The drill is now getting familiar to those of us who've had the privilege to train with Tom. Down the night before at the hotel, and dinner with friends and family.

The day begins at 0900 at the classroom. Tom put up a Powerpoint presentation with a handout which tracked the slides. The Powerpoint was well-polished, and equaled anything you would expect to find in a boardroom. We covered safety, mechanics and had a thorough question and answer session. Pete backed up Tom, and offered his own unique persepective. We also covered the different sorts of shotgun shells, and the strengths and weaknesses of each. The discussion quickly turned to home defense, and how best to defend the family. That discussion was worth the price of admission.

Tom is -- well-- Tom. He's a no-frills, no nonsense guy who offers excellent "academic" knowledge coupled with extraordinary real-world experience. He is all about the safe and effective use of firearms. He's also a genuinely nice guy, capable of applying just the right amount of pressure and praise. You quickly get the impression that he and Pete are there because they enjoy what they do, and have a gift for imparting that to their students.

Shotguns are new to me. I've been skeet shooting twice, and fired my own shotgun twice -- about 10 rounds. You don't get much more ignorant that I was. I have to say, the limited exposure to my shotgun scared me a little. It kicked like a mule, and I felt each of the rounds I fired in my shoulder. When Tom said to bring 200 birdshot, 10 slugs and 10 00 buck, I had some visions of physical therapy the next day. Not to worry, Tom said, I have a way to reduce recoil by 80%. Now THAT I wanted to see.

From the classroom we went to an adjoining room to practice some loading with snapcaps. Anybody can rack a shotgun with two hands. What happens when you run dry? How do you reload? There are overhand combat reloads, where -- in your workspace-- you sweep a shell over the receiver and drop in. There are underhand combat reloads, where the weak hand sweeps a shell under the receiver and the open hand presses the shell in. There's a lot to tactical shooting that takes place before the finger comes close to the trigger. Sort of like sailboat racing, where a competitor can gain or lose a tremendous advantage before the gun even goes off.

From there, we went to the range. It's about 15 minutes from the classroom, and well-situated in the Virginia countryside. Tom had some presents for us- new plate racks and a wooden barricade-structure with portals. But before we got to that, we learned about what the guns could do. We patterned our guns on paper to see exactly what 00 buck does, and why Tac 8 is your best bet. We learned about "quartering". Figure out where the pellets spread, and, if you have to avoid something near a target, ease to the other side a little. Enough the pellets will strike home, without endangering areas you do not wish to harm.

Next, we were introduced to the awesome power of the slug- a one ounce piece of lead. Slugs actually shattered the welds off of one of Tom's steel targets. I introduced the group to the effects of a slug on AR500 steel plate. I'm sorry I trashed the plate, but we all benefited from an indelible visual image with a definite "WOW" minute.

We practiced the transition from shotgun to sidearm. I've taken several courses where pistols were the salad, but a long gun was the main course. I'm still not as adept with pistol shooting as I should be. Tom and Pete came over, and patiently worked with me until I got it right.

One of the exercises we spent time on was a walking drill. Between the plates on the left and right, and the five paper targets between them, we had seven possible targets. From the low ready on the left side of the targets, we walked left to right until Pete called out a target. We would combat load, fire, "admin" load a few shells underneath, and continue walking at Pete's command. He'd call out several other targets, and we would engage each, combat reloading as he told us. We wound up on the right side, by the plates, and knocked them down in order with rapid fire until we ran dry.

Tom showed us how to push forward on the front grip to neutralize much of the recoil. Pete showed us how to press back right before the shot to quicken the rate of fire. We practiced one-handed drills- shooting, reloading and racking a shell with your strong arm held behind your back. Makes you feel like a little girl.

One of the best things was that I found that my little camera also shoots fairly decent video. As I type this, my son and I are watching our exercises. I have lots of stills and some videos which I will put up if I can figure out how to do it.

Many thanks to Tom and Pete for an extraordinarily intense day. You couldn't ask for any more that we got today.

P.S. For those of you concerned with "preserving the domestic tranquility," there is a spa across the hall from Tom's classroom. Next time I'm going to convince the "significant other" to come with me to the hotel. I'll drop her off at the spa the next day, while we do our thing. Imagine how sweet life would be for those of you with non-shooting spouses if they looked forward to these sessions as much as you did!

http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=27922

I attended the CCJA Tactical Shotgun I Course on 29 November, 2009.

In so many ways, it was extremely emblematic of the type of instruction Tom Perroni is so good at. First of all, top quality instruction. Both Tom and his co-instructors are guys who have a ton of experience behind them, and not only that, have a clear method of imparting that information to the class. Second was the dynamic nature of the training at CCJA. Although there is a clear direction of the particular matters to be covered and skillsets worked on, there is a willingness to change on the fly when necessary. I'll give a couple examples from yesterday.

We were working hard on transition drills. We shot slug rounds against a metal target (and boy did that impact amply demonstrate the usefulness of slugs), slung the shotgun, and transitioned to the secondary, shooting metal plates at a relatively extended range. When Pete and Tom saw that our handgun work wasn't as good as it could have been, they changed gears and spent a good half hour or so working everybody hard on their pistol skills. It was fascinating to see Tom give the extremely abbreviated version of his pistol course, and then seeing positive changes in everybody's results in less than an hour.

Another example of flexibility is a demonstrated ability to listen to the students, especially when they have some experience themselves. We were running a great and demanding drill, moving laterally across a field of fire past both paper and metal targets and engaging those targets as they were called out in a random fashion. After we had completed that, JT had a great idea of running the same drill backwards, which meant that we shot the drill in mirror fashion--not just going the other way, but doing everything the other way, meaning shooting lefthanded. Pete and Tom saw the value of that drill as soon as JT mentioned it, and so we did it right away. (By the way, it was hard as heck because this was at the end of a long day, and the fatigue interfered with everything we were doing, especially when, on the fly, halfway across the course, you were told to shoot one-handed with the shotgun--left-handed remember--load one-handed with the shotgun, and still get hits on the target.)

That flexibility and willingness to listen to the students are some of the best parts of a CCJA course. Concomitant with that is their emphasis that what they are teaching is "a way," not "the way." Pursuant to that, two methods of one-handed reloading and charging the shotgun were taught. The students, being treated as people rather than automatons, were offered the flexibility to choose which method worked better for them.

A third point of the value of CCJA instruction is that you are pushed. The instructors are watching each student carefully, and are patently gauging where that student is on the learning curve in any particular drill. When a student is having problems just getting through that drill, obviously the pressure is sufficient. However, if the student is doing well, then the instructors are very willing to get into you with something much more than polite banter, but far less than Parris Island invective, in an attempt to push you to that stress level when you are more prone to make a mistake.

This is invaluable. Until you're pushed as hard as your ability can stand, you won't see where the breakdown in your technique will be. Once you get to that point, it is obvious what you need to continue to work on in the future, and of importance, it is at that point that Tom and Pete would offer their advice on how to avoid that problem in the future. If the f_up was relatively minor, they would "coach you up." If the breakdown was of a more significant nature, it is very common for them to stop the drill, and work in detail with that student on the problem for as long as necessary. If that meant that an instructor would be tied up with a student for some minutes, they would take you to the other side of the range and do individual work while the rest of the class went on with the drill.

In summary, CCJA is a great place to work on your shooting skill-set. There is no doubt that there are many other great facilities for firearms instruction around the area and the country, and it is a cool grace of Tom's that he will commonly name a number of other schools with great praise during the course of a class. However, shooters are genuinely doing themselves a disservice if they don't avail themselves of this first-class training.

http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=27925