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It’s hard to believe it’s been over 3 years since I updated this blog. But I can’t think of a better reason to start posting again.
This past weekend I spent sweating my nether regions off down in Cleves, Ohio. I was at the Impact Shooting Center taking Scott “Jedi” Jedlinski’s (Modern Samurai Project) 3 day AIWB/Red Dot Pistol class. I learned about the class back in December when the folks from Impact Shooting Center – Shane and Carly Cardwell and Billie and Angela Brown along with a couple others – came out to an active shooter training I was doing for a local PD. They volunteered their day to be the role players for a bunch of cops and university security guys. They are some of the nicest people you can imagine and when they told me they were bringing Jedi to their range for a 3 day class, I was determined to go to the class. I registered the next day. I’ve been to quite a few classes over the years and Shane and Carly have been some of the most gracious hosts I have ever met. If you ever have a chance to visit Impact Shooting Center, or if you are looking for a private place you can join to shoot anytime from 9am-9pm, you should check them out. Impact Shooting Center
So why did I choose Jedi’s class? I first met Jedi at the 2018 Ohio Tactical Officer’s Association conference. I had taken a 1 day red dot pistol class he did at the Conference. Glock and the OTOA had provided guns, red dots, holsters and mag pouches for Officers interested in learning about red dots and Jedi (along with Jim Dexter of Tactically Sound Training Center) provided the training. I was running a G19/RMR at the Conference and was suitably impressed with what Jedi had presented that I decided I wanted to take a full 3 day class from him. Since I run our PD range I had planned on trying to host him at our range, but when I found out Shane and Carly already had it in the works I just decided to attend the class there. What appealed to me about Jedi’s take on teaching the red dot was his background in competition and his flat out refusal to be something he is not. He told us many times in the 1 day class – “I don’t teach tactics”. He left that to Jim Dexter. He is all about teaching you to be a better shooter. I respect that. And since I have been a competitive shooter for 25 years, I appreciate what he has to offer me from his experience as a USPSA shooter.
July in Ohio can be pretty miserable. And it just so happened that the 3 days of class were the hottest of the year. It sucked. Temps in the 90’s and heat index of 100+. Did I mention the humidity? Talk about miserable. But I still had a blast and learned a lot. So, to the class itself:
Day 1 was mostly about AIWB. But you cannot get into the how and why of AIWB without talking about the fundamentals. So we did a quick review of the safety rules to start the day. I was happy to hear a variation of one of the safety rules that I use myself. Jedi teaches that the finger should stay off the trigger until you have DECIDED to shoot. I totally agree. Especially in a self-defense or LE use of force type shooting.
After the safety brief, everyone introduced themselves and Jedi asked what they were looking for in this class. For me, it was reducing the useless frenetic movement in my draw that slows down my first shot from the draw. We had quite a diverse group in the class. There were 3 law enforcement officers, the folks from Impact Shooting Center, quite a few folks who were just “regular people” and then some industry folks. We had John Johnston from Ballistic Radio, Bryan F, the owner of AimSurplus and Keith from Faxon Firearms.
After a review of safety rules we got into the mechanics of shooting. One of the things that most impressed me about Jedi’s presentation on the fundamentals was how he was able to explain the WHY of what he teaches. Many instructors can tell you what to do, but fall short when pressed about the why. I have been to A LOT of shooting and Instructor schools over the years. Jedi ranks in the top 2 classes that I learned the most about shooting/instructing. Tom Givens 3 Day Instructor Development Class is the other half of the top 2. Jedi had us pair up with someone as a partner for some of the demos he showed. It just so happened that my partner was one of my partners when I went through Tom’s 3 Day Instructor Development Class – Bill P. Bill is an accomplished instructor and attorney and taught at the Tactical Defense Institute for many years. Jedi’s presentation on grip and stance caused both Bill and I to look at each other and go “that’s incredible” after running through some of the dry demos that Jedi had us practice. My two biggest takeaways from Day 1 were realizing how much useless movement I had in my draw stroke and how simple changes in foot placement made a huge difference in performance. Especially when he taught us about The Bind. I won’t even try to explain the how and why of The Bind. But it ties in with his background in martial arts and is so simple once he explains it to you.
Jedi told us the the definition of irony was “the manner in which you are trying to do something is that which is holding you back.” And boy was he right.
A couple other things about Day 1 – we spent a lot of time practicing our draw from 4 different start positions:
- The De-Escalation Position – your hands out in front of you at approximately chin level like you are trying to get someone to calm down.
- Hands relaxed at waist.
- Hands crossed at waist grabbing your shirt/cover garment (hoodie).
- Arms crossed.
