First Annual Mid-Atlantic Training Conference: Huge Success!

When training veteran Tom Givens and someone as passionate  as Craig Douglas is about doing the work get together, you expect great things. But, the training world is a funny place and sometimes the best plans just don’t come together even when good people are involved. This can often be the case with Conferences and Events that aim to high and end up falling very short. The First Annual Mid-Atlantic Training Conference managed to bring together 18 instructors and over 100 attendees, most of whom were knew to conference world and impress on every level.

Tom Givens is the owner and lead instructor at Rangemaster in Memphis, TN. Tom is one of the busiest instructors in the history of the industry with over 30,000 documented students who have been involved in more successful personal defense shootings than have ever been studied after training from one source (approaching 60 incidents). In fact, the Lessons learned from these real world events have helped Tom evolve his training program and assist him in identifying guys who have important “pieces of the puzzle” when it comes to valuable real world training. This makes it no surprise that Tom identified relative newcomer to the private sector training world, Craig Douglas, as one of those people. Tom is, in some circles, best known for running his own annual tactical conference and shooting competition (which took place in Tulsa for the last two years.) Tom’s event is always well run and features top name instructors and many repeat attendees. I have had the honor of teaching at Tom’s conference for the last 3 years and it is always a highlight of my year, primarily because of the quality of the people involved at every level.

One of those people  involved in the Rangemaster Conference that I have come to know very well and gain an great deal of respect for over the past few years is Craig Douglas. Craig is perhaps known better by his online handle “Southnarc'”, which was a necessary evil back when he started contributing to the progressive training conversation in online forums many years ago and was still an active undercover police officer. Craig is the top of the field right now when it comes to what I refer to as “Inside two Arms Reach” situations: True Extreme Close Quarters. This is an area of training that I have been tied to for a long time. Year’s ago when looking for a solution for extreme close quarters ambushes that mixed armed and unarmed issues, I came across High Gear impact reduction suits as a tool for facility high speed realistic contact training scenarios. That lead me to Tony Blauer and the wealth of information and inspiration that he brought to the industry with his S.P.E.A.R. System and the revolutionary inclusion of Startle Response into dealing with ambushes. Along the way, I even picked up an Instructor Cert under Royce Gracie and still use several pieces of his G.R.A.C.I.E. Program in my teaching today. After over a decade of looking, I can tell you that in 2010, there is no one who has a better handle on the Extreme Close Quarters Fight that involves Weapons than Craig Douglas. If you’ve been paying attention, Craig and his training have knocked the reality based training community on its ear over the last five years.  He has a simple mantra: State the Problem, Do the Work. He has defined the “multi-disciplinary approach” to close quarters training and continues to look for ways to evolve. If you get the chance to train with him, do it. If you get the chance to test yourself in one of his ECQC Sim Evolutions, do that too.

When Craig, a veteran of the US Army and career law enforcement officer by trade, wanted to get a group of who he felt were the most progressive and important thinkers and teachers in the combatives world together for a conference he immediately tapped Tom Givens (and his wife Lynn, they are a great team) to help him organize and market the conference. Craig has a genetic level professionalism and humility that helps him seek out key people to do what they do best and pass the spotlight whenever he gets the chance. Tom agreed to take the lead on putting the conference together and solicit attendees, Craig recruited the talent to put on the training blocks and MATC was on its way.

This past weekend was one of the best training experiences I’ve had in a long time. I got to teach almost half the attendees over the course of two four hour Introduction to Combat Focus Shooting sessions. Students ranged from a few who may never have shot more than 1 round per second in their entire lives to some very talented and experienced shooters. Housewives and retirees to active military and shooting industry leaders. I also got to learn

from some of the best, and possibly least known, resources out there. Sebastian Pritchard, a former Navy SEAL with a Doctorate in Decision Science from Oxford who runs a multi-million dollar hedge fund lectured on Startle Response, Intuitive Decision Making, the way our brains work and Leadership. Sebastian’s lecture was one of the best presentations I’ve heard on these topics, including a few at the Salk Institute and ones that have been made available online from leaders in the scientific research community… and he had never spoken at a training conference before. Sebastian is prototypical of the kind of person that Craig wanted at MATC. A true thinker who understands the context in which people interested in defending themselves need to apply cutting edge information and techniques. MMA Fighters & Trainers Paul Sharp, Larry Lindenman and Cecil Birch instructed sessions which offered unarmed techniques appropriate for the street not just the mat or the ring.

On the range, Tom Givens and I conducted sessions, along with Paul Gomez, Claude Werner, Michael DeBethancourt and Chris Fry. Paul Gomez may be one of the most under-rated guys in the industry as far raw knowledge goes and he shared some on the AK Rifle with attendees at his sessions. Chris Fry is another relative new comer to the training

world, but he is a thinker and he has evolved some outstanding information in relation to the AR Platform. Chris taught long gun retention and a block on AR malfunctions. Claude and Michael taught deep concealment related sessions, covering Snub Nosed Revolvers and Sub-Compact-Sub-Sub Caliber guns (respectively) in their blocks. I think Claude’s block on “mouseguns” is especially important to the community  after the huge wave of popularity and sales in the sector of the handgun market over the past couple of years.

One of the most important sessions that was taught during the weekend was also probably one of the least exciting when you looked at the class schedule. William April’s “Violent Criminal Actors” presentation offered a wealth of insight into exactly the type of people that the average person is most likely to need to use lethal force against. The session is based on April’s year’s of experience in the legal and mental health world as a practicing therapist. He has gleaned the important pieces of information that anyone forced to defend themselves might need to be able to articulate why they needed to use force against a person acting violently and irrationally. He also offered important clues about how to identify and possibly avoid, escape or de-escalate confrontations with the most dangerous people in our society.

Of course, Craig himself taught several blocks, including his Managing Unknown Contacts and Vehicle Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Modules. The latter of which I finally got to take. Having done a few other sessions, include full speed In-Extremis Knife evolutions with Craig in the past, I knew that I was going to get a workout, but the technical aspect of the course and the gains from the short conference version were impressive.

Grappling in a space with opportunities for 360 degree basing and leverage (and really thinking about it that way for the first time) is a whole new game.

Any conference also brings with it opportunities for information exchange, debrief and collaboration during the “off hours” and this may be where MATC was truly unique. Both Friday and Saturday night ALL of the attending instructors ate and conversed together. After dinner almost everyone continue to take advantage of the opportunity to get to know one another better and continue discussing important training and operational issues, many into the early hours of the morning. The people that were brought together were passionate about moving their own work forward. This wasn’t a collection of crusty old timers who wanted to re-tell old war stories and claim to have figured everything out years ago… this was a group of dedicated professionals who wanted to learn from each other and share what they had to offer. Not all of them were mentioned here of course, but it is a group to look for and to watch and I was proud to be a small part of it.

There will be a Second Annual Mid-Atlantic Training Conference in 2011. I’m expecting that registration will be limited, so sign up early. I am already looking forward to it.