Personal Protection

When you invest in defensive firearm training you are typically making a significant investment. The most obvious cost is your tuition for class, but there are other costs of defensive firearms training that you may not have considered such as your ammunition, meals away from home, travel expenses, and maybe most important, your time. These expenses are significant so it only makes sense that with the total cost of your defensive training you should have an expectation to get something of significant value in return.
There are a lot of things that you can do to get the most out of your defensive shooting class, but one of the easiest things you can do to get the biggest return is to invest in electronic hearing protection.

The problem with learning on a live fire range:
A live fire shooting range can be a tough place to learn. The volume level of gunfire is unsafe for your hearing and without hearing protection your hearing will be damaged with each and every gun shot.
So, we wear hearing protection to protect our valuable sense of hearing.
Hearing protection complicates things because it can make verbal communication difficult. It’s a certainty that your instructor will want to communicate verbally with you during class and it is likely that while you are wearing your hearing protection you will have a more difficult time understanding the verbal communication of your instructor. The fact that your instructor will likely spend a good amount of time standing behind you (because you have a gun in your hand) makes the communication even more difficult to deal with. With your instructor to the rear, you won’t have the ability to supplement your poor hearing with lip reading.
Learning is all about effective and efficient communication and in the name of safety you intentionally make communication and learning more difficult.

Electronic hearing protection helps you learn.

This is where an investment in electronic hearing protection might makes sense. Standard hearing protection keeps your ears safe by insulating your ear drums from the loud sound of gunfire. Electronic hearing protection insulates your ears just the same, but microphones pick up and amplify the sounds around you, like your instructor’s voice, so that you can clearly hear what is happening around you. At the same time, the fancy electronic wizardry filters out any loud noises like gun fire.

Electronic hearing protection restores your ability to hear what is happening around you to a large degree. This means you are more likely to hear range commands, explanations of concepts and principles, and the feedback and cues that you need for efficient communication from your instructor. You will hear more while you are wearing sound deadening hearing protection, even when you are firing your gun.
Plain and simple, electronic ears help you to hear all of the things that you are paying to hear from your instructor. You will learn more, you will enjoy class more, and you will get a larger return for your investment in training by adding electronic hearing protection to your range gear.
You can read about even more advantages of electronic hearing protection and some specific recommendations on brands of electronic ears here.

Get the most from your electronic hearing protection:
I’m a firm believer in making sure that my hearing is safe when I’m on the range and you should feel the same. The problem with most electronic hearing (and most other muffs) is that they leave a bit to be desired when it comes to protection. The NRR (noise reduction rating) of most electronic muffs ranges between 19 and 29. Depending on which formula you buy into even a set of muffs with a NRR of 30 are only going to reduce the impact of a gunshot by about 15 dB. This means you are still exposed to between 125 dB and 175 dB of sound.

A set of ear plugs under your muffs will add another 5 dB of protection and that can be a big difference especially if you are training indoors or with louder rifles. The problem with adding another layer of protection is that you make communication even more difficult.
With electronic ears this isn’t an issue. Just turn them up. Remember, the hearing pro is actually amplifying the hearing safe sounds around you. You can turn the volume up so that voice commands are easily able to get past your plugs while the sound of gunshots are blocked out by both the muffs and the plugs. My favorite pair of electronic ears are the Pro Ears Pro-Tac Gold. They amplify hearing safe sounds 8x but I swear they go to 11!

Probably the biggest advantage of doubling up on hearing protection is that even when your over the ear muffs are compromised in some way your hearing is still protected. Simply shouldering a rifle can move muffs enough to break the seal of the ear cup and I’ve been involved in dynamic training where my hearing protection has become dislodged because of dynamic movement. When you double up one hearing pro, this isn’t an issue.

Final thoughts:
We know that every time our ears are exposed to gunfire without adequate hearing protection our hearing is damaged in a cumulative and permanent manner. At the same time wearing hearing protection can make communication and learning more difficult by muffling the sounds we need to hear to learn.
Although it seems like a difficult situation to resolve, the solutions is actually quite simple and the answer is electronic hearing protection. Electronic ear pro protects your hearing and amplifies the sounds you are paying to hear in a defensive firearms course. When combined with plugs, you create a comfortable and redundant system of hearing protection that minimizes interfering with your learning.

