hogarth
Member
I posted the following AAR on a local (MD) forum to which I belong. Enjoy!
Hi all,
This is the 4th after action report for classes I am taking this year, and this is the one I never thought I would write. I say this only because, whereas the other classes I have taken--or will soon take--I signed up for months in advance, this is a class I signed up for only 5 days before. Though I am not in any way affiliated with CCJA, in the interest of full disclosure I must reveal that I was invited to take the class by Tom Perroni himself, and he comped my registration fee. Due to family obligations, I was unable to attend Handgun 2 the following day, though I would have loved to do so.
Never having made the drive to Fredericksburg, VA, before, and never fully trusting Google to accurately get me from Timonium to Hunt Valley, let alone anywhere else, I awoke at the ungodly hour of 4:45 AM, ate some breakfast, packed my lunch and lots of water and Gatorade in a cooler (guns, ammo, cleaning/repair kit, booboo and blow out kits, and other class accouterments were already in the car), punched destination address into my phone, and off I went, wheels up at 5:22 AM.
I arrived at the facility by 7:15. I made a call home to talk to my now awake kids, and zipped by a gas station to top off with some cheap Virginia gasoline (f*ck you Owe'Malley!).
CCJA HQ is located in an industrial park/complex off Rte 17. I walked into the building around 7:30, and was buzzed in the second door by an attractive receptionist who had me wait a minute. Tom Perroni met me in the lobby, introduced himself, and led me through a series of doors to the classroom we would be using for the first half of the class. He noted the locations of the break room with available coffee, water, soft drinks and snacks, and then had me sit in the classroom to await the rest of the students (I tend to be one of those annoyingly early people, in case you didn't quite get that). He set up a video on the computer to run during this time. The video was the Blackwater intro to Handgun video (let me pause here and mention that Tom told me his company is currently merging with Academi, formerly Blackwater. I don't know any details of this merge...I suppose you can contact Tom with any questions about this). The video covered the 7 fundamentals of shooting, safety, etc, with live "actors" doing all the demonstrations. It was a decent, basic video, and a good way to get kinda psyched up for the class, I thought.
Slowly, everyone else filtered in. There were 6 students (I think 5 were from MD), and 4 LE types joined us at 9 AM (more on them later). Three of the LE were women, and then, of the 6 civvies, there was a husband and wife couple, myself, and 3 other guys. We got started in the classroom around 8:15.
Once we had all filled out some information pages and the usual waivers from liability, we started by introducing ourselves, where we were from, shooting backgrounds, and personal goals for the class. I think, in terms of formal classes, I was the most experienced, though there may have been students who have actually been shooting longer than me. One student had already taken Carbine 1 and 2 with CCJA. Tom then introduced himself. He went through his resume, which is pretty substantial by any real measure. He holds an assortment of certifications and instructor credentials, and has also been "downrange" at the pointy end of the spear. He also had his primary co-teacher, Sean, introduce himself and go through his own resume. In neither case was either instructor bragging; they were merely establishing their bona fides for the rest of us, because the first thing Tom said after this was, "We will teach you ONE way, not THE way." In other words, while there may be many ways to skin a cat, what they would be teaching us was good enough to keep them alive in the hot zone.
The classroom portion of the class consisted of two main segments. The first was a powerpoint presentation (presented on the big screen, and paper copies of the slides were given to each of us, which was handy for people who, unlike me, didn't bring a notebook to class). The powerpoint first outlined the learning objectives for the class (great teaching tool! I say this as a teacher.), and then covered topics including, but not limited to: the 4 safety rules, the 3 types of cartridge malfunctions, combat mindset, the color-codes of awareness, and Boyd's OODA Loop. The second portion of the classroom segment included going over range commands, positions (low-ready, etc.), malfunction clearing, identifying your dominant eye, etc.
During this segment, after checking and re-checking that our firearms were all clear, we started working on grip, stance, sight alignment, sight picture, trigger control, breathing, and follow-through. We put on our holsters and practiced a four step draw-stroke and also practiced tactical and combat/speed reloads. We also practiced the general steps of fixing the 3 most common malfunctions. We did this all dry in the classroom.
I want to pause here and say how much I like this format. Those who have read my AAR on the Center Mass Carbine I course may recall how much I emphasized liking this classroom portion. Why? Well, especially for a beginner level class, I would much rather be in a climate-controlled environment where we can work out some kinks without standing under the hot sun, or in the sleet, etc., getting tired out and miserable while waiting for the inevitable pauses that come with having new shooters in a class.