Jedi explained the pros/cons of each position and explained why he teaches what he teaches. He comes from a martial arts background and that worked it’s way into his presentation many times. Some of what he presented I had learned before and use when I teach classes of my own, but when combined with his presentation on his AIWB draw I saw how I could improve how I do things.
A couple final things that stuck out about Day 1:
We heard many times throughout the 3 days “Speed comes from efficiency, efficiency comes from technique”. This stuck with me and now I just need to override 25 years of doing things in a certain way to become more efficient.
Jedi recommends practicing Speed and Accuracy separately. We spent time shooting at 1 inch squares and 2″ circles and then multiple rounds at A zones and 8″ circles. Every drill had a purpose and built on one skill after another.
For Day 1 I ran my CZ P-07 from a JM Custom Kydex AIWB holster. I just changed the dot on this P-07 from an RMR to a Holosun 507c a few days before class. I ran a mixture of Lawman 124 TMJ and Blazer Brass 115 FMJ with a combination of P-07/09 and Sig 226/229 mags. I had no malfunctions and shot about 250-300 rounds.
I looked at the other students in the class to see what they were shooting. Most of the class shot a Glock of some sort. Some of those Glocks were Roland Special type Glocks. There were a couple of M&P’s, at least one of which was a Roland Special type M&P. There were 2 320’s and 1 STI 2011 Omni. RMRs were predominant although the 320s had Romeos of some sort and there were Delta Point Pros, Trijicon SROs and Holosuns present as well. Throughout the weekend I believe the DPPs and the Romeos were the only MRDS that had problems. I was told that Carly’s DPP went out on Day 1 and I know that one of the Romeos died on Day 3. I was the lone traditional double action (TDA) shooter in the class.
Although most of the students had MRDS on their pistols, at least 1 was shooting iron sights on her Glock 19.
Day 1 ended with an attempt at getting a Black Belt Patch. To get a Black Belt Patch you have to:
- Draw and shoot 3 to an A zone and 2 to a 3×5 card in 2 seconds or less at 3 yards.
- Draw and shoot 1 shot to an A zone in 1 second or less from 7 yards.
- Bill Drill in less than 2 seconds (draw and shoot 6 rounds to A Zone from 7 yards)
- Draw and shoot 1 shot into an A Zone at 25 yards in 1.5 seconds or less.
I tried and failed miserably.
After Day 1 a good portion of the class went out to dinner at a local restaurant. Over dinner, Jedi and AJ (his assistant instructor) were more than willing to continue to share little bites of knowledge to anyone that asked.
Day 2 was all about the MRDS. Some of the students continued to shoot from AIWB. Many didn’t. I did not. I decided to shoot my duty gun with an RMR equipped slide. My duty gun is a Sig P229. I have been given permission to carry an RMR’ed slide on my duty gun. When I was a Detective I just used a Safariland GLS Pro-Fit holster and it was no big deal. When I went back in uniform in 2016 I used a Blade-Tech WRS Level 3 Duty Holster. I wasn’t real happy with the Blade-Tech holster, but it was all that was available. I stopped carrying the RMR’ed slide later that year, hoping that someone would make a better duty holster. That hasn’t happened so I decided to start using the RMR’ed slide in the Blade-Tech holster again. I ran that combo for the 2nd and 3rd day of class. I used the Blazer Brass 115gr and Lawman 124gr ammo as well and had no issues.
Day 2 started with a conversation on the pros and cons of different MRDS. Did I mention it was humid and hot as hell at 9am? Here’s the takeaways from that conversation (at least from my perspective):
- Don’t use Energizer batteries.
- The RMR and especially the RMR Gen 2 are best for duty/carry use
- Holosun 407/507 and DPP are second best – who cares if the Holosuns are made in China.
- Bushnell/Burris are hobby grade
- Vortex isn’t quite there yet, but look for that to change soon
- Jedi is a believer in BUIS
- SRO/ACRO – don’t let it make you lazy
- ACRO battery life sucks
- Romeo Gen 1 are horrible
- Romeo Gen 2 – get the steel cage around window
- Romeo Gen 3 – hopefully it doesn’t suck
- Treat your MRDS with Rain-X or Cat Crap to prevent fogging.
After that we got to shooting and the drills were designed to build us up to passing the Black Belt Patch standards.
There was a discussion on gross sight pictures with a dot. Jedi presented 3 different options and let us decide which worked best. This really tied into the 3 and 2 standard at 3 yards. The options he gave us were:
- Backplate
- Window of glass
- “Guillotine” – using top of the MRDS as a reference point
I preferred the “Guillotine” method and used that for the remainder of the class.
During one of the drills, I made the comment that I wasn’t sure I could physically draw my pistol from the duty holster I used any faster, Jedi heard me say that and that led to a discussion on the different methods of drawing from an OWB (outside the waistband) holster. He discussed the pros and cons of the “pluck” and the “scoop/pluck” methods of drawing from an OWB holster. Needless to say, this helped me a lot.
