Just got done with a weekend at Max’s CRCD Class.
Thoroughly enjoyed myself and I am sooo glad I overcame my recent workout injuries in the last couple of weeks to squeeze in some leg work outs before I came.
but I get ahead of myself, let’s start from the beginning:
I had been in the military for quite some time but with only very sporadic tactical training.
Have been shooting once a week for the past 18 months (needed a hobby after my divorce)
Recently I decided to up my game and was looking around for some tactical classes.
Looked at the ubiquitous Magpul videos and some other “big name” classes and they just bothered the heck out of me.
They were mostly about becoming an AR driver and transition dancer, not a tactically proficient and rounded individual.,
Those courses seemed to be focused on a PoU (Philosphy of Use) that might be good for a SWAT team but not for a civilian 1st Defender.
I am not an experienced Infantryman but I know a thing or two about training troops and using the right PoU ….and in my mind the mainstream, Carbine classes that are currently taught often use a PoU that
fits the instructors needs better than those of the students.
But enough about why I think others are flawed, lets talk about whats great about Max’s Class:
For one you are not on a static range punching paper…. pop up targets from different angles while doing live fire reaction drills as individuals, buddy teams, fire teams and as a capstone event as a Squad is the better training tool.
Secondly the terrain is realistic, no nicely maintained and easy to observe firing lane of gravel or grass.. its all a conglomerate of bushes and trees and inclines and declines and ravines and stumps and rocks etc etc.
Just like in the real world!
Also , while Max takes r
easonable safety precautions, but he doesnt allow
excessive precautions to cripple training like you will find sometimes in the big military and in most police depts.
You get treated as an adult, which is why it is important you show up only after getting thoroughly comfortable with your rifle.
Finally Max makes a real effort to explain and make sure student understand which tactical response is appropriate in which situation, so you are later empowered to think for yourself what tactical situation or intent you have that will lead you to either break contact or attack thru or flank etc.
Hopefully this way folks in a real SHTF will not blindly execute a drill thats inappropriate to the situation at hand, because they learned what is useful when.
His manual CONTACT between that and his blog it totally sold me on training with him.
I often find that authors of such manuals try to fit the square peg of their own experience as SF or SWAT into the round hole of training up civilian 1st Defenders for WROL, TEOTWAWKI etc results in comically misplaced guidance.
but none of such errors in judgement can be found in Max’s book.
Everything he write makes sense for the situations he writes about and hopes to train about.
I also believe that this type of training will transform the tactical firearms community in the next few years. We will see the faddish “tacticool “we will almost make you a SF operator” type schools adapt or shrink.
Non-faddish training focused on the basics of Fire and Movement is a must IMO and I strongly recommend folks take his classes (or classes by those who exhibit a similar training philosophy which is not many, but some others do exist)