John Farnam

[htxred]

John Farnem is suppose to be having a class down here in houston within the near future, there was suppose to be a class in august but it got pushed back to november. space is limited from what i heard, and i also heard that if you ever have an opportunity to take one of his classes, you should.

more information can be found on tcht.net, at the bottom in special ops.

more info on farnam
http://www.defense-training.com/

 

[htxred]

class will be october 17-19 in victoria, tx. Call shiloh and ask for Jeff for more information if you are interested in attending. focus will be mainly on defensive pistol if i understand correctly but there will be a bit of long gun and shotgun action in there. a few of shiloh shooters are going and i would highly recommend ANYONE who would like to either sharpen their skills or learn new skills. there will be a beginner and advance class. so the noobie and the skilled can attend. either way it'll be a blast.

 

[htxred]

Jeff and I just returned from a 2 day course in victoria, tx. John and Vicki Farnam are great instructors and everyone should experience instruction from them at least once in their life. Pretty much anything you learn now a days will revolve around farnam's method of doing things, Some may vary in style, but the basic key points will originate from farnam.

The facility that we used was great.. Nice clean open area, we lucked out with this weekend having some AWESOME weather, saturday we started shooting at 9am and did not stop til 10pm that evening. The evening sky was amazing, never before have i saw so many stars.

The other instructors that were on site helping John were all helpful and criticized every little detail because everything had to be perfect. They were very insightful and contributed solutions to problems students were having. They also did a very good job keeping the hot range safe!

As some of the instructors and Jeff said, the instruction this time was different from 6 months ago. John is not too proud of his work, if something he teaches could be done more efficiently, he will adopt that method and include it as a part of defense training. I went to this course thinking i had an edge on the other students because i've been fortunate enough to receive instruction from Jeff, who attended and earlier class from farnam and gregg garrett, who has known farnam for 12 years. Little did i know that i was going to be learning not just a little bit of new stuff, but ALL new methods.

All in all this was a great weekend, more of a vacation for me then work. I enjoyed every single second of it and would not change a thing. I met some great people, but most importantly, i sent a little over 1000 rnds down range, i failed miserably very often, and i know what will work now and what wont work when i get in a gun fight. I learned to not fear failure, but to welcome it. I learned to not fear success because nobody cares anyway. If you are going to be carrying a gun to protect yourself and loved ones, understand that you have a gun to shoot people. You cannot fear getting shot, or death itself. The skills of shooting are parishable, its important to learn, and continue to learn, so that when the day comes when you are left with a decision to spray some asshole repellentn on someone, you do so skillfully with the least amount of collateral damage possible.

 

[DoubleActionCHL]

I was there as well, and it was a great experience. There was no "that's close enough" attitude. You either got it right or you didn't pass (yes, there was a test!). I learned too much to cover in any single post, but I did learn something very, very crucial. As intense as we believe our training is and as good as we think we are, our training methods are flawed and we're not as good as we think we are.

Part of the problem (and forgive me, Shiloh) with our training methods is the indoor range. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather shoot indoors than outdoors 90% of the time in Texas, but the inherent restrictions present in the indoor environment handicap our training methods.

In an indoor range, what is the ONLY safe direction to point your muzzle? Down range, right? We don't point it at the floor, ceiling, wall, etc. The purpose is simple, but this restriction hinders our real-world training and effectively builds bad habits.

Secondly, we typically cover shooting on the move, shooting from concealment, shoot-don't-shoot scenarios, etc., which are all very useful training tools. However, the drills and strategies are employed, due to size and logistics restrictions, at relatively close range. We run through the exercises, knock out 6 perfect center-mass shots and are happy with our performance. Unfortunately, due to this close range shooting, we don't readily notice that we're jerking or dropping our shots slightly. What difference does it make, though? We hit our target, right?

Farnam isn't happy with close enough. We were shooting small (about 8 inch square) MOVING targets at ranges up to about 20 yards, and expected to nail every shot. Combine this with remembering to move (getting off the 'X') at least every 4 shots, getting your finger off the trigger when moving, looking over your shoulder for more bad guys, and the stress level was multiplied ten fold! The theory is (and this is nothing new) that you will be lucky if you revert to 50% of your training in a real-life shooting situation. If you're pitching a third of your shots in training, how many misses will you have when the target is shooting back?

Will I continue to train indoors? Of course I will! I love air conditioning as much as the next guy, and you can't beat the guys at Shiloh (although, at times you'll want to). My tactics are going to change a bit and my expectations will be much, much higher.

If you have a chance to attend any of the Farnam classes, I highly recommend it. It will be the hardest work you'll ever enjoy. You can spend 5 nights a week in the gym and eat cardboard and veggies, but if you really want to increase your lifespan, take Farnam's class. You'll be hooked!

 

[htxred]

as farnam would say, "nobody cares" lol

but this is an example of why sometimes i still shoot in the long range at shiloh, goes back to 25 yards. Given, i dont have much of an opportunity to move around.. i would say the main thing i took away from the weekend is to have a plan. granted, most of us know how to shoot, if given all the time in the world and take away all other varibles, EVERYONE would of got the spinners going. and none of it clicked til i took the test, thats when i realized hey, having a plan really does help. i was able to get the steel plates to spin with a 9mm, and walked away with the second fastest time. (lol lost to pure luck) and im going to give it all to the fact that the last round, i had a plan.

 

[DoubleActionCHL]

In addition to the 'have a plan', I think the biggest lesson learned was 'stick with the basics.' When we progress from shooting a stationary target from behind a bench to running around, double tapping several targets, we tend to neglect those basic shooting skills. If we don't continue to work on the basics, none of the other really cool tactical stuff matters.

 

[htxred]

Farnam will be back in victoria feb 27-march 1, stop by the range for more details. space is limited.

 

[DoubleActionCHL]

Farnam will be back in victoria feb 27-march 1, stop by the range for more details. space is limited.

Still waiting for my letter...

 

[htxred]

got ours in the mail today, jeff and i., maybe kym hid it from you lol.

 

[DoubleActionCHL]

got ours in the mail today, jeff and i., maybe kym hid it from you lol.

And give up a weekend without me? Are you kidding???