Train With Willis

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...

It seems impossible to go online today and not witness tiresome internet debates on a myriad of topics. BY FAR the most annoying, to most people that actually train, is the discussion of round selection. There seems to be an inverse relationship of skill or experience to how adamant one argues their point. For me, and many like me, a similar amount of head shaking and eye rolling is uncontrollable when people start discussing tourniquet selection. I am a huge proponent of civilians empowering themselves by learning skillsets of trauma management. After all, even in the most well staffed, EMS rich environments, if you are bleeding badly enough to need a tourniquet, you don’t have time to wait for EMS. It’s with this in mind that I bring up a comment that I read on social media the other day. I am in no way suggesting that social media is to be some bastion of reliable information or communication, but if one person says it you can bet exponentially more folks think it. His comment w...

  Chest Decompression Needles; Vital kit or tactical talisman?   By Jonathan Willis As will be the case in this often trend driven industry, yet another tactical talisman has entered the must have lists of many a preparedness minded individual. You’ve all seen them, or bought them, yet very few have any legitimate training or authority to even posses them. We are talking about the chest decompression needle. It must finally be said, please STOP; you know not what you do.   I have been an instructor in most disciplines of Fire, EMS, Technical Rescue Operations, and now Firearms for two decades, operated on the streets for 20 years. Like most in my service, I have responded to thousands of calls that include pretty much any insult to the human form an individual could imagine. But guess what, I’ve seen more double rainbows in my life than I’ve even heard of pre-hospital tension pneumothorax decompressions.  You might be interested to know that ER physicians have an...