My Journey as a Personal Defense Instructor part 2

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About 6 months had passed since my ankle injury and though I had gotten through PT, it still felt very weak. What is worse, I felt weaker overall. That was the longest I had gone without training in over a decade and it was taking its toll on me emotionally, psychologically, and physically. I started to look for a gym where I could train that was near my new home, but I kept making up excuses not to go back. “That place is not as serious as what I’m used to”, I would say to myself, or “those trainers aren’t as experienced as my previous gym”. They were all rationalizations for not going back because I felt intimidated about being put in a situation where I couldn’t perform at the level that I once could. I knew I didn’t have the stamina, flexibility, or strength as the last time I trained, and my ego couldn’t take it. I’m not proud of this, but at least there was a positive consequence. It prompted me to look at new things to learn.

At this point I had been in martial arts for a dozen, or so, years and started to investigate other aspects of personal defense. It was at this juncture that I began reflecting on something that I realized I had taken for granted: firearms. On my father’s side of the family all the men were avid outdoorsmen and I had grown up fishing and hunting from a very young age. I was first taught about gun safety around the age of six and starting around age eight I knew my way around a firearm and would accompany my father and uncles on hunting trips whenever I would visit him. So, in my mind, as far as using a gun for personal defense, I assumed that since I knew how they function, that if I ever needed one, I would just have to point and shoot, right? But I realized that if someone asked me to tell them how to fight and my response was, “ball up your fist and throw it at your attacker’s head as hard as you can” that would be reductionism. As a long-time martial artist, I knew better. If I wouldn’t accept such a simplistic answer about empty-hand fighting, I shouldn’t accept one about fighting with a weapon.

I concluded that I didn’t know what I didn’t know about firearms and I set out to rectify that. Thus, began my exploration of firearms for personal defense. I started by whetting my appetite with some videos on the internet or on DVD, which confirmed my initial suspicion that employing a weapon for protection looked very different than what one does when hunting or plinking around for fun. I was giddy. The thought of knowing there is a lot to learn about something gives me a thrill, especially when it involves something I already had an affinity for. I immediately started to look for classes in my area and came upon Bill Desy from CCWUSA. I started training locally with him on a regular basis and also pursued different methods and instructors, which led me to a wide variety of trainers and schools over the next couple of years including, Front Sight, Haley Strategic (Travis Haley), TFTT (Max Joseph), ZERT (various SEALS and SF guys), and Active Shooter Defense School (Matt Klier), among others.

Tactical training became my new obsession. After a couple of years of training I began to assist Bill on his monthly courses and began my transition from student to instructor. While I had become very comfortable and adept in my newfound knowledge, what really gave me joy was helping others learn, overcome their fear, and become safer individuals. I knew that this is something that I wanted to do for the long term.

After about 5 years of consistent training and working as an assistant, I decided to take the plunge and get certified as an instructor. In 2013 I achieved instructor certification by the NRA in Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, Personal Protection in the Home, Personal Protection Outside the Home, as well as Range Safety Officer. I began to build my own clientele on top of assisting Bill with his monthly courses and private classes. I was off to the races and Alpha1 Tactical was born.

Throughout this period, invariably I would get questions from students about empty-hand self-defense. Being in California, getting a concealed weapons permit was almost impossible so many of my students took firearms lessons for protection in the home, but still felt vulnerable out on the street. Given my martial arts background, the most natural thing for me was to teach them what I knew: proper striking technique and some grappling skills. In essence, I would shoe-horn in some of those moves in my firearms classes in an effort to make my students better-rounded fighters. The intent was a good one, but it became evident very quickly that this was not a very realistic or effective approach.

Upon further reflection, I realized that it had taken me years to become a decent practitioner of martial arts even though I had trained several days a week for years, so how could I expect my students to become expert strikers or grapplers from practicing a few moves once or twice a month? It just wasn’t realistic.

