Instructors were Jay Gibson and Chester Volz.
Jay’s instructor bio speaks for itself, having served as a USMC Scout Sniper. Instructor Bio Video
Chester serves on the Camden Police Department and is also known on YouTube as KentuckyLake Prepper.
15 students came from all over the country. A drug store owner from Kentucky, a plumber from Louisiana, a hotel security guy from Florida, a married couple from Alabama, a gun store employee from Commie-fornia, a young 21yo entrepreneur computer store owner from Philly, an HVAC guy from Knoxville, a young lady from DC with her father, one from Michigan, another from Little Rock, and me, the I.T. guy from southern Indiana, who supports a weapons training environment for the military.
Our crowd was pretty diverse, a few new shooters, several with “some” training, one who lacked focus and others with a strong shooting background via military, various training or competition shooting.
Most of the attendees where there for Fighting Pistol, which is the flagship course for Tactical Response. Others stayed for an additional three days for Advanced Fighting Pistol and Force on Force, following the “Way of the Pistol” training series.
I have wanted to attend Fighting Pistol since being introduced to James Yeager on Youtube via INGO several years ago. I had the opportunity to watch the DVD set ESRICE received for Christmas and was the typical Glock/Yeager fanboi for quite some time. I followed the Tactical Response and JY Facebook pages and was also Facebook friends with James, up until the Open Carry video he and Rob Pincus put out. I guess my comparison of them wanting us to hide our guns to that of the Brady Campaign, who fears we are “normalizing” people to guns again, didn’t go over so well. Over the last year, I’ve had a few online conversations with Pincus and have a better understand of what he means. Looking forward to a day I can have same conversation with JY.
That being said, I still wanted to train at Tactical Response and agree with almost everything JY puts out on video, I'm sure that comes as no surprise to anyone here. I recently made a comment about being furloughed as a DoD contractor and it wasn't two days later when James put out a new video offering the class for half price if one came with a friend. I posted up the video on INGO and hoped I could find someone who was going to a class. Turns out one member was… that very next weekend. I cleared it with my wife and sold some stuff and paid for the class… and started to panic. “Am I ready for this?” I had a couple of conversations with ESRICE and he assured me that I could handle it.
I've been working out quite a bit this year, vowing to lose 100 pounds while my oldest son is deployed to Afghanistan. I had just completed a 90 day weight lost challenge at my fitness club where I lost 40 pounds. My fitness level has been getting better and I knew I should be able to handle this class….so I said “F it, it’s now or never”.
The gear I chose for this class was my Gen4 Glock 19 with Hackathorn sights, an X-Concealment OWB holster held up by a Comp-tac belt and outfitted with Comp-tac mag holders. Initially I wanted to use my Comp-tac MTAC, but being a larger guy, it gets difficult holstering a lot, so I stuck with an OWB holster.
I departed Friday after lunch, as I was off of work anyway and had a five hour drive. I arrived in Camden around 3:30PM after losing an hour due to time zones. I arrived at Tactical Response and met Jay and Marilyn, made sure I was good to go. Then I decided to visit Special Operations Equipment, as my Comp-tac wasn’t tight enough to support my gear and hold up my pants, and I was out of space to drill another hole. Yeager and many others had done a lot of youtube reviews and ESRICE had to me that they are really close. I drove back up the highway and found the two little red buildings. Yup, this must be the place.
As luck would have it, I walked in the sewing shop and recognized John Willis from so many Youtube vids.
What a great guy… He looked up and said "Can I help you?" I explained my dilemma and he hopped up and walked me next door, gave me a tour of the shop, sized me up, talked about buckle choices then came back over and built me a new EDC belt in about 15 minutes. I basically lived this video and my new SOE EDC belt is awesome!
From SOE I departed for The Team Room to get settled and prepare for the next morning. When I arrived, I was greeted by Rebecca Yeager and grandson Bain. She gave me the tour and I couldn’t thank her enough for welcoming us in her home. Over the next few hours, students started arriving and everyone got to know each other and I knew I was in the right place. After a while, a few of us headed out to Cowboys for some really good steak. When we returned, a few others arrived and Jay was there, post Crossfit workout, eating chicken. More arrived and we all stayed up well past midnight talking and having a good time.
Day 1 of fighting pistol started with a classroom lecture covering safety and various Fighting Pistol topics. I won’t go into a ton of detail… GO TAKE THE CLASS! After the classroom portion we headed to the range, which was nice and wet from the rain that fell all morning. I didn't take any video or pictures because of the weather. I know exactly what it takes now to make my Glock not run. Mags so full of mud the followers couldn’t push rounds up to the feed lips. Once Jay had to take mine off the line and run water through it while I shot his. During reloading breaks, we’d throw our mags and handguns with slides locked back into puddles to wash the mud out.
