On May 7th, I flew to Las Vegas to meet my father and attend Front Sight Firearms Training Institute’s 4-Day Defensive Handgun course. All weekend, I posted updates to Twitter, so I could remember everything that happened. Afterwards, I reviewed each of my Twitter posts and added some commentary.
12:43 PM May 7th @danlefeb @micahlef just landed in St Louis.
1:07 PM May 7th 30 minutes.
4:47 PM May 7th Touch down in Vegas!
There isn’t much to say about my first night in Las Vegas. I waited around for a little while, at the airport, while my father came to pick me up. We went out for dinner and then headed over to Len & Linda’s house (my uncle and aunt), where we chatted for a little while, before taking showers and going to bed.
7:15 AM May 8th (Classroom) Pretty cool sight. Every student in the class is armed! About 30 or so in the room so far.
We left Las Vegas at around 5:30am, just to be sure we weren’t late getting to Front Sight. We ended up sitting for a few minutes, at the front gate, while we waited for someone to unlock it. There were probably half a dozen cars waiting ahead of us.
After parking, we went into the classroom building where we checked in with an instructor and they sent us to the Pro Shop to pick up our guns. Both of us had purchased the package deal which includes the class and a Springfield XD, so we had what they called “Program Guns” which would become ours, but weren’t quite yet. Legally, they still belong to Front Sight until they are transferred through a FFL dealer in our state of residence. For this reason, we were not allowed to take the weapons with us, off campus, in the evenings.
7:35 AM May 8th (Classroom) Attendance is up to about a hundred now! Class starts in about twenty minutes.
7:48 AM May 8th (Classroom) Watching a video about the vision for a planned community here.
8:00 AM May 8th (Classroom) Easily 200 people here! Class is beginning.
Sometime during the week, my dad was chatting with Rick Morello, the director of operations at the Las Vegas facility, and Rick mentioned that a typical weekend has approximately 400 students! This weekend, being one of their last for the season, and the beginning of miserable desert heat, had about 250 students total.
Most people are smarter than we were, and realized that the middle of a desert isn’t a comfortable place to be in the middle of May! We averaged temperatures in the high-90’s and low 100’s, all weekend!
8:18 AM May 8th (Classroom) Signing waivers. Agreeing to safety rules.
8:28 AM May 8th (Classroom) 13 range masters introduced. Very impressive credentials! My range master is Craig Bishop.
I was happy to be assigned to Craig Bishop, because I remembered having read about him on the Utah Preppers blog (if you click the link, you’ll see a picture of Craig). In addition to Craig, our Line Coaches were Dave Goodman, Calvin Nickoley, Wyatt Rikach, and Dave Patten. I feel that I was extremely lucky in the selection of instructors on my range; these men were all outstanding coaches, who seemed to really be interested in helping me succeed. There was no hint of ego, even when they chided each other over their favorite weapons (Craig is a dedicated 1911 shooter and took every opportunity to poke fun at anyone shooting a Glock)!
I am confident that Wyatt will become a Range Master in no time at all; he has a very strong presentation style. Calvin frequently went above and beyond the current exercises and offered helpful tips that would make our real-world use of the techniques we were learning, more effective. My dad seemed to hit it off pretty well with Dave, but I didn’t really interact too much with him… but, I do remember thinking he reminded me vaguely of one of the CSI characters! But, maybe that was just Las Vegas on the brain!
9:29 AM May 8th (Classroom) Lecture is running late, but nobody seems to mind as it’s quite informative and enjoyable.
The Five Levels of Competence:
1. II. Intentionally Incompetent. This is the stage at which somebody refuses to improve themselves, despite knowing they need improvement. The most common excuse for this is mere laziness.
2. UI. Unintentionally Incompetent. This is the most common stage for most people. They are incompetent, but they don’t realize it. This is the “I don’t know what I don’t know” stage.
3. CI. Consciously Incompetent. This is where everyone who comes to Front Sight is at… they know they need to improve.
4. CC. Consciously Competent. This is the result of the 4-day training at Front Sight for most students: they have improved their skills, but still have to think about it.
