Four of our wonderful instructors took the Rangemaster Basic Instructor Development course over the weekend of August 29-31, and all passed both the practical shooting test and the written exam. The session was led by John Hearne and consisted of 24 hours of classroom and range content, covering instructional style, best practices for adult learning, drills and practical exercises, and foundational course content on defensive use of handguns. Legal issues, attitude and mindset, equipment were introduced, with abundant advice on further reading, research and training opportunities to keep expanding our knowledge.

The instructors provided excellent coaching and feedback throughout the range portions of the course. We came away with a solid foundational library of drills that build up defensive pistol skills in a thoughtful and structured manner, and new confidence in our own pistol skills as well as the ability to help impart and grow those skills in others.

One thing we’d like to give special note to is the ethos of Hearne and the assistant instructors. The course concluded with a reminder that 2A and self-defense more broadly are universal rights that must be protected and shared by all of us. Mainstream gun culture can be difficult to navigate for what are often termed non-traditional firearms owners, and many courses are blatantly or subtly hostile to folks from those less commonly represented demographics. It is heartening to hear positive messaging from respected figures in the training space.

We were also grateful to make some new connections with fellow students who represented a wide range of experience. Firearms training is a fairly small space, and the community is tightly connected. We’re newcomers in this particular space and we are very excited to keep growing and learning and developing new relationships – all of which will benefit our ability to provide quality training to our community.

-The Grassroots Defense Team