I just do not get it.
If my job was one of teaching people how to stay alive (and it is), I would attempt to be the very best that I could be at it. We are talking about teaching issues of life or death....not just passing on knowledge and teaching how to prosper.
To me this makes a huge difference from a typical "instructor" responsibility.
When you combine this article with what recently came out of Force Science, it amazes me that these things are being presented as some new epiphany. It just comes down to common sense to me.
I knew from day one inside of my very first MT course (1999) that I would never fight within the methodology in which I was being trained. Luckily I met some guys that were thinking just like I did. My training partner (BH) and I point shot everything inside of three yards even though we did not know that we were technically "point shooting." We moved much faster than everyone else was and accepted seeing less, still knowing that we could make the hits. We questioned everything that we were taught for common sense. This seemed to be heresy, because we did not witness hardly any "questioning." We kept these discussions to ourselves for two years. We spent two hours at the end of every ten hours of training, doing nothing but analyzing, questioning, and seeking out common sense. We both understood the context and the reality of the fight and clearly saw that what we were being taught was not inline with reality and simply did not make sense.
This is the epiphany that everyone needs to personally experience. I had mine ten years ago while at the entry level of a subpar training methodology.
In 2001 I learned about "gun forums" and went searching for a better way. 99.9% of what I saw was the subpar status quo. I witnessed a bizarre phenomenon of dogma, guru worship, and competition focus where anyone with a desenting opinion was burned at the cyberstake. Filtering out the dogmatic BS was a chore in itself. When less than .1% of what is being said makes any sense, the search for "the truth" can be a very frustrating thing. I hung in there and eventually found guys like Gabe, Fred Darling, and a few others that were making sense. These guys were questioning the status quo, pointing out stupidity.
Over at the now defunked "Polite Society" Fred Darling was constantly pointing out the stupid things he was seeing inside of the MT courses. His opinions mirrored that of my training partner and mine. Here was a MT trainer publically stepping up to the plate and taking on the stupidity that I was seeing on a weekly basis. It became time for me to take my opinions out to the public. Fred and I got some very good things changed at one of the MT schools by airing out the dirty laundry publically. We were able to enact change in the way things were being programmed into the students. After action drills, always moving after shooting, close contact after shooting were being programmed in a manner that could cost somebody there life. Until someone stirred it up publically on the forums, it simply was not going to change.
So here I am today, publically questioning everything!
Question everything! No matter who says it!
I do not care if he is a guru, a Col. or if he is part of one of the elite LEO/military teams. I do not care if he is a world renown instructor or the lead trainer in your department. I do not care if it is Gabe or any of the outstanding SI instructors.
Question everything and everyone.....especially me!
Never take another mans word as the word of God!
It must past two tests!
(1) Common Sense that comes out of quality knowledge.
(2) Does it stand up to a living, thinking, and resisting adversary?
In 2002 I began training with Gabe. I took CRG, the original IGF (FOF/clearing/low light), CRG II (ECRG), and the IGF under the new format (FOF). (For those that love to claim to have made me who I am. Over 98% of this was done with point shooting without formal training in point shooting.)
This stuff made sense just like I knew it would from reading his posts on GT and PS. It also stood up to a living, thinking, and resisiting adversary.
Since then, I have continued with my search. Always looking to improve and to find a better way.
"Sometimes an instructor.....always a student......questioning everything!"
As an instructor that is teaching issues of life and death....it is your obligation.