I'm wanting to do a defensive handgun class with my dad as a Father's Day gift (I told him about it yesterday so technically I'm not late). S&S by the stadium in KCMO looks to be reasonably priced, is a good location and well reviewed. Does anyone have any first hand experience that they can share?

Their Pistol 1 class looks like something that would be beneficial for both my dad (a beginner) and myself (an enthusiastic novice).

I checked frontier justice as well, but they didn't have anything on their schedule that seemed to fit.

As always I'm open to other suggestions within reasonable driving distance from Pleasant Hill.

UPDATE:

So we went ahead and scheduled a session of their Pistol I course for yesterday afternoon. One thing that appealed to me was the availability of private classes for a relatively inexpensive price and with only a 2 person minimum. We met Parker, co-owner of S&S and one of their instructors, at their office in the old Leeds plant of of stadium drive. We signed waivers and made the short drive to the range in the caves at 23rd st.

The course started with introductions, a safety briefing and an explanation of the range commands that we would be using. My dad is a pretty new handgun shooter and Parker took care to adequately explain and demonstrate everything that we'd be doing.

For me the class really covered the basics:  grip, sight picture, stance, administrative load, emergency reload, tactical reload, clearing malfunctions and other basic fundamentals of pistol handling. These were all great for my dad to learn but I started to feel like the course would be a little too remedial for me. As we went on I realized that the past few years of shooting a few USPSA matches and otherwise "shooting for fun" had caused me to pick up some bad habits that wouldn't serve me well in a self defense situation. This class helped me break some of those bad habits and realize that even though I could do things quickly the wrong way I would be better served in the long term to force myself into correct technique. As we progressed through the various drills and instructions Parker stressed the importance of being hard on ourselves during practice so that we were getting used to using correct technique instead of just taking what we could get.

We ended with some drills using the shot timer to measure our progress and push ourselves to perform under a little bit of stress. Overall I was extremely happy with the class. My dad felt like he was able to learn the correct way to handle and manipulate a pistol in a self defense situation which augments the basic instruction that he received in a CCW course. Parker spent a lot of time standing by and consistently correcting his technique so that he could cement in his mind the right way to do things. Parker was also a great at telling me not only what habits I had developed that needed to be broken, but also why I should change them. I'm looking forward to taking more classes with S & S in the future.

TL;DR review: Great class for someone who needs to learn or refresh the basics.

I was just getting ready to post and ask about them and about Maximum Life Expectancy in Joplin

It seems the vast majority of training in the KC area is by "NRA certified trainers" or the "I am or was a police officer, so I know about guns type".  These are about the only two I could find on this side of the state.  I am looking for actual and practical experience.

Never heard of them

Well I'll be the Guinea pig. My dad and I are signed up for their pistol 1 class this weekend.

We'll see how it goes!

I was looking at Covert Dynamics, however the owner has been working out of town and hasn't posted any training dates for this year.

Bump and gratuitous target picture.

Well that's good to know, do you recall how much the two person classes were? That seems more like something my GF would do with me.

ETA: How long was the class and what time did it start?

The class was $100 per person, minimum of 2 people. We were on the range for 3 hours. I'm not sure how that compares to other classes on price, but if you're going to be in a class of 6 or 8 people for 4 or 5 hours you don't get the same amount of 1 on 1 with the instructor or the same amount of reps though the drills.

They were pretty flexible on the time. We were there from 4-7:15 and they were willing to work around our schedule.

What was the quality of the class and instructor like?

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for but I felt like it was well worth the $200. We were looking for something pretty basic and that's what we got. The instructor did a nice job explaining things and demonstrating technique. He corrected what needed to be corrected when we were doing something wrong.

I know that at least 2 of their other instructors have some amount of military background but the guy that taught our class is just a regular guy. He's a good teacher. Really there's no need for a lot of door kicking experience to teach fundamental pistol handing and marksmanship, in my opinion.

ETA: He was a really nice guy too. I didn't feel like we were contending with his ego or anything like that.

Is that what you're looking for? I can expand on it more if you need me to.