Lumenselter
Newbie
“Super” Dave Harrington has been a name that I have heard throughout the firearms industry the past several years. I first saw him shoot steel plates while walking on a treadmill. At first, I wasn’t sure what to think of the clip until I watched it again and was thoroughly impressed at the skill being showcased in the somewhat grainy video. From that point on, I knew that I wanted to train with him. This class, Integrated Pistol/Rifle, lived up to those expectations and more.
We started class with a safety and medical brief. He went over how the class will run and what he expects from you- a lot of communication and feedback. If you aren’t constantly providing feedback, then you aren’t learning and the instructor cannot teach you as effectively. Saying “I don’t know” in response to why you sucked so bad on that last drill wasn’t going to cut it. I have never analyzed myself so much in a class before. I was analyzing every single round that I fired and every reload that I performed (or at least I was on day 1.) This turned out to be very useful, especially since I used to analyze myself but not to the fullest extent.
The concept of the class is integrated weapons work- relying on the handgun in support of the rifle. One key concept that was pushed every time was that when we weren’t shooting, we are to maintain positive control of the rifle- gripping the pistol grip with your strong hand in a manner conducive to be ready to fire while the gun is hanging off of your chest. In a way to best summarize this course, day 1 was a lot of pistol work and day 2 was transition, transition, transition. I have never transitioned so much to my pistol before but it wasn’t laborious or monotonous. Dave taught it in such a way that I saw value in each and every drill. In what way did I envision the drills? I am an engineer (math and science kind) that thoroughly enjoys attending as many training classes that I can so I pictured each drill as it would relate to concealed carry of a handgun. The addition of the rifle was, at times, difficult to imagine such a scenario, but all of the mental scenarios (that I envisioned at the time) were legitimate and with reason.
Day 1 started with us shooting 10 rounds (I think) at 25 yards cold, a distance I have become well accustomed to but still refining through practice. We then moved to 40 yards on what seemed to be a 1/3 silhouette or similar. I was able to make the single required hit in the first round fired. I am not sure if this stoked my ego to an excessive amount or if I was holding myself very, very accountable to maintain that level of accuracy; regardless of the reaction, my shooting went downhill from there.
After, we found our natural point of aim with our pistol, something that I was fairly familiar with but it seemed new with how Dave described it. One thing that I found out about Dave is that his mini-lectures between shooting are full of a lot of knowledge. To some this can seem overwhelming. I found that I was quite compatible with his delivery method. I went from taking notes in a notepad like I normally do to writing down notes on my phone. I actually found that this method was much faster and more efficient so that I could better absorb the information. The majority of the instructors that I have trained under teach in a linear or exponential type fashion, in that one thing seamlessly transitions and builds upon the next. Dave’s style I would call a Sine wave but one that has its amplitude ever changing and its frequency fluctuating on a moment’s notice. This can be considered chaos and without structure. I found it to be quite effective by tying in blocks of instruction together. He gets you to the end game but a style that can be tricky; I personally welcomed the change of pace.
The best lesson that I learned from Dave was the S Dave Decimal System:
*Identify the task
*Disassemble the task
*Assemble the task
*Perform the task
This is essentially saying “Figure out what you did right or wrong and adjust accordingly, if necessary.” This came in handy on two notable drills. The first was at 10 yards with the dot drill (dot size less than a fist size if memory serves). The first dot I shot well and then everything went to shit. I was effectively trying to force myself to shoot better, which wasn’t doing anything. Afterwards, I performed the S Dave Decimal System in my head, to determine what went wrong. I came to the realization that my mind was way too busy. I was minding the people around me, the target, the sun... myself. It reminded me of the clip in the film The Last Samurai where the concept of “no mind” came into effect. I recognized this after sucking for the majority of the day and finally gave a hard focus to my front sight and only my front sight. Why I sucked on day 2 with my pistol, I still am not sure. Apparently my rear sight drifted to a degree that I was unable to notice but Dave was. That may have had a slight effect on my inability to make hits at 15 yards on the same silhouette that was shot at 40 yards on the morning of day 1. The addition of the shot timer only added to my level of suckage for that drill.
As luck would have it, the intense August Tennessee heat forced us back to the classroom for a 3+ hour discussion on topics ranging from the accuracy equation, the principals/fundamentals of marksmanship and shooting math, among other things. The torrential downpour that followed us into the classroom came at the perfect time, only to cease when we went back out onto the range.
