so you want to make sure that number one your
instructor is also a student right the minute
an instructor thinks they know all that they're
they're suffering dunning -kruger at that point
and they're going to teach you what they know
you know and so you want to make sure your instructor
is training he's competing he's in the world
because it changes things are changing all the
time Welcome to Episode 3 of the Frugal Firearms
Podcast, the podcast designed to help you, the
shooting enthusiast, to get the most for your
dollar, get the most enjoyment, get the most
fun, get the most out of your equipment. I'm
here with my guest, Ken. Ken, say hello to our
guests. Hello, listeners, and we've got a wonderful
guest for you to join with us today. Yeah, this
is our first guest on the show. We have not done
that before, but... I think that I've made it
very clear in earlier episodes. And by the way,
if you haven't listened to the earlier episodes,
I would encourage you to go back and go through
the extensive library of episodes zero, the collector's
edition beta test that actually came out pretty
well. So we posted it. And episodes one and two,
where we talk about our value ratings. Today
is going to be a little bit different because
we're not going to be spending much of any time
on actual equipment itself, but we're going to
be talking again to our first guest, who is going
to be discussing the value proposition of training
and why training is an important part of your
overall repertoire and your overall toolbox,
if you will. And in so doing, I encourage you
to seek out, if you're not in the area where
our guest is located, you know seek out local
training or seek out some of the national level
trainers when they come through your area because
there is value in this i've experienced it and
we're starting off with this as our first guest
because i think that the value of training is
vastly underrated and needs to be really pushed
out there so greg from defensive arts center
in portland oregon Please introduce yourself.
Tell us who you are. Tell us what you do. Tell
us how you got there. Well, it's only 45 minutes,
so I'll give you the short version. So thanks
for having me, guys. Much appreciate. I really,
really like what you're doing. I think that's
huge. A little bit about me. So when I got, I'm
a nerd. That's the first and foremost. I have
40 years healthcare IT background. so although
i do have i am a veteran i've been you know firearm
enthusiast most of my life as most of you know
the cost of taking on firearms as a as a hobby
seriously is is cost prohibitive for for many
many people as it was for me it wasn't until
i got into my 40s that i had enough disposable
income to actually you know step out and get
serious and so i started training i started competing
i started traveling And it took me, oh, I don't
know, less than six months to realize in my travels
that there are way more people carrying guns
that shouldn't and should. I was absolutely astounded
at the, I want to say ignorance level. Ignorance
is not a bad word. I'm not saying, don't confuse
that with a negative term, but ignorance, just
lack of knowledge. And the firearms industry
is kind of... ensconced in that it is inherently
safety oriented and as such they kind of hold
students into fixed arenas so that you really
can't do anything wrong and you really can't
can't can't screw up my background is martial
arts so i've got uh many years of private instruction
northern challenge kung fu northern challenge
eagle claw at age 60 i'm currently studying ninjutsu
because i'm an idiot realizing that my body does
not bounce on the mats like it did in my 20s
and 30s But as I travel and I started to realize
this, I realized that there was a gap. There
was something missing in training. And what I
focus on is real world self -defense as it presents.
And I mentioned that I'm kind of a nerd. I have
downloaded the databases from the Department
of Justice, the FBI. I threw them into Microsoft
SQL and I started studying that. What does real
world violence look like in this country? under
the umbrella of pragmatic self -defense. And
I realized very quickly that there really is
no amount of going to a gun range in a live fire
environment that can teach you self -defense
with a firearm. As real world violence starts
inside of 15 feet, you don't know what's coming.
You have to process the attack. Takes you half
a second to do what's called an OODA loop. By
the time you're prepared to defend yourself,
your attacker's at three feet or less. That's
a whole different skill set. And so what I set
up for the Defensive Arts Center is an entire
facility to bridge that gap. We train with simunitions,
which are less lethal rounds that allows us to
fully racks a Glock 17 or we have carbine platforms.
We have shotguns that does actually shoot projectiles.
It gives you recoil, but I could shoot you in
the knee and I would go to the doctor because
you'd beat the heck out of me for shooting you
in the knee, but you wouldn't have to. so you
said something that i think that i wanted to
walk back to just for a moment because there's
going to be a certain number of people who are
in our listener base who are going to think well
wait a minute carrying a weapon for self -defense
is as ken and i discussed on a previous edition
is not just a human right it's a natural right
and you postulated and by the way i'll tell you
that i agree with you that a lot of people who
are carrying guns shouldn't be. Now, I think
that that's going to rub certain people the wrong
way, because they're going to think that, well,
wait a minute, you're trying to take away, let's
say, for example, my First Amendment right, because
I don't speak well, I'm not allowed to talk.
So how would you differentiate that? And how
does the data that you've downloaded from the
DOJ and possibly even other sites like, you know,
John Kerry's active self -defense site and things
like that, how do those things correlate to backing
up that statement so that you actually get into
the mind of people who haven't practiced enough,
who haven't been trained enough. And so that
they understand that the world out there is not
going to be forgiving when they get to that point
of ultimate need where you either win or you
don't go home. So the short answer is what I
call Dunning -Kruger. So Dunning -Kruger effect,
if you're not familiar, Dunning and Kruger are
a couple of psychologists best described as a
person's artificial belief in their ability to
do something based on a minimum amount of experience.
One of the things about firearms training is
it is cost prohibitive. And a lot of people don't
understand. Well, that's not true. It's not true.