Before your next live fire training course invest in quality electronic hearing protection. It will be well worth your while when it comes to your safety and the important return on your investment in your training.

-Paul Carlson

[Editors’s Note: While I agree with the author that Electronic Protection can make hearing an instructor on the range easier under most conditions, I have found that many people have problems achieving the proper position in rifle (and sometimes pistol) courses with ear muffs of any kind. Muffs can also be knocked off while training in/around vehicles or in other close quarters. I much prefer my students where plugs… there are electronic plugs available, but they are relatively expensive. Your hearing safety is important, but so is training relatistically… chose your protective gear carefully. -RJP)

The post Is Electronic Hearing Protection Right for You? appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

Evolution usually happens slowly in our firearms training community. Even making forward progress is difficult for some, especially when it means leaving behind truths they held sacred, a guru they thought infallible or a method they thought beyond question.
One thing that many people put a lot of stock in is time standards in choreographed drills or qualification courses. More and more people, however, are coming to the conclusion that Timers may not be as valuable a tool in defensive training as they were once thought to be. I’ve been saying for a long time that all such “standards” are made up and ultimately Subjective…. and therefore, not important… certainly not as important as so many people make them out to be. If people were generally slower, they times would be longer. If people were generally faster, the acceptable performance would be a lower time.

To me, this dictates that any individual (who is going to be generally slower or faster than any other individual) really trying to reach their own potential in relation to resources invested, must have their own goals and expectations in training in order to have contextual integrity.

In an article published earlier today, Grant Cunningham, host of PDN’s Training Talk show, very efficiently presents a clear cut example of why your “standards” may not be as objective or valuable as you think they are.

The beginning of his article references a conundrum:

“I was recently told of a defensive shooting “standard” for draw-to-first-shot time, one that a lot of instructors apparently use in their classes: 1.5 seconds if the gun is carried openly, or 2 seconds from concealment.

That seems quite odd to me. Not the times themselves, mind you — the fact there are two of them.”

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE.

-RJP

The post Do Your Standards Have Integrity? appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

Bad Review

A couple of months ago someone wrote a bad/one star review of my first book, The Ultimate Guide to Unarmed Self Defense, on Amazon.com.  There are two unfortunate aspects to this review.  First, it is entirely wrong.  And second, it caused my book sales to immediately drop by about 75%.  I’m going to address the points this person made in the review here on my blog.

You can see the bad review here.

I think the main reason he disliked the book was due to his misunderstanding regarding this sentence that he wrote: “The author’s insistence that sport based fighting form the base for real world self defense was also highly suspect.”

On both my website and in my book, I explain that the foundation of unarmed physical self defense training should be what I call the MMA Base, which is simply training punches, kicks, knees, elbows, and wrestling against an uncooperative opponent.  If you do not train these most common techniques against an uncooperative opponent, then you cannot learn to defend against them.  Period.  Many martial arts practitioners do not realize this.  It should be entirely uncontroversial, but unfortunately it isn’t.  In order to learn to defend against something, you have to actually train against it!

But the MMA Base is not self defense, and I’ve never said that it is.  The MMA Base is one small part of self defense.  Self defense involves a combination of strategy, training methods, and techniques that include awareness and prevention, unarmed physical self defense, and armed physical self defense.  The MMA Base is only one part of unarmed physical self defense training and techniques.  Awareness and prevention are far more important than the MMA Base, for example.  It is for this reason that the MMA Base section of my book is in Chapter 6 and not Chapter 1.