Day 1 ended with the students performing an entire rifle magazine’s worth of transitions- shoot 1 on empty mag, transition to pistol, shoot 1, etc. That was a lot of transitions but a necessary amount since day 2 was all about transitions. I have never done so many transitions in my life in two days...and I liked it. Dave prefers a muzzle down orientation when doing most everything (reloads, moving, etc). Having only done muzzle up, orienting the rifle and pistol down felt very odd for me but I performed it as instructed. I was willing to give it a fair chance but felt myself naturally going to muzzle up, even when I tried not to. It was interesting to go muzzle down since I haven’t done it before, purely on the basis of trying new things. Dave also prefers that the pistol be topped off after firing any rounds in a transition. I performed all manners of reloads, including a tactical reload (retaining the partially spent magazine throughout the iteration) with my pistol and for some reason, it felt right during class when it felt odd in the past.
Back to the S Dave Decimal System for a moment. While shooting pistol only, I went to reload and grabbed my rifle mag only to throw it down and grab my pistol mag. I wasn’t sure what happened until I ran through it in my head, breaking it down as per Dave’s system and realized that I had never performed a pistol reload from my pistol/rifle taco pouch on my belt (only used kydex standalone pistol pouches on the belt in the past.) I had only performed rifle reloads. Thankfully this did not occur again, even during one long string of fire that incorporated lateral and forward movement as well as post haste transitions, a drill that exhausted every single mag I had on my person and forced me to lock my AR bolt to the rear for fear of a round cooking off. This made me treat the rifle as out of commission and perform the remainder of the drill with my pistol only.
Speaking of transitions (since I haven’t spoken enough about them), Dave showed 4 techniques for getting the rifle out of the way as you are transitioning to your pistol. I liked all of the methods, some of which were slow and some of which were very fast, efficient and/or aggressive. What was fast and aggressive but was neither efficient nor accurate was me devolving into slapping the hell out of my rifle and pistol triggers, without realizing it. My mind was focused too much on speed and my finger was flying off of the trigger, rather than maintaining contact throughout. Where that came from I have no idea other than not thinking. Dave pointed it out to me so that I could realize what I was doing- the importance of having a competent instructor that analyzes what you are doing.
This AAR may have seemed a bit all over the place but it actually followed Dave’s teaching style, from my point of view. It makes perfect, logical sense in my head so that’s what counts, right? I got a lot more out of this class than I thought I would. I may have sucked for the majority of it but I learned to refine techniques, troubleshoot issues and gained a great deal of knowledge. Seeing Dave shoot at the level that he is at is a sight that everyone should witness. And this was after he fired 6000+ rounds the week prior making his trigger finger a bit sore. I look forward to the next time I am able to attend a class taught by Super Dave Harrington. Learning about the Space Program in Chad was worth the price of admission.
We started class with a safety and medical brief. He went over how the class will run and what he expects from you- a lot of communication and feedback. If you aren’t constantly providing feedback, then you aren’t learning and the instructor cannot teach you as effectively. Saying “I don’t know” in response to why you sucked so bad on that last drill wasn’t going to cut it. I have never analyzed myself so much in a class before. I was analyzing every single round that I fired and every reload that I performed (or at least I was on day 1.) This turned out to be very useful, especially since I used to analyze myself but not to the fullest extent.
The concept of the class is integrated weapons work- relying on the handgun in support of the rifle. One key concept that was pushed every time was that when we weren’t shooting, we are to maintain positive control of the rifle- gripping the pistol grip with your strong hand in a manner conducive to be ready to fire while the gun is hanging off of your chest. In a way to best summarize this course, day 1 was a lot of pistol work and day 2 was transition, transition, transition. I have never transitioned so much to my pistol before but it wasn’t laborious or monotonous. Dave taught it in such a way that I saw value in each and every drill. In what way did I envision the drills? I am an engineer (math and science kind) that thoroughly enjoys attending as many training classes that I can so I pictured each drill as it would relate to concealed carry of a handgun. The addition of the rifle was, at times, difficult to imagine such a scenario, but all of the mental scenarios (that I envisioned at the time) were legitimate and with reason.
Day 1 started with us shooting 10 rounds (I think) at 25 yards cold, a distance I have become well accustomed to but still refining through practice. We then moved to 40 yards on what seemed to be a 1/3 silhouette or similar. I was able to make the single required hit in the first round fired. I am not sure if this stoked my ego to an excessive amount or if I was holding myself very, very accountable to maintain that level of accuracy; regardless of the reaction, my shooting went downhill from there.
