The Rangemaster 2016 Tactical Conference  is now in the record books. It was held March 11-13, 2016 in Memphis, Tennessee. The gathering included 200+ attendees, almost 30 instructors, and the fine facilities and staff of the Firearms Training Unit, Memphis Police Department Academy.

There was a great deal of material presented, more than could be attended. The Conference focuses on an inter-disciplinary approach to personal protection, so there is a lot more than just firearms and shooting involved. There was a challenging pistol match that could be shot, though; 158 people chose to shoot it.

TacConf2016_Schedule_Matrix

The class I gave was Developing a Dryfire Practice Regimen. I was very gratified by the turnout of 50+ students. As the saying goes, ‘The best way to learn something is to teach it.’ Over the course of creating my presentation, my dryfire techniques became even more refined. One attendee also gave me a new training aid I wasn’t aware of. As in every class I teach, I also learn from the students.

The other classes I attended were:

• Managing the Don’t Shoot – Larry Lindenman
• Gaming the Streetz – Eve Kulczar
• Low Light Equipment – Tom Givens
• Optimizing Classroom Instruction – Tiffany Johnson, Esq.
• Metro-Tactical – Julie Thomas
• Urban Insurgency – Dr. Martin Topper
• Lasers, Red Dots, Iron Sights – Karl Rehn
• FBI Research: The Deadly Mix – John Hearne
• International Terror Operations – Gary Greco/John Holschen
• Dry Practice: An Evidence Based Approach – John Hearne

One of the pleasures of going to Conferences is getting to talk and catch up with my peers. Some of the conversations I had were:

• Cecil Burch – the Venn Diagram of Realization, instructor goals in attending conferences
• Paul Sharp – human gun interaction
• Skip Gochenour – Homicide trials
• Caleb Causey – Non-verbal communication
• Tom Givens – Standards that replicate incident skills
• Richard Jenkins – Dry Fire Flash Cards and skill development
• John Farnam – Attitudes of older fighters
• Gary Greco – American soccer team development, American Mindset (competition and confront/dominate)
• John Murphy – immediacy of action
• Mark Luell – I won’t let you take this from me
• Chuck Haggard – performance of .38 Special and .22 LR in gel and adversaries, S&W metal autoloader maintenance
• Karl Rehn – iron sights, lasers, and red dots
• Julie Thomas – tuning a class presentation

I’ll have more to report about the Conference in future posts.