5. UC. Unconsciously Competent. This is our goal… we wish to be so good at our firearms handling skills, that we don’t even need to think about it anymore.
9:55 AM May 8th (Range) 4 instructors are introducing themselves.
10:23 AM May 8th (Range) Dry practice on range safety.
Every time we learned something new, we ran through it dry, over and over, until we were quite comfortable with the new technique. This made our use of live fire very effective, as we could focus on getting better with our expensive ammunition, instead of learning something new.
11:08 AM May 8th (Range) Finished first load and unload exercises.
11:27 AM May 8th (Range) Practicing the weaver stance.
It’s actually a modified Weaver stance, but they didn’t really explain what the “standard Weaver stance” is, so I’m not sure what is modified about it!
12:09 PM May 8th (Range) Just finished our first live fire exercise. About a dozen rounds.
12:15 PM May 8th (Range) I didn’t think to bring a speed loader with me. Stupid me!
Even when I got my speed loader, my fingers were in constant pain the entire weekend, from loading ammunition! I think I am going to get one of those “super duper” speed loaders, that hold the spring down for the entire magazine, instead of one round at a time. I saw a few students with them, and they seemed to make the loading process extremely fast and painless!
12:48 PM May 8th (Classroom) Lunch time… Finally!
1:46 PM May 8th (Classroom) Lecture: moral and ethical decisions on the use of deadly force
First the words “moral” and “ethical” were defined:
- Moral: relating to principles of right and wrong
- Ethical: conforming to an accepted standard of conduct
When we choose to use a lethal force, we must be prepared to accept the consequences of this decision. Often, we will be making a moral decision that runs counter to the ethics of the culture around us.
After all our training, the bottom line really is, that we must decide where the “line in the sand” is, where we will kill another human being for what we believe is right. If we do not ponder these questions, now, we will not be able to think clearly about such an important decision under the heat of a crisis moment.
5:23 PM May 8th (Range) After action DS
A key point that Craig hammered home over and over again, is that every single time we shoot, we are in training. Whatever we do whenever we pick up a gun, will be added to the habits trained into our muscle memory, which is all we have to rely upon in a panic situation. Therefore, it is vital that we never let up on the discipline… this is particularly applicable to our before and after action drills.
BEFORE:
- Ready
- Chamber Check
- Magazine Check
- Holster or Ready
AFTER:
- Move (find cover or concealment; at the very least get away from your last muzzle flash)
- Quick Check (back and forth for any new threats nearby)
- Final Check (watch our downed opponent to see if he’s still a threat)
- Scan (slowly scan 360° to identify potential new threats)
NOTE: My original tweet was supposed to say “After action drills”. Being on the range, the sun was very bright, and I could rarely actually see what it was that I was twittering! In fact, my touch screen got desensitized after a couple days of sweaty, salty, dusty fingers swiping across it all the time, so I’m actually pretty amazed at how few typos I actually broadcast!
5:41 PM May 8th (Range) Back to the range…
5:56 PM May 8th (Range) Last range drill. One more lecture.
6:21 PM May 8th (Range) Now working on speeding up. "speed draw"
At this point, almost every drill from here on out, will be from the holster, so we continue to work on a quick presentation.
6:46 PM May 8th (Classroom) Developing a combat mindset.
The color code of mental awareness:
- Condition White: This is where we all wish we could live. This is where most people do live.
In condition white, you are totally unprepared for attack. You are oblivious to threats, real or potential, around you. - Condition Yellow: This is where we should all be living. This is a state of “relaxed alertness.” Always aware of what is happening around you.
- Do you know who is walking behind you?
- How many people are in that car beside you?
- Is there someone sitting in that van parked down the street?
You are not prepared for any specific threat, only alert and observant of potential threats around you.
- Condition Orange: You have identified a specific, but still potential threat. You focus special attention on the potential threat to make sure it does not develop into an actual threat.
