On July 10th & 11th, I attended a 2 day Combat Focus Shooting class in Virginia Beach. The class was run by ICE training and took place at the C2 shooting center.
Rob Pincus was only able to be there the first day because of the shooting schedule for one of his TV shows, but did an awesome job while we had him. Dan Lowyns was the lead instructor on the 2nd day, and also did an excellent job.
I will admit this course isn't exactly cheap; tuition for the class was $450which isn't bad, but I fired around 1100 rounds in the two days, and the cost of that much ammo, combined with the tuition and other expenses such as lodging, gas, and food, could put this class out of reach of some people.
If you are the type of person who can’t handle physical discomfort, or who can’t bear the thought of mistreating a gun, this isn’t the class for you.
It was not a comfortable class, we had rain most of the afternoon on the first day, and the second day was just hot. I had to refill my 2 liter camelback twice.
I had blisters on my trigger finger and the web of my hand at the end of the first day. My palm was actually bruised from the recoil. My thumbs were sore from reloading my mags, by the end of the 2nd day I was having trouble loading them. I had tweaked my left ankle, and bruised the ball of my right foot.
We dropped our magazines in the dirt, and occasionally even stepped on them by accident as we ran the drills. We then took those dirty mags and with just a quick wipe on our pants loaded and reused them. When the rain started, we were doing the same thing only with mud. There was enough grit inside my mags to cause the follower to hang up, and create malfunctions in my pistol.
I enjoyed every minute, well, almost every minute. We were not comfortable, we were working hard, but we were still having fun.
I know having fun isn’t the point of this type of class, and that some circles consider it to be detrimental to training. I disagree and feel Rob and his instructors do as well.
I’m not saying they baby you; they push you hard and force you to push yourself even harder. They will chew you out when you make mistakes, but they also make sure to show you what you’re doing wrong, and more importantly how to do it right.
You learn constantly, and everything builds on what you’ve done previously. You take the time to learn mag changes or presentation from the holster, etc. From then on, those skills are incorporated into the drills that teach you further skills.
By the end of the two days you’re doing multiple target identification/engagement at staggered distances with bystanders. In our case it involved about 10 targets with random numbers.
While we walked around a group of paint cans, an instructor would call the numbers pretty much at random and we’d have to make the shots.
This involved identifying the target, shifting to get a clear shot at the target while at the same time avoiding the bystanders with the rounds that passed through the target.
At the same time we were presenting the weapon, firing 2-5 shots into the center of the chest, and performing any reloads/malfunction drills our weapon required.
This is really just a brief overview of the class, I will post more on this when I have time, and of course feel free to comment or ask questions. I’ll admit even a month later I still haven’t fully processed everything we covered in the class, but I’ll do my best to clarify what I can.
I’ll close now by saying I can easily recommend the ICE Combat Focus Shooting class to anybody that intends to use a handgun as a defensive tool.
Rob Pincus was only able to be there the first day because of the shooting schedule for one of his TV shows, but did an awesome job while we had him. Dan Lowyns was the lead instructor on the 2nd day, and also did an excellent job.
I will admit this course isn't exactly cheap; tuition for the class was $450which isn't bad, but I fired around 1100 rounds in the two days, and the cost of that much ammo, combined with the tuition and other expenses such as lodging, gas, and food, could put this class out of reach of some people.
If you are the type of person who can’t handle physical discomfort, or who can’t bear the thought of mistreating a gun, this isn’t the class for you.
It was not a comfortable class, we had rain most of the afternoon on the first day, and the second day was just hot. I had to refill my 2 liter camelback twice.
I had blisters on my trigger finger and the web of my hand at the end of the first day. My palm was actually bruised from the recoil. My thumbs were sore from reloading my mags, by the end of the 2nd day I was having trouble loading them. I had tweaked my left ankle, and bruised the ball of my right foot.
We dropped our magazines in the dirt, and occasionally even stepped on them by accident as we ran the drills. We then took those dirty mags and with just a quick wipe on our pants loaded and reused them. When the rain started, we were doing the same thing only with mud. There was enough grit inside my mags to cause the follower to hang up, and create malfunctions in my pistol.
I enjoyed every minute, well, almost every minute. We were not comfortable, we were working hard, but we were still having fun.
I know having fun isn’t the point of this type of class, and that some circles consider it to be detrimental to training. I disagree and feel Rob and his instructors do as well.
I’m not saying they baby you; they push you hard and force you to push yourself even harder. They will chew you out when you make mistakes, but they also make sure to show you what you’re doing wrong, and more importantly how to do it right.
You learn constantly, and everything builds on what you’ve done previously. You take the time to learn mag changes or presentation from the holster, etc. From then on, those skills are incorporated into the drills that teach you further skills.
By the end of the two days you’re doing multiple target identification/engagement at staggered distances with bystanders. In our case it involved about 10 targets with random numbers.
While we walked around a group of paint cans, an instructor would call the numbers pretty much at random and we’d have to make the shots.
This involved identifying the target, shifting to get a clear shot at the target while at the same time avoiding the bystanders with the rounds that passed through the target.
At the same time we were presenting the weapon, firing 2-5 shots into the center of the chest, and performing any reloads/malfunction drills our weapon required.
This is really just a brief overview of the class, I will post more on this when I have time, and of course feel free to comment or ask questions. I’ll admit even a month later I still haven’t fully processed everything we covered in the class, but I’ll do my best to clarify what I can.
I’ll close now by saying I can easily recommend the ICE Combat Focus Shooting class to anybody that intends to use a handgun as a defensive tool.