A lot of people, they do understand what it takes
to become highly proficient at something. So
let's talk about sports professionals, right?
How many free throws do you throw? before you
get out there in front of people and so that
you are absolutely sure that you're going to
make that shot. Everything we do in life, we
train, we understand the necessity for repetitive
training. But for some reason, that has kind
of gone by the wayside a lot. And obviously not
with everyone. This is not a blanket statement.
But people are taught quite often from a variety
of instructors. I'll try to keep company names
out of this, or I should say certifying bodies,
because there's a few of them out there. But
generally speaking, it is just not based on reality.
So you have to take lessons to drive your car
so that you're safe. Very few people have ever
put themselves in a scenario where they have
to manipulate and wield their firearm in a stressful
situation. So a simple example. How many of you,
you or your listeners, go and practice holster
presentation and self -defense with a firearm
in a full winter jacket with gloves on? i i asked
that question of my concealed carry holders on
a regular basis and the answer is almost none
and this is a class every every christmas that's
my present i offer a day where i'm open and i
just let people come in and practice you know
let's let's try that let's see what that really
looks like because you this is a lethal tool
that you carry strapped to your backside in a
public place that with the click of a trigger
uh takes is a life and death thing and that that
is a very very serious commitment i think that
uh and to your your point craig I am not saying
people shouldn't carry. That may have come out
quite wrong. What I'm saying is people should
want to train. People should want to be able
to, as I say, master that tool for all the right
reasons. I mean, it is a serious consideration.
And so the level of training that I have, the
level of training that I provide is all about
repetitive practice. Right. So how do you think
that you were? Obviously, you're using simunitions,
which is, I think, a big benefit. And a lot of
people, I don't think, maybe not understand the
value of that because simunitions hurt. And that's
a good thing because when you, you know, it's
just going to produce a welt a lot like a paintball
gun would. But at the same time, you get immediate
feedback and you get that increase in stress
level because you're hurt. And then your responses
to that matter. And I think that a lot of people
who are not going to be able to get to a facility
like yours where you have simunitions, and they're
forced just to go to the more traditional trainers
that, you know, operate at a square range and
operate with an RSO, I'm sorry, range safety
officer, if you don't know what I meant by that,
under very prescriptive, you know, draw to presentation,
you know, shoot three rounds, reholster. They're
not going to get that kind of feedback. So what
do people like that do if they don't have a comprehensive
facility like yours? I mean, I guess it could
be martial arts, could be jujitsu. A lot of people
are not either in shape or predisposed to commit
either their time, their money, or just themselves
to that level of actual violence. Are those the
biggest problems that you think students will
actually face in being effective? Let's say,
you know. I hate to be pejorative, but in the
street, like what will get you killed in the
street? I think that since you're doing it from
a data perspective, you already are baked into
the right answer on this. But I don't think that
most people are going to look for crutches. Let's
say, for example, they're going to put a red
dot on their new pistol, thinking that the red
dot is going to be the panacea. It's going to
be. the thing that's going to be the differentiator
and cause them to win the day but it's more complex
than that isn't it oh my word yeah yeah in fact
that's uh uh people ask me that all the time
they're always asking about you know optics is
just to take that as as an example and although
i don't disagree with optics um at my age all
my rifles of course have optics i don't put optics
on my handgun um back thank you before thank
you greg greg we had this discussion last week
where i'm i'm like i grew up with iron sights
or even fiber optic on there it's fine but red
dot on top of a pistol uh i'm not there yet myself
but go ahead greg i'm sorry no but tell me why
what's your what's your base reasoning uh first
of all i think it's gonna it's gonna snag on
something i look at this thing i have three quarters
of an inch tall it's gonna snag on something
i probably have holsters that don't fit these
things anyway i'd probably need to buy new holsters
which i'm not Don't want to spend more money.
This is frugal firearms here. But to me, it's
point and shoot. I mean, I wouldn't say, particularly
under 21 feet, it's not going to do anything
for me at all. Zip. Nothing. A light on the bottom,
I understand. For illumination, okay, I get that.
But I don't know. I just can't quite get my eyes
around, literally, putting a red dot on a slide.
I think you nailed it. There's a part about this.
And again, everything I do is really rather cerebral.
Looking at the reason that I don't prefer optics
on my handgun is, you said, point and click.
It has to do with how the human brain works,
right? It's the same reason I don't recommend
you shoot at targets with bullseyes. If you have
a red dot and you are training for self -defense,
that's a big difference. between self -defense
training and marksmanship training and I don't
want to get those two confused and I don't want
to take anything away from from competitors and
marksmanship shooting but they do have to be
segregated and if you have a red dot in training
and every time you present you your brain is
going to go where's my red dot and it's going
to adjust for perfect correction and the problem
that creates in a life and death situation when
you present your brain will start to seek that
red dot and you could lose literally a life savings
half of a second to a quarter of a second so
i tell people if you have optics i love them
turn them off when you train you know use them
do 100 repetitions you know presenting with the
red dot on and then turn it off because you do
to survive self -defense you have to be able
to use absolute flash sight picture natural point
in kinesthetic aiming so you have to train your
body to present that firearm absolutely the same
absolutely flat every single time that's actually
yeah that that mirror is right on top of it i
was talking about the body mechanics of it before
i actually referenced uh the videos that were
posted uh online where the person demonstrating
had no sights on his gun it was hitting eight
inch plates at like 50 yards with no sights whatsoever
just because he has a disciplined you know body
mechanic uh approach to repetition and is able
to do this reliably on call every time the reason
i think and this isn't to be It isn't to disagree.