While I had not gotten back to training martial arts during this period, I did at least go back to working out at a traditional gym in order to get my fitness in order so as not to feel so intimidated when going back to training. However, I never seemed to find my way back to the ring/mat. It took a moment of honest self-reflection to admit to myself that I was scared; I had never gotten over my insecurity about being rusty and possibly even getting my butt handed to me in a sparring session or being too out of shape to even finish a class. And it suddenly dawned on me that most—if not all—of my students probably felt similarly about training with me and about the prospect of being in a violent encounter. This epiphany prompted me to completely reevaluate everything I was doing. My students were overcoming their fears and their egos in order to train, and I wasn’t. They deserved better.

With the realization that teaching my students traditional martial arts almost as an afterthought and in sporadic fashion would not serve them in a violent encounter, I committed myself to find a method that would work for them in the real world. I decided to swallow my pride and do whatever was necessary to accomplish that goal no matter how uncomfortable I felt. My experience told me this much: I would look for a system(s) that would emphasize real-world, practical applications, and not be focused on fitness or sporting purposes.

After some scouring of the internet and speaking to colleagues the answer seemed almost too simple: Krav Maga. From the looks of it, this system was all business and I had heard a lot of good things about it for several years, so I decided to try it. Over the next year I attended several seminars with schools such as Krav Maga San Diego (Dana Kaplan) and Krav Maga Academy (Alex Trafton), among others. I was very impressed, and this system appeared to tick all of the boxes; Krav just focuses on winning the fight, not scoring points in a tournament or getting in the best shape of your life in order to be able to employ it.

Well, you’d think I would be shouting “eureka!” from the mountain tops, right? I didn’t know why I wasn’t as excited as I thought I should be at finding the answer. The theory was sound, the moves and applications were effective, and yet there was still something nagging at me, and I couldn’t explain it. Later, I would learn that subconsciously I knew that even this system was still too complex to implement immediately.

Even so, I did start implementing more Krav concepts in my classes and go over some techniques with my students when they inquired about empty-hand self-defense. The response from my students was definitely better than when I was trying to make them into MMA fighters. However, I still had that itch in the back of my brain that I couldn’t reach, so I kept looking at other systems, arts, methods. As it happens to a lot of people, I was seduced by a lot of sexy-looking techniques and cults of personality (we’ve all probably gone down a 2+ hour rabbit hole of YouTube videos when we see something that looks fancy). I had to smack myself out of it constantly. It was total serendipity how I finally found what I was looking for.

In the interim, my wife and I relocated to Phoenix, Arizona to expand our other business. I had to start building a clientele for my personal defense business from scratch since I didn’t know anyone in town. I built a crew of regulars slowly but surely, but I was still on my quest to find the missing link.

As I mentioned previously, I like to expose myself to different methods of teaching by attending courses and watching videos. I had subscribed to a site that features videos of several well-known firearms instructors teaching all kinds of different methods of fighting with firearms, it’s called Panteao (I’m still a subscriber to this day). One day, a new series popped up on the site and it was not firearms related. It was called Make Ready with Tony Blauer: The Spear System. I watched the entire video in one sitting and afterwards I was speechless. I paced around my house mumbling to myself like a crazy person. I could not believe what I had just seen.

Every question was answered, every sneaking suspicion confirmed and addressed by what I learned to be the SPEAR System. Let me be clear, I don’t mean that it addressed every possibility in the world for every possible case, just the one that matters: the initial attack, or ambush. In a setting where there is no ring, padded mats, or referees, the likelihood of being able to use a complex body movement as a reaction to an attack is highly unrealistic as can be seen (or not seen) in thousands of hours of closed circuit tv footage of real-life violent encounters. Meaning, we have over-complicated self-defense by making it about complex body movements (i.e. crisp punches, fancy kicks, unnatural poses, complicated series of techniques, etc.) that only mirror fights we see in the movies, not in the real world.

With SPEAR, you weaponize the inherent reflex in all of us—that which we refer to as, the flinch—as a way to thwart the initial attack. This is not something that needs to be trained, as it is biological and physiological; it need only be refined and does not require one to train six days a week or to be a world-class athlete. It’s already in me and you.

 By surviving the ambush and winning the time and space necessary, it is then possible to employ your Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu, Krav Maga, etc., or to get away. It is, in fact, the bridge to everything else. One need not drop every other art or system or deride them after learning the SPEAR concept. This system makes them all feasible. And for those who don’t have that martial arts background or inclination, the good news is that it will work for you just as well!

