Anyone Heard of Rogue Protection Group?

[26 Inf]

A couple of things that I would want to ascertain before plunking down my money for a course:

1) Instructor to student ratio. If the instructor is trying to manage the course by himself and there are more than 6 students you probably aren't going to get much individualized instruction. Watchin 3 shooters and correcting problems as you see them is just about all the span of control I think is reasonable for an instructor/coach.

2) Breadth of instruction. What is the skill level the course is designed for and taught to. If you just bought your first AR and need a basic course it may not be the best utilization of your money to drop 350 - 500 dollars on a two-day course from a nationally known trainer when you can get essentially the same instruction from a local source much cheaper. The savings will allow you to take a more advanced course from a nationally known instructor a little quicker than you might otherwise be able to.

3) Pace of instruction. Kind of related to breadth of instruction. One way to get an idea on pace of instruction might be round count. If you are firing 500 rounds a day the class may be too fast paced for some shooters to get full benefit. There is a balance between firing reps just to fire reps and firing reps with coaching/instruction between reps as needed. These are two entirely different things. On the same topic, does the instructor allow time for you to ask questions, or for the instructor to provide an AAR covering the points covered in the drill before you move on to the next phase of instruction.

Those are some of the things that I've learned through experience both attending courses and designing and conducting courses as a lead instructor.

One of the courses I most looked forward to attending as a young instructor was an auto pistol course conducted at a facility that will go unnamed. We shot right at 800-900 rounds a day. I had arrived fairly competent and left having added a smidgen more speed and with a certificate. The guy who shot next to me all week wasn't as prepared, he had a problem with grip and trigger control. He was still having the same problem with grip and trigger control when he left, with a certificate, only his problems were more ingrained. I learned more about how not to teach a course than I learned about running an auto-pistol that week. Lesson leaqrned - if you are going to feed folks from a fire hose, make sure they are ready to drink and adjust the water pressure accordingly.

[Chameleox]

Everything 26 Inf said is 100% true. I can only add a small bit.

1. Know yourself. Make an honest assessment of where you are in this journey, and where you want to go. Ask yourself what you need to learn, and what you need to work on. Kyle Defoor, several years back, had a blog post about periodically listing the macro-skills that are germane to your job, lifestyle, defensive/survival philosophy, and then ranking both their relative importance as well as your assessment of which you need to work on, based on that importance and your current skill level. With regards to shooting, what is important to your envisioned goal/use, and where are you weak? Are your fundamentals solid (yes we can always use a refresher), or are they lacking? Do you regularly carry concealed, and if so have you been shooting from concealment? Are you a rock star with 25m bullseye and walk-back drills, but never worked on close quarters shooting and combatives?
Whatever it is, figure out what you need to work on, and compare an instructor's course offerings and points of instruction to your goal.

2. One of the best parts of a training company's website is the "About Me/Us" section. You should be able to tell what the instructor's pedigree is from this section. Do they have military, LE, or govt experience, and does it matter? What teaching credentials do they have, and do they matter to you? What other courses have they taken? Does their background and training resume show congruence with what they're claiming to teach? What is their philosophy on teaching/training? If you're looking to get into scenario based training, force on force, or legal issues, check to see if your instructor is familiar with the use of force laws and rulings for your AO. Do these things matter to you, and do you like what you see?

[Tzintzuntzan]

Well, at the recommendation of the ST911 I sent the people at Rogue Protection an invite to reply to our... "content related criticisms". As the person who started this thread I figured I should probably be the one. I have put a "full" transcript of the message I sent them below. We'll see how they respond.

Hi I wanted to send this message to invite the trainers at your organization to explain certain aspects of your company's training classes. We had some questions about some of the content we saw in your promotional YouTube videos and would be pleased to hear some clarifying statements from your team.

Best Wishes.
Tzintzuntzan

[Tzintzuntzan]

Just got an email reply from them and I must say their customer service is pretty good to respond at night on a Saturday though I suppose it's easier to do via email. If they decide to post in the thread I'll add their response. If not I will ask them if I can add their replies. Regardless I will post my responses.

[Tzintzuntzan]

I think it's safe to say at this point they will never post in this thread. From what I could gather they just made the video and then decided that they could have made a better video as they struggled to know when and where humor should be applied when showcasing their company. Some other insightful tips were that they allow people to use an AIWB holster set up but they require them to be more closely watched and looked after by the instructors. One thing I did note is that class size never seemed to exceed about 8 people and there seemed to be at least 2-3 instructors on hand. This is only based off of their own promotional videos so it's not easy to say how representative that is though I'd hazard that since this is Josephine County the class numbers are fairly concrete.

I don't know if I'd train there but I will say that their customer service representative was very polite and willing to answer any questions I had. They also seemed to know important details about the training the company provides and this helped clarify some things. As of right now I'd like to see what opinions more informed individuals who partook in one of their classes had about the experience before making a decision.