Before I get to the MMA Base in the book, in Chapter 1 I cover the difference between self defense and martial arts, pointing to the fact that self defense and MMA/sport based fighting are not the same.  The first chapter of my book points out the opposite of what this reviewer claims I insist upon.  The second and third chapters are all about violence, avoidance, awareness, and prevention – part of the strategic side of self defense.  I write in the book that this should be all you need for 99% of self defense.  Again, this is the opposite of saying that sport based fighting should form the base for real world self defense.  Chapters 4 and 5 cover more aspects of self defense strategy, along with functional training.  In Chapter 5 one section is titled “Self Defense: Beyond the MMA Base“, which includes this:

“The techniques and systems of the MMA Base are designed primarily for one-on-one sport based fights between people in similar weight classes, in an area designed for safe fighting, where both participants know what is about to happen. There are rules that prohibit some of the most effective and damaging techniques from being used, and by removing those techniques from the equation, unique and effective footwork, perfect for self defense, is also neglected. For the most efficient and effective physical self defense, we must go beyond the MMA Base.”

I proceed to explain why sport based fighting is not enough for physical self defense.

After Chapter 6, on the MMA Base, there are chapters on Functional Self Defense, Environmental Applications, and Physical and Mental Fitness – all important components of self defense that have nothing whatsoever to do with sport based fighting.  So I’m not sure what book this reviewer read, but it doesn’t appear to be mine!

The reviewer also wrote, “I did not find any new or original material and/or insights inside this tome.”  Again, he must not have read the book.  I have hundreds of martial arts and self defense books myself, and spend time at least looking at every new book that I come across.  I can guarantee this reviewer that he has never seen some of the concepts, strategies, and techniques that are covered in my book.  There absolutely are new and original material and insights in my book.

What frustrates me about this review is not so much that this one person missed just about everything in the book, although that is frustrating, but that his misguided review has caused many people not to buy the book.  (This is most likely due to the book ranking worse because of his review, although I’m sure some people have decided not to buy it after reading what he wrote.)  And the primary reason I am frustrated about people not buying the book has nothing to do with me making money by selling it.  I made this website and wrote the books because I genuinely care about people knowing what works and what doesn’t in terms of self defense.  It is a passion of mine.  This is not what I do for a living.  I don’t need the money.

I receive emails almost every day from people who have either read my books or spent time on my website, telling me how much they have learned from the material.  Most of them have practiced other martial arts, and many are martial arts instructors.  Just as I was taught ineffective material and thought it was effective, these people have done the same.  Reading my books and training the material in them has allowed people to see what actually works and what doesn’t, to really learn self defense, and to make their training much more functional and realistic.  It frustrates me that this one bad review from someone who clearly either didn’t read my book or somehow didn’t see most of what was in it, has substantially decreased the number of people who have access to realistic, functional material.

So I have a favor to ask.  Many of you reading this have purchased my books.  Many of you have emailed me to express how much you learned from them.  If you’ve read the books, please take a minute or two to write a review on Amazon.  Doing so will help other martial artists and self defense practitioners who won’t see this material otherwise.  Thank you!

Update: Changes Ahead

I haven’t posted or sent out any emails/updates in several months now.  I’ve been very busy with a number of big changes.  At some point early next year things will settle down, and I have plans to add more videos to my website in addition to possibly offering instructional videos.  I’ll also get back to posting more on this blog.  I have a backlog of at least a couple hundred emails, and I apologize if you’ve written and I haven’t written back.  I’ll try to respond soon!

The post A Bad Review appeared first on Functional Self Defense.

Bad Review

A couple of months ago someone wrote a bad/one star review of my first book, The Ultimate Guide to Unarmed Self Defense, on Amazon.com.  There are two unfortunate aspects to this review.  First, it is entirely wrong.  And second, it caused my book sales to immediately drop by about 75%.  I’m going to address the points this person made in the review here on my blog.

You can see the bad review here.

I think the main reason he disliked the book was due to his misunderstanding regarding this sentence that he wrote: “The author’s insistence that sport based fighting form the base for real world self defense was also highly suspect.”

On both my website and in my book, I explain that the foundation of unarmed physical self defense training should be what I call the MMA Base, which is simply training punches, kicks, knees, elbows, and wrestling against an uncooperative opponent.  If you do not train these most common techniques against an uncooperative opponent, then you cannot learn to defend against them.  Period.  Many martial arts practitioners do not realize this.  It should be entirely uncontroversial, but unfortunately it isn’t.  In order to learn to defend against something, you have to actually train against it!