- Condition Red: This is where you are aware of a specific, real threat. At this point you have already formulated a defensive plan, as well as a “mental trigger” (that line in the sand, so to speak) upon which you will execute your planned response. Because you have already made your decisions, your tactical responses can be much quicker.
- Condition Black: Your mental trigger has been tripped and you are executing your planned response. The action will be so fast that you won’t have time to think about what you’re doing. This is why practice is so important, as you will do what your muscle memory has ingrained in it.
Always visualize winning, never plan to just survive.
Keep in mind that 85% of all gunshot wounds are survivable.
6:48 PM May 8th (Classroom) Phone battery is about to die…
7:08 PM May 8th Finally done! An hour drive back to vegas.
8:27 PM May 8th Back at "home" (my uncle’s house).
Not being adjusted to the Pacific timezone, yet, I found myself falling asleep as soon as I stopped moving around, in the evenings. I also found it very difficult to sleep through the night! I woke up every hour or two, every night.
10:07 PM May 8th AkiIskandar @kenlefeb as in gun slinger? I can go from holstered to pumping 3 rounds in the target (with my Springfield XD) in about 1.5 seconds …
10:07 PM May 8th AkiIskandar @kenlefeb though, admittedly, not at all in the proper kill zones 
5:05 AM May 9th @AkiIskandar Yup… That’s the kind of XD I got… 
Here’s what I’m doing: http://bit.ly/KvaNF
5:08 AM May 9th @TravelingRoths Here’s the class I’ve been in: http://bit.ly/KvaNF
7:30 AM May 9th (Range) Dry practice on the range.
8:03 AM May 9th (Range) Tactical reloading
Once we learned how to do a tactical reload, we became responsible for always keeping our guns loaded on the range. If we failed to do frequent tactical reloads, it was our own problem.
8:16 AM May 9th (Range) Clearing malfunctions
There are three main types of malfunctions, classified based on the location of any rounds in the chamber:
- No Brass (the chamber is empty)
- Brass High (you see a round sticking out of the ejection port)
- Brass Low (there is a round in the chamber but it is not high enough to align with the barrel)
8:33 AM May 9th (Range) Now, type 2 malfunction.
10:09 AM May 9th (Range) Practicing tall speed.
I’m not sure what I meant by “tall speed” except maybe I was trying to say “Practice it all with speed.”
10:14 AM May 9th (Range) Practicing it all for smoothness and speed.
OK, here it is. A retweet to explain that, after learning how to clear each malfunction, we were drilled under a timer. By the end of the week, whenever we drilled malfunctions, the line coaches would stand next to you and yell at you, to increase the level of stress under which we had to fix the problems. You’d be amazed how stupid you become, when somebody is standing 3 inches away from your head and yelling!
10:55 AM May 9th (Range) My fingers are killing me. Reloadg magazines hurts!
It was our own responsibility to keep our weapons running. That means, we had to clear any malfunctions, and keep the thing loaded at all times. I usually had three magazines which I tried to keep loaded, and two pockets full of loose rounds, so I could do some reloading when I didn’t have time to step off the line and go back to my seat to reload.
11:06 AM May 9th (Range) Now a lecture on emergency reload.
After we learned about emergency reloading, if you were caught shooting your gun to an empty magazine, the instructor would take away that magazine, until the end of the drill. It was our responsibility to execute tactical reloads whenever possible to make sure we always had a round in the chamber.
11:31 AM May 9th (Range) Speed reloading.
11:40 AM May 9th (Range) I failed to stop him, what now?
11:40 AM May 9th danlefeb @kenlefeb He stops you
11:47 AM May 9th @danlefeb ha ha! Nope. It’s time for the Head Shot.
This is what we called the “Failure to Stop” drill. Every single time we shoot at a target, we fire a controlled pair, which is two shots to the thoracic cavity, with a hand spread grouping. If the target remains a threat after these two shots, we fire one more shot to the head.
12:41 PM May 9th (Classroom) Lunch break!
1:27 PM May 9th (Classroom) Over lunch, they have a video presentation about the lifetime membership program. I went outside to call Wendee instead!
