I drove up to Debois, WY to attend John McPhee's 1 Day Premium Pistol class.  The premium classes are smaller with only five students, so you get more one on one time with John.  It's a six and a half hour drive, and with class starting at 9 am I left at 1 am to make sure I made it in time.  I got to the range at 8:30 so I timed it good After it was over I drove straight back home arriving around 10:45 pm, so it was a long day.  It was totally worth it too.

John uses video diagnostics as the foundation for his class, which separates him from other instructors.  There's a saying that the video never lies, and when you watch it you learn a lot about what you're doing.  He gave us a quick safety briefing to start and spent a few minutes explaining why he teaches like he does and how his experiences shaped him.  We then went downrange and he recorded each of us drawing our pistol, firing two rounds, reloading, and firing two more rounds.  We then went back to the benches and he went through our videos with us.  He uses a coaching program which allows him to break down and show us exactly what we're doing.  Each video takes about 20 minutes.  I liked watching the other videos also, because I was able to see what other shooters were doing and it helped reinforce what he told me.

Once he went through the videos, we started doing drills downrange.  We ran several reps of each drill, and for each rep John stood by a different shooter to work with them individually.  He also made two more videos during drills, one of reloads and one of draws.  Like the first video, he took us back to the benches and went over them with us, so we got three videos with diagnostics for the class.  After the class he sends them to us in dropbox for us to keep, so it's nice to have the videos once you're done with the class to refer back to.  This class is like a PhD for pistol.  It's not for beginners, but for shooters with some experience and who would like to dig in and improve on every little thing possible.  If you have a flaw, John will find it and help you fix it.

John McPhee is a guy that is down to earth and genuine.  He takes a huge interest in helping each student improve.  He was able to help me improve in several areas I'd been struggling with, as well as becoming more efficient and faster.  If you get a chance to take a class from him, do it.  It's well worth it.