And as you said, the statistics are that the
person is going to be on top of you in no time
at all, where sites wouldn't matter any longer
whatsoever, is that I don't, I'm not a strong
believer in front site focus. And the reason
is that I think that an untrained person, particularly,
and even a trained person to a degree, when faced
with true stress is going to focus on the threat
and not on the front site. And it's very hard
to get yourself to change your focal plane away
from the thing that is trying to kill you and,
by the way, is moving. It's actually impossible.
Okay. There you are. And that's why I think that
getting the aiming device, whatever the aiming
device is, literally in focus on the same focal
plane as the threat makes sense. You know, my
aiming, I also, I mean, think about this realistically.
Craig, how old are you? I outdate you slightly.
I'm 61. Okay. You wear glasses? I do not, sir.
I hate you just a little bit right now. By the
way, yeah, and my right eye vision and right
eye dominant is 2015. All right. Well, most of
us at 60 have myopia. Go to the range someday.
Watch people. What do they do? Do they have special
glasses or goggles made? Do they wear last year's
prescription? Because what they're trying to
do is get that focus on your front sight. Because
for some reason, they're ego -driven to make
sure that they're dropping five rounds into a
one -inch hole at 25 feet to impress a bunch
of people they don't know. But what's reality?
Reality at 3 o 'clock in the morning and somebody's
kicking your door and you don't have any glasses.
right how can you shoot i mean have you trained
to shoot without your glasses without your optics
without you know so and this is what we talk
about a lot because i'm the same way i um i can
do four inch patterns at 25 feet uh and i can't
see my sights they're nothing but a blur when
i take my glasses off okay but you know what
my aiming device is my left thumb that's part
of what we call natural point aiming if you look
at um the grip there's a new grip that's very
popular it comes out of army ranger school but
it has to do with your support hand thumb being
way forward on the slide right and that's because
what we're doing is we're canting our thumb forward
if that's your grip and every time you slow down
and here this is for your listeners right the
number one thing the number one training tip
i will give you if you when you go to live fire
is slow down shoot less rounds Right. Because
people go in and they have 250 rounds and they're
going to go bang, bang, bang until they're gone.
Make every round count. Make every round a training
tool. So if you stop for a second and you present
from from Sewell or high compressed and you think
about that target. And the first thing I do when
I punch out is I roll my left thumb because I'm
right handed, throw my left thumb right at center
mass. I will hit center mass at 25 feet every
single time. Right. And down to where I do demos
for security officers here, armed security that
I teach. And with no glasses, no nothing on it.
I have a simulator at about 20 feet. I can just
sit there and run, you know, two, three inch
patterns, just multiple targets. And I can't
see my sights at all. Right. That's the power
of repetition training. And we have if we have
time today, I'm happy to talk more about ways
that your listeners can do this type of training
at almost no cost to them. Do this in the comfort
of your own home. to develop those types of skills,
which are the very necessary skills that you
need for real world self -defense. I think actually
that's the sort of topic we'd want to jump right
into now, if it makes sense, because, you know,
Frugal Firearms podcast is all about saving money.
And I'm trying to make the case that, you know,
paying for training is worth it. And Greg, you
don't know the background between Ken and I.
Ken and I have, even though we've been friends
for nigh on five decades, we have slightly different
perspectives on value yeah i'm cheap and craig
is frugal yes and i just believe in value for
your money that's my thing i want the best value
right and and anything that you can do to help
our students understand our students they're
not our students what i say that for our listeners
you know we're all we're on parody here there's
there's not a hierarchy to understand what the
value proposition of of training is because i
think here's my here's my supposition if i go
train myself and i only get so far but i can
measurably increase my performance and i can
subjectively increase my level of enjoyment then
i'm going to be more interested in paying for
training later and i have noticed because i've
you're not the only professional trainer i've
met that in the training community, a lot of
this is actually exposure through the Ballistic
Radio podcast where it's trainers talking to
trainers largely, that training is kind of an
addiction, if you will. The more training you
get, the more you want, which is a bit counterintuitive
because you might think, well, I paid for training.
I got my eight hours in or I got my four hours
in or whatever the state required. I'm good to
go. But I think that people that go above that
minimum and start taking training classes. crave
that from a variety of instructors and for example
next year i'm going to taccon well taccon is
a collection of probably 30 different trainers
in three days and you get exposure to all of
them and i've heard that there's almost no training
experience better than that because of the variety
of opinions and then you get to distill out the
best that works for you so yeah if you want to
go to that topic right now just to get people
sort of invigorated about training on their own
and then maybe that translates into their life
of you know hey now i know what i don't know
now i'm learning something where my deficiencies
are and where i could be better because i just
realized i'm not that good thank you for that
um no that's i think they're absolutely the the
more that you learn then the more you'll hold
your instructor accountable, right? Because what
you said is interesting because there's a flip
side to that conversation, right? The flip side
is a lot of people say, don't trainer bounce.
