On the afternoon of September 26th, 2015- we taught a Level 2: Personal Protection with a Handgun course to a group of students who agreed to brave the rain. The Level 2 course focuses on handgun manipulation and skills that are likely to be required to successfully defend yourself in a gun fight. We began with a discussion of human anatomy and how the body reacts when it is faced with high-stress situations. We discussed the sympathetic grip of humans which underscores the importance of trigger finger discipline, and then we moved into an explanation of "body alarm" and why that is important to being able to control your "fight or flight" reaction. Finally, we moved into a discussion about how to "shut down the human machine" as anatomically efficiently as possible.

Understanding the anatomy after our discussions, we moved on to the fundamentals and manipulations that are covered in this course. Unlike our Level 1 course, this course is designed to be more of a "discuss and practice" format. Students in this course have already demonstrated safe gun-handling practices so we are comfortable having them increase their round count with more practice and less discussion.

Our first skill that we worked on was drawing from the holster. We use a slightly modified version of the 4 point draw, with a specific focus on economy of effort and efficiency of motion. For some of our students, this was their first experience working from a holster for more than anything other than simply transporting their firearm.

Equally important to drawing from holster is the ability to effectively re-holster the firearm. We discussed the reasons why re-holstering during an active shooter situation or concealed carry engagement is vital and we practiced deliberately putting our firearm back in the holster. After feeling comforatble with drawing from holster and putting shots down range, we moved on to the topic of safely moving with a handgun.

In order to introduce everyone how to safely move with a handgun, we first re-emphasized the importance of trigger finger discipline and muzzle control. Next, we discussed the idea of the "hoola-hoop" method of movement where we always leave the muzzle pointed in a direction that would neither impact us or anyone else if a negligent discharge were to occur.

Next we moved on to reloading a semi-automatic handgun. We covered two different reload situations, and two different methods of performing the reloads in each situation. The first situation is an emergency reload, or a reload from slidelock. We worked on reloading from slidelock by the "power stroke method" and also the "slide release method." We also spent several minutes discussing the advantages and disadvantages of both methods. 

The next situation that we discussed was a loaded chamber reload. Understanding that these are reloads that occur when you still have a round in the chamber, we discussed two different methods to re-charge the handgun under these exact circumstances. The first method that we discussed is called a "tactical reload" which offers the advantage of an overall lower reload time. The other method is called a "reload with retention" and offers the advantage of having the firearm in an unloaded condition for slightly less time than its counterpart.

Because fine motor skills can become greatly diminshed under high-stress situations, we also introduce our students to ways to do some "damage control" when things go poorly. For instance, we work on ways to mitigate the need to look down and search for dropped magazines during reloads. This proved to be a useful concept for many students as the constant rain made everyone's gear that much harder to hold.

Next we worked on identifying and correcting the four most common malfunctions that occur in a semi-automatic handgun. We worked on corrected the following: Failure to Fire, Failure to Eject (stovepipe), Failure to Extract (double feed), and Failure to return to battery. We discussed how to setup these failures for training purposes as well as how to correct them after you have identified which malfunction has occured. 

With all of our learned skills, we worked on moving while performing these manipulations. This is considered vital during a violent encounter to increase the chances of your prevailing without being hit.

Lastly, we worked on a way to identify our shot cadence for our individual skill sets. Since sight picture is really the "speed limit" on our ability to shoot fast and accurately, we discussed how the size and the distance of the target are directly related to how fast we can acquire an acceptable sight picture. Therefore, size and distance of the target directly impact the speed of our shooting cadence. The closer we are, or the larger the target- the faster we can accurately shoot. Conversely, as we find ourselves further away from the target, or shooting at a smaller target all together- the more we have to slow our shot cadence down to make sure that we can put effective hits on target.

In conclusion, I am very proud of how each of the students progressed throughout the day. Their skills were noticeably improving as the skills systematically built on the previous skills that we worked on. I thank them for their willingness to tough it out through the inclement weather, and I look forward to training with each of them in the future.

Below I have put together a few clips of the Level 2 participants as well as some of the various skills that we covered throughout the day.