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Last night’s show it was all about man’s best friend!
My guest was Evan Carson, owner of Off-Leash K9 Training and Innovative Defensive Solutions. We talked about a dog’s role as a defensive asset, what it takes to train a dog to perform protective tasks, what you can expect from a mutt, how responding police see dogs, and much more.
If ...
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On last night’s episode of Training Talk, I had the pleasure of talking with martial arts master Cecil Burch. He’s one of the foremost practitioners of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the world, along with having high belts and instructor credentials in a bunch of other disciplines. If anyone can speak to the topic of martial arts for self defense, it’s Cecil!
Which is exactly what ...
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If you didn’t see Training Talk last night, you missed a great show!
My special guest was Aaron Israel of Fundamental Defense, and we talked about something we both have some experience with: the similarities and differences in competition and defensive shooting. It was a wide-ranging discussion, and you might be surprised at some of the answers he gave!
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Daughter, 22, shot by dad who says he mistook her for intruder
Hardly a week goes by that I don’t see an article like this cross my electronic desk, and they bother me. Quite a lot, actually. Why?
Because I don’t think we in the firearms world are doing enough to truly educate people. We do a pretty good job of teaching folks how to pull ...
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On yesterday’s episode of Training Talk we took an in-depth look at some of the classes on this year’s PDN Training Tour. I was joined by Caleb Causey of Lone Star Medics and we talked about what he does, why he does it, and why his material is important to the person living the self-reliant lifestyle.
I had a great conversation and learned about some courses I’ve not yet taken.
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Spring is taking its sweet time getting here, but that hasn’t stopped me from collecting great articles for you! This week: a look at how you walk influences predators; what not to do for home security; why you should stop buying and start practicing; a proper response to a potential intruder; and, believe it or not, someone used a snubby to defend ...
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On last night’s episode of Training Talk, my special guest expert Barret Kendrick of Bearco Training gave us some insights on how to make sure our families are protected when we leave the house.
It’s something a lot of people worry about, and if you’re the “designated protector” and you’re not home all the time you should too. Would your spouse or children ...
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Last night’s episode of Training Talk was perhaps the most important I’ve done yet. We like to think that, if we use our gun in defense of ourselves or others, the cops will see us as heroes and everyone will hoist us on their arms and cheer us in the streets.
As my special guest Aaron Kreag discovered, it doesn’t actually work that ...
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It’s a short List for this week, but good things come in small packages! I’ll start off with an important article about securing your online profile; some tips about hotel security; the courts have not violated the 4th Amendment rights of concealed carriers; how to institute active shooter drills at your company; and what to look for when you buy locksets and ...
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Last night’s episode of Training Talk was one for the history books!
Rob Pincus made a cameo appearance to kick off the 2017 PDN Training Tour, but for some reason his audio wasn’t coming through. Never one to give up the ship, Rob used his mime skills and a Sharpie marker to tell us about what’s coming on this year’s tour!
Apparently Google was ...
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If you’ve ever thought about taking one of my famous Threat-Centered Revolver courses, you can still get into the class in Phoenix on April 1 & 2!
This is the class to take if you want to learn — really learn — how to use your revolver to defend yourself and your loved ones. I take my knowledge of defensive shooting and my ...
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I remember my first serious (multi-day) defensive shooting course. It was a spring day in the early 1990s and, as is normal here in the Pacific Northwet (no, that’s not a typo) it was raining like crazy. It was a cold, wet, miserable day.
Being a native Oregonian I was prepared for the conditions, but that didn’t make them any less miserable.
As ...
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Last night’s episode of Training Talk was something of a milestone for me. I’ve always wanted to have a candid talk about knife defense with Alessandro Padovani of Safer Faster Defense, and we finally got to do that — in public, no less!
Alessandro is an expert on the knife in self defense, and we talked about ...
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It’s the first of March and the Reading List is coming in like a lion! Today you’ll learn about squib loads and how to identify them; how to deal with the HK VP9 magazine release lever; how to prioritize your skills and preparations; the medical skills you need to know to deal with life-threatening trauma; how to unload a pistol for beginners; ...
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You know what’s fun about doing a live webcast? When things don’t go according to plan and the host has to tread water for 30 minutes!
Last night’s Training Talk started out great, but my first guest ran into technical issues (thank you Google, for your wonderfully buggy software.) Yours truly jumped in and covered the subject of sight ...
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This week’s episode of Training Talk was all about the threat posed by the active shooter.
My special Guest Expert was Aaron Jannetti of Endeavor Defense, and we had an in-depth discussion about how you can respond to an active shooter incident. Aaron presented some great information and dispelled a lot of myths and bad ideas.