If you keep just going from trainer to trainer
to trainer, you're going to wind up in a world
of controversy, right? What they say is pick
one trainer and glean from them everything that
you can. That being said, as you learn more,
as you become more proficient, you will very,
very quickly be able to distill out of a trainer
what is of benefit to you and what is not. But
one of the things about training is you go to
a four hour seminar and you're exposed to a lot
of stuff and then it's gone. You know, if you
don't. practice it so the world the word is called
myelination right myelination very few people
have heard of the word um but it everybody knows
what it is it's muscle memory right it's the
science of muscle memory and i'm i could get
into a half an hour dissertation about you know
the the the chemistry behind it but and i'll
spare you that But I will tell you, the science
states that for in the martial arts world, we
used to call this the rule of 2000s. We said
that one single technique had to be done like
2000 times before it would start to become muscle
memory or your ability to move without thinking,
which, by the way, those are the only skills
that are available to you when your heart rate
is 150 plus and you are in the in the throes
of self -defense. You can't think, you can't
remember, you can't calculate. Gee, today I'm
carrying my gun at the five o 'clock, but yesterday
I was carrying it in a shoulder rig, right? That's
when you go into what's called blackout freeze.
You just, you stand there and you don't know
what to do. So, and you can, you know, listeners
can Google that. And we teach every class I teach,
every single class I teach. And we teach a ton
of them here. Starts with a conversation about
myelination and that importance of repetitive
training. so you go to your training you find
an instructor you get a four -hour seminar you
learn a bunch of tools how do you reinforce those
tools right the real science is one single technique
takes 20 minutes a day for 12 straight weeks
before i will start to myelinate a neural pathway
so that means we'll simplify that let's just
say that happens to be 2 000 repetitions how
do you do that at the price of ammo today You
can't afford to do that, right? So people don't.
They convince themselves they know enough. So
the interesting thing about myelination is you
don't have to physically do it. If you've done
it, right? Like I usually give a demonstration
of my holster draw, right? I step way to the
right, right? And I don't teach what, I teach
why in my classes. So instead of saying things
like get off the X, which is not a why, I explain.
Why we take that huge step. We step more than
one body width. We're giving the attacker an
OODA loop. We're getting our half second back,
right? But then what can you do? You go to an
indoor gun range. How far can you step to the
right? Oh, about six inches. Go ahead. Greg,
just to, not to cut you off there, but for people
who, I know what the OODA loop is. A lot of people
don't. Could you just give a quick definition
of that, please? Oh, apologies. I didn't even
know I said it. You said it twice. Did I really?
Wow. Yeah, you got to call me on that stuff.
So OODA loop. This is a Colonel Boyd Air Force
pilot figured this out many years ago. It's kind
of an industry standard. It's fairly simple.
Observe, orient, decide, and act. This is a constant
reinforcing loop that is being processed as we
go about our business. Not weird, not crazy,
right? And it goes right hand in hand with myelination.
So the example I usually give in class very quickly
is you're driving down the road and you hear
a noise. You don't know what that noise is. You
have to observe it. So there's your first letter.
That's your observe. So you look at it and you
go, holy, somebody's about to T -bone my car,
right? Orient yourself. What the heck can I do
about it? I could slam on the brakes. I could
slur to the right. I could slump on the accelerator.
Pick one. That's your decide, right? And then
you have to do it. Well, the first three steps
of that take on a very young and healthy and
very well -trained mind, at least a half a second.
And when we're talking about life and death training,
everything happens in these half second increments,
right? Now, as I said, it's a loop. It's an OODA
loop. So it's constantly updating at the point
where you're orienting yourself. What could I
do about this? You realize that you're not in
danger. The guy hit dry pavement. He's stopping.
He's not even on the same plane as you, whatever.
You're absolutely fine. And you don't need to
do anything else. And at that moment in time,
though, where's your foot? it's on the break
and at no point in time was there any conscious
thought that says self I need to pick up my foot
and put it on the break right that is a myelinated
pathway it and it is myelinated because it is
supported every single time we get into vehicle
and drive and our firearms training needs to
be the same way so people ask me how how much
do I train I can't answer that because training
is a lifestyle it's not an event I train all
day, every day, right? Because the thing about
myelination, if you've done it a couple of times,
and then all of a sudden you find yourself at
the gun range, and I cannot make that big step
to the right. If you visualize yourself doing
it, if you can think about yourself doing it,
you're still firing the same neural pathway.
So I tell people, when you go to the gun range,
number one, slow down. Number two, when you're
standing there with your fireman, you're looking
at your target, and all you can do is step six
inches to the right. project the mental image
of yourself stepping three feet to the right
and you're still firing the same neural pathways.
And what that means is because what you will
do in a crisis situation is what you do most
often. And if all you step is six inches at the
gun range, God forbid the time you ever have
to use your firearm in self -defense, that's
what you'll do. So Greg, if I might ask a question.
Yeah, I've got friends who are in law enforcement,
you know, U .S. Secret Service and probation
officers and so forth like that. They've always
said that, you know, training is a perishable
ill. So some of the things that I'd like to hear
from you is some of the things you could suggest
that a person could do at home on low cost to
be able to, after perhaps they've taken your
training or if there's whatever training they've
been able to do, what can they practice at home
inexpensively? It's a great question. There are
a few things you can do. My favorite, which I
think everybody should, you know, when I teach
class, I tell people, if you buy one thing, one
thing for your firearm, it needs to be a laser
bullet. And laser bullets are cool, right? I
mean, when your gun goes click, that means it
did its job, right? The click means the firing
pin, you know, went forward, the striker went
forward, the hammer fell. But instead of a primer,
uh these things have a little switch on them
and they put a laser dot right down the bore
site so they give you visual feedback so that's
cool uh what's cooler than that is the free software
you can download for your cell phone there's
half a dozen of them i use one called laser hit
uh you can point your camera at the target on
the wall and every time it sees the red dot on
target your camera goes bang and it will in fact
uh show you you know where where you hit So that's
also cool. And we'll talk in a minute about an
entire process of how you use that for serious
myelination training. But I want to talk for
a moment about why that one is so important.