Since discovering Tony Blauer’s videos on Panteao I have gone down the rabbit hole with his videos on You Tube, interviews, his articles and now podcasts several times, and explored and vetted every aspect of what I’ve seen and heard. So much so, that I decided that I needed to be a part of it. I was fortunate to be able to attend a weekend-long seminar of Personal Defense Readiness™ where I earned certification as an instructor of these concepts and became an affiliate of Blauer Tactical Systems. I am also completing a year long mentoring program with directly with Tony.

I’m excited to complement my existing firearms courses with what I believe to be the best, most realistic self-defense system there is. As outlined above, the odds of being able to employ a complex body movement in self-defense are slim. Same goes for deploying a weapon (which is by definition a complex body movement), especially if you are the target of the attack. Consider this: if you carry a concealed pistol and you were ambushed, how likely are you to be able to perform every step of engaging the threat as you practice it on the square range (i.e. perfect stance, defeat your concealment garment, perfect grip from the holster, present your weapon, good sight alignment and sight picture, trigger press straight to the rear)? Now, in class I can train you to be able to get that whole process down to under a second. The bad news is that the bad guy already clocked you or stabbed you in half the time. I always tell my students, “I would rather you be good fighters and mediocre shooters, than world-class shooters and poor fighters as you might never have a chance to get to your gun”.

As you can see from this story, I have been involved in personal defense in once capacity or another for about 23 years, as of the writing of this article. It’s been a long and winding road to where I am today, but I believe I have arrived at a place where my organization and I can do the most good for the most people. By providing quality information and helping people develop important and intuitive skills that will aid them in being able to protect themselves effectively, I believe we are doing a service to society, and that I’m honoring all of those people who got me where I am today.

If you took this literary journey to learn about my background and development, I hope it was of value to you. But there is still a whole new journey ahead of me, and I hope that you take it with me. Stay safe.

Hermann Morris

To learn more about the SPEAR: Personal Defense Readiness courses we offer click here.

My Journey as a Personal Defense Instructor

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A few months ago, I sent an email to all my subscribers informing them that going forward I will be offering more self-defense courses to complement the firearms courses. In that same communication I also hinted about some exciting new developments surrounding that decision, and today I am happy to announce that I am now an affiliate of Blauer Tactical Systems as a certified instructor for S.P.E.A.R: Personal Defense Readiness™. After over two decades of martial arts training and being involved in personal defense, I can confidently state that this system, developed by Tony Blauer (front and center of the photo above) is the most practical, realistic, and effective one I’ve ever come across, without a shadow of a doubt.

I want to explain how I came to this conclusion and take the opportunity to tell you about my evolution as a martial artist and instructor. As a personal defense and firearms instructor, I get asked my credentials a lot—and rightfully so—given the sensitive nature of what we do. Providing people incorrect information and teaching them the wrong skills could get someone killed. As such, I am happy to go over some of the places where I’ve trained, under whom, and provide some insight into the things I’ve learned along the way. However, now 23 years into this it can get pretty long and convoluted given the amount of times I’ve moved and changed gyms, traveled to different schools and seminars etc. So, I decided to make a blog post detailing my experience that I can point people to and that can be vetted accordingly.

I really enjoyed putting this together and going down memory lane. Thanks to the internet it was possible to re-visit a lot of people and places that made a mark on me and made me into the instructor I am today. I will try to include as many links a possible to corroborate my story as well as to add texture. Everything I outline below is in correct chronological order, but I will not include dates as my middle-aged memory cannot be trusted on such things.  If you take the time to read this I hope it proves informative and instills some confidence in my skills and abilities as your instructor.

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I have a vague memory of taking Karate lessons around the age of seven. I don’t think I did it for very long as we moved to San Diego from Mexico City soon thereafter, but I always maintained an affinity for martial arts; it would be another ten years before I would dip a toe into that pool. During junior year in high school, I decided to check out a martial arts studio a few blocks from my school. It was called Twin Dragons and it was situated in an upscale location right next to the world-famous Comedy Store in La Jolla, California. It was run by Terry Sanchez, black belt in Karate, who taught many other disciplines. I was most interested in Kickboxing (probably due to a steady diet of Jean Claude Van Dam movies like Bloodsport and Kickboxer). This was my first real foray into combat sports. This is where I got my first punch in the face outside of a schoolyard fight. Terry was a soft-spoken, gentle soul and a good instructor. He got me started in proper striking technique and took his time helping me improve my form, and how to wrap my hands properly.

