My agency hosted the above course twice in the same week. Both courses filled with 12 students, I attended both classes because my agency couldn't fill all of our spots due to staffing. Sometimes it sucks to me, buth this wasn't one of those times.
Both classes had hard mf'ers, 6 studs from 1st Special Forces Group and the rest were coppers over the two classes. Vogel starts each day with a short lecture, day one is a short blurb on safety and his philosophy on practice and what he does. He says he doesn't go a single day without touching his guns, this evident by how well he shoots and the fact that his right hand is literally molded into the shape of a Glock.
Day one shooting is skill based in the morning with a blocks on the draw, reloads and trigger manipulation. Afternoon of day one starts to add pressure with multiple layers in a string. For example adding a reload into a string of fire or specific manner in which to engage targets. This forces you to think and shoot, in talking to Vogel he stated that most of his live fire practice is with these types of drills, and skill based practice is mainly done dry fire. The Dice drill is always a crowd pleaser and a humbler at that same time.
Day two starts with a another small lecture on mental prep and goal setting. Then back to shooting. Since this was mainly a cop class, Vogel had us shoot the his home state police qual course for score, (yawn). Then to challenge us, we shot it again with half the time and double the distance per stage. His philosophy of accuracy done very quickly starts to melt some fellas on this one. Over the two classes only four people could pass under this time constraint.
Both days of the class have a ton of individual runs with the class watching. "Down time" is the bane of any course, but in thinking about this specific to Vogel's course, I'm pretty sure does it so that you are forced to perform with an audience watching. In both classes we didn't start to feel comfortable with each other until the second day and all of us had performance anxiety. By the end of day two you could watch guys relax AND run the drills at the pace they thought they could make hits. The group watching had less of an effect and I think this is by design since he is a competition shooter.
Vogel demo's EVERYTHING and will absolutely prove how bad you suck with a handgun. The dude is just flat fun to watch, he appears to effortlessly run the drills and then you are left wondering how the fuck he smoked your ass with better hits and half the time. Vogel gives exactly two fucks about a moving target.
The class showed me that my work on the draw has paid off. It also showed that neglecting my reloads in practice has left a gap. I fucked reloads up more than anything else and it showed. My dry fire regimen is pretty solid, it is consistent and it has a lot of variety. I need to do a better job of reviewing my performance sheets and ensuring that I hit everything I find important for a few minutes. Vogel said that when he dry fires if the skill he is working is solid, he may only do it a few times and then move on. If he isn't seeing the sights or the skill isn't coming together, he may do it 20, 50 or a million times until his hands bleed. He lets the practice dictate how long he spends on something, not a rigid schedule. My dry fire plans usually have a list of things that I want to hit and I move through them so that my scheduled time gets it all in. I am going to change that for a few months to what he does and see what happens.
Overall both classes were excellent. I picked up alot of stuff watching Vogel shoot and in side conversations. The class moves along at a decent pace, but be prepared to watch others shoot individual drills. Finally some hard dicks spitting flame and bringing the hate. Hopefully others that attended will post their thoughts and observations since I suck at these things.
Both classes had hard mf'ers, 6 studs from 1st Special Forces Group and the rest were coppers over the two classes. Vogel starts each day with a short lecture, day one is a short blurb on safety and his philosophy on practice and what he does. He says he doesn't go a single day without touching his guns, this evident by how well he shoots and the fact that his right hand is literally molded into the shape of a Glock.
Day one shooting is skill based in the morning with a blocks on the draw, reloads and trigger manipulation. Afternoon of day one starts to add pressure with multiple layers in a string. For example adding a reload into a string of fire or specific manner in which to engage targets. This forces you to think and shoot, in talking to Vogel he stated that most of his live fire practice is with these types of drills, and skill based practice is mainly done dry fire. The Dice drill is always a crowd pleaser and a humbler at that same time.
Day two starts with a another small lecture on mental prep and goal setting. Then back to shooting. Since this was mainly a cop class, Vogel had us shoot the his home state police qual course for score, (yawn). Then to challenge us, we shot it again with half the time and double the distance per stage. His philosophy of accuracy done very quickly starts to melt some fellas on this one. Over the two classes only four people could pass under this time constraint.
Both days of the class have a ton of individual runs with the class watching. "Down time" is the bane of any course, but in thinking about this specific to Vogel's course, I'm pretty sure does it so that you are forced to perform with an audience watching. In both classes we didn't start to feel comfortable with each other until the second day and all of us had performance anxiety. By the end of day two you could watch guys relax AND run the drills at the pace they thought they could make hits. The group watching had less of an effect and I think this is by design since he is a competition shooter.
Vogel demo's EVERYTHING and will absolutely prove how bad you suck with a handgun. The dude is just flat fun to watch, he appears to effortlessly run the drills and then you are left wondering how the fuck he smoked your ass with better hits and half the time. Vogel gives exactly two fucks about a moving target.
The class showed me that my work on the draw has paid off. It also showed that neglecting my reloads in practice has left a gap. I fucked reloads up more than anything else and it showed. My dry fire regimen is pretty solid, it is consistent and it has a lot of variety. I need to do a better job of reviewing my performance sheets and ensuring that I hit everything I find important for a few minutes. Vogel said that when he dry fires if the skill he is working is solid, he may only do it a few times and then move on. If he isn't seeing the sights or the skill isn't coming together, he may do it 20, 50 or a million times until his hands bleed. He lets the practice dictate how long he spends on something, not a rigid schedule. My dry fire plans usually have a list of things that I want to hit and I move through them so that my scheduled time gets it all in. I am going to change that for a few months to what he does and see what happens.
Overall both classes were excellent. I picked up alot of stuff watching Vogel shoot and in side conversations. The class moves along at a decent pace, but be prepared to watch others shoot individual drills. Finally some hard dicks spitting flame and bringing the hate. Hopefully others that attended will post their thoughts and observations since I suck at these things.