After, we found our natural point of aim with our pistol, something that I was fairly familiar with but it seemed new with how Dave described it. One thing that I found out about Dave is that his mini-lectures between shooting are full of a lot of knowledge. To some this can seem overwhelming. I found that I was quite compatible with his delivery method. I went from taking notes in a notepad like I normally do to writing down notes on my phone. I actually found that this method was much faster and more efficient so that I could better absorb the information. The majority of the instructors that I have trained under teach in a linear or exponential type fashion, in that one thing seamlessly transitions and builds upon the next. Dave’s style I would call a Sine wave but one that has its amplitude ever changing and its frequency fluctuating on a moment’s notice. This can be considered chaos and without structure. I found it to be quite effective by tying in blocks of instruction together. He gets you to the end game but a style that can be tricky; I personally welcomed the change of pace.
The best lesson that I learned from Dave was the S Dave Decimal System:
*Identify the task
*Disassemble the task
*Assemble the task
*Perform the task
This is essentially saying “Figure out what you did right or wrong and adjust accordingly, if necessary.” This came in handy on two notable drills. The first was at 10 yards with the dot drill (dot size less than a fist size if memory serves). The first dot I shot well and then everything went to shit. I was effectively trying to force myself to shoot better, which wasn’t doing anything. Afterwards, I performed the S Dave Decimal System in my head, to determine what went wrong. I came to the realization that my mind was way too busy. I was minding the people around me, the target, the sun... myself. It reminded me of the clip in the film The Last Samurai where the concept of “no mind” came into effect. I recognized this after sucking for the majority of the day and finally gave a hard focus to my front sight and only my front sight. Why I sucked on day 2 with my pistol, I still am not sure. Apparently my rear sight drifted to a degree that I was unable to notice but Dave was. That may have had a slight effect on my inability to make hits at 15 yards on the same silhouette that was shot at 40 yards on the morning of day 1. The addition of the shot timer only added to my level of suckage for that drill.
As luck would have it, the intense August Tennessee heat forced us back to the classroom for a 3+ hour discussion on topics ranging from the accuracy equation, the principals/fundamentals of marksmanship and shooting math, among other things. The torrential downpour that followed us into the classroom came at the perfect time, only to cease when we went back out onto the range.
Day 1 ended with the students performing an entire rifle magazine’s worth of transitions- shoot 1 on empty mag, transition to pistol, shoot 1, etc. That was a lot of transitions but a necessary amount since day 2 was all about transitions. I have never done so many transitions in my life in two days...and I liked it. Dave prefers a muzzle down orientation when doing most everything (reloads, moving, etc). Having only done muzzle up, orienting the rifle and pistol down felt very odd for me but I performed it as instructed. I was willing to give it a fair chance but felt myself naturally going to muzzle up, even when I tried not to. It was interesting to go muzzle down since I haven’t done it before, purely on the basis of trying new things. Dave also prefers that the pistol be topped off after firing any rounds in a transition. I performed all manners of reloads, including a tactical reload (retaining the partially spent magazine throughout the iteration) with my pistol and for some reason, it felt right during class when it felt odd in the past.
Back to the S Dave Decimal System for a moment. While shooting pistol only, I went to reload and grabbed my rifle mag only to throw it down and grab my pistol mag. I wasn’t sure what happened until I ran through it in my head, breaking it down as per Dave’s system and realized that I had never performed a pistol reload from my pistol/rifle taco pouch on my belt (only used kydex standalone pistol pouches on the belt in the past.) I had only performed rifle reloads. Thankfully this did not occur again, even during one long string of fire that incorporated lateral and forward movement as well as post haste transitions, a drill that exhausted every single mag I had on my person and forced me to lock my AR bolt to the rear for fear of a round cooking off. This made me treat the rifle as out of commission and perform the remainder of the drill with my pistol only.
Speaking of transitions (since I haven’t spoken enough about them), Dave showed 4 techniques for getting the rifle out of the way as you are transitioning to your pistol. I liked all of the methods, some of which were slow and some of which were very fast, efficient and/or aggressive. What was fast and aggressive but was neither efficient nor accurate was me devolving into slapping the hell out of my rifle and pistol triggers, without realizing it. My mind was focused too much on speed and my finger was flying off of the trigger, rather than maintaining contact throughout. Where that came from I have no idea other than not thinking. Dave pointed it out to me so that I could realize what I was doing- the importance of having a competent instructor that analyzes what you are doing.
This AAR may have seemed a bit all over the place but it actually followed Dave’s teaching style, from my point of view. It makes perfect, logical sense in my head so that’s what counts, right? I got a lot more out of this class than I thought I would. I may have sucked for the majority of it but I learned to refine techniques, troubleshoot issues and gained a great deal of knowledge. Seeing Dave shoot at the level that he is at is a sight that everyone should witness. And this was after he fired 6000+ rounds the week prior making his trigger finger a bit sore. I look forward to the next time I am able to attend a class taught by Super Dave Harrington. Learning about the Space Program in Chad was worth the price of admission.