But the MMA Base is not self defense, and I’ve never said that it is.  The MMA Base is one small part of self defense.  Self defense involves a combination of strategy, training methods, and techniques that include awareness and prevention, unarmed physical self defense, and armed physical self defense.  The MMA Base is only one part of unarmed physical self defense training and techniques.  Awareness and prevention are far more important than the MMA Base, for example.  It is for this reason that the MMA Base section of my book is in Chapter 6 and not Chapter 1.

Before I get to the MMA Base in the book, in Chapter 1 I cover the difference between self defense and martial arts, pointing to the fact that self defense and MMA/sport based fighting are not the same.  The first chapter of my book points out the opposite of what this reviewer claims I insist upon.  The second and third chapters are all about violence, avoidance, awareness, and prevention – part of the strategic side of self defense.  I write in the book that this should be all you need for 99% of self defense.  Again, this is the opposite of saying that sport based fighting should form the base for real world self defense.  Chapters 4 and 5 cover more aspects of self defense strategy, along with functional training.  In Chapter 5 one section is titled “Self Defense: Beyond the MMA Base“, which includes this:

“The techniques and systems of the MMA Base are designed primarily for one-on-one sport based fights between people in similar weight classes, in an area designed for safe fighting, where both participants know what is about to happen. There are rules that prohibit some of the most effective and damaging techniques from being used, and by removing those techniques from the equation, unique and effective footwork, perfect for self defense, is also neglected. For the most efficient and effective physical self defense, we must go beyond the MMA Base.”

I proceed to explain why sport based fighting is not enough for physical self defense.

After Chapter 6, on the MMA Base, there are chapters on Functional Self Defense, Environmental Applications, and Physical and Mental Fitness – all important components of self defense that have nothing whatsoever to do with sport based fighting.  So I’m not sure what book this reviewer read, but it doesn’t appear to be mine!

The reviewer also wrote, “I did not find any new or original material and/or insights inside this tome.”  Again, he must not have read the book.  I have hundreds of martial arts and self defense books myself, and spend time at least looking at every new book that I come across.  I can guarantee this reviewer that he has never seen some of the concepts, strategies, and techniques that are covered in my book.  There absolutely are new and original material and insights in my book.

What frustrates me about this review is not so much that this one person missed just about everything in the book, although that is frustrating, but that his misguided review has caused many people not to buy the book.  (This is most likely due to the book ranking worse because of his review, although I’m sure some people have decided not to buy it after reading what he wrote.)  And the primary reason I am frustrated about people not buying the book has nothing to do with me making money by selling it.  I made this website and wrote the books because I genuinely care about people knowing what works and what doesn’t in terms of self defense.  It is a passion of mine.  This is not what I do for a living.  I don’t need the money.

I receive emails almost every day from people who have either read my books or spent time on my website, telling me how much they have learned from the material.  Most of them have practiced other martial arts, and many are martial arts instructors.  Just as I was taught ineffective material and thought it was effective, these people have done the same.  Reading my books and training the material in them has allowed people to see what actually works and what doesn’t, to really learn self defense, and to make their training much more functional and realistic.  It frustrates me that this one bad review from someone who clearly either didn’t read my book or somehow didn’t see most of what was in it, has substantially decreased the number of people who have access to realistic, functional material.

So I have a favor to ask.  Many of you reading this have purchased my books.  Many of you have emailed me to express how much you learned from them.  If you’ve read the books, please take a minute or two to write a review on Amazon.  Doing so will help other martial artists and self defense practitioners who won’t see this material otherwise.  Thank you!

Update: Changes Ahead

I haven’t posted or sent out any emails/updates in several months now.  I’ve been very busy with a number of big changes.  At some point early next year things will settle down, and I have plans to add more videos to my website in addition to possibly offering instructional videos.  I’ll also get back to posting more on this blog.  I have a backlog of at least a couple hundred emails, and I apologize if you’ve written and I haven’t written back.  I’ll try to respond soon!

The post A Bad Review appeared first on Functional Self Defense.

Training Talk with Grant Cunningham is the show to watch to get reliable and responsible self defense information!



Training Talk is the webcast that talks about you: about your life and how to protect it. Grant and his guests cover defensive shooting, unarmed self defense, home defense, situational awareness, training tips, and much more.



