Rob Pincus & SDI Webinar: Developing a Firearms Training Business

Rob Pincus of the I.C.E. Training Company and the Personal Defense Network teams up with the Sonoran Desert Institute School of Firearms Technology on this webinar on developing a firearms training business:

The SDI YouTube channel has some other good-looking stuff, including How To Market Your Firearms Industry Business, Featuring Zeke Stout.

Kathy Jackson: What’s the Point of this Activity?

Kathy Jackson of Cornered Cat and the IDJ:

What if we never showed a child what their ability to walk could be used for? Never showed them how to run, or kick, or jump, or climb a tree? Would it help a child’s ultimate independence and ability to do those other things if instead of doing those things with them, we kept the kid in a perpetual state of improving their skill at walking? If we measured and categorized every step they took, telling them all the different ways they could improve their walking performance? “Kiddo, look, your step-to-step times can be improved if we just eliminate a little wasted motion right at the top of that left leg swing…” We might even put together little contests for them with their other friends, where we tightly scripted and carefully measured their walking skills, with stages that emphasized foot flexion, leg extension, stride length, being able to balance on one leg or the other, and so on…

Continue reading…

Rory Miller: Learning, Responsibility, and Power

Rory Miller of Chiron Training:

Here’s the way I see it.  I will assume 100% responsibility.  If I am the teacher it is 100% my responsibility to be understood.  And if I am the student, it is 100% my responsibility to understand. These percentages and the concepts of teaching and learning, the relationship of teacher to student are not exact realities. A huge amount of every interaction you have with other people is being created in your head. Humans don’t deal, almost ever, with objective reality. We ascribe meanings from our own histories, and interpretations from our own internal connections to everything we hear and everything we see. You can and do control this process. A fairly large amount of it you can control mindfully, consciously. And some you can only influence…

Continue reading at Conflict Research Group International

New FB Group: Special Needs Self Defense And Safety

Jason Miletsky of Exceptional Fitness, Self-Defense, and Safety started the Special Needs Self Defense And Safety group on Facebook.

“Jason Miletsky earned his B.S. degree from Nova Southeastern University in Behavioral Science. Jason is a certified Exceptional Student Education teacher. Currently he is an ESE and Behavior Specialist for the Broward School District. Jason has an extensive background in Applied Behavior Analysis, athletics, fitness, recreation management, martial arts, program development, and implementation of developmentally appropriate programs and curriculum for typical individuals as well as those with special needs of all ages.”

Looks like there are some good resources there.

John Danaher on Student Information Overload

John Danaher:

Information overload: When I first began coaching I was anxious to pass as much detailed information as possible to students when demonstrating moves; in the belief that the more details they had, the more perfect their performance of the move would be. I soon found the opposite effect took place. The students did not have the experience to know which details ought to be given priority and so tended to emphasize the least important details over the most important. … My job then, is not dumping information – IT IS ABBREVIATING AND PRIORITIZING INFORMATION. Once I feel it is absorbed in ways that a student can utilize it under stress, I can add more. As soon as I made this adjustment…

Continue reading on Instagram

h/t Torin Hill of TORIS

Tamara Keel: Dressing Around the Weapon

Tamara Keel:

We do not live in a world where everybody can wear an untucked polo shirt over a gun belt with a Glock 19 and centerline fixed blade knife, and can take all their vacation days every year to attend gun school. Nor should we. By making that sound like the lowest hurdle for responsible self defense, we turn off more people than we attract.

Read it at View From the Porch

Randy King: Training for Escape

Randy King of KPC Self Defense and Randy King Live has another awesome installment of his Randy’s Rants series. This one’s on training to escape.

Personal story: few years back I discovered an almost 100% reliable way to confuse and eventually piss off a room full of martial artists. Fight only to create an opening for an escape and then take it. There’s a sort of predictable pattern: confusion, OK I get it, haha you’re still doing it, and ok but seriously why aren’t you hanging out to fight me for fun for the next 10 minutes. (Yes, eventually we probably do have to stay in longer than we would so we can learn.)

Kathy Jackson: What Certifications Do You Need?

Kathy Jackson of Cornered Cat and IDJ:

From elsewhere, in response to sumdood asking what certifications he “needed” to have in order to teach home defense and gun safety:

At the heart, a “home defense” instructor asks (and even expects) people to bet their lives and the lives of their loved ones on the quality of the instructor’s information and the instructor’s ability to impart that information to them in a meaningful way.

If that thought doesn’t scare you down to your toenails, it’s not the job for you no matter what classes you’ve attended or what certifications you have. If it sounds silly or overstated or like anything other than the bare truth … same thing.

If that sobering thought does give you some hesitation, you won’t ever again ask how little education you can get away with having. Instead, you’ll start asking how much you can absorb, and of what quality.