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Posted: 7/17/2014 12:06:47 AM EDT
This is the second time I have taken this course. The first time I took this course with Stephen was over a year ago and was my first real Handgun 1 course. You can really tell that he has perfected this class over the past year. This time it was much more dynamic than the first time I took it. Now we had a fair amount of advance shooters so it allowed us to really move through certain sections of the class pretty quick. That allowed us to get into more, what I would see as, techniques and drills that you would see in a handgun 2 courses.

We started off with basic safety brief then then got into the basics of shooting. Going over grip, recoil management, trigger control, sight picture and sight alignment. We did various target drills to help us understand the functions of doing these fundamentals certain ways. Something I really thought was pretty cool was we all got our firing grip and Stephen came over to each student individually to check the grip and then mark two parallel lines on our hands to show where they should line up every time we grip the gun. That was extremely useful when doing specific drills where we drew the handgun from the holster later on. Stephen has a knack for getting students to understand why we do things a certain way when shooting and how we can improve on them. I like this factor about his courses a lot.
As we started getting through most of the basics pretty quick Stephen decided to add more dynamic drills to the class. But first we had to learn how to hold the gun between running and shooting to make sure, if there were any negligent discharges, no one in the class (or in the real world situation, an innocent bystander) would be hit by that stray round. As an average CHL civilian I had never had much training in how to orient the gun in different ways depending on the scenario. He taught three methods that are usable in different environments pending what we thought could be best used to prevent any unwanted damage in a threat situation where you would have to move with a handgun. They all had their merits and weaknesses but in showing us we could really evaluate their best uses.

After that, we focused on shooting at metal plates with various different drills that required movement. We even had a team competition where everyone partnered up to run the course together measuring a score mixed with time and hits. This was by far the most fun I have ever had shooting. It really was a good mix of put the shooting basics to play with dynamic movement. It allowed me to put into a small perspective of what things might be like, from a physiological stance, if I was ever in a situation when trying to engage a threat and had to utilize my handgun. To me that is what these types of courses are all about. Learning to shoot properly and utilize those skills dynamically in a high stress environment. That was the biggest take I took away from this class. Even though I took this class over a year ago with Stephen and I thought it was great then. It is 10 times better than it was back then. Teaching me things that help me learn how to train and practice in the future to not only be a better all-around shooter, but to prepare myself for that possible chance I would need to use my CCW.
Stephen is very shooter oriented, so don’t get me wrong this not a “how to fight” scenario class. You will focus most of the class on shooting techniques and putting them to use to learn them under his guidance. But throughout the class he reiterates and puts everything in perspective of why we train this way. To prepare ourselves for those high stress situations as a competition shooter, CHL holder, police office, soldier, etc. Hands down if you want a great handgun class to learn fundamentals and how to use your gun in a way that truly will take you to the next level as an even better shooter, take this course, especially if you are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. This is where Stephen calls home and has many classes a year (even though he travels much across the country for his classes). I look forward at expanding my courses I would like to take to other instructors, especially when Stephen hosts other great instructors here in the area. But until I am able to get some more cash flow to travel I have to focus on training in the metroplex. I have searched a lot in the past few years for real quality instructors in the North Texas area, and as of right now Stephen Pineau is the only ticket in town.
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