No politics, no conspiracy theories, just authoritative information you can use — right now — to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. If you’ve been looking for rational and reasoned commentary about all aspects of self defense and personal safety, Training Talk is the show for you!



Join Grant at 6:pm Pacific/9:pm Eastern for the LIVE broadcast of Training Talk! Of course, if you miss the live show you can always watch the replay right here!



P.S.: Be sure to sign up for the FREE Personal Defense Network update emails!

Just click here to get the latest information direct to your mailbox!



Special Deal on Premium Membership for Training Talk viewers!

Click here to become a Premium Member

Code GRANT10 at checkout gets you the first year for only $10!

The post PDN Training Talk: December 1, 2016 appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

Training Talk with Grant Cunningham is the show to watch to get reliable and responsible self defense information!



Training Talk is the webcast that talks about you: about your life and how to protect it. Grant and his guests cover defensive shooting, unarmed self defense, home defense, situational awareness, training tips, and much more.



No politics, no conspiracy theories, just authoritative information you can use — right now — to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. If you’ve been looking for rational and reasoned commentary about all aspects of self defense and personal safety, Training Talk is the show for you!



Join Grant at 6:pm Pacific/9:pm Eastern for the LIVE broadcast of Training Talk! Of course, if you miss the live show you can always watch the replay right here!



P.S.: Be sure to sign up for the FREE Personal Defense Network update emails!

Just click here to get the latest information direct to your mailbox!



Special Deal on Premium Membership for Training Talk viewers!

Click here to become a Premium Member

Code GRANT10 at checkout gets you the first year for only $10!

The post PDN Training Talk: December 1, 2016 appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

Tune in on Wednesday, November 30th at 8 PM CST to have any type of personal defense question you may have answered by our resident expert Rob Pincus. This Ask Rob free-for-all should be an exciting live broadcast, so don’t miss out!

The post PDN LIVE! November 2016 appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

CRIME & ASSAULT ARE EVERYWHERE TODAY
WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW & DEFEND YOURSELF

CLICK HERE for More information on the
Taser Pulse Black w/Laser

Tune in on Wednesday, November 30th at 8 PM CST to have any type of personal defense question you may have answered by our resident expert Rob Pincus. This Ask Rob free-for-all should be an exciting live broadcast, so don’t miss out!

The post PDN LIVE! November 2016 appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

The following Blog was contributed by Paul Carlson of Safety Solutions Academy

:

When you head to the range, whether or not you experience quality practice might just be a coin toss. For most folks the coin toss is all about whether they have a practice session that is beneficial to their personal safety. You see, many folks leave their defensive practice to chance and actually spend very little time doing anything other than target shooting. Those folks show up a the range and send some rounds down range and hope that there will be some benefit.

There is a better way and, oddly enough, it can also be practiced by the toss of a coin.

When folks that understand how important decision making is in shooting and how a random surprise threat call can improve their defensive skill development, they intentionally choose to incorporate tools like a simple coin to help and improve the quality of their practice.

Why Use A Coin Toss In Defensive Shooting Practice?

When it comes to defensive training most people think about and work to develop the hard skills. They want to be able to get shots on the target quickly with a level of precision that delivers the hits that they need. Usually that is done by selecting a target at a distance and then working through the mechanics that are needed to get the quick hits.

This method certainly helps to build your shooting skills, but those that are interested in self-defense should consider that their quest is about more than just the hard skills in isolation. The type of shooting that is needed to be successful in self-defense requires the hard shooting skills to be coupled with the decision making skills needed to put the shooting skills into play.

Specifically integrating a coin toss into your shooting will require you to gather information on and decide what target you need to shoot and then determine how much skill you need to apply to get the hits you need to get. It sounds complicated, but it’s actually pretty straight forward.

Many shooters love gear, but the reality is that your defensive skills practice can be significantly enhanced with the incorporation of simple tools like a quarter. Lets look at some simple drills that can help develop your skills.

This first coin toss drill helps you to develop your shooting skills while making decisions. It’s simple and can be used in virtually any range setting.

