John Valentine/ Deeds of Arms Defensive Pistol Combatives, June 18 2022, Wallis, TX

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Newbie
Class Title: Defensive Pistol Combatives

Instructor: John Valentine

Location/Date: Wallis-Orchard Gun Range, Wallis, TX, June 18,2022. Wallis Orchard is an outdoor gun range that has nearly a dozen bays for action shooting and hosts weekly USPSA/Steel Challenge matches. I’ve been coming here for about 4-5 years now and Doc is spending good money to expand the facilities. There are restrooms near the range entrance and porta-potties deeper in. Fast food is over 15 minutes away- I recommend bringing all the water and food you’ll need. The class was set up by Craig of Templar Defense, who also attended as student, but helped set up the target stands and occasionally worked the line for safety. Of note: weather was exceptionally hot and humid. The majority of the day was well in excess of 95 degrees, with high Texas humidity, very little if any wind or cloud coverage. One individual voluntarily dropped early due to heat issues. I am grateful to Alex of the Suited Shootist for passing out electrolyte mix like candy, Craig for offering water, John for keeping a very sharp eye on his students, and our two LEOs who acted as medical responders to the aforementioned individual.

Equipment Details: Weather appropriate clothing. Eye and electronic ear protection. My firearm was my carry gun and holster- Tenicor Zero belt, Phlster Floodlight with DCC clips, Staccato c2 duo with dot and light. Reloads were done from my pocket. I brought 6 magazines total for convenience, but 3 would have been acceptable. No equipment concerns to speak of, other than the obvious fact that pocket reloads are terrible when compared to belt mag pouches. In the retention shooting portion of the class, malfunctions were common to see, mainly due to poor thumb/pectoral form. Ported Barrels are not allowed in this class. The class was very squared away in terms of sun-resistant clothing, hats, and staying hydrated, other than one fool who wore a tank top and shorts.

Personal Experience: Just a civilian training junkie with no background to speak of. I’ve been shooting USPSA from concealment for about a year now, have approximately 200 hours of documented training over about three years, and have been action shooting at 2-gun style matches for a few years now. Previous instructors include Jedlinski, Herron, Green Ops, Pressburg, a couple TacCons, and Cliff Byerly. I’ve been training BJJ and Muay Thai for about a year now, and weightlift/run/grapple about 5x a week all in all, which I believe was a factor in both understanding the class material and surviving the heat.



Of note: I did not receive anything in exchange for this AAR, however I did not pay tuition for my slot. A last minute cancellation led to me getting my slot for free, big thanks to Craig for putting the slot out there.

Preparation Drills: I’ve neglected dry fire in the weeks prior to class but spun up as much as I could in the last 24 hours, when I learned I’d gotten the slot.

Class Demographics: 13 students total. I did not interact with everyone, but we had the usual 3-4 training junkies (myself, Craig of Templar Defense, Alex from The Suited Shootist), a couple of very squared away LEOs from I believe DHS or Border Patrol who also had the advanced medical training and equipment to act as our medical response, and 5-6 neophyte shooters. A couple of times, the new shooters had poor safety practices, such as unholstering while not on the line or otherwise fiddling with guns, which was shut down politely but firmly by John, Craig, or Alex. There were no safety violations egregious enough to kick a student, thankfully. Class equipment was all over the place- the training junkies preferred appendix carried holsters/PHLSTER enigmas, the cops brought their duty belts, and the new shooters either had open retention belts for the most part, or one or two 4:00 IWBs. Guns ran the gamut. Anything from deep carried Shields, glocks with dots, one or two XDs, a couple P365x’s, no wheelguns. Optics/Irons were about half and half. A significant plurality of the class had BJJ experience of some kind.

Training Day 1 TD1) Morning: I showed up early along with Alex and Craig. We worked with John to set up the range, and class began promptly at 8:30. John Valentine is an excellent teacher: he began with a short lecture on what we would be working on and why, the considerations of in-fight weapon access and how distance plays a role, concepts of working to a position of superiority to earn your draw, and multiple ready positions, such as default cover or “fencing” with your arms while maintaining neutral/unthreatening body language in the age of smartphones and security cameras, as well as a short primer on use of deadly force in self defense. After that, he gave the standard rules of safety, and identified medical responders, transporters, 911 callers, and backups. We began the class with several iterations of dry fire on our targets, focusing on grip pressure and draw, drawing to low ready, raising the gun up to our sights, then went on to live fire. It became immediately apparent to me that John is incredibly well versed on best practices and is a student as well as a teacher- a lot of his instruction on gun handling comes right out of Scott Jedlinski, Michael Green, and Tim Herron’s playbooks, his instruction on retention and hand-to-hand combatives will be familiar to anyone who’s taken a shivworks or Hill Country Combatives class, and his discussions on legal/moral best practices are from Massad Ayoob and Andrew Branca. This is not to say that John regurgitates other instructors- rather I believe his strength as an instructor came from contextualizing the concepts I’ve learned in other classes, and distilling them in the short one day class we had. This would be the perfect class for anyone who’s taken their CHL/LTC class and wants a “table of contents” as to where they can go from there- multiple students at the end of the day pointed out the breadth of information that was presented to them, and looking back now, I feel that I wouldn’t have wasted the first few years of my carry life floundering around had I had this class back then. We continued on additional drills- drawing from the fence, sight deviation drills, a couple of drills at 25 yards to see the difference between your carry and training ammo, and plenty of reloads, including some considerations on why you would and wouldn’t carry a reload. Water breaks were adequate and we stopped for lunch at noon.

TD1 Afternoon: The latter half of the day was pure retention shooting, with instruction on earning your draw, busting some internet guru myths on how to act in a weapons-based grapple, how a gun grab induces malfunctions, and lots of drills from retention positions. Although I have practiced retention shooting on occasion, getting proper instruction on indexing your gun and body for a well aimed shot made me rethink how I could define accuracy on a body-aimed shot. All in all, retention shooting is something that’s often talked about but rarely practiced and I was grateful for the experience, and more grateful that I haven’t bought into the concept of the comped carry gun.

Class Debrief: After our last drill, we didn’t have much time remaining- due to the breadth of instruction given, the necessary shade/water breaks, and over a dozen students, the debrief happened quickly, with John telling the class where to go from here in terms of training, as well as asking us what did and didn’t go well. Whether a training junkie, a cop, or a neophyte, everyone came away from the class with things to consider, things to work on, and fresh outlooks. In my opinion, this was ammo and time well spent. It may have been a bit much for someone with no formal instruction past their LTC, but one of the gems of the class, in my opinion, is the sheer number of topics it illuminates that the average gun owner will never consider.

After Class: Nothing of note. Went home, cleaned equipment and self, reviewed notes, typed up the AAR. I sent this AAR to Craig and Alex to look over- they had nothing else to add.
 
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