Augusta, GA, April 6-7, 2013
Aprox. 15 people (1 woman). Mostly civilian. A few LEs and ex-Military.
Aprox. 850 rounds fired
I used a Glock 17. One double feed and three failures to feed. The three failures to feed were due to a weak magazine spring. Most of the others students were using the usual suspects, Glocks, M&P. No 1911s. A couple of odd guns that broke. Don’t know what they were.


I know I’m a bit late in writing this up. I’m glad of that since over the last 16 months my opinion of the class has drastically changed. It was the first formal firearms class I’d attended and afterward I felt great about what I’d learned. The class was enjoyable and well run. At the time, I felt Mr. Pincus had a great curriculum and it gave me a lot to practice. Since that time, I’ve watched more videos, studied more books, and taken a few more classes from other instructors (Hackathorn, Proctor, and a couple of lesser names) and I now look back on the Pincus class with some skepticism. Now, I can’t say I’d recommend his system to anybody. Not that the class was bad, I just think there’s much better out there for the same price. While Pincus is an excellent marketer of his system and himself, I question some of his theories and techniques now. His system is called I.C.E. (for god’s sake, don’t pronounce it “ice”) which stands for Integrity, Consistency, and Efficiency. His system is dubious on efficiency aspect but I guess the I.C. System wouldn’t sound as cool.


The Good
Although I wouldn’t recommend his class there was plenty of good that he taught:

• Multiple Shots: We always shot strings of fire (2-5 rounds at a time), never just a single shot. I liked this approach a lot. Pistols are inherently weak and it’s a mistake to assume a single shot will stop a threat. I took this class during the ammo drought of ’13 so it was good to be forced to fire the precious ammo in larger quantities than I could make myself at the range alone. Since the class I’ve started shooting strings far more frequently and feel I’m better for it.

• 360 Degrees of Threat: The best drill we did was the Figure 8 drill. This simulated a 360 degree range and pushed us into quick thinking. Multiple targets were set up with numbers. Instead of yelling “2” he might yell “square root of 4.” You never knew where the threat was going to appear and helped train turning and threat processing.

•Think Before You Shoot: Pincus put emphasis on processing the threat before drawing and shooting. Most of the time he wouldn’t simply yell, “up” but instead say a number or shape or even a combination of the two. He could have taken this even further but even this level was nice.

• Speed and Accuracy: Strong emphasizes was placed on having a balance of speed and accuracy. If Pincus saw someone’s groups too tight he told them they need to shoot faster. Most of our shots were placed in an 8” rectangle. Inside this is a good hit and everything else is a miss. There were no great hits, just hits and misses. Frequently he had us shoot at a 2.5” circle after getting our shots on the large area. This helped us on transitions and ensured we didn’t forget pure accuracy.

• Scan and Assess: Seems all the instructors teach this. What I like about Rob’s approach is he made sure we were really assessing not just turning our head. Sometimes he’d ask what the RO was wearing or how many fingers he was holding up. This helped us not just go through the motions but actually take in our surroundings.

• Sprints: during the class there were a few drills where we had to sprint back and forth between cones. At any point the threat was called out and we had to fire, sometime one-handed. This was great because we’d be firing at random distances between 5 and 20 yards of the target with an elevated heart rate.

• Structure: The class was kept professional and I appreciated the structure Rob imposed. I always felt like there was a game plan we were following as we progressed. It never felt like he was just winging it. There was a good balance of range time broken up with rest while listening to him teach. He’s a good presenter.

The Bad


• One Eye Closed: Rob gave a long lecture complete with illustration on why it’s undesirable and even impossible to accurately fire with both eyes open. I found this odd as I spent most of the class firing with both open with no issues. I hardly think I’m the only one capable of such feats. Although for pinpoint shots I needed to close one eye, hitting the 8” area at 7y was no problem. Although I think it’s fine to always fire with one eye closed why not leave both open if you can?

• No Timer: The whole class Rob pushed the importance of having a balance of speed and accuracy. Rather than just firing into a berm, we used targets to quantify our accuracy. This makes sense and allowed us to see what we were doing well and what we needed work with. Makes perfect sense. Wouldn’t it also make sense to quantify the speed aspect of that equation? Of course. He thought this was a bad idea as it encouraged people to “game the system” and start trying shortcuts to get better time. I found this reasoning lacking and ignored it. Since the class, I purchased a timer and it’s been a huge help in my development. Wish I would have bought one years ago.

• No Dry Fire: Nothing has been more important to me in my gun training than dry firing. Every major champion I’ve ever studied has highly recommended a course of dry firing to improve. No serious logic was given as to why to we should abandon a time proven technique but he was adamant it was a bad technique. Absurd.

• You Shouldn’t Use a Weapon Light: The small amount of time I've spent shooting with a handheld light made me greatly appreciate the ease and speed of a weapon mounted one. So why not use it? The old excuse you hear over and over is you may sweep someone. It’s dangerous. Well, so is using a gun. Get over it. Not that a handheld light isn’t very useful and has its place but it’s hard to beat the weapon mounted lights.

• Press Checks are Useless: While I don’t think they’re very important I certainly feel a little more peace of mind after doing it. He had no real logic of why not to do this, so I ignored it.

• Bring the Gun Back: While shooting multiple targets, we were instructed to bring the gun back to our body after firing at the first target and then drive it out again to the second. How is this efficient? If the I.C.E. system truly valued efficiency then you’d move the gun from one target to another. That’s one move instead of two.

• Always Power Rack the Slide: After a slide-lock reload he insisted that we do a power rack to get the gun back in battery. This once again calls into question his idea of efficiency. Anybody can see using your thumb to release the slide is far quicker and more efficient than a power rack, it’s not even close. And don’t give me the this nonsense about it being a fine motor skill. So is operating the trigger and mag release but nobody complains about that. If you train to use your thumb it’s fast and easy. Never had a problem with this in the stress of competition.

• Point the Magazines Backward: This was one of the more bizarre techniques he suggested. Seems everybody on Earth from novices to the highest level competition shooters places their magazines in the holster facing forward. This allows you to index the mag and guide it in more easily. Rob claims that facing the mag forward requires more space for you to pull out and load. For the life of me, I can’t see this. Wish I would have pressed him on this claim. Either way, he didn’t push this technique hard and said if you’re used to facing the mags forward continue to do so.

The Ugly

• Little Man Syndrome: He had an inflated ego that was apparent almost the instant he arrived at the range. Can’t say that it bothered me too much or interfered with the training but his cockiness was unappealing.

• Side Steppin’: While I believe movement in shooting is important and often under-valued, doing a simple sidestep before you fire is just pathetic. Sure, it may add some confusion to your attacker but, seriously, how much good is a shuffle step going to do you? Moving your torso 1 or 2 feet isn’t likely to cause that much confusion to your attacker. Makes more sense to either stop and focus or just move quickly, not this in-between shuffle. It especially looks ridiculous when you see students clearing malfunctions or reloading while shuffling left to right to left like mental patients. Can’t imagine it being effective in the real world. Also can’t see how this was efficient.

• Tough Love: Seems he read somewhere that complimenting students for successfully completing a task is bad somehow. Don’t know the study or the logic behind it but it sounds odd. I’ve never heard of positive reinforcement being a bad thing. How do I know if I’m doing an exercise well if you don’t say, “Good job.” Saying his silence was the approval isn’t cutting it with me. The entire 2 days he hardly said anything to me. So was I doing everything perfectly or was he just not paying attention? I’ll never know. Not that I need constant positive reinforcement, but a few “good jobs” here and there would at least let me know he’s watching and I’m on the right track.