Start out with two targets set up down range. These targets can be set up on two different stands or they could be simply two hit zones on the same sheet. Mark the targets clearly, one with a “T” and the other with an “H”.

Once everything is in place, take your trusty quarter out of your pocket and give it a toss. If you see a heads, drop the coin and place multiple hits into the “H”. If you see a tails, well, shot the “T”.

If your range allows and you are comfortable with the skills required, work from the holster. If drawing from the holster isn’t an option, place the gun on the shooting bench or inside your quick access safe on the bench and work from there.

If you have a training partner you can have them flip the coin and tell you the result and you can work from the high compressed ready position.

Once you have spent some forcing decisions on what threats you need to shoot, take the drill to the next level. Set up your two targets at two different distances or set up targets of two different sizes. This forces you to make more difficult decisions. In addition to deciding what threat you need to shoot, you now need to vary the level of skill that you apply to get the hits as quickly as you can. A very practical defensive shooting skill set to develop.<

It doesn’t take complicated drills and fancy equipment to enhance your defensive training, yet the rewards can be significant. These are just two variations of drills that can help you to develop decision making skills that are practical in defensive shooting namely, what target needs shooting and what do I have to do to get those hits as fast as possible.

The next time you are at the range for some practice, consider introducing some random target calls into your session. Simply use a coin toss to determine which of two targets you need to treat as your threat.

–Paul Carlson

The post Quality Defensive Training can be a Toss Up appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

The following Blog was contributed by Paul Carlson of Safety Solutions Academy

:

When you head to the range, whether or not you experience quality practice might just be a coin toss. For most folks the coin toss is all about whether they have a practice session that is beneficial to their personal safety. You see, many folks leave their defensive practice to chance and actually spend very little time doing anything other than target shooting. Those folks show up a the range and send some rounds down range and hope that there will be some benefit.

There is a better way and, oddly enough, it can also be practiced by the toss of a coin.

When folks that understand how important decision making is in shooting and how a random surprise threat call can improve their defensive skill development, they intentionally choose to incorporate tools like a simple coin to help and improve the quality of their practice.

Why Use A Coin Toss In Defensive Shooting Practice?

When it comes to defensive training most people think about and work to develop the hard skills. They want to be able to get shots on the target quickly with a level of precision that delivers the hits that they need. Usually that is done by selecting a target at a distance and then working through the mechanics that are needed to get the quick hits.

This method certainly helps to build your shooting skills, but those that are interested in self-defense should consider that their quest is about more than just the hard skills in isolation. The type of shooting that is needed to be successful in self-defense requires the hard shooting skills to be coupled with the decision making skills needed to put the shooting skills into play.

Specifically integrating a coin toss into your shooting will require you to gather information on and decide what target you need to shoot and then determine how much skill you need to apply to get the hits you need to get. It sounds complicated, but it’s actually pretty straight forward.

Many shooters love gear, but the reality is that your defensive skills practice can be significantly enhanced with the incorporation of simple tools like a quarter. Lets look at some simple drills that can help develop your skills.

This first coin toss drill helps you to develop your shooting skills while making decisions. It’s simple and can be used in virtually any range setting.

Start out with two targets set up down range. These targets can be set up on two different stands or they could be simply two hit zones on the same sheet. Mark the targets clearly, one with a “T” and the other with an “H”.

Once everything is in place, take your trusty quarter out of your pocket and give it a toss. If you see a heads, drop the coin and place multiple hits into the “H”. If you see a tails, well, shot the “T”.

If your range allows and you are comfortable with the skills required, work from the holster. If drawing from the holster isn’t an option, place the gun on the shooting bench or inside your quick access safe on the bench and work from there.

If you have a training partner you can have them flip the coin and tell you the result and you can work from the high compressed ready position.

Once you have spent some forcing decisions on what threats you need to shoot, take the drill to the next level. Set up your two targets at two different distances or set up targets of two different sizes. This forces you to make more difficult decisions. In addition to deciding what threat you need to shoot, you now need to vary the level of skill that you apply to get the hits as quickly as you can. A very practical defensive shooting skill set to develop.<

It doesn’t take complicated drills and fancy equipment to enhance your defensive training, yet the rewards can be significant. These are just two variations of drills that can help you to develop decision making skills that are practical in defensive shooting namely, what target needs shooting and what do I have to do to get those hits as fast as possible.