And this might get a little technical. Your listeners
may have to do a little bit of Google. But if
you look at a regular cartridge, a regular cartridge
that goes into a firearm. it has what's called
a head stamp and that head stamp in it and we're
talking about a semi -automatic pistol it has
that little groove around the back right that
groove is what the extractor gets a hold of to
pull the cartridge into the ejector etc etc a
laser bullet doesn't have that right which means
once the laser bullet is stuffed in your barrel
it can't come out it is it is always in there
so you can rack that gun all day long And that
will not come out of your barrel. You have to
remove it by inverting the firearm and using
a very sophisticated removal tool called a chopstick.
You just pop it out and then it falls out and
your gun's right back to normal. The reason this
is so important is just like firearm safety rules,
we stack safety upon safety. This thing is a
muzzle plug. Even if you were right then when
training in dry fire. pick up a fully loaded
live magazine shove it into your gun and rack
that slide it's just going to jam the gun right
nothing can go into the breach because it's plugged
there's something there that can't come out until
you take it out so it is your number one safety
tool now let's talk about the two different types
right there's two different types of laser cartridges
out there the good ones and the not so good ones
The ones that are $49 or $59 are made like $49
or $59, which means the switch in the back is
part of the power circuit. And I don't recommend
them. You'll be disappointed. They get dented
as the striker hits them and they get dimmer
and dimmer and the software won't pick them up
and you have to replace that. If you spend a
little more money. And the one I love is made
by Laser Ammo, Laser Dash Ammo. We sell them
here. They're $99. But that switch is a little
signal that goes to a microprocessor that puts
out a fixed length laser pulse that your software
will always pick up. So this is going back to
what we were talking about, the difference between
cheap and value, right? You're going to get a
lot more value out of the $99 model than you
will out of the $59 model, right? so I can't
even stress how important this thing is so a
real quick description of how how we used it
right because one of the things I stress so much
in training is finger control right your number
that your your index finger your your trigger
finger is the number one safety tool because
mechanical safeties fail right so you have to
myelinate that you have to have that so ingrained
in muscle memory that that finger never curls
it Until you get to that point, you will not
have confidence over your firearm. And when you
don't have confidence over your firearm, you
become timid. That creates all sorts of problems,
right? As I say in class, I hold up my firearm.
I said, you have to own this gun. And so when
my wife wanted to do this with me, she had a
friend that also wanted to learn to shoot responsibly.
So I said, sure, invite him over and we're going
to play darts with our handguns in the living
room in the middle of town. That didn't sound
very safe, but it was extremely safe, primarily
because we took our dartboard and hung it on
the north wall of my house. That is a safe wall.
Safe wall is any barrier that will stop a maximum
caliber round that your training weapon could
potentially project. In my case, the north wall
of my house backs up against the freeway, so
I have a concrete wall all down the north side
of my house. Hang the dartboard on there, and
there's three of us in the room. Okay, so kind
of wrap your head around this visual image. My
wife is the shooter. Her friend is a scorekeeper.
He's looking at the camera and on the chalkboard
and he's keeping score. I am the most important
person in the room in that iteration. I'm the
range safety officer and I have one job and that's
to stand there and watch my wife and say things
like, hey, get your finger off the trigger. Don't
bend over on the line. Oh, keep your muzzle down
range, right? All the basic safety stuff. So
you can imagine getting together. And you can
play all sorts of games. There's Battleship.
There's a ton of fun you can have doing this,
right? Three months getting together on Friday
nights, we're talking thousands of trigger presses.
Never once being allowed to do it wrong and it
not costing you a dime past the initial investment.
Now, can I jump in on the... You've made the
critical and important point about myelination
of a habit. But at the same time, dry fire is...
inherently not what a gun does. In other words,
not that it doesn't cycle, I don't mean that,
but that your shoot the round, rack the slide,
shoot the round, rack the slide, shoot the round,
rack the slide. I have not been able to find
any statistics, positive or negative, that says
that a person, I mean, dry fire is often seen
as the best alternative to actual shooting. But
the problem that I see with it, theoretically
this is untested is that a person under stress
is going to think at least momentarily about
racking their gun because that's what they've
done thousands of times in practice is that is
does that in fact ever actually happen in the
real world well it certainly could um and that's
but that's just an issue of thinking that exactly
what you just thought of in advance because when
we do it you don't point in pull the trigger
rack the slide you point in pull the trigger
return to holster back through you know the reverse
holster draw keeping your eye on the target keeping
your muzzle flat rotate go into your holster
once it's in your holster hands come off go back
reset your trigger then right because you don't
want to make it part of a instantaneous automatic
process right it's it's part of a separate stage
and honestly in a real world environment in a
firefight if you go back to your holster you're
done and if you accidentally for whatever reason
rack the slide at that point no autopsy no foul
right that's not going to be that's not going
to that's not going to myelinate Sorry, that's
probably the appropriate answer. I've never heard
that one, but I'll remember that one. The product
that I use in lieu of that is something called
the CoolFire Trainer. Now, I think that it's
a very high or saying high value makes it seem
like it's expensive. And actually, arguably,
it might be expensive because the CoolFire Trainer
will probably cost you almost as much as the
gun that it goes into. But for those who don't
know, it turns the gun into a CO2 gun because
the barrel, which is not your barrel, it's the
replacement barrel, is a CO2 cartridge. And you
just jam some CO2 in it from the muzzle. You
shoot maybe a dozen rounds, and then you hit
it again for literally a tenth of a second with
a CO2 bottle, and it's back up and running. And
it cycles normally, at least while the pressure
is good. So you can get... quote -unquote more
realistic training because it pops a laser in
the direction that you're shooting so you can
see where the shot would have landed. You can
get that recoil impulse except it's costly, objectively
costly. And I still think it's a good value because
how many rounds did I save by buying this thing
once? But maybe there's alternatives out there
that you can recommend as well. There are like
the cool fire is exactly that. It's pretty cool.