From what I recall, the studio closed. I remember being amazed that such a humble studio could stay afloat in such a high-end location, but in doing some research it appears that it relocated further away from downtown La Jolla. I’m not sure if there was a gap between opening the other location but I never trained at the new location. Check out Twin Dragons here (you gotta love the internet).

How I stumbled on my next gym is too hazy to even try to put together. All I can tell you is that I ended up at the American Training Center run by Jeff Gibson. Jeff is an International Karate Hall of Fame inductee and a heavyweight kickboxing champion. He was a big deal to us because, at the time, he was said to have beaten Dennis Alexio who is one of the best kick boxers of all time. There was some hubbub because supposedly the fight was not sanctioned, or it was technically an exhibition fight, I don’t remember the details, but for all we cared we were training under the world champ. Jeff and Dennis faced off again in 1997 and Alexio won decisively via knockout. I tried to find more information about the circumstances surrounding the first fight but could not find anything. All I know is that things started to go downhill after the loss. There was a lot of murmuring at the time and as a young kid surrounded by older hardcore fighters—some of them pros—I was too intimidated to pry. At some point we were notified that the gym would be closing, and from what I had gathered it appeared that Jeff had gotten in some legal trouble. Again, I was not privy to the facts or the details. The only thing I could find on Jeff was this.

My time at ATC was significant for a couple of reasons. That is where I met my first martial arts love: Muay Thai. In addition, the main instructor, Wayne was a beast. I wish I remembered his last name. He’s probably one of the most impressive strikers I’ve ever seen in person. His kicks would make a full-size 250 lb. heavy back swing as if it was filled with only air. Here is where I had my first taste of real, no frills training that was heavy on conditioning and sparring. While Jeff was a nice enough guy, I remember thinking that he was a bit of a douche. Wayne, on the other hand, was a very humble and dedicated coach.

If I remember correctly, there was a bit of a lapse after ATC closed since I was in college and focusing on my studies (and partying, I’m not going to lie). I do remember that I bought some gym equipment that I set up in the garage and would train alone a few days a week. However, I was still very eager to get back into training and having some direction as opposed to just being left to my own devices. Sparring was also missing from my life and I knew that there is very little to learn from fighting a bag that doesn’t punch back.

As luck would have it, a boxing gym opened just a few miles from my house. It was called The Boxing Club. Unlike the previous 2 gyms (and my garage), this facility was state of the art, and clean! Initially it had a couple of locations but would grow to have about 5 different gyms across San Diego County. The one I attended was the headquarters and the Muay Thai program was run by none other than two-time world champion Mel Menor. This would be the gym where I would train for the next several years.

It was a thrill training under Mel. As the head of the program, I didn’t get to train with him directly as much as I would have wanted, but his assistant trainers were very good. Here is Mel on NatGeo Sport Science (the first time I took a leg kick from him I couldn’t walk for three days). The main trainers were Lawson Baker, a professional heavyweight, and Caine Gayle, both very good coaches. It appears that Caine now runs the program at TBC. However, the trainer that most had an impact while I was there, came in a year or two after I first joined. His name is Fabrizio Bergamini and the man was a beast. He was probably the trainer that had the biggest impact on improving my skills and abilities. He was charismatic, patient and an all -around good guy, but he knew when to get serious and get to work. He made sure to be tough on his students who he knew were serious about Muay Thai while being the “cardio-kickboxing coach” to those who were beginners or were taking the class for fitness purposes only. About a year into attending his group classes I started doing private training sessions and sparring with him and Lawson, which took me to the next level. Here is Fabrizio fighting Yuki in Tokyo

As my ADD is wont to do, as soon as I start getting consistently good at something, I start to look for a new challenge (this has made me mercurial in some regards but has served me tremendously as an entrepreneur; not getting content or complacent drives me to keep innovating. But I digress). This was around the time that the UFC and Pride FC were blowing up. No longer was cage fighting a couple of brutes wailing on each other mercilessly without any rules, it had evolved into a sanctioned sport with rules that we now know as Mixed Martial Arts.