1:28 PM May 9th (Classroom) First afternoon lecture, "Problems 2 and 3," starts in 10 minutes.
1:39 PM May 9th (Classroom) Problem 1: Staying alive.
1:41 PM May 9th (Classroom) Problems 2 and 3 are the criminal and civil liabilities of an incident involving lethal force.
This lecture was all about the legal consequences of using lethal force.
2:20 PM May 9th creasy17 @kenlefeb, go to www.sabretactical.com and to civilian shooting. Our courses will teach you a faster more accurate shooting platform
2:21 PM May 9th creasy17 @kenlefeb ,also watch the videos. If you can’t come to us, we will come to you. I put my life into the training and trust it.
4:49 PM May 9th (Range) Range drills with turning targets.
This is the beginning of our timed target shooting. At 3 yards, the targets are exposed for approximately 1.5 seconds. For each increment back (5 yards, 7 yards, 10 yards, and 15 yards), an additional quarter-second is added. From this point on, almost all of our target drills are done with turning targets.
At one end of the range, there are always about 4-6 targets which do not turn. At any time, we are allowed to move from turning targets to static targets. We are reminded, frequently, that while speed is ultimately important, it is MORE important to be accurate and to hit what we aim at, so if we need more time to ensure accuracy, we should move down to the static targets.
I probably spent about half my time on static targets and timed targets. I am not as fast as I will eventually become, so I concentrated on increasing my accuracy.
5:06 PM May 9th (Range) Single head Shot drill
5:23 PM May 9th (Range) Did I mention my fingers are getting raw?
5:52 PM May 9th (Classroom) Final lecture of the day: How to select a rifle or shotgun for home defense.
This was an optional lecture, held in the unarmed defense classroom, while the 2-day students were having their “graduation ceremony” in the main classroom.
7:04 PM May 9th On our way home for the night…
8:53 PM May 9th danlefeb @kenlefeb Take notes on that! I’m interested in that
9:27 PM May 9th @creasy17 I will definitely take a look at your site… thanks!
9:28 PM May 9th @danlefeb There were handouts… You can ask to see Dad’s, next time you’re in PC
9:40 PM May 9th @creasy17 After a brief review (I’ll spend more time after my class), I can’t find any videos demonstrating a left-handed shooter.
4:38 AM May 10th @creasy17 Cool! Just wondered about lefty since the position on video would put ejection port against my body!
6:30 AM May 10th Day #3 is beginning. Leaving las vegas, now.
7:47 AM May 10th so.
7:47 AM May 10th (Pro Shop) Picked up some extra ammo. We are guessing we will still need a couple of boxes more tomorrow, too, but we’ll see. We have each fired ab
8:02 AM May 10th (Classroom) First lecture: Principles of Tactics
A basic introduction to tactics:
- Surprise
- Cover and Concealment
- Noise Discipline
- “Slicing the Pie”
- Inspect Everything
- Movement
- Distance
- The “Fatal Funnel”
8:02 AM May 10th (Classroom) A round of applause for all the moms here. (maybe 15-20)
8:25 AM May 10th (Classroom) "Slicing the Pie"
8:37 AM May 10th (Classroom) How to enter a doorway.
8:40 AM May 10th (Classroom) Ha ha! Assume an armed intruder somewhere behind the door.
8:47 AM May 10th (Classroom) Yes. Sticking a foot inside announces your arrival.
8:51 AM May 10th (Classroom) "Shooting through walls"
8:55 AM May 10th (Classroom) Lights and lighting
9:01 AM May 10th (Range) Back to the range now.
Before getting down to any real exercises, our range master put 21 of us on the 7 yard line and directed us in a 21-gun salute to honor a couple in our class that was celebrating their 53rd anniversary today!
9:11 AM May 10th (Range) First range drill: presenting from concealment
10:20 AM May 10th (Range) Turning targets from concealment with random failure to stop.
10:33 AM May 10th (Range) Wish I had a vest instead of jacket, for concealment! It is HOT!
10:33 AM May 10th (Range) Just finished my first box of ammo for the day.
