This weekend I attended The Defensive Carbine Class offered by Virginia's Green-ops Training. Great course. This was a one day course held at an outdoor range in Culpeper, Virginia. About an hour and 20 minutes from DC. They hold classes here and at the NRA range in Fairfax, Virginia. I have been a competitive shooter for the last 20 years and I have attended several respected training facilities/events. FPF Training, Sig Sauer Academy, Suarez international, Langdon Tactical, Todd Green, Matt Burkett to name a few. I am familiar with what quality training is. I have spent time with respected Executive Protection Training and Situational Training groups as well. I am familiar with quality training and skilled instructors. This course was great and they covered a lot. We worked drills from 15 to 100 yards. Basic drills, challenging drills, malfunction drills, reloading drills, timed drills, etc. They covered standard operation procedures non military people may not be familiar with but can benefit from. They covered defense shooting legal issues. They aren’t lawyers but they have LE experience and gave information most classes don’t cover but is critical to being a responsible free helpful gun owner.
What made this course special was the teaching and the instructors. There were 3 attentive skilled instructors. Each instructor was constantly moving and observing each shooter. When an instructor eyed an issue in a student they: told the student, explained the remedy and continued to watch and guide them until they figured it out and squared it away. I haven’t been to a class with such productive individual attention. It was possible because the instructors were so skilled they were able identify problems, communicate the remedies to the problems quickly and accurately and move on. These guys watched and analyzed. Watching, is standard instructor work but the results in Green Ops are more proactive and immediate. Every break I made notes on things to work on. At the end of the day I left with noticeable improvement and the master list of what I need to work on. No gray area, no experimenting or guessing. I know exactly what I need to do better and how to do it. I have not come across such dedicated instructors. These guys want you to be as good and you can be. I left her noticeably better. The Green-Ops guys are a treasure to find. I have taken several classes with them and I spend time with the Lead Instructor Brett Harnish one-on-on. Working with these guys has taken my skill set from OK/Pretty good to Impressive. If you value instruction for improvement in performance seek out Green Ops. They will make you better.