This is one of ...
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It’s a great day for snubnose revolver owners!
My newest book, Protect Yourself With Your Snubnose Revolver, is now available and being delivered from both Amazon (paperback/Kindle) and the Apple iBooks Store!
The snubby is the quintessential defensive firearm; it was born of a need to have a compact, portable, concealable arm ...
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I’ve added a new class to my teaching schedule!
April 1st & 2nd I’ll be in Phoenix, AZ at Phoenix Firearms Training to teach my famous Threat-Centered Revolver course. If you own a revolver for self defense or home protection, this course will teach you the most efficient ways to use it to defeat your attacker.
This class isn’t just a ...
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Another great Training Talk episode “in the can”!
In case you missed it, check out the replay here. I covered “dress up training” and why you should avoid it; special Guest Expert Julie Loeffler talked about helping others get over the fear of training; and I went over a few SHOT Show trends and why they’re important to ...
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Last night’s episode was certainly an intriguing one!
My special guest, Aaron Israel of Fundamental Defense, and I had an interesting talk about the parallels between poker and self defense. Aaron uses those parallels to explain self defense principles in a way that I don’t think you’ve heard before, and his explanations may resonate strongly with a lot of ...
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I recently posted about the need for instructors to teach, and for students to learn, how to think during a defensive incident. Everyone agrees that it’s a necessary thing to do.
The problem is that many of the people agreeing don’t really know what it means.
Case in point: someone sent me a link to yet another video of a shooting drill. In it, ...
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A couple of weeks ago someone posted an interesting video on social media. It wasn’t the video itself which was interesting, but rather the reactions to it.
The video was of an exercise from a defensive shooting class. The exercise was a good example of forcing cognitive processing rather than a Pavlovian draw-and-fire response, which is good; a defensive encounter requires far more information processing ...
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Last night was the final episode of 2016 for my Personal Defense Network show, Training Talk. I thought it might be fun to gather as many of my guest experts as Google would allow for a big roundtable discussion about self defense and personal preparedness in 2016, and where we’d like to see it go in 2017.
If you missed the awesome live show, not to worry — you can watch the replay by clicking on this link!
Many thanks to ...
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My apologies if you’re not a fan of the show South Park, but an old episode has a training lesson for us.
On that episode, some little people known as Underpants Gnomes presented their 3-part success plan:
Phase 1: Steal underpants.
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Profit!
The joke, of course, isn’t that there’s nothing in Phase 2; it’s that you can’t ...
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A cryptic name for an episode? Maybe, but then again maybe it’s perfect!
My Special Guest Experts were Andy Loeffler and Joshua Gideon. Andy and I talked about a long-running experiment he did with some students and their ability to see when under stress. It was — if you’ll pardon the pun — an eye-opening discussion!
Joshua and I talked ...
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A really interesting List this week! We start with geese as a defensive tool (no, I’m not kidding); considerations to make before deciding to engage an active killer; a woman is dead because of an irresponsible and untrained gun owner; women shopping for defensive handguns; what to do and what not to do at a drive-through; how to secure private information on your smartphone; and how to use that phone to deal with 9-1-1.
I’ll admit ...
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I had a couple of great discussions with Rob Pincus and Caleb Causey on last night’s Training Talk show!
Rob talked about reality based training, force-on-force, and scenario training. Lots of people in the business use those terms interchangeably, but as Rob points out they’re not synonymous. It’s completely possible to have reality based training without running scenarios, and ...
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Lots of people have standards they steadfastly defend, even when those standards have no integrity. What does that mean?
I was recently told of a defensive shooting “standard” for draw-to-first-shot time, one a lot of instructors apparently use in their classes: 1.5 seconds if the gun is carried openly, or 2 seconds from concealment.
That seems quite odd to me. Not the times themselves, mind you — the fact there are two of them.
If you have a draw-to-first-shot standard for a defensive ...
Continue Reading →Last night’s Training Talk episode was a great one!
My special guest was Klint Macro with The Trigger Presser’s Union, and we had an in-depth discussion about defensive preparations for gun owners. He recently wrote an article for PDN about the topic, but in our discussion we went further into the topic — and then he gave me a teaching idea I’d never heard (and never would have thought of on my own.)
No, I’m not going to tell ...
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Just a month from now I’ll be teaching my Threat-Centered Revolver class in sunny Phoenix, and if you want to attend you need to book now!
December 3 & 4 I’ll be at Phoenix Firearms Training, basking in the warm sun and teaching responsible revolver owners how to defend themselves with the classic double action revolver. Whether you’ve got a snubnose you use as a backup gun or a full-size revolver you keep for home defense, this is the ...
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