The next time you are at the range for some practice, consider introducing some random target calls into your session. Simply use a coin toss to determine which of two targets you need to treat as your threat.

–Paul Carlson

The post Quality Defensive Training can be a Toss Up appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

Training Talk with Grant Cunningham is the show to watch to get reliable and responsible self defense information!



Training Talk is the webcast that talks about you: about your life and how to protect it. Grant and his guests cover defensive shooting, unarmed self defense, home defense, situational awareness, training tips, and much more.



No politics, no conspiracy theories, just authoritative information you can use — right now — to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. If you’ve been looking for rational and reasoned commentary about all aspects of self defense and personal safety, Training Talk is the show for you!



Join Grant at 6:pm Pacific/9:pm Eastern for the LIVE broadcast of Training Talk! Of course, if you miss the live show you can always watch the replay right here!



P.S.: Be sure to sign up for the FREE Personal Defense Network update emails!

Just click here to get the latest information direct to your mailbox!



Special Deal on Premium Membership for Training Talk viewers!

Click here to become a Premium Member

Code GRANT10 at checkout gets you the first year for only $10!

The post PDN Training Talk: November 17, 2016 appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

Training Talk with Grant Cunningham is the show to watch to get reliable and responsible self defense information!



Training Talk is the webcast that talks about you: about your life and how to protect it. Grant and his guests cover defensive shooting, unarmed self defense, home defense, situational awareness, training tips, and much more.



No politics, no conspiracy theories, just authoritative information you can use — right now — to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. If you’ve been looking for rational and reasoned commentary about all aspects of self defense and personal safety, Training Talk is the show for you!



Join Grant at 6:pm Pacific/9:pm Eastern for the LIVE broadcast of Training Talk! Of course, if you miss the live show you can always watch the replay right here!



P.S.: Be sure to sign up for the FREE Personal Defense Network update emails!

Just click here to get the latest information direct to your mailbox!



Special Deal on Premium Membership for Training Talk viewers!

Click here to become a Premium Member

Code GRANT10 at checkout gets you the first year for only $10!

The post PDN Training Talk: November 17, 2016 appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

Evolution usually happens slowly in our firearms training community. Even making forward progress is difficult for some, especially when it means leaving behind truths they held sacred, a guru they thought infallible or a method they thought beyond question.
One thing that many people put a lot of stock in is time standards in choreographed drills or qualification courses. More and more people, however, are coming to the conclusion that Timers may not be as valuable a tool in defensive training as they were once thought to be. I’ve been saying for a long time that all such “standards” are made up and ultimately Subjective…. and therefore, not important… certainly not as important as so many people make them out to be. If people were generally slower, they times would be longer. If people were generally faster, the acceptable performance would be a lower time.

To me, this dictates that any individual (who is going to be generally slower or faster than any other individual) really trying to reach their own potential in relation to resources invested, must have their own goals and expectations in training in order to have contextual integrity.

In an article published earlier today, Grant Cunningham, host of PDN’s Training Talk show, very efficiently presents a clear cut example of why your “standards” may not be as objective or valuable as you think they are.

The beginning of his article references a conundrum:

“I was recently told of a defensive shooting “standard” for draw-to-first-shot time, one that a lot of instructors apparently use in their classes: 1.5 seconds if the gun is carried openly, or 2 seconds from concealment.

That seems quite odd to me. Not the times themselves, mind you — the fact there are two of them.”

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE.

-RJP

The post Do YOUR Standards have Integrity ? appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

Evolution usually happens slowly in our firearms training community. Even making forward progress is difficult for some, especially when it means leaving behind truths they held sacred, a guru they thought infallible or a method they thought beyond question.
One thing that many people put a lot of stock in is time standards in choreographed drills or qualification courses. More and more people, however, are coming to the conclusion that Timers may not be as valuable a tool in defensive training as they were once thought to be. I’ve been saying for a long time that all such “standards” are made up and ultimately Subjective…. and therefore, not important… certainly not as important as so many people make them out to be. If people were generally slower, they times would be longer. If people were generally faster, the acceptable performance would be a lower time.