Contd....
Hi all,
This is the 4th after action report for classes I am taking this year, and this is the one I never thought I would write. I say this only because, whereas the other classes I have taken--or will soon take--I signed up for months in advance, this is a class I signed up for only 5 days before. Though I am not in any way affiliated with CCJA, in the interest of full disclosure I must reveal that I was invited to take the class by Tom Perroni himself, and he comped my registration fee. Due to family obligations, I was unable to attend Handgun 2 the following day, though I would have loved to do so.
Never having made the drive to Fredericksburg, VA, before, and never fully trusting Google to accurately get me from Timonium to Hunt Valley, let alone anywhere else, I awoke at the ungodly hour of 4:45 AM, ate some breakfast, packed my lunch and lots of water and Gatorade in a cooler (guns, ammo, cleaning/repair kit, booboo and blow out kits, and other class accouterments were already in the car), punched destination address into my phone, and off I went, wheels up at 5:22 AM.
I arrived at the facility by 7:15. I made a call home to talk to my now awake kids, and zipped by a gas station to top off with some cheap Virginia gasoline (f*ck you Owe'Malley!).
CCJA HQ is located in an industrial park/complex off Rte 17. I walked into the building around 7:30, and was buzzed in the second door by an attractive receptionist who had me wait a minute. Tom Perroni met me in the lobby, introduced himself, and led me through a series of doors to the classroom we would be using for the first half of the class. He noted the locations of the break room with available coffee, water, soft drinks and snacks, and then had me sit in the classroom to await the rest of the students (I tend to be one of those annoyingly early people, in case you didn't quite get that). He set up a video on the computer to run during this time. The video was the Blackwater intro to Handgun video (let me pause here and mention that Tom told me his company is currently merging with Academi, formerly Blackwater. I don't know any details of this merge...I suppose you can contact Tom with any questions about this). The video covered the 7 fundamentals of shooting, safety, etc, with live "actors" doing all the demonstrations. It was a decent, basic video, and a good way to get kinda psyched up for the class, I thought.
Slowly, everyone else filtered in. There were 6 students (I think 5 were from MD), and 4 LE types joined us at 9 AM (more on them later). Three of the LE were women, and then, of the 6 civvies, there was a husband and wife couple, myself, and 3 other guys. We got started in the classroom around 8:15.
Once we had all filled out some information pages and the usual waivers from liability, we started by introducing ourselves, where we were from, shooting backgrounds, and personal goals for the class. I think, in terms of formal classes, I was the most experienced, though there may have been students who have actually been shooting longer than me. One student had already taken Carbine 1 and 2 with CCJA. Tom then introduced himself. He went through his resume, which is pretty substantial by any real measure. He holds an assortment of certifications and instructor credentials, and has also been "downrange" at the pointy end of the spear. He also had his primary co-teacher, Sean, introduce himself and go through his own resume. In neither case was either instructor bragging; they were merely establishing their bona fides for the rest of us, because the first thing Tom said after this was, "We will teach you ONE way, not THE way." In other words, while there may be many ways to skin a cat, what they would be teaching us was good enough to keep them alive in the hot zone.
The classroom portion of the class consisted of two main segments. The first was a powerpoint presentation (presented on the big screen, and paper copies of the slides were given to each of us, which was handy for people who, unlike me, didn't bring a notebook to class). The powerpoint first outlined the learning objectives for the class (great teaching tool! I say this as a teacher.), and then covered topics including, but not limited to: the 4 safety rules, the 3 types of cartridge malfunctions, combat mindset, the color-codes of awareness, and Boyd's OODA Loop. The second portion of the classroom segment included going over range commands, positions (low-ready, etc.), malfunction clearing, identifying your dominant eye, etc.
During this segment, after checking and re-checking that our firearms were all clear, we started working on grip, stance, sight alignment, sight picture, trigger control, breathing, and follow-through. We put on our holsters and practiced a four step draw-stroke and also practiced tactical and combat/speed reloads. We also practiced the general steps of fixing the 3 most common malfunctions. We did this all dry in the classroom.
I want to pause here and say how much I like this format. Those who have read my AAR on the Center Mass Carbine I course may recall how much I emphasized liking this classroom portion. Why? Well, especially for a beginner level class, I would much rather be in a climate-controlled environment where we can work out some kinks without standing under the hot sun, or in the sleet, etc., getting tired out and miserable while waiting for the inevitable pauses that come with having new shooters in a class.
Contd....