I bought one for my wife for her firearm. I don't
know. Was it two years ago, Christmas, three
years ago, Christmas. She's never used it. Right.
That's one of the problems with the cool fires.
It does require time, a conversion set up, you
know, et cetera. And it's not always just readily
available. uh but it is it is pretty cool i want
to make sure your listeners understand we're
not this is not an either or right dry fire training
is not a replacement for live fire it's not a
replacement for cool fire it's not a replacement
for alternatives it is part of what is holster
presentation to first round out right it's arguably
that's what's the most important round right
um if you've trained correctly a lot of people
want to talk about recoil and i have to admit
recoil in a firefight is less than one tenth
of a percent of that entire engagement right
because if you've trained correctly your trigger
press happens when your muzzle is in the correct
position and um during a firefight you won't
even be aware of muzzle flip anyway um but to
get back back to your your point um what i train
on right the reason i didn't buy myself a cool
fire is um i have a plethora i have a row of
uh glock 17 airsoft pistols right there and i
get the glocks or the kjw makes one also um that
are both green gas and co2 co2 uh green gas in
my world is just it's it doesn't recoil hard
enough and you're constantly having to refill
it and i don't know how many rounds do you get
out of that cool fire on yours well like i said
it's probably i mean i didn't buy the barrel
extension which maybe gets it up to 30 or so
rounds. I get maybe a dozen in my Glock 17 -sized
barrel before it just kind of peters out, and
then you have to fill it again. So Glock has
a licensed airsoft. It's kind of one of my favorites.
KGW makes one. There's also the Adaptive Trainer.
These are professional airsofts. I mean, they're
$100, a little over, $120. The nice thing about
them is the CO2 is in the magazine. I'll only
buy... ones that that have that because that
gives a full weight to the magazine and when
it runs up you do a dump you know and you you
know rack it and you and you're back back on
but so yeah there's some major pluses to that
and that's like the poor man's version of the
cool fire um because when i train i will i will
put x number of of pellets in each of my cartridges
or each of my uh my magazines and i don't know
how many it is i don't count right i have a little
machine that pumps them in I give it one pump.
That could be five. It could be 12. Don't know.
Don't know. Put them in my side saddle, holster
up, and then I start doing my training drills.
And whenever I run empty, unbeknownst to me,
I'm dumping that magazine. I'm running as hard
as I can while I'm doing a moving mag swap. Then
I'm turning and getting back on target because
that is realistic. What's not realistic is standing
in a line of 14 people and the instructor saying,
everybody take one step to the right. That's
what they teach. Right. One step to the right.
Clear your malfunction. Right. Take one step.
If that's what you train, that's what you'll
do. And if you step one step to the reason they
do that because there's 14 other people and they
can't afford in a live fire environment for a
mistake to happen and somebody gets shot. And
this is why I think it's so important to train
in dry fire, cool fire, airsoft. wear the safety
gear, wear the goggles, right? And then you can
train to what's really going to happen in life,
right? Because you know what? If you're going
to malfunction and somebody's pointing a gun
at you, be somewhere else, right? You're not
going to stand there and toe -to -toe it. Run.
Right. So we have probably, oh, 10 or so minutes
left. What would you, if, for people who are
not going to get, We can talk about Portland
as much as we want, but we're not really here
to talk about Portland or California for that
matter. But for people who are not in your area
and won't have the opportunity to come train
with you and, you know, actually I might next
time I'm in Portland, who knows, what should
they look for? what what makes a good trainer
how does the untrained person who only took the
ccw class they had to take or in constitutional
carry states just tough to you know gun in their
pocket or you know in their holster and have
no training what do they look for how do you
define a good yeah the first two two things come
to mind number one talk to your trainers interview
them I have people, I tell them, set up appointments,
come in and meet me and make sure it's a fit.
Because the training that I do is not mechanical.
The training I do is emotional, right? So we
train for very scary stuff, realistically, and
it's intense. I mean, you're first class with
me, very first class. I've got you working on
emergency mag swap, tactical mag swaps, clearing
malfunctions, and I'm yelling at you. I'm putting
stress on you. Mag swap, mag swap, you know.
that is because we can't because we can do that
safely because we're using less lethal ammunition
uh we can you know massively accelerate that
that training curve so you want to make sure
that number one your instructor is also a student
right the minute an instructor thinks they know
all that they're they're suffering Dunning -Kruger
at that point and they're going to teach you
what they know You know, and so you want to make
sure your instructor is training, he's competing,
he's in the world because it changes. Things
are changing all the time. I can't tell you just
from studying ninjutsu because we teach full
body mechanics, right? Motion, movement, all
that. The number of techniques I've changed because
of my history in Northern Shaolin Kung Fu versus
my current education in ninjutsu, right? It's
like we change a lot all the time. So make sure
there's an emotional bond with your instructor.
