What do you guys think of this Program of Instruction?

Bluez

Full Access Member
Ok so i have a couple of buddies who are willing to learn but are family fathers so I only get to train them maybe twice a year and as a result progress is slow.

I trained one of my work colleagues today.
He is a USAF reservist but from a specialty where he never even touched a rifle in his entire career.
Over the past 3 years I been teaching him BRM and that been going real well and he was a natural and is pretty good at hitting what he is aiming at.

But running the mechanics of the AR he still struggled with.
As recently as last year I would notice when we start after along break he would struggle with remembering how to load his AR.

So what I've been doing is getting rid of these short 1 hr sessions at a local indoor range..

But instead keep him an several hours day and run him again and again in certain drills to enforce memory.

A few months ago I had him for about 7 hours and I saw a huge jump in ability.

That was mostly updrills but also some drills that involve transitioning between several different targets at different distances with different firing positions...and giving targets that would force fimn to change his firing positions mid- drill. And of course reloads.
Today I was trying to build on that event from last fall.

This was our POI for today (anything with a Star he had never done before)

- review disassembly and reassembly of Ar15
- Review tactical Reloads vs Emergency reloads
- React to Contact - Break Contact. This was w/ a 2 man buddy team, me and him, done dry only.... for safety reasons as the lane only had a backstop on one side.. and also I did not have time for a crawl-walk-run to ensure his (and my) safety if he did it live-fire*
- React to Contact - Fight through (done dry)*
- Hasty Ambush ( after a break contact), done dry*
- Various updrills, Starting with single target and facing target .. ending with 2 targets controlled pairs from facing away from target. the 50m was usually from ..from standing the 100m from kneeling
- Shoot through vegetation serving as concealment, I am kind proud of this one. So I put him on the corner of a cornfield and had him shoot drills on command through the edge of the cornfield at 2 different targets at different distances. He had to maneuver depending on target and depending on his starting position through the prone and kneeling to get a good shot through the corn, he would sometimes only see the edge of the target and had to shooting at presumed location... And actually shoot through the leaves etc*
- Supine and Urban Prone.. just as an example how it feels and is difficult to make work.He was surprisingly good at it as his rifle handling skills were increasing..and urban I stick to strong side only... Those were more intended as fun closing drills. But I think if he is using his rifle in these weird firing positions it further increases his confidence.

He was a good sport especially since it was huge scorcher and we did all this in less than 4 hours with very few breaks just for water/gatorade.

I observed his movements really smoothing out by the end of the training day and his was hitting real well all day.
So what do you guys think of the training day?

Did I try to squeeze in too much for someone who is still a relative noob?


PS: I keep telling my buddies here in Northern Virginia that I regularly train with, to also attend GreenOps for getting better at running your gun and of course MVT.
That would be ideal but only a minority go and do that.
after doing this for years I have had success in getting 1 guy to green ops and 3 guys to MVT, I have also mentioned Mason-Dixon but no takers yet.
 

Bluez

Full Access Member
Addendum:
I'm big on giving targets and/or a drill that force the shooter to completely change positions during his firing drill
For example at end of day updrills might have some targets designated as prone only or kneeling only.

So I might make the 2nd target always a prone for a kneeling..
Or in some cases give 3 target numbers that force the shooter from standing to prone and then to kneeling.

Standing as the starting default I think makes sense.. to train PPL to react to contact.

Prone right afterwards also makes sense since once the first couple of reaction rounds are sqeezed off me might wantto be in prone since its more accurate and harder to get hit..
but then often targets may not be reachable from prone due to terrain so sometimes throw in that 3rd target were shooter has to go quickly from prone to kneeling .

The shooting thru concealment like a bush (or in this case the edge of a cornfield) I think is also realistic and offers a good learning curve.

At the other range I train I can sometimes hide a steel target behind tall grass, here it was easier to hide the shooter behind concealment
 

SilvrSRT10

Super Moderator
Everybody learns differently and at different paces. Looks like you zeroed in on how he learns best. Sounds like you're a great instructor by not trying to make him learn at your pace but by letting him learn at his pace.
 

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