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| Fundamentals: On a square range. |
Of note was how he described the class: "[A] two day Defensive Pistol 1 Course where we will be firing at least 500rds per day."
Like the class instructor, Greg recommended going with the larger pistol.
"In a weekend shooting class that involves firing more than 500 rounds a day, you will get incredibly fatigued. You will get blisters on your hands. You will be sore from the recoil (even from a 9mm). Shooting 500 rounds in a day while actually concentrating on learning new skills is a demanding endeavor both mentally and physically. Recognize that most gun owners will never fire 500 rounds out of a single handgun in the course of an average lifespan."While instructors will often hang a label like "tactical" or "defensive" off a class like this for marketing purposes, the fact of the matter is that a good quality 500-rd/day class is generally going to be a pure shooting mechanics class because there won't be time for anything else. The closest thing you might get to tactics is if the instructor encourages a sidestep on the draw.
To put this in perspective, compare the round counts for some classic classes. A forty hour MAG-40 class is spread over four to five days, and twenty of those hours will be in live fire, with a round count of approximately five hundred rounds, total. A classic Gunsite 250 is five days of training, some of it in shoot houses and other moving, "tactical" type situations, and the round count for the whole week is about a thousand rounds.
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| Tactics: In a shoot house. |
By comparison, I've taken two-day mechanics-focused classes with trainers like Todd Green, Ernest Langdon, and Scott Jedlinski that burned up that much ammo in a weekend. Part of it is that every drill needs to be repeated as many times as there are shooters in a relay, so that the instructor can give each student direct observation and coaching feedback.
Some of those gunhandling skills are going to port over to pretty much any pistol you use, and for those that don't, there are instructors who teach classes specifically geared toward smaller pistols and/or working from deep concealment. The round counts and the pace of those classes will also be adjusted accordingly, to allow you to, e.g., tuck your shirt back in over your PHLster Enigma between drills or properly re-holster a pocket-carried J-frame.
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| Interactive: Force on force against an opposing will. |
Relatedly, Dave Spaulding has a good piece in G&A where he breaks down the different types of training. He arranges them in a hierarchy, but you could easily look at them as a three-legged stool.
"Over time, I’ve come to look at firearms training as a three-tiered pyramid I call the Hierarchy of Combative Firearms Training. The tiers are: 1) Essentials (I prefer this term to “fundamentals”); 2) Combative Aspects; and 3) Interactive Aspects. You must properly train and anchor skills through each level before you attempt the next. For example, would you take a counter-terror driving course before you take basic driver’s training? Of course not. Along these same lines, you should not try to fight with a pistol until you’ve learned how to shoot and manipulate it. Some think they are one in the same but that is not the case. If you throw a punch before you’ve learned how to make a fist, your punch won’t be effective and will likely result in injury and failure."
