My wife and I attended a 3-day firearms martial arts class, with several friends, and friends of friends.

My wife posted on FB "Best weekend getaway ever!" Finally, success!

We had a great group of people. Most had martial arts experience, but I'd say a third of the group only had firearms experience, one person had no firearms experience at all.




Soke Hall (Jeff Hall) was the instructor. Hojutsu is the art, which means "The Art of Gunnery" in Japanese.
https://hojutsu.com/

Jeff's main site: http://forceoptions.net/

More info on the course we took: http://silverbulletnw.com/Hojutsu.aspx

On the range, Jeff reminded me of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from "Full Metal Jacket". Lots of UnF**K yourselves, "you're dead, if you don't move, move while you're reloading, hope you've had a wonderful live, 'cause you won't live long if you don't move", "DON'T take your finger off the trigger when you're on target, there could be another threat", "CEASE FIRE, gather round, when I demonstrated a step, I didn't do this weird monkey shit you guys are doing, it's a side step like this, not a forward step toward the target, now UnF**K yourselves, RANGE HOT".

It wasn't all like that. He'd walk by, and say "you know you're slapping the trigger on rapid fire", I'd say thank you sir. Several times he corrected me on my grip. Finally, he brought out his magic marker and drew an up arrow on my thumb, and said that's so you don't forget to get that thumb up. Lots of people ended up with temporary tattoos from his marker like "parrot killer" (shot over the shoulder), "snake killer" (low shot), "nun killer" (shot to the side), "airplane killer" (high shot), "feather killer" (slightly high, like shooting an indian feather", and many more. He'd draw little cartoon figures on the targets, then bring people up for their hand tattoo.

My wife earned a couple.




There was a personality shift for the martial arts instruction. Very cordial, calm, helpful, willing to repeat moves and answer questions. He really wanted us to learn these skills to prepare mentally for a fight, win the fight, make good decisions, and survive encounters. He would go through several movements, then explain the purpose for each. A lot of the emphasis was on firearms retention. We drilled on this a lot. His demonstrations at full force were pretty intense. As with all martial arts, expect some pain, and maybe some bruising. If you're the lucky person chosen for a demonstration, for sure expect a little pain.

Jeff is a great story teller, which is a lost art. Stories can help you remember lessons and instruction, and he had plenty to share. Sometimes the stories were just for fun, or had a lesson. Needless to say, someone with his experience, has some very interesting tales to tell.

On the second day, he said "Everyone from communist Washington, gather around, I'm going to take you through your 1639 training." Bonus! I was not expecting that. We'll all get our certificates in the mail, certifying 16 hours of training, and everything required for 1639.

He wrapped up the range day by letting people sample shooting an M4 full auto suppressed rifle.

He took us through a law enforcement qualification test on two separate days. I had no idea this was happening, as I was just focused and following instructions. I scored a 231 on the first day, and a 240 on the second.


It was a great experience. I learned a ton! But I'm most happy that my wife had a great time, and she was dry fire practicing every night for the past 6 weeks.

I would highly recommend one of the Hojutsu courses taught by Soke Jeff Hall. Next local training event will be in late September.

Oh, and I ended up as a blue belt in Hojutsu, and my wife green. If you don't know, green is higher than blue. But, she is a 2nd degree black belt.

Damn Mark, that is Badass. I can only imagine the markings i would be sporting.

What an amazing experience!

Help me understand how inflicting pain on you helps you as the student learn? I understand very well this tradition from the teacher's perspective, and the learning value of seeing/hearing demos (usually inflicted on a teaching assistant). I ask to understand, no disrespect.

Are you talking about the language, or the martial arts? We all took the language in jest, it didn't come across as mean, but certainly serious. Everyone was having a great time on the range. No egos, and everyone had an open mind and open ears to learn.

As for martial arts, you put a bunch of people in a room, half experienced blackbelts/half clueless - an elbow to the bicep might accidentally hit harder than expected, a stray kick can make contact. Hapkido type moves on the joints inflict pain. During the pistol takeaway drills, it's the pain that makes you let go of the gun. Also, on the holster retention, you're pushing your opponent's hand down hard so he can't remove the pistol, so there is some pain from the hammer of the training gun smashing your palm, then the pain as you force the opponent to let go. We were going slow and easy. It's like a tap-out when you start feeling the pain. Here's where it helps to have a good partner, which I did.

I was subject to one of Jeff's demos, where he said "Don't worry, I won't hurt you" - but you take someone who is a Master and has 6 black belts in 6 different arts, his little tap precisely driven into a nerve - well, I kept a straight face, said "Thank you sir", but then went "Damn, that hurt like hell, LOL. Imagine full force instead of a little love tap."

Luckily, the biggest guy in the room, he nicknamed "Mongo" got the brunt of most of the demos. But he was also a martial artist, and used to it.

I've been around martial arts for over 13 years. My oldest daughter is a 3rd degree black belt, and my youngest daughter and wife are second degree black belts. I saw nothing unusual in this training compared to say Hapkido, or Tae Kwon Do.

No one got hurt during the course. Just a few blisters popping from all of the holster work and shooting, maybe one slide bite. Heck, I've gotten blisters on my trigger finger just dry fire practicing.

You know what's funny. I loaned out 3 Glocks, and several holsters.

I was shooting an old West German bone stock Sig P228. And the kid I loaned my G17 to was my partner. Once he said, "Good job, now increase the speed of those double-taps." I holstered, and said, you realize I'm pulling through a 14 lb double action trigger pull on my first shot, right? LOL

Jeff Hall had no love for Sigs, and there were 3 of us shooting Sigs. He said, Jeff Cooper once said, if you're shooting a Sig, just fire the first shot into the dirt, then proceed to fire on target. That first double action pull is a huge disadvantage, just saying get a Glock or an M&P, or a good 1911.

Thanks for the follow up. i misunderstood you to say the instructor inflicted pain on the students. As you say, there's student benefit to seeing an aggressive execution on a "Mongo",but mongos know the score when they sign on.