AAR: Randy Cain - Close Quarter Tactics 4-6 Sep 10
Just completed Randy Cain's 4-6 Sept 10 at southernexposuretraining.com, located in Kathleen, FL, about 12 miles North of Lakeland. The class size was 18, with a wide mix of shooters from varying backgrounds, including two NASA engineers and one OEF 11B driving all the way from MI to attend this course. The pistols were mostly Glocks, 1911s, a Wheel gun, and me shooting my M&P9c.
Facility: Southern Exposure is a very well manicured training facility with a covered briefing/gear prep area, three 25 yard side shooting bays, one area being constructed into a shoot house, and one, I believe a 800 yard rifle range stretching back to the road. Irv and his wife Wafta are the hosts and are very knowledgeable about tons of tactical subject matter as well as Irv's ever evolving sick sense of humor
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Weather: Sunny in the mornings with temperatures in the low 90s, with over cast sky's in the afternoon with a slight breeze.
Course: Close Quarters Tactics
Instructor: Randy Cain
I had always heard about Randy from Irv and other students, but had yet to train with him. I thought this was going to be some sort of re-branded CQB Shoot House kind of thing, but it turned out the be a "Bad Breath" shooting and hand to hand/combative's course. 
Since I joined at the last minute, I heard only the "shooting" part from a friend who was attending the course. It turned out to be complete different from what I had in my head. Most of the folks had already attended Randy's Handgun 101, and my training background was mostly from the Army or Army Tier 1 instructors, with a few civilian 1 day pistol courses throw in along the way. I had to quickly adapt to the new and different instruction that we were receiving. I was pleasantly surprised at what was unfolding in this 3 day course.
TD1:
Started with Randy giving a safety briefing and his training philosophy, emphasizing safety throughout the course.
Moving to the range, we loaded up and trained on the basics of drawing the weapon, shooting from the 15 yard line and all the way up to arms length from the Bad Guy, shoot from retention, failure drills, NSRs, 5 shot drill (two to the chest, 2 to the pelvis, and one to the head, for a couple of hours. We then moved on to the Combatives part of the course, using the crawl walk run method of instruction. We started with Randy discussing the 5 layers of Retention: Distance, Movement, Deflection, Control, Ejection, and where you always fight to get back to number 1: Distance. We started with close range knife attacks, how to step and pivot away from the line of attack (getting off the "X") or Red Zone, arm's length in front of the attacker. Jockeying for a position of advantage. We practice those techniques for a few hours, then added drawing your weapon (Blue Gun), after you've successfully avoided from being ran through with the BG's knife, and shooting him to the floor (as many rounds as it takes).
We moved on to Gun Retention, preventing a BG from grabbing your pistol one handed, from your left, right, center, & rear. We ended the day with Plate shooting, forming 2 lines facing 6 plates, each would shoot 2 plates, do a reload, then shooting the 3rd plate. The faster and accurate shooter went to the winner's side and the other, the loser side, until we cycled through the entire class, then the winner's faced off.
TD2:
Shooting at arms length as well as shoot on the move, towards the BG, as well as moving away from BG while shooting. Shooting from Retention, then moving diagonally to shoot BG in the head, and the 5 shot drill. We did this for a couple of hours, then back into the shoot house area for practicing the techniques from TD1 and adding two hand grabs of your pistol , from various directions, and you using the techniques learned to retain it. Disrupting the draw stroke of the BG and disarming him, various disarm techniques involving the BG using one hand and two hand holds on his pistol while you disarmed him.
The day ended with shooting steel with a hostage area that flipped to the other side as it was hit. It was quite a test to see folks negotiate this test. Most were eliminated after one or two shots because of a miss or shooting Granny (hostage). The one NASA Engineer gave quite the showing, she hung in there the longest with six shots on the BG, no misses and no hits on Granny, until she lost to another student (MD), who was a Effing shooting machine. I don't think this guy missed a target that weekend.
TD3:
Started with shooting one shot to the head after the draw, as fast as possible. More gun grab retention and gun disarm techniques, then gathered in groups of 4, where two students would draw and fire on each other, while the other two did gun grabs on those two. First standing, then sitting face to face, then laying down head to head.
That created a lot of hysterical outbreaks of laughter to say the least! The day ended with hostage shooting, where Randy had some contraption set up with a BG with a baby doll on his chest. Through manipulation of ropes, it made the two move side to side and back and forth, where the students had to make the shot without shooting the baby. Very challenging and interesting shooting scenario. Only one guy shot the baby through the chest. Most got head shots.
Final Thoughts:
I found this class very physically challenging and it had excellent instruction and why these techniques and tactics worked. I intentionally omitted a detailed explanation of these procedures because of A) You really need to take this course if you haven't done so already, and B) Bad Guys have internet too. I thoroughly enjoyed this course and got quite the workout. Some students got bruised up pretty good. I will make sure this course will be on my annual training list going forward.
To Irv and Wafta, I'm glad your son is doing well, too bad he wasn't able to shoot the 3rd guy as well. I hope and pray for his swift recovery.
PS: I'm still working on the pics and will be up later this evening.
Roger
Last edited by RogerinTPA; 09-08-10 at 20:10.
For God and the soldier we adore, In time of danger, not before! The danger passed, and all things righted, God is forgotten and the soldier slighted." - Rudyard Kipling
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