), you are going to have to take the instructor's word for it. However, I would also submit that if that's your primary focus, and provided that you are capable of classifying as Sharpshooter (or maybe even Marksman) in IDPA, you have the shooting and gun-handling skills necessary to prevail in a gunfight, and you ought to be looking at shoot-house classes, grappling/ECQC classes, knife classes, etc.and in that case I'd want someone that has actually used their skills to survive those encounters (not used their watch, and not used their ninja skills to survive a shoot house and a range). And you need to understand that the best way to survive a gunfight is not to have one, but that's a topic for another blog post, at another time.
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