We also covered strong hand and weak hand shooting on Day 2. He discussed 3 different thumb positions we could try. I had never given much thought to thumb position, but he went into detail about the how and why of each position. He called them the “bent”, “stretched” and “Delta” positions. I found that I preferred different positions for strong hand and weak hand.
At the end of Day 2, I tried his standards again and failed again. Here’s my performance:
- 3/2 at 3 yards – FAIL – 2.16 clean
- 1 shot at 7 yards – FAIL – .97 miss
- Bill Drill at 7 yards – FAIL – 2.06 clean
- 1 shot @ 25 yards – FAIL 1.39 miss
I was happy to see that by taking what he said to heart, I was able to shave quite a bit of time off my draw from my duty holster. I just needed to fix the accuracy.
Day 3
Day 3 was the most miserable day weather wise. We started with accuracy drills. 1″ squares at 10 yards and B8 targets at roughly 20 yards. We shot 2 strings at 20 yards. I shot one all double action. The second time I shot all single action. I did better when shooting all DA. I tend to “heel” (Jedi hates that term) shots when shooting SA.
After that we started working on Shooting on the Move. I have been doing this for a long time and nothing presented was new to me, but it was a great intro to shooting on the move to people who had no training/experience in doing so.
After lunch Jedi set up a short USPSA style stage for us to shoot. We shot it 3 times. Once without any advice from Jedi, the second time was after he gave us advice and was just to see how fast we could run it. The last time was for score (time and accuracy). The first and last runs were combined to give you an overall score and the winner won a Philster holster. The point of this competition was to show that a combination of speed and accuracy (efficiency) would win. I shot the first 2 runs faster than anyone. But my accuracy on the first run wasn’t as good as it should be so I wasn’t the top scorer. I absolutely tanked the 3rd run. My grip sucked and although I was still one of the fastest, the misses I had killed my score.
We ended with another try at the Black Belt Standards. I had nothing to lose so I tried it again. I almost made it. Here’s the results:
- 3/2 at 3 yards – PASS – 1.81 clean
- 1 Shot at 7 yards – PASS – .87 clean
- Bill Drill – PASS – 2 seconds clean
- 1 shot at 25 yards – FAIL – 1.3 miss
Here’s the shot that missed.
All weekend Jedi told us that “perception is a shitty metric of time”. He was right. My perception was that I was not going to make the time and I rushed the shot. In fact, I had plenty of time left to get a better shot off. Although I didn’t get a Black Belt Patch, I was very happy with the improvement that I saw over the 3 days. I’ve got a lot of work to get past 25 years of doing it a specific way. I found myself reverting back to old habits when I didn’t concentrate hard on doing it the way Jedi showed us. So I see many dry fire and live fire sessions in my future.
After the last attempt at the Black Belt Patch standards we cleaned up the range and then headed to the air-conditioned (thank God) classroom for a “hot wash” of the weekend. Jedi and his assistant instructor – AJ – went around the room and asked us each individually if we had learned what we had told him we wanted to learn on Day 1. He then asked us if we learned something we did not expect to learn and asked us what that was. For me, I definitely learned what I set out to learn and was surprised to pick up the extra gems about foot placement and The Bind. But the amazing thing to me was how Jedi was able to remember all of the things he did. He gave personal feedback to each of the shooters there – all 20 of us. He remembered things I was surprised he would remember – like my comment about not thinking I could physically get the pistol out any faster. The thing I appreciated the most was that Jedi, and his AI AJ, obviously cared about making sure their students learned what they could to become a better shooter.
Some final random thoughts. Jedi made several comments that I wholeheartedly agree with. One of which is about an instructor that doesn’t do demos or won’t tell you up front what class he shoots if he is a competitive shooter. If someone tells me they compete but are vague or evasive about their classification I become skeptical. Same thing about instructors that don’t demo a drill for their students. Jedi demo’d each drill he wanted us to shoot. Often times doing it at different speeds. Did he shoot each drill perfectly? Nope. I didn’t expect him to. But like he told us – if he did not do the drill correctly he would tell us the reason, not the “excuse”. And then he would shoot it again correctly. I laughed when I heard him say “the road to hell (for instructors) is paved with demos”.
So there you have it. I took a lot more notes than I usually do when taking a class but I know I missed some things that were said. If you carry a MRDS equipped pistol or compete in USPSA in Carry Optics, you owe it to yourself to go to one of these classes. I have already been in contact with Jedi’s boss (his wife Bev) about hosting a red dot pistol Instructor class next year at our PD range so I will take another shot at the Black Belt Patch then.