10:34 PM May 10th micahlef @kenlefeb how hot is it?
11:13 AM May 10th @micahlef mid-nineties. It is hot in a t-shirt. Worse in a jacket!
11:19 AM May 10th @micahlef yup! And we have very little classroom time today.
11:40 AM May 10th (Range) Ragged Hole exercises. (5 rounds through the same hole)
12:11 PM May 10th (Range) The advantage to everyone wearing hearing protection is that you can fart without embarrassment!
12:25 PM May 10th (Range) Malfunction clearing drills.
3:13 PM May 10th wenlefeb They can still smell
12:41 PM May 10th Ha! Well, the smell of gunpowder is a mighty deodorant
12:47 PM May 10th (Classroom) Lunchtime!
2:43 PM May 10th (Range) simulator
3:21 PM May 10th (Range) I couldn’t see my phone for last message. Was "live fire simulators"
3:22 PM May 10th (Range) Now, back to range drills.
5:04 PM May 10th (Range) I skipped a range session so I could call my wife, whom I’ve been missing very much! Now i’m back on the range practicing controlled pairs.
5:22 PM May 10th (Range) Low light chamber checks and magazine checks.
5:40 PM May 10th (Pahrump, NV) Supper break!
7:18 PM May 10th (Classroom) Back from supper, time for night shooting lecture.
7:40 PM May 10th (Classroom) Demos of various lights.
8:08 PM May 10th (Range) On the range in the dark.
9:33 PM May 10th (Range) Couldn’t tweet during night shoot. On our way home now.
11:21 PM May 10th Stopped for has and sodas on the way back. Now, we’re going to bed!
11:23 PM May 10th R/has/gas/ (stupid T9 on cellphone!)
6:19 AM May 11th On our way to Front Sight.
8:23 AM May 11th (Range) Looks like this morning will be practice, practice, practice.
9:09 AM May 11th (Range) It’s only 9am? Damn, i’m gonna run out of ammunition
9:10 AM May 11th (Range) The desert is killing my phone. Touch screen is losing sensitivity
9:36 AM May 11th (Range) Ok, to give you an idea of how much shooting we’re doing today. I have emptied almost three 16 round magazines since my last tweet.
9:37 AM May 11th (Range) And I am only on the range half the time since we have 2 students per target.
10:14 AM May 11th (Range) Ragged holes now. I like these because they’re not timed!
10:17 AM May 11th (Range) Next session: multiple adversaries.
11:02 AM May 11th (Range) That was a cool, 4 targets per person with random scenarios called out.
11:22 AM May 11th (Range) Man on man tournament.
This was a very exciting competition where the two opponents stood side by side and raced to hit three targets in a specified sequence.
The first target was a hostage taker, and if you hit the hostage, you were automatically disqualified from the entire event.
11:39 AM May 11th (Range) I won first round… One shot per target!
11:45 AM May 11th (Range) My dad won his first round!
11:46 AM May 11th (Range) Uh oh, he lost on technicality.
The “technicality” was that he actually hit the hostage! I hadn’t noticed that when I got excited about his win!
12:11 PM May 11th (Range) And, I just lost on my second round. Not feeling too bad because I was against one of the best shooters in the class.
12:52 PM May 11th (Classroom) Questions & answers session over lunch.
1:51 PM May 11th (Range) We’re doing controlled pairs on turning targets again
2:23 PM May 11th (Range) Practicing clearing malfunctions on a timer.
2:50 PM May 11th (Range) Dry run of test.
3:19 PM May 11th (Range) Test starts in 5 minutes! No more tweets for awhile…
3:55 PM May 11th (Range) First half of test over. Starting with a score of 125 I lost 22 points.
4:44 PM May 11th (Range) I don’t know the final score yet but my line coach told me I did everything right, just had some "late completion"
6:07 PM May 11th (Range) I graduated!
6:01 PM May 12th Driving away from Front Sight for the last time (this trip!)
I will return. At this point, I’m thinking I will come back next February, when it’s cooler, and after our baby is born in November. Let me know if you want to come with me!