Training Company Designed Exclusively for Women

Brad Trittipo

Regular Member
This new company popped up in my bookface feed and their description caught my attention. I teach general firearms safety classes and classes designed to get you up to speed to take other more "advanced" training. I am ask on a regular basis about woman only classes and I have offered woman only classes, but no one signs up. When I offer "regular" classes they are attended by 80-90% women. I teach the same class regardless of who attends and I explain that when I describe the class. I spoke with Pat Rogers about woman's only classes one time and he stated there was no reason to teach a woman's only class outside of a group or organization and that there was no reason to teach the class any different as gunfights don't care what your gender is.

The woman I have taught and shot next too make some of the best students and once they overcome the bad information they have been fed at the gun store or by family members they excel in classes. A student's gender should have no bearing on the end result of safe firearms handling, confidence in their abilities and knowledge.

I find this company's concept interesting and some of the company's statements concerning. I don't know them personally and have made my observations based on the information they have provided on Facebook, YouTube and their website.

From their post:

Hello Ladies!
I own a firearms training company designed exclusively for WOMEN. My mission is to solve the problem of realism and deliver on that promise. This company was built for you ladies, not for everyone else, but for you! My calling is to make a difference. A chance to make things better for those we seek to serve. I want to raise your expectations, engaging in your fears and desires, helping you to see further to achieve more. I see a better alternative to firearms training and I want to invite you to come with me. At the heart of our company is a simple truth: every guest is “people like us”.

If you carry in public, is that a 360 degree environment? Imagine someone learning to drive; yet they never turn the wheel just practicing driving straight. We offer a 360 degree range experience providing training on, in and around buildings and vehicles where women will experience an armed assault.

Have you attended a firearms training course juggling the prerequisites and requirements to attend? We provide the suppressed firearms (no hearing protection required), all equipment, ammunition, lunch and refreshments throughout the day. Everything is built into the course cost, no extra fees. This is a come as you are course…no requirements, not one!

Have you ever attended firearms training and did not feel you received an adequate amount of personal attention due to the class size? Our courses are limited to four guests supported by two instructors. We feel a responsibility to maximize the personal attention you paid for. The majority of the training will be conducted in a one on one setting away from the other guests. There are no tests, and no competitions. We exclusively provide individual personalized training to build your confidence and capability with a firearm. We want to make sure no woman is left out!

Have you ever attended firearms training requiring sunscreen, a rain jacket and insect repellent, etc.? Our standard is providing you with a comfortable environment to learn. We removed those training distractions. All of our 11 ranges are covered except one. We have a climate controlled office with clean male and female bathrooms that you will be working from throughout the day.

Have you ever received firearms instruction from someone who has never been shot at or had to shoot back? Training with us you will receive first-hand experience from someone who has survived multiple armed engagements in combat and how they survived it using the methodologies we teach.

Can paper targets provide full fundamental training value? You will be shooting life size, fully clothed target mannequins holding inert firearms as well ordinary objects to teach target discrimination. The mannequins are critical to train on a 360 degree range. You will find yourself moving and shooting through the target mannequins, as blind spots open, considering shot paths around unarmed target mannequins.

Do you carry a firearm at night? Are you concerned about walking into your home during periods of darkness alone? We have a blacked out shoot house to give you that experience. The firearms have a gun light and laser for these conditions. We increase the environmental realism by incorporating audio incitements. You will learn to consider both sight and sound, as you should, in an armed encounter.

This training is a journey, and it is not for everyone. We are challenging the firearms training industry that was designed by men for men with an exclusive training program engineered for women. Our intent is not to change your mind, it is to open it. We are more than glad to apologize if our training is not for you. In such cases we’ll gladly provide the contact information for our competitors that can better meet your needs because we care about those we serve.

God bless America,
Ashley
Major (R) US Army Psychological Operations
tacticalcourse.com

This is a response from a question made in the post:

Kathy Jackson
Other than military training and experience in that field, what civilian-based firearms training do the instructors bring to the table?


Ashley Worlock
Kathy Jackson That is a great question Kathy! Is a racecar driver qualified to teach someone how to drive on public roads? Is a fighter pilot qualified to teach someone how to obtain their private pilots license? Is a Navy SEAL qualified to teach someone how to SCUBA-dive? Can military experience cross over to civilian applications?

We advocate that training like Military or Law Enforcement is counter-intuitive for civilians. We came to that conclusion after being shot at and having to shoot back. Yet the firearms training industry replicates how Military and Law Enforcement train. Have you ever witnessed a civilian firearms instructor place a student in front of an armed paper target advising them to consider draw stroke, stance, grip, breath and trigger control? Essentially they are recreating the insanity of a 19th century duel between two people pointing firearms at each other telling a student to stand upright and motionless in such a situation. That offensive posture builds neural pathways (muscle memory) to react standing motionless and upright if someone points a firearm at you. Yet doing that, standing upright and motionless, makes you the perfect target to be shot by the threat.

Why do Military and Law Enforcement train like that? They volunteered to move to the sound of gunfire, they get paid to do it, but most importantly they have assets that mitigate the risk. Those risk mitigations are: body armor, armed backup, extra ammunition, medical backup and qualified immunity. If you do not have those assets why on earth would you train yourself to be the perfect target for someone to shoot…standing upright and motionless?

