Introducing The Cadre Sessions

Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for June of this year, when I was having a dickens of a time filling up my Pistolcraft 101 class. It’s a good class, modeled after John Murphy’s “Street Encounter Skills” class and it goes over pretty much everything you need to carry a firearm in public. It’s a good class, and I’ve been able to fill it up in the past. 

But not this year. Two weeks out, I had just one student, and it took an emergency email to members of the range where I train to fill it up. In addition to this, I’m noticing a trend with my classes. The “normal” classes, like my concealed carry course and the Pistolcraft 101 and 102 classes, are having problems filling up. However, my private lessons are doing quite well. This tells me that the people who have disposable income are willing to get training, while the people in lower tax brackets who are feeling the effects of an economy that’s been in the tank as of late. Those people need to pay for firearms training out of the same funds they use for things like entertainment or eating out. 

So something needed to be done, and this is where The Cadre Sessions come in. Each class in the Cadre Sessions is short (2-3 hours long), uses less than 100 rounds of ammo and only costs $75. However, each session is laser-focused on one essential skill for the armed citizen. Rather than throwing everything at you in four hours, I take the time so you can learn what’s being taught. The class size helps with that. Each class has only six students, so you’re guaranteed to get some 1-1 coach at some point, and to help that coaching go further, each session ends with a drill that you can practice on your own. The six classes in the Cadre Sessions are:

• The Concealed Carry Draw 
• Automatic Accuracy 
• Speeding Up To Go Slow
• Time And Timing 
• Well That’s Awkward
• Becoming A Shot Caller 

The response to this new paradigm has been overwhelmingly positive. The first class and its encore session have sold out, and the next class and encore session are filling up quickly. The first five classes are self-contained units: You can jump in any time and you’ll be fine. The last class, however, ties everything together and culminates with each student who attended all six classes receiving a custom challenge coin. 

I’ll be resetting these classes in spring, so if you missed out on the first go-round, look for them again very soon.