Train With Willis

by Jonathan Willis For a long time, Montgomery County, Ohio carried a grim title—the worst place in the nation for opioid-related deaths. That wasn’t just a headline for me. That was my backyard. That was where I spent my career responding to calls that, more often than not, ended in heartbreak. Over my years on the job, I responded to well over a thousand overdoses. WELL over a thousand. (I've tried to do the math and stopped) When I say that out loud, it barely seems possible. But every one of those calls was real—a kitchen floor, a gas station bathroom, a home with a room filled with bodies, a car that "randomly" rolled out of a parking lot into the middle of the street. I saw addiction, and accidental poisoning, and overdoses tear through families in every way imaginable. Parents burying children. Children burying parents. Siblings trying to make sense of it all. For years, I told myself I was unaffected. I wore the armor, kept my tone dry, brushed off the weight of i...

By Jonathan Willis Bleeding is the number two cause of trauma related death in the United States. Thankfully, in the realm of trauma care, through many different outreach efforts, civilians are more equipped and capable than ever to effect a positive outcome on the bleeding emergency. Tourniquets for example are more plentiful, easy to use, and of a higher quality than ever before. Bleeding control kits are more visible in the day to day environment and  more people are choosing to carry them on their person daily. This is great progress.  Although carrying a tourniquet is wonderful for preparing a person to stem life threatening extremity hemorrhage with a quickness, most people leave it at that. Effectively choosing to realistically affect the outcome of only one type of bleeding. In the absence of wound packing gauze, no matter the type, I ask, why bother?  Now, many are gonna read that and recoil. "HOW DARE HE??" I've had many discussions with folks in which I strongl...

By Jonathan Willis Update:               It has been a while since this article was originally published, but due to recent events, I felt a need to revisit this important topic. I recently attended the Rangemaster Tactical Conference in Dallas Texas. The evening prior to this event a meet and greet is held, allowing old and new friends alike to come together to kick off what is the biggest weekend of the year in the firearms training world. A short time into the evening’s festivities things “went sideways” so to speak when a friend of mine abruptly said “Jon, we need you NOW!” Two other friends of mine were attending to a close friend of theirs at a table and I approached to assist. As soon as I made contact, the gentleman lost consciousness and went into cardiac arrest. Immediately we took the man to the floor and initiated aggressive CPR. Calls immediately went out to call 911 and for the AED to be delivered. The call w...

            Any working instructor can attest, there is a great spectrum of useful coursework that can be undertaken in the realm of instructor development. As we’ve all experienced, there are many amazing shooters who could benefit from putting down the gun for a few weekends to concentrate on instructional methodology. We’ve also seen folks with solid teaching skills who lack the technical skills to legitimize content delivery within this industry. Both of these examples happen often, and it’s incumbent on all of us to expect and model a higher level of commitment to this vital work.             It has been a couple of decades since I picked up my first NRA instructor certification. I can recall being relatively shocked at what so many folks thought was “ok enough” to call themselves an instructor. This remains the absolute minimum bar in the industry but still the expectation of many an insuranc...

DISCOVERY           A few years back, I took on a new challenge in my shooting game. Several friends, who I knew liked to do cool things, piqued my interest in learning the defensive shotgun. I’d never been a sporting shotgun guy, I’d only rifle hunted, so I had no biases or bad habits. I was a blank slate ready to do something new. One Tom Givens shotgun class, and that was it! I dove in. I read the books, took the classes, practiced a lot, picked the brains of my more experienced friends, and never looked back. I was officially “baptized” in the “gospel of the gauge.” I’m thankful that I had established shotgun instructors to help me circumvent the usual mistakes of a new discipline. I didn’t have to suffer the consequences of the wrong gun, wrong gear, wrong mindset, or the wrong set up. The Beretta 1301 had clearly taken the top spot for autos, and Aridus Industries had perfected it. The 1301 fast became my favorite gun with which to build new skill...

Advancing E.D.C. with Apache Solutions           Recently, I was fortunate enough to attend Apache’s offering of their two-part course, Advancing E.D.C. The Gunset Training Group, hosted owner/founder Tim Kelly, and Instructor Dan Brady for a weekend of incredible work at Xenia Police department Training Facility in Xenia Ohio. Students can take either or both days of this course, a convenient update to the AEDC program.           Before, we dive too deeply into this course, I feel it important to share a bit about the two instructors who delivered it. I’ve had the great pleasure to train with both Tim and Dan in the past and must share that these two are phenomenal at what they do. Full disclosure, they are friends of mine, friends who happen to be among the best I’ve ever seen in any realm of adult education or training. Tim comes across as an extremely conscientious stoic. He is extremely organized, detail oriented, but alwa...