Best…day…EVER!
By the time we finished at 5PM, we and our gear were covered with red Tennessee clay/mud. I was the first one back to the Team Room and dropped my gear and left it and headed for the shower.
After dinner, we spent a few hours doing homework and cleaning up gear. I basically just hosed off my mags and Glock and dropped in some oil as I wanted the gun to work hard the next day.
Day 2 started by covering the homework and followed with some of the best mindset info one can hear, and then back to the range. Lots of shooting on the move and from various positions, I was very comfortable shooting this way, having a few years of USPSA competition under my belt. The most fun for me was shooting from retention, right up on the targets and having Jay downrange doing his photos. I was glad to have him in front of me, as I've heard so many discussions about it. If/when my pics make the cut and get posted, I'll edit this and add them in.
As for my opinion on Fighting Pistol goes, I wish I had done this a long time ago. I've taken a few defensive handgun/low light classes from Coach and A.C.T's John and Joe Viray (ObiJon and Rhino) and a Force on Force class with Franke Sharpe Jr (Glock21) and they put me on a good path to start training. For years I had just assumed that I knew enough to carry a gun. I kept seeing posts here about how important it was an after having met Coach and Rhino at Friday night steel, they basically introduced me to training and USPSA. Meeting BWFrame back at the time also influenced me, because he is a true student of the gun. These classes prior to Fighting Pistol had me very comfortable with both my gun and my gear, so I could truly focus on improving the base I already had and get the most out of the course.
Fighting Pistol is a great base of defensive handgun training. I saw MANY students in the class have their eyes opened and the few I've talked to who completed the whole "Way of the Pistol" course are truly on the path. The two lady shooters we had were pretty new to firearms, so they got a TON out of the class.
For me, the Team Room was easily half of the experience. It’s great to have instructors hang out and so many like-minded people talking and enjoying the whole experience. When James talks about the Tactical Response alum being a brotherhood, he isn’t kidding. I can’t wait for next year’s Alumni weekend.
Here is our Team Room crew:
A link to a few pics I took: Hickman Fighting Pistol
Jay’s instructor bio speaks for itself, having served as a USMC Scout Sniper. Instructor Bio Video
Chester serves on the Camden Police Department and is also known on YouTube as KentuckyLake Prepper.
15 students came from all over the country. A drug store owner from Kentucky, a plumber from Louisiana, a hotel security guy from Florida, a married couple from Alabama, a gun store employee from Commie-fornia, a young 21yo entrepreneur computer store owner from Philly, an HVAC guy from Knoxville, a young lady from DC with her father, one from Michigan, another from Little Rock, and me, the I.T. guy from southern Indiana, who supports a weapons training environment for the military.
Our crowd was pretty diverse, a few new shooters, several with “some” training, one who lacked focus and others with a strong shooting background via military, various training or competition shooting.
Most of the attendees where there for Fighting Pistol, which is the flagship course for Tactical Response. Others stayed for an additional three days for Advanced Fighting Pistol and Force on Force, following the “Way of the Pistol” training series.
I have wanted to attend Fighting Pistol since being introduced to James Yeager on Youtube via INGO several years ago. I had the opportunity to watch the DVD set ESRICE received for Christmas and was the typical Glock/Yeager fanboi for quite some time. I followed the Tactical Response and JY Facebook pages and was also Facebook friends with James, up until the Open Carry video he and Rob Pincus put out. I guess my comparison of them wanting us to hide our guns to that of the Brady Campaign, who fears we are “normalizing” people to guns again, didn’t go over so well. Over the last year, I’ve had a few online conversations with Pincus and have a better understand of what he means. Looking forward to a day I can have same conversation with JY.
That being said, I still wanted to train at Tactical Response and agree with almost everything JY puts out on video, I'm sure that comes as no surprise to anyone here. I recently made a comment about being furloughed as a DoD contractor and it wasn't two days later when James put out a new video offering the class for half price if one came with a friend. I posted up the video on INGO and hoped I could find someone who was going to a class. Turns out one member was… that very next weekend. I cleared it with my wife and sold some stuff and paid for the class… and started to panic. “Am I ready for this?” I had a couple of conversations with ESRICE and he assured me that I could handle it.