By then, the results were in: the most viable arts for combat sports were Muay Thai for striking, and Jiu Jitsu/wrestling for grappling. I remember watching the UFC in the mid-90s when it was a total shit-show and how Royce Gracie would beat everyone handily. At the time I didn’t even know what I was seeing. A decade later Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was all the rage and I knew that I had to try it.

The gym near my apartment unfortunately did not offer Jiu Jitsu or MMA, but most of the others in the chain did. As such, I would train boxing or Muay Thai at HQ two or three days out of the week and Jiu Jitsu/MMA another two or three days a week. I would only take Sundays off and I was in the best shape of my life at a lean and mean 175 pounds.

The Jiu Jitsu/MMA program at TBC when I started was run by Dean Lister, Abu Dhabi champ and UFC alum. He is a BJJ black belt under Fabio Santos. I mostly trained under Elias Gallegos, who was a brown belt and also had trained under Santos. He eventually received his black belt from Lister. Around a year into my training, Dean left the club and started his own school. Elias and a new trainer Johnny (Joao) Faria took over the program. Johnny is a Flavio Behring black belt who brought in a couple of other black belts, but I mostly trained under him. Elias then left to go work a Dean’s new place and he now has his own school in south San Diego.

I started training Jiu Jitsu for the sake of MMA so I only did no-gi for about a year. Johnny then advised me that to improve my form and technique I should start training with a gi as well. So I did. A couple years in I earned my blue belt from Johnny. He later went on to open a Gracie gym with Royler Gracie and now runs an Alliance gym in San Diego.

I had a good run of over 5 years at TBC and was hitting my stride. I had gotten out of a bad relationship and met the love of my life (now my wife) and things were looking great. It was then that I suffered a terrible ankle injury. I could not put any weight on it and had to do PT for 4 months. My doctor said it was the worst sprain he had ever seen without there actually being a broken bone (I don’t know what that meant). That put me out of commission for about six months, at the end of which my girlfriend and I bought a house in a different part of town and moved.

I dropped my membership at TBC since I was no longer near any of their gyms, and due to my work schedule the commute was near impossible (commuting from San Diego to LA at least 3 days a week!). What is worse, the six months off had put me in a very bad place. I was lazy, put on weight (I was eating the same amount without the benefit of burning 2k+ calories every day of training) and I felt weak and out of shape. This was a slow decline that would have a profound effect in the rest of my journey.

Click here for part 2

You can learn more about Personal Defense Readiness here.

Do You Train During the Summer?

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I’m writing this entry from beautiful Southeastern Idaho where it is almost 25 degrees cooler than Phoenix. My wife and I are spending some time with my in-laws and getting a break from the heat. While we’re lucky that the weather in Phoenix is nice for 9 months out of the year, the rough summers make it difficult to go out to the range and keep our shooting skills honed. Remember, defensive shooting is a perishable skill; one need only go out and shoot after a long hiatus to experience that first-hand. As such, it’s important that we find ways to brush up on our skills during the hot summer months so that we can get off on the right foot come fall.

I’ve always considered outdoor ranges to be the optimal setting for firearms training given that it affords students plenty of space, there isn’t as much noise, and it’s all around more comfortable. Again, given the climate in Phoenix, this is not an option for us during the summer so many shooting schools, like ours, go dormant during that time. Here are a couple of suggestions for staying sharp with your weapons.

Indoor Ranges

Those of you who know me well know that I’m not a big fan of indoor ranges. They are usually loud, the concussions get annoying quick, and in many cases have restrictions on what you can do (not shooting from the holster, rapid firing, etc.). But, they do have their place. Unlike outdoor ranges, indoor ranges can be inside the city and you can usually find one within a 10-15 minute drive. Also, if you want to focus on practicing basic marksmanship (stance, grip, sight alignment/picture, trigger press) one can do so just fine in an indoor range. If you are purposeful about your practice session in an indoor range you can get a lot of value out of it. What I mean by that is not just going through a couple of boxes of ammo willy-nilly. It’s important that you plan ahead of time what skill(s) you want to practice, get an appropriate target, determine what distance(s) you want to focus on, and once you’re there hold yourself accountable and track your performance. If you simply go out there to make holes on a piece of paper, you’ll not only be wasting your money, but you also risk developing some training scars.