To me, this dictates that any individual (who is going to be generally slower or faster than any other individual) really trying to reach their own potential in relation to resources invested, must have their own goals and expectations in training in order to have contextual integrity.

In an article published earlier today, Grant Cunningham, host of PDN’s Training Talk show, very efficiently presents a clear cut example of why your “standards” may not be as objective or valuable as you think they are.

The beginning of his article references a conundrum:

“I was recently told of a defensive shooting “standard” for draw-to-first-shot time, one that a lot of instructors apparently use in their classes: 1.5 seconds if the gun is carried openly, or 2 seconds from concealment.

That seems quite odd to me. Not the times themselves, mind you — the fact there are two of them.”

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE.

-RJP

The post Do YOUR Standards have Integrity ? appeared first on Personal Defense Network.

Certain Admissions by well-known Australian cricket journalist and writer Gideon Haigh is one of my favourite true crime reads of recent times.

The book was released in 2015 but I finally got around to reading it last week (too many books, too little time!).

This book is about John Bryan Kerr, who was subject to one of the most high profile murder cases in Melbourne. At the end of 1949, at age 24, sometime radio announcer and dapper young man Kerr was arrested for the murder of young typist, Beth Williams, 20.

A passer-by had stumbled upon Beth’s body at the beach at Albert Park. Her clothes were torn and it appeared as if she’d been strangled.

Controversially, an unsigned confession by Kerr was entered into evidence and he stood before three trials because then, capital crimes (murder) needed unanimous decisions from the jury. Kerr was sentenced to death and went to Pentridge Prison where he seemed to adapt to life behind bars as a debater, actor and avid basketballer.

However Kerr’s death sentence was commuted and he was released in the mid 1960s.

This is where the story, well to me at least, gets really intriguing. On his release Kerr finds it difficult to adjust to life and changes his name to Wallace. Haigh is able to recount, through interviews and research, what life is life for Kerr/Wallace as he tries to hide his past.

The description by Haigh of his research process for this book is also intriguing and the Public Records office of Victoria plays a large part in this story because the author was gained unprecedented access to files to dig into the story of Kerr/Wallace, who always maintained his innocence.  But the reader will also wonder whether Kerr could have committed the murder…

Certain Admissions is top class true crime.

Here’s something I wrote about the book last year when I interviewed Gideon Haigh.

Certain Admissions by well-known Australian cricket journalist and writer Gideon Haigh is one of my favourite true crime reads of recent times.

The book was released in 2015 but I finally got around to reading it last week (too many books, too little time!).

This book is about John Bryan Kerr, who was subject to one of the most high profile murder cases in Melbourne. At the end of 1949, at age 24, sometime radio announcer and dapper young man Kerr was arrested for the murder of young typist, Beth Williams, 20.

A passer-by had stumbled upon Beth’s body at the beach at Albert Park. Her clothes were torn and it appeared as if she’d been strangled.

Controversially, an unsigned confession by Kerr was entered into evidence and he stood before three trials because then, capital crimes (murder) needed unanimous decisions from the jury. Kerr was sentenced to death and went to Pentridge Prison where he seemed to adapt to life behind bars as a debater, actor and avid basketballer.

However Kerr’s death sentence was commuted and he was released in the mid 1960s.

This is where the story, well to me at least, gets really intriguing. On his release Kerr finds it difficult to adjust to life and changes his name to Wallace. Haigh is able to recount, through interviews and research, what life is life for Kerr/Wallace as he tries to hide his past.

The description by Haigh of his research process for this book is also intriguing and the Public Records office of Victoria plays a large part in this story because the author was gained unprecedented access to files to dig into the story of Kerr/Wallace, who always maintained his innocence.  But the reader will also wonder whether Kerr could have committed the murder…

Certain Admissions is top class true crime.

Here’s something I wrote about the book last year when I interviewed Gideon Haigh.

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The post PDN Training Talk: November 3, 2016 appeared first on Personal Defense Network.