In the Special Forces community, where Travis and I spent our careers, we traveled all over the world to include Afghanistan wearing both civilian cloths and indigenous Afghan clothing while conducting military operations. Not always did we have body armor or armored vehicles and on occasion inside cities Medivac was not possible. Essentially we operated in a civilian like capacity in a non-permissive environment. Those experiences, granted military operations, was not akin to rolling across a battlefield with the protection a tank would provide.

Those combat experiences led us to present this question for civilians. What is your primary objective in an armed altercation? To shoot the threat or NOT be shot? We teach you how to reduce your risk of being shot, increasing your odds of surviving the armed altercation. We teach you to move and shoot simultaneously away from the threat, using the firearm to break contact, to screen your evacuation route, prioritizing the psychological capabilities of a firearm over the physical effects.

I love your question because your question is at the heart of the curriculum we teach….don’t train like military or law enforcement! That is offensive training, we teach the exact opposite, i.e. survival. When journalist from the NRA Woman shot our course they published an article titled; Paradigm Shift, Firearms Training for Women. I’ll attach the article offering an objective analysis on what we are teaching and why it is so different than what is being taught to the American citizen. Thank you again for that sincere and justifiable question.
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Kathy Jackson
Okay, thank you.
Lots of what you say is spot on, and I'm super interested to understand where you might have learned it if not in the military and also not from civilian trainers.
Also, I like to see trainers who have had some exposure to the rules of the road for armed civilians (such as Ayoob's MAG-20 or Branca's LOSD), along with some understanding of the current state of the art on the self defense side of the market.

Ashley Worlock
Kathy Jackson The techniques, tactics and procedures we teach is not proprietary. Rather a combination of cherry picked armed fundamentals from Department of Defense schools focused on singleton operations as well as “Other Government Agency” training courses we had the privilege to attend.
In the military we were trained to plan operations using the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP). That planning tool is designed to develop ways and means to accomplish defensive or offensive objectives. Facts and assumptions, constraints and limitations etc.

Generating a new concept isn’t always recreating the wheel, or making a better wheel. It is a result of combining two or more parts from other viable solutions to fit a specific application. Developing the curriculum for ATAC we started by analyzing the firearm training industry to identify training gaps and oversight. We used the MDMP to guide the curriculum development after we determined our end state was to train American women without the assets of body armor, armed backup, extra ammunition, or medical backup.

I’m not familiar with Ayoob’s MAG-20 or Branca’s LOSD. Self-defense…very similar to understanding that training women with firearms should be very different than training men. We find that same truth exists in how to train a woman for unarmed self-defense compared to a man. Without going to deep into, when a women is experiencing a sexual assault she has the upper hand in such situations. She needs to only leverage her psychology against a man driven by sexual compulsions to set the conditions to decisively end the assault. I received this information after attending another government agencies training that places women in precarious situations in other countries.

Kathy, I hope to meet you someday. I would love to have a more in-depth conversation with you over coffee. Thank you for offering me the opportunity to describe in more detail how ATAC was developed.
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Later Ashely remembers that her husband attended one of Ayoob's classes and has an autographed book from him.
Below are some photos from their post with some unique firearms handling.
 

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Brad Trittipo

Regular Member
A question was asked in reference to the unique grip used in the photos and the reply is below.
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Ashley Worlock

Thank you for the cool, calm, collective question. We included these pictures to start a conversation on our different approach to firearms training. If someone is achieving point of aim / point of impact, why should their grip be addressed as wrong? Is the point for grip to achieve a specific look, or to achieve a specific effect?

If my hands are not at 10 and 2 on a steering wheel can I effectively operate a motor vehicle? Do you grip a 44 magnum with the same force that you use on a .22 with subsonic ammo? The one size fits all concept or cookie cutter solution for grip discriminates against women with disabilities suffering arthritis to an amputee. Creating an environment that every woman must look the same is a concept used by the Military and Law Enforcement to efficiently, NOT effectively, train people in mass.

We don’t train women in mass, only four guests per course. We offer individualized training to work with women that contend a myriad of limitations. I realize this challenges the conventional approach. I am not trying to change anyone’s mind, rather to question why is the industry preaching uniformity? Thank you for the question

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I understand not following the masses if the information is flawed, but when techniques such as gripping a pistol are time-tested and verified to be safe and efficient, they may not need to be changed.
 

Flight567

Newbie
Now... I've known a couple a green berets in my time. Literally none of them would say "I was in the green beret" nor would they recommend those room clearing procedures.

It also sounds like they're advocating for suppressive fire in a civilian setting?

It seems like they're using suppressed. 22s because the methods they advocate would fall apart under any level of recoil.

The image of the target they show in one of their videos gave CLEAR signs of recoil anticipation. Why would you ever show that in a promotional video... unless it's a before picture...

There's some good stuff actually. Some of the concepts are good in my opinion, though severely misguided and managed by some people who have convinced themselves that they know what they're doing when they don't.

Sent from my SM-N981U using Tapatalk
 

Barry B

Regular Member
But, to be fair, I have seen recent video of the Active Self Protection guys on a similar 3D range doing shoot/don’t shoot drills. That seemed to make perfect sense. So some of their content seems very reasonable. Some of it seems off-putting…. Web page is helpful.
 
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