Dry Practice

Dry practice is when you practice any aspect of shooting without any ammunition in the gun. This is the most overlooked way of training. I think it’s because it’s not as fun as live fire and it can sometimes feel silly (almost as if we’re playing Rambo or something like when we were kids). However, dry practice is an integral part of any training regimen. You would be surprised how much dry practice professional shooters do every day! The key is also to be purposeful and—most of all—safe. If you plan to use a real firearm it’s imperative that you double, triple check that the chamber is empty and not have any live ammo anywhere in the room where you’ll be practicing. There are a lot of tools that can help you safely and effectively do dry practice. I recommend getting snap caps or any other inert bullets to assist with training stoppages and reloads, as well as decreasing the likelihood of any damage to your hammer, firing pin, etc. There are also inert guns (SIRT, Blue Guns) and replica guns (airsoft) that can work well for this. The key is to also be purposeful and know exactly what you want to drill (drawing from concealment, trigger press, stoppages, reloads, etc.) and come up with a number of reps and sets for each skill just as if you were exercising at the gym. If you make dry practice part of your training, I guarantee that you’ll become a better shooter. And best of all, it’s free!

There are no excuses for letting your skills deteriorate; not laziness, nor the weather, or any other factor should keep you from being at your best. As a gun owner, you’ve taken it upon yourself to be responsible for your life, liberty, and property—that is not something to take lightly. I want to see you in September ready to rock and roll, and believe me, I’ll know if you’ve been slacking. In the meantime, stay safe, stay sharp, and always be ready.

 

Hermann

Training is useless

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I recently came across a video that raises some good questions surrounding the need (or lack thereof) for firearms training. The Yankee Marshall is a very popular YouTube personality who creates videos about firearms; some of them funny, some of them political, some of them informational. But, as he mentions in this video (click here to watch it), he’s persona non grata with a lot of other firearms YouTubers because of his critical stance on firearms trainers, and training in general. His contention is that training doesn’t really add a lot of value since shooting is very simple and intuitive. So, you might be saying, “as a trainer, of course you must disagree”. I do. But he does get some things right that I believe can shed some light on why we do things differently at Alpha1.

It’s important to understand YM’s point of view if we are going to analyze it fairly. In plenty of other occasions he’s made the case that it’s axiomatic that training is superfluous because there are many people, including old and frail folks, children, and others with little to no training who have successfully defended themselves or their property with firearms. To him, that shows that as long as you know how your firearm functions, the rest is very intuitive and straight-forward—point and shoot. In addition, in this video he maintains that there is plenty of information out there (books, videos, the internet) about how to shoot properly, and all one needs to do is go practice that on your own. So that being the case, why spend all that time and money to go train with some Rambo wannabe?

Yankee is making a few mistakes in his argument. First of all, the fact that some (maybe even a lot) of people with little training have used firearms successfully during violent encounters doesn’t mean that all people in all circumstances can do the same. Moreover, given that in all fights chaos reigns supreme, one can make the case that all of those people simply got lucky and that if any other variable had been different the outcome could have been an adverse one for the good guys. The goal is to increase your chances of survival by having as much control of the situation as possible and by minimizing the factor of chance. Learning how to do that from just reading and watching is highly unlikely.

He also fails to distinguish between training and practice. When we talk about training we refer to a very specific case: a formal and controlled setting under the supervision and guidance of an expert. Practice, on the other hand, is when one practices the skills learned during the formal training in a more casual setting. This could include a trip to the indoor range, or a plinking session with friends. But note that in such cases you’re at the mercy of your level of discipline and ability to self-diagnose. Moreover, public ranges often limit the types of drills you can practice (e.g. drawing from the holster, movement, multiple targets, etc.). This is a crucial distinction because skipping training and simply trying to recreate what one sees in a video can lead to what are known as training scars; the phenomenon that through doing the incorrect thing repeatedly, one develops bad habits that then need to be trained out. We understand this to be the case in everything, right? I mean, how many great performers in any field or sport are completely “self-trained”? And in those cases, you’re usually not dealing with life or death situations.

