By Paul Lathrop | Contributing Editor
Over a six-week period recently, my wife Susan and I took the Armed Lifestyle class offered by Active Self Protection in Sioux Falls, SD.
I consider myself an intermediate shooter. I have taken classes taught by Bob Mayne and Ben Branam, Kathy Jackson, Marty Hayes at the Firearms Academy of Seattle, Massad Ayoob, and others. I don’t feel that I am a beginning shooter, but I am not on a level with the amazing instructors that I have taken training from.
So when Active Self Protection offered a course covering six weeks and comprising of a few hours each week on a weeknight and billed it for beginning to intermediate shooters I was intrigued.
The stated goal of the class was to get all members of the class to pass an FBI pistol qualification course by the end of the training. I had never taken the FBI qualification test, but some people that I know and respect called it a challenging test. So I put up the $225 each it took to take the class, ordered ammunition to replace what I was going to be shooting (not cheap or easy to acquire these days), and my wife and I showed up for the first day of class in mid-October.
The range this class was held at was The Alliance in Sioux Falls. The Alliance is an indoor range divided into two segments, a general public shooting range that has 14 shooting lanes, and a “VIP” suite that has a separate small meeting area and four shooting lanes. The class was held in the VIP area.
Our class consisted of 12 people that ranged in experience from those that had taken training before to one couple who had just purchased their guns and did not yet have holsters and had yet to fire the guns.
Neil Weidner, the primary instructor for the course, started with the customary safety briefing. He made it fun and interesting rather than a dry delivery of Col. Coopers 4 rules, and yet at the same time made it very clear that he was very serious about them. We then went into the lanes to start shooting.
The first week, was a bit of a surprise as we immediately shot a practice run for the FBI qualifications. Weidner explained that he wanted us to have a level of where we were at the beginning to gauge against where we were when the class concluded.
One thing was clear as the weeks progressed. Each week as we went along Neil gave us “homework” of 10 to 15 minutes of dry fire practices three times a week. These assignments changed each week, but if you didn’t complete the dry fire (something I did have an issue with a couple of times during the class) you struggled a little the next class.
Two things stood out to me as outstanding in the class. First, even though I had taken varied training in the past Neil found ways of improving my draw stroke and changing my grip to make follow-up shots faster for me. And second, all but one person was able to pass the FBI pistol qualifications at the end of the class.
Overall I am very pleased that I took this course. All of the students except one passed the FBI qualification test at the end and the student that didn’t pass only missed qualifying by one shot. There is something to be said for continued training. As an intermediate shooter, I was skeptical about how much I would pick up in the class, but by watching me and observing my draw stroke and grip Weidner was able to offer me tips that helped me tremendously. How did I do on the FBI qualifications? I passed at the instructor level.
The Active Self Protection classes can be found at https://activeselfprotection.com/training/ as of this writing there aren’t any more of the 6-week Armed Lifestyle classes being offered, some are in the planning stages for the future.
