My previous experience:
I am still less than a year into the whole deal, and it has been quite a year. I started out as someone who used YouTube way too much to figure stuff out, but got squared away right damn quick at two study sessions in the area last winter and spring. Both of which were enough to get me on the right path. I have also taken a Red Zone Solutions Basic Carbine (one day) class as well as Ken Hackathorn's Advanced Handgun. In addition, I have participated on several IDPA matches at the host club, Beaver Valley Rifle and Pistol Club. With the experience thus far, a definitive "Level 1" class was just what I needed.
It should also be noted that prior to the class I have been developing some trigger jerk-recoil anticipation issues, this will talked about a bit more later.
Class details:
The class was hosted by Low Speed High Drag, LLC and Grey Group Training handled the enrollment and payment. The total cost was $450 for two days. The students were required to bring 1000 rounds and 3 magazines with the appropriate support gear.
www.vickerstactical.com
http://www.greygrouptraining.com
www.lowspeed-highdrag.com
TD1:
We started in the morning with an introduction from the host Jay Cunningham and Paul from Grey Group as Larry was getting ready and Larry took over from there. He gave the safety brief and discussed real world firearms safety and gave more than enough explanation as to why he feels that way. There were also a few other things "floating around" out there that he put to rest, and backed it up with firsthand experience. After that, he got into what goes on when you shoot the gun, and what people do to screw it up. It was made very clear that the trigger press is the key to a good shot at any distance. We started the shooting with a fair amount of dry fire drills and everyone was shown what a perfect trigger press was. For such a large class everyone was able to get the input they needed to see for themselves what it should look like.
We continued with the dry fire partner drills and started to mix in live fire to bring El Snatcho out of hiding. Once we were shooting, the targets were the Vickers Shooting Method targets that people have probably seen. I believe this was the first open enrollment class to use them.
Once we shot up the center of the target, the aiming points got small. The motto Larry has on most of his shwag is "Speed is fine, Accuracy is final" was starting to show. Many people have you shoot a big piece of cardboard; we used the pasters that cover bullet holes. Any time a shot was missed due to a trigger jerk, 5 remedial dry fires were performed (perfect dry fires) to see what we need to do. This continued with a timer and a few patented Larry Vickers variations. With the practice techniques used it was becoming more obvious how I needed to solve my issues, and it was already happening.
Eventually we did a few competition drills that Larry is known to do to break into 4 teams. This is a point where the class size seemed perfect. The team stuff added a great element to the class and it was fun. Team Aim Fast, Miss Fast seemed to be THE team to beat. The Meth-heads gave us a run, however. To mix things up, we also had a walk-back drill with a 6" plate; starting around 15 yards moving out to 50 yards (I thought it was a bit more).
Larry, being the incredible instructor he is, also made sure to show us how it was done:
We then went back to the VSM targets and did more drills with our two groups of shooters, concluding with some competitions to win a much coveted Vickers Tactical hat (I will have to buy mine...).
Also discussed on TD1 was trigger reset and thoughts on how the trigger should be reset. There was some extensive dry fire and LAV coaching on this, and for good reason. I feel this helped me a fair amount with my issue I mentioned earlier (shots to the left).
Not only me, but others had some good moments where stuff was clicking and problems were being solved.
We also touched on reloads this day and a big takeaway point was once the manipulation is over, the trigger press is the same one we have been practicing all day.
TD1, the dinner:
A few guys had never been fortunate enough to have Primanti Brothers, so a few of the food SME's suggested it and we went out. Eventually we all made it too... I wonder if Grey Group will book a land-nav class soon?
TD2:
We started out with drills to expose any bad trigger issues and work them out before we moved on. The topics discussed built upon TD1 points, with the addition of work from the draw and a fair amount of times drills to perform things learned in TD1 under the stress of the timer from the draw. The way Larry taught the draw stroke was what I have been taught, but for something I practice often, he was able to improve upon what I was doing. As expected, the timer got in many people's heads and this was worked through very well. We also slowly increased distance to show where the trigger press becomes crucial. On day 2 we also went over reloads with many things shown to us that we should consider changing, myself among them. This was apparent when I put gloves on. My old way would have been useless with the gloves I had and the new technique was spot on. This was also a time where Larry took a pause and discussed gear selection and what people should consider. The problems with differed handguns were illustrated, and those with guns that are not as user friendly as others were offered plenty of tips and alternate methods to solve their problems. The most challenging segment of the class was malfunctions. Lots of people had lots of issues and again, lots of folks got the instruction they needed to solve their issues. This was one of the more obvious things we needed to work on outside of class. I have no doubts many of us would still be there now working on it if we needed to be 100% before we left.
We had another walk back drill where I fell out early, but the trigger press was spot on which pleased me greatly. A lot of my work recently had been to work out some left stringing and to see that go away was nice, even if I didn't make it as far as I wanted to. After the walk back we started turns and shooting on the move, which Larry claims it to be his "For those about to rock" of his classes. SOTM was a good culmination of the class considering we are not training for static shooting anyway. SOTM developed into more team drills that were dominated by AF, MF. The class closed on competition involving all of the skills we had worked on and it was obvious the amount of improvement shown by the participants.
Positives and Negatives:
I don't want to be another person to say they had a perfect time and there were no negatives, but there really were no concerns after the class concluded. I did have some initial concerns though. The class enrollment was incredible. We had enough people to fill this class and another, which speaks volumes about Larry, especially given the time of the year in Western PA. I was concerned at first because I walked in with some of the issue I mentioned, but it did not take long at all before Larry showed that he was more than capable of giving EVERYONE the attention they needed and paid for.
We also did not approach the ammo requirement for the class, which was great. Much of the focus was on what could be done with snap caps or dummy rounds. This reinforces the idea of how important dry fire is for shooting and manipulations.
Did you get your money’s worth, and do you recommend others spending their time and money with this course and trainer?(stolen question)
Yes, I would not miss a chance to train under Larry Vickers, especially if he comes to a range near you.
Other comments:
The class was a blast. Larry is a funny guy that can get the point across without missing a beat. We had many characters in the class that just made things that much better. I was also delighted to see that The LAV is a Steelers fan AND expressed much dislike for Ohio State. One of the cool things to see was people practicing what they preach. By that, I mean it was great to see those who talk about taking Level I classes over and over again doing just that. I will spare the list, but of the people in the class, 4 or 5 were following their advice.
Seeing some of the cool gear was nice as well, such as the slide mounted red dots, and being able to shoot them.
It was also cool to be able to bounce questions off Larry about gear and pick his brain about everything under the sun and the how's and why's about some of my future purchases as well.
Random personal thought: It was very cool to train under Larry Vickers. Part of the reason I am doing this stuff now is the TV shows he was in. It wasn't until I saw them this time last year that I was fully aware that this type of stuff was out there, don't ask me how I didn't know this, but that is the case.
More pictures will be posted shortly, I was able to take 814 total (many were sequences) and need to sift through them post process a fair amount. Use them as you please, just please resize them with the correct proportions. If you need help resizing them, just ask.
Thanks to everyone who made this happen.
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