Jackson, you are someone I would consider a "heavily experienced" training guy. You have taken a ton of classes.
I don't necessarily consider myself to be all that experienced. When I look at myself I see holes in my knowledge and gaps in my skill set.
If you don't mind me asking, what training have you taken? Why did you choose those classes over other opportunities?
Interestingly, after looking at your list of classes I noticed you aren't heavy on the SF/SEAL, etc. crowd. Any reason why? Do you have plans on taking any of the courses from those types?
Whether the instructor has an SF/Spec Ops background is not my biggest consideration in class selection. When I'm making training plans and prioritizing resources I tend to consider the follwing things first:
1. Course location. If I don't have to pay for travel and hotel, I can allocate those resources to additional training or practice. There are classes for which I've considered traveling, but the costs would have meant taking one class vs two in a given timeframe. Luckily, Indiana is host to many great training opportunities. I'll probably exhaust the local opportunities before I start traveling extensively.
2. Relevance. I generally try to focus on skills that are relevant to my life. If you look through my list of courses, you'll see a focus on interpersonal conflicts involving the pistol and various problems associated with it. I carry a pistol every day, so that gets the focus. I am more likely to take a low-light pistol course from a local instructor than to take a high-speed, low-drag carbine course from a well-known SF guy. I have no doubt the carbine course would have wonderful and unique things to offer, but the chances of me getting in to a firefight with a carbine in hand are very, very small. I generally try to take at least one pistol-focused class every year.
3. New/Unique information or new perspective. Keeping relevance in mind, I make an effort to seek out specific information. For example, I think low-light training is important. So I take advantage of every low-light opprotunity I can get. I took a partner tactics class because I'm commonly with other armed people and wanted to get some ideas on how to train and work together. I spend a significant amount of time in the car. I've taken a few vehicle tactics classes to focus on those things. Generally, after I've taken one class on a specific topic, I'll look for another, unrelated instructor teaching a similar class so I can get another perspective on it. So you'll see similar class topics repeated in my list (i.e.TDI Partner Tactics followed by Awerbuck 1 and 2 man tactics).
4. Force on Force. As many have explained in this thread, experience is important. I have never been in a gun fight. The next best thing I can do is FoF. I try to take a FoF class every year, or a class with FoF drills/elements to reinforce the topics.
Would I take a class with a well-known SF guy? I sure would. I'd love to, but I'd consider it in context of the above priorities when determing where to devote training resources. Some of the instructors I've been with have had significant military/combat experience. Some have had an SF background. Farnam has seen a lot of combat, but it was not recent. Jay Gibson of Tactical Response was in the Marine spec ops. Henk Iverson was involved in SoF type work in his military career and currently trains US SF guys. As Joe mentioned, some of the local guys have that in their resume as well. He doesn't bring it up on here much, but John (of ACT) has seen some combat from what I understand.
I've also been invited to a few classes for free or discounted rates. So some classes were attended due to invitation rather than selection.
Perhaps a better question would be this: Are you more apt to take classes from someone that has trained with the Mac, Defoor, Haley, Vickers, or take the classes from those individuals yourself?
If a guy has a system, I'd rather learn that from him than someone he certified. If a trainer has taken a whole bunch of classes from different people and developed his own system, and he interests me and has a good reputation, I'll consider his class.
For me it is hard to pay $300-$500 for the "nugget" from some classes. I cringe when I see someone got a "nugget" from a 2 day class. For that kind of scratch I would hope someone had an earth shattering kind of experience.
At a certain point its not so much about "earth shattering" revelations as gaining new perspective. When I get the opportunity to train with different instructors I get a different approach to the problem. They may emphasize different things, or come at the problem from a different angle. Through exposure to those different areas of emphasis or perspectives, I grow. I have no argument that growth is incremental rather than revolutionary. I'm okay with that. Its part of the process. This is also why I try to attend classes on specific topics (vehicle, low-light, partner tactics, active shooter, etc).
I do think it takes some experience to recognize those over-arching themes and identify where an instructor is placing emphasis. The instructor might not even realize it, or necessarily plan to emphasize those things. The class may have just developed in that direction based on his/her experience. I didn't recognize those differences until I had taken several classes. I didn't really see and understand it until I started taking good notes and writing detailed AARs. The process of analyzing the course to form an opinion and write the AAR synthesizes the information and lets the themes float to the top. At least that's how the process works for me. Someone who's a little quicker might recognize it all right off the bat.
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