Make sure your instructor is also a student and
is humble. And they give you things. And their
goal is not to make you keep coming back to them
forever. They should be giving you the tools
and the skills of how you can either train at
home or how do you maximize. We actually have
a class called that, how to maximize your range
time. Yeah, I think that that's really the core
is getting the most for. Given the expense of
ammunition now, sending rounds down at 30 to
50 cents a round, you know, emptying a magazine
and getting nothing for it. Is there anything
else that you would do that you would, let's
say, you know, you're in a state like California
where you have a 10 round magazine. Well, if
you're done $50 or $5 in a few seconds, what
else do you do that costs that much that you've
got no value for? I mean, yeah. you know an expensive
coffee is going to probably last longer and perhaps
give you as much enjoyment let me touch on that
for a split second because i think that's a really
really important thing is most people like so
they go to the gun range they don't know what
to do there so they do what they do know and
that's putting holes in a paper target right
um and i've watched people burn through 250 300
rounds in a half an hour right my for the class
the firearm fundamentals class my very first
class We teach, we go through one box of ammo,
50 rounds. It takes two hours to get through
50 rounds of ammo. And that's because we are
clear and make safe. We're doing mag dumps. We're
doing every single round comes with a lesson
attached to it. So my advice to all the listeners
is when you go to the live fire range, slow down,
figure out what. motions, what mechanics you
will need to go through to maximize your learning
experience while minimizing repetitive trigger
press. And that helps with your myelination,
as you're talking about. What's that? That helps
with the myelination. Absolutely. Like, well,
a good example is, you know, most people won't
do a mag dump. right because if you're in an
indoor range your magazine bounces over the edge
well you lost your magazine right but i i take
my range bag i get permission from the range
master i put my range bag right on the little
table in front of me so it's six inches below
i put a soft towel underneath it and the minute
and i'll have my wife load my magazines and i'll
have her put snap caps in dummy rounds right
because the minute that sucker goes click i'm
just dump it go to my side saddle they will let
you do that at most gun ranges right um Because
I watch people at the range, what are they doing?
They're using their offhand to drop magazines,
right? You need that offhand to be retrieving
your other magazine. So take some classes that
teach you the basics, but then reinforce those
basics. Figure out how to do it on your own time,
at your own range time, but maximize the use
of your time to reinforce that, as you said,
that myelination. And are you aware, I mean,
so now you're done, you're done for the day,
you're done for the week, you're done training
or whatever, and you're at home. Do you have
any information or things that you've done in
your research about the myelination, about going
through it slowly in your mind? I mean, because
I guess the way I think about this is, you know,
I go to church, for example, you know, or a movie
theater or something, and I'm sitting there and
I'm thinking, okay. I'm sitting here in the pew
or whatever, and I'm looking, okay, there's a
doorway there, there's a doorway back here, doorway
over my right. Something's going to happen, okay?
Some idiot's going to walk in. What do I do?
And I've actually thought this out, the whole
thing. What do I do? And I'm doing it slowly
in my mind, figure out exactly, you know, who's
in my way, you know, what's my backstop, you
know, what are clear shots, what aren't, you
know, all of that type of thing. But I've never
done a draw in the middle of church. We talk
about that a lot. I mean, that's what we call
when then thinking, right? When then thinking,
there's a really good book that I read. It's
a good book. I wouldn't say it's really good,
but I picked some verbiage out of it that helps
me communicate better. It's called Seconds to
Live or Die. The one that comes to mind right
now is the brain can only go where the brain
has gone before, right? If your brain has never
been there. you will sit in blackout freeze not
knowing what to do. I teach this in all my classes.
By the way, I teach a lot more than firearms,
right? I'm a pepper spray instructor. I'm a taser
instructor. We do CPR, BLS, workplace violence,
all that, right? Every class, you know, we talk
about that because in a CPR class, I ask people,
how on earth could you practice CPR enough? to
myelinate the process right uh and the the way
to do that is when then thinking when you're
in a restaurant and you see some you know pasty
old white dude like me getting in the maitre
d's face um and turning all purple play it out
in your head what if this guy hit the floor right
now what if that thing fell off the wall and
gave him a great huge cut across his left eye
how would i treat that right now and my wife
and i include your friends and family in this
type of thinking my wife and i were at a new
restaurant just just the other day we were in
a greek restaurant and uh i'm i'm loving my mediterranean
food right i'm in mid bite and she's like hey
where are all the exits you know or you know
what's your escape plan and so i'm like once
i swallowed um i said well this is a strip mall
down here by the bathrooms there's got to be
some sort of a loading door but i'm not banking
on that right there's the doors to the kitchen
going through the kitchen because the 10 gauge
stainless steel will stop around i'm loaded um
i could stage myself and you know and we we literally
run that through our head because honest to god
if you're taking skills that you've learned and
you're taking that time to play them out in your
head, it's almost as good as physically getting
up and doing them. You're still firing the same
neural pathways, and the brain can only go where
it has been before. So give it a lot of places
to go. You know how much you spent learning that
lesson? Nothing. Exactly. That was a free lesson.