But YM does make a very important point. It’s the reps that ultimately matter. His contention is more with the “tacti-tard” (as he calls them) instructors who charge an arm and a leg for training, which makes it unlikely for most people to attend those types of classes multiple times a year (or in a lifetime), and therefore end up doing less shooting overall. Under those circumstances, I couldn’t agree with him more. I actually believe that those classes are better suited for instructors given that for them the costs are tax deductible and can use them as opportunities to learn different techniques and teaching styles. Now, if time and money are not an issue for you then training with the likes of Travis Haley and Chris Costa, or attending schools like Gun Site and Thunder Ranch several times a year would be ideal. Alas, most of us aren’t so lucky.

That is why I set up Alpha1 Tactical to be different. With very affordable formal classes that one can take several times a year and even cheaper practice sessions in between, developing your shooting and self-defense skills can be a constant, on-going process for almost anybody. I’ve taken plenty of those classes that YM criticizes, and I’ve found them very valuable as an instructor, but it is also clear to me that the time, cost, and planning involved make them unattainable for the average person. I’ve spent upwards of $2000 (tuition, ammo, hotel, gas, etc.) to attend those courses, which are typically around 3 days and in which you shoot about 1,500 rounds. For that amount you can take every formal class and practice session we offer in a year and still have enough money left over to shoot 3+ times as many rounds!

So, no—training isn’t useless and we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater because there are unqualified, or expensive, or unrealistic trainers out there. It is an important and valuable part of your commitment to protecting yourself, your family, and your property. Precisely because all of those things are priorities in your life, it is just as important to make sure that you identify a qualified trainer and that your personal defense education fits within your financial and time constraints.  I welcome your thoughts on this and I hope to see you on the range soon.

Hermann

Welcome

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I want to personally welcome you to the Alpha1 Tactical blog and take this opportunity to set some expectations. My goal for this medium of communication is to keep you updated of upcoming Alpha1 events and training sessions as well as occasionally give you my thoughts on issues related to firearms, the 2nd Amendment, personal defense, and the like. I will make every effort to ensure that every entry is of value.

I also want to take the opportunity to communicate to you my mission with Alpha1 as a whole. In short, I want to provide a setting for like-minded individuals to learn, develop, and expand their personal defense skills in a consistent manner without breaking the bank. In contrast with other trainers and schools who provide multiple day courses at a significant price, my model is to provide single-day classes at an affordable price. The reason for this is that from my decades in training and management I’ve come to learn that effective training is very difficult to achieve. The main reason for this is that most people think that all of the necessary learning occurs during the class itself when in reality for something to be absorbed there must be a significant amount of follow-up. As such, the structure of our classes is as follows:

Formal Classes

Whether you’re talking about concealed carry, home defense, practical rifle/pistol, or any other firearms training, our formal classes will provide the setting to learn both theory, practice, and mindset. Here, you’ll learn the practical context for the skills you’ll be learning as well as drill them on the range. These will be a combination of classroom learning and hands-on training on the firing line. Successful completion of these courses will earn you an official certificate. The cost for formal classes is a very reasonable $50. Anyone who completes a formal course can re-take it as many times as they want for half the price and can attend the live-fire portion only, if they wish.

Open Practice

This is where most of the long-term learning takes place. Here you will drill all of the skills you learned in the formal classes in a more casual setting. You’ll enjoy the benefits of a private range with a Range Safety Officer and the direction of an instructor. These events may focus on either pistol, rifle, or a combination of the two. As we add more formal classes covering shotgun, precision rifle, and other types of self-defense, those will be incorporated into the practice sessions as well. The cost of these sessions is only $25. For roughly $10 more than a traditional public range, you get a private range with the supervision and direction of an instructor and the use of high-quality paper and steel targets. You would be hard-pressed to find a better deal.

As a freedom-minded individual, the responsibility to protect life, liberty, and property is paramount. I look forward to working with you to develop and hone your skills in a safe, fun, and challenging environment. See you on the range.

Hermann