John Farnham / Defense Training International

[RD62]

My local range is offering an Urban Rifle class by John Farnham and DTI later this year.

I don't see much about him hear and my weak site search-fu didn't really turn up much.

How is his rep and how are his classes? Worth the $$$ or look for something else?

This is not my first class, but there aren't many offered locally either and this seems like it may be a good opportunity if it's worth while.

Let me know your experiences please and if this class stacks up.

Thanks!

[az doug]

I took a couple of classes, handgun and shotgun, from John in 1987. We hosted the classes at our range. He covered a lot about reaction times, cover, communication with your partner(s)... We used paintball guns for part of the class and radio controlled "dualatron" targets that had a sensor in the center that could be set for 1-4 hits to make it turn away. At that time I think he was ahead of his time and I enjoyed his class/learned a lot.

I cannot speak to his classes now.

[William B.]

SWAT magazine did an article about his Handgun/Urban Rifle course in their April issue.

http://www.swatmag.com/content/issues/view/april_2011/

[nutnless220]

You can tell alot about the man from his writings.

http://www.defense-training.com/quips/quips.html

[zacbol]

He's been spoken of very highly by the folks I've trained with, notably John Holschen. In fact, a core drill used by Insights is the Farnam drill.

That said, I believe he still teaches a Weaver stance rather than modern isosceles which would be a little odd to me. If I recall correctly, his position is that isosceles renders one too easily disarmed. I'm sure you can dig up his writings on the subject.

[YVK]

Took pistol and carbine classes from him. Technically I don't run either the way he teaches, and don't subscribe to many of his notions. Nonetheless, I'd recommend his pistol class for a number of reasons.
The carbine class I have a harder time recommending as I thought it wasn't up to speed - but that was my speed; other folks in class seemed to be happy. One good thing in his carbine class was a wide variety of engagement ranges - I've been to classes that never went beyond 25 or 50 yards.

He does some unusual things, and sometimes you go WTF. However, I had a reality check moment during one of those WTF drills, so one has to have an open mind and give credit when credit is due.

He uses local AIs for his classes, and this adds uncertainty to it and makes it difficult to extrapolate from one location to another. For example, I thought his AIs during my pistol class were excellent, while his AIs, at least most vocal one, during my carbine class were so-so.

One thing that I believe needs to be said is that John is a genuinely good guy who cares for what he does and for his students. He is/was one of the first ones, and I think we wouldn't have so many different trainers available now if it weren't for John and his generation making the path.