Okay. I want to kind of summarize this. I also
want to thank you, Greg, for coming on board
and being our first guest. It will not be the
last time you'll be on the show. Defensive Arts
Center in Portland, Oregon. Why don't you give
them your contact information? And of course,
I hope that you will link to the show. You can
use this as part of the interview process that
you said that you want your students to know
who you are. I think people have got a pretty
good idea who you are, Greg. Awesome. Appreciate
that a lot. Best way, just defensivearts .org.
That's the best way to get a hold of us. Phone
numbers, everything would be listed on the website.
Brand new website, just rolled it out. Very proud
of it. Took me almost six months to build that
one because, well, I do everything myself. Well,
that's good. And, you know, Ken and I appreciate
your time. We'll get you back again, maybe a
little bit in the future when we have the opportunity
to mature the show a little bit further, come
up with some new topics, keep the conversation
fresh. And I want to see both of you when you
come to Portland. Yes, sir. Well, I don't think
Ken will, but I'll be up there fairly soon. Yeah,
well, you've got a son up there and I don't.
Greg, it's been a real pleasure and I've really
learned a lot and I very much appreciate your
time. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me,
guys. Much appreciated. All right. Well, that
was a great guest. I very much appreciate having
a person who actually does this more than just
occasionally. A person who's professional actually
runs his own business in training people. I was
particularly fascinated as he talked about learning.
having your brain have these basically neural
pathways so that when you get into that stressful
situation, your brain knows how to act and you
know how to think about it. That was very interesting.
I also looked up what he had with the laser aiming
device and done some research on that. And that
is actually going to be one of my future purchases.
So what about you? I agree. And by the way, listeners,
I do sound better now. I apologize for selecting
the wrong microphone selection in Zoom. This
is the first time we've done Zoom as the hosting
platform because of the remoteness of our guest.
I had two different inputs for the microphone.
It was a coin flip. I picked the one that made
me sound like I'm in a cave. That won't happen
again. But getting back to our guest, yeah, Greg
was an outstanding guest and really reinforced
the value of not just training, but training
with a purpose, training with an end state in
mind, training for the eventualities that are
more realistic than you're going to be attacked
by a B8 center paper target or even a scary zombie
target. Those are not the things that you're
going to face in the real world. But also, I
had not really given a lot of thought to the
problems of training on a range when there's
a bunch of people lined up next to you horizontally
just for the legitimate concerns about safety.
And I think that that was very valuable. Get
into a shoot house or get to a range where you
can set targets up on your left and your right
and in front of you. You know, do it safely,
of course, but do it in a way that probably replicates
what you might run into in, you know, the Walmart
parking lot or as one of the local instructors
here likes to say, you know, when you stop to
get some milk at the local shop and rob. Exactly.
Yeah, safety equipment is kind of one of those
important things. Actually, I have purchased
for myself a vest a while ago, and I used to
wear it when I went to some of the public ranges.
Nice thing about being in Southern California.
is that we do have a large amount of open space,
particularly for Bureau of Land Management land.
So actually some of the best shooting that I
like to do is out in the desert in basically
federal land. But wearing safety equipment, particularly
a vest or something like that, which is what
I have purchased. I think, Greg, you might own
one or two. I'm not sure. I do. Yeah, I do. Yeah,
it's good to have them and something to do because
it's not so much that you're not going to be
safe because you know you're going to be safe.
Anybody in your party shooting on your lane or
even the lane next to you is going to be fine,
but it's just that people two or three or four
lanes down you've never met before could be a
danger. And I'm always fascinated by the government
as they want to go out and they want to ban safety
equipment. What? They want to ban safety. Well,
you'd see it. in the state of california and
probably elsewhere where they'll say oh no there's
some tiny percentage of people who criminal element
that might use a vest in a nefarious way so they're
going to ban it for everybody right it's insane
it makes no sense and but you know then again
well it's not a political show and it's also
not it's also not a legal show you know we usually
we start with our disclaimer and we didn't mention
it up front but nothing that greg talked about
nothing that ken and i talk about is legal advice
in any way shape or form right and like you were
just pointing out if you live in a municipality
that has restrictions that other municipalities
don't i mean you better pay attention to those
things because you could run a follow the law
in thinking that you're not doing Well, you're
not doing anything wrong. You might be doing
something illegal. So let's distinguish between
those two things, right? Right. And we are not
lawyers. These are our personal opinions, and
some of which we hold rather strongly, which
is good. It's not a bad thing to be passionate
about one's beliefs. Exactly. So upcoming shows,
what do we have? We have already a guest that's
going to be lined up that is going to talk about
lubrication products for your guns. Another potential
guest that I think will be on fairly soon. One
from a major parts manufacturer, one from an
optics manufacturer. I'm not going to name them
right now because they're still kind of in the
negotiating dates and times stage. But for those
who don't know, the basis of the show really
is going to be guests. And we need to get lots
of guests on that give you their story. It's
not just Ken and I's opinion. It's the stories
that they have to tell. But we're always going
to still focus on value. And I think Greg offered
great value because of the realistic elements
that he brings. And how many places can you go
use sim munitions if you're not law enforcement?
I mean, very few, right? Very few. Training is
very important. And with that, let's bring it
to a close. Yeah. So those who want to reach
out frugal firearms podcast at gmail .com again,
frugal firearms podcast at gmail .com. Be sure
to like subscribe, tell your friends, leave a
comment. Even if it's a single word, it actually
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And let's grow this audience and make it something
useful for all of us. All right? Very good. Thanks.
All right. Good night, everyone.