I've been working out quite a bit this year, vowing to lose 100 pounds while my oldest son is deployed to Afghanistan. I had just completed a 90 day weight lost challenge at my fitness club where I lost 40 pounds. My fitness level has been getting better and I knew I should be able to handle this class….so I said “F it, it’s now or never”.
The gear I chose for this class was my Gen4 Glock 19 with Hackathorn sights, an X-Concealment OWB holster held up by a Comp-tac belt and outfitted with Comp-tac mag holders. Initially I wanted to use my Comp-tac MTAC, but being a larger guy, it gets difficult holstering a lot, so I stuck with an OWB holster.
I departed Friday after lunch, as I was off of work anyway and had a five hour drive. I arrived in Camden around 3:30PM after losing an hour due to time zones. I arrived at Tactical Response and met Jay and Marilyn, made sure I was good to go. Then I decided to visit Special Operations Equipment, as my Comp-tac wasn’t tight enough to support my gear and hold up my pants, and I was out of space to drill another hole. Yeager and many others had done a lot of youtube reviews and ESRICE had to me that they are really close. I drove back up the highway and found the two little red buildings. Yup, this must be the place.
As luck would have it, I walked in the sewing shop and recognized John Willis from so many Youtube vids.
What a great guy… He looked up and said "Can I help you?" I explained my dilemma and he hopped up and walked me next door, gave me a tour of the shop, sized me up, talked about buckle choices then came back over and built me a new EDC belt in about 15 minutes. I basically lived this video and my new SOE EDC belt is awesome!
From SOE I departed for The Team Room to get settled and prepare for the next morning. When I arrived, I was greeted by Rebecca Yeager and grandson Bain. She gave me the tour and I couldn’t thank her enough for welcoming us in her home. Over the next few hours, students started arriving and everyone got to know each other and I knew I was in the right place. After a while, a few of us headed out to Cowboys for some really good steak. When we returned, a few others arrived and Jay was there, post Crossfit workout, eating chicken. More arrived and we all stayed up well past midnight talking and having a good time.
Day 1 of fighting pistol started with a classroom lecture covering safety and various Fighting Pistol topics. I won’t go into a ton of detail… GO TAKE THE CLASS! After the classroom portion we headed to the range, which was nice and wet from the rain that fell all morning. I didn't take any video or pictures because of the weather. I know exactly what it takes now to make my Glock not run. Mags so full of mud the followers couldn’t push rounds up to the feed lips. Once Jay had to take mine off the line and run water through it while I shot his. During reloading breaks, we’d throw our mags and handguns with slides locked back into puddles to wash the mud out.
Best…day…EVER!
By the time we finished at 5PM, we and our gear were covered with red Tennessee clay/mud. I was the first one back to the Team Room and dropped my gear and left it and headed for the shower.
After dinner, we spent a few hours doing homework and cleaning up gear. I basically just hosed off my mags and Glock and dropped in some oil as I wanted the gun to work hard the next day.
Day 2 started by covering the homework and followed with some of the best mindset info one can hear, and then back to the range. Lots of shooting on the move and from various positions, I was very comfortable shooting this way, having a few years of USPSA competition under my belt. The most fun for me was shooting from retention, right up on the targets and having Jay downrange doing his photos. I was glad to have him in front of me, as I've heard so many discussions about it. If/when my pics make the cut and get posted, I'll edit this and add them in.
As for my opinion on Fighting Pistol goes, I wish I had done this a long time ago. I've taken a few defensive handgun/low light classes from Coach and A.C.T's John and Joe Viray (ObiJon and Rhino) and a Force on Force class with Franke Sharpe Jr (Glock21) and they put me on a good path to start training. For years I had just assumed that I knew enough to carry a gun. I kept seeing posts here about how important it was an after having met Coach and Rhino at Friday night steel, they basically introduced me to training and USPSA. Meeting BWFrame back at the time also influenced me, because he is a true student of the gun. These classes prior to Fighting Pistol had me very comfortable with both my gun and my gear, so I could truly focus on improving the base I already had and get the most out of the course.
Fighting Pistol is a great base of defensive handgun training. I saw MANY students in the class have their eyes opened and the few I've talked to who completed the whole "Way of the Pistol" course are truly on the path. The two lady shooters we had were pretty new to firearms, so they got a TON out of the class.
For me, the Team Room was easily half of the experience. It’s great to have instructors hang out and so many like-minded people talking and enjoying the whole experience. When James talks about the Tactical Response alum being a brotherhood, he isn’t kidding. I can’t wait for next year’s Alumni weekend.
Here is our Team Room crew:
A link to a few pics I took: Hickman Fighting Pistol
