“You don’t have a shooting problem. You have a target problem.” - John Murphy quoting one of his mentors.
On May 24, 2015 I attended John Murphy’s Concealed Carry: Street Encounter Skills course. Among the various goals of the course the overall goal was to help the student become familiar with techniques to “live a fulfilling life with minimal drama”. This may seem counter to what most people think is the goal of most firearm related self-defense courses, but John’s goal was to teach a class that not only emphasized the gunfight but the skills necessary pre and post violent engagement. In other words to get out of the mindset of Mark Twain’s quote “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
The training facility is located off of a major highway in Culpeper, VA. It contained all the proper equipment: small indoor classroom with presentation electronics, a 15 person range, “target” vehicles, steel targets, tables, chairs, canopies for shade and portable “facilities”.
The course started with a classroom presentation. The presentation set the tone for the class. John’s goal was to set a context for the exercises and drills we would be doing later. The class topics included the components of the street encounter, the “animal” you vs the “human” you, encounter types, pre-incident encounters, tactics at each stage of the encounter, and post incident protocol. Each point was emphasized with video of actual real life encounters. These videos showed both successful implementation and horribly unsuccessful non-implementation of the lesson presented. John’s presentation style is both entertaining, sobering, and not for the thin skinned. If you want to fool yourself about the world we live in, John is not the instructor for you.
The classroom portion ended with Murphy’s Dicta. These are 8 axioms that should be followed to live the fulfilled, minimal drama life.
After a lunch break, we proceeded to the outside and shooting portion of the course. This included non-shooting drills on recognition, avoidance, and de-escalation. It was very interesting on seeing the various learning curves on students there. The epiphanies realized by both non-aggressive types and aggressive types were enlightening. Again, not every problem is a nail, but if it is a nail then address it accordingly.
For the nails, the shooting part began. Drills started with situational communication, sometimes the conversation led to guns, but sometimes it did not. For those that did, post engagement communication was also drilled including communications with LEO. Drills included drawing from concealment while moving left to right, forward, and continual movement. I very much appreciated these drills because I have always been a “stand your ground and burn the threat down” guy. Whether or not I change my protocol based on this training will be based on my future drilling. It is, however, paramount to be taught the proper techniques for a fair analysis. Another great aspect was the aerial drone John uses to document the course. An example of me doing a drill can be seen here:
.
Overall, the one day course was extremely well worth the $175.00 and 200 rounds. In addition, John’s passion for teaching and the well-being of his students was extremely evident. John’s love of freedom and our country seems to be his driving force. Because of this, I plan on giving John plenty of my money in the future.
Be Good. Stay Safe. Get Training.
-Scott “Jedi” Jedlinski
On May 24, 2015 I attended John Murphy’s Concealed Carry: Street Encounter Skills course. Among the various goals of the course the overall goal was to help the student become familiar with techniques to “live a fulfilling life with minimal drama”. This may seem counter to what most people think is the goal of most firearm related self-defense courses, but John’s goal was to teach a class that not only emphasized the gunfight but the skills necessary pre and post violent engagement. In other words to get out of the mindset of Mark Twain’s quote “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
The training facility is located off of a major highway in Culpeper, VA. It contained all the proper equipment: small indoor classroom with presentation electronics, a 15 person range, “target” vehicles, steel targets, tables, chairs, canopies for shade and portable “facilities”.
The course started with a classroom presentation. The presentation set the tone for the class. John’s goal was to set a context for the exercises and drills we would be doing later. The class topics included the components of the street encounter, the “animal” you vs the “human” you, encounter types, pre-incident encounters, tactics at each stage of the encounter, and post incident protocol. Each point was emphasized with video of actual real life encounters. These videos showed both successful implementation and horribly unsuccessful non-implementation of the lesson presented. John’s presentation style is both entertaining, sobering, and not for the thin skinned. If you want to fool yourself about the world we live in, John is not the instructor for you.
The classroom portion ended with Murphy’s Dicta. These are 8 axioms that should be followed to live the fulfilled, minimal drama life.
After a lunch break, we proceeded to the outside and shooting portion of the course. This included non-shooting drills on recognition, avoidance, and de-escalation. It was very interesting on seeing the various learning curves on students there. The epiphanies realized by both non-aggressive types and aggressive types were enlightening. Again, not every problem is a nail, but if it is a nail then address it accordingly.
For the nails, the shooting part began. Drills started with situational communication, sometimes the conversation led to guns, but sometimes it did not. For those that did, post engagement communication was also drilled including communications with LEO. Drills included drawing from concealment while moving left to right, forward, and continual movement. I very much appreciated these drills because I have always been a “stand your ground and burn the threat down” guy. Whether or not I change my protocol based on this training will be based on my future drilling. It is, however, paramount to be taught the proper techniques for a fair analysis. Another great aspect was the aerial drone John uses to document the course. An example of me doing a drill can be seen here:
Overall, the one day course was extremely well worth the $175.00 and 200 rounds. In addition, John’s passion for teaching and the well-being of his students was extremely evident. John’s love of freedom and our country seems to be his driving force. Because of this, I plan on giving John plenty of my money in the future.
Be Good. Stay Safe. Get Training.
-Scott “Jedi” Jedlinski