Clinton, IL (Guns Save Life) – GSL Defense Training held its first Personal Protection for Teens classes July 16-17 at the DeWitt County Sportsman’s Club near Clinton. Nearly 40 young people ages 12-21 turned out to learn how to identify threats and avoid confrontations, and if necessary, how to use force to protect themselves and their loved ones from victimization.
Students came from three states and two nations to attend and had great fun learning from a diverse crew of instructors. The teens got trained in identifying and managing potential “external” threats from criminal predators as well as dealing with situations from known assailants like bullies. They learned about dating safety, internet safety and driving safety – as well as how to survive an active shooter situation.
The course placed a strong emphasis taking responsibility for one’s own safety. It also emphasized avoidance over the use of force, but it did introduce enrollees on how to use justifiable force to escape or thwart a violent attack.
Exercises also demonstrated the shortcomings of pepper spray and tips on using all manner of improvised weapons against assailants. The hands-on practical exercises using fire extinguishers and ink pens as defensive tools bringing lots of smiles and self-confidence for participants.
Each student also shot both pistols and revolvers under the careful eye of experienced, highly-trained and patient instructors, equipping them with the fundamentals should they ever have an occasion to rely on a firearm to save their lives.
Krav Maga instructor Bill Martin introduced the young adults to Krav Maga, or Israeli empty-handed combatives. Students loved the Krav segments, including learning fundamental strikes and how to use their body sponsorship to vastly increase the energy behind the blows. Martin made it fun and helped empower these young adults with physical skills they can use for the rest of their lives to defend against attacks.
All in all, it was time well spent educating young people (and a bunch of parents who came along to watch and learn) about proven strategies for personal safety, and on safe and responsible use of firearms for personal defense. The evaluations from those present raved over this unique training opportunity for teenagers.
Once again, while GSL Defense Training, LLC is a separate and independent organization from Guns Save Life, the two groups have worked together on shared goals. This course marks yet another cutting edge training program brought to Central Illinois courtesy of Guns Save Life and GSL Defense Training.
Keep up the good work, ladies and gents. You’re making GSL proud with the work you’re doing.
Maybe the NRA should try to replicate some of your (“our” as in GSL?) training? Last I heard the NRA has busied themselves trying to replace instructors with computers for their training. That’s a recipe for failure I believe.
Re: changes to Basic Pistol? (Cough, cough, money grab, cough, cough)
Versus GSL going above and beyond to do great work, lucky to break even.
As an NRA-certified instructor (among others), I see the changes to Basic Pistol troublesome. Tey’ve taken what used to be an 8-hour class and turned it into a two-day class by the time instructors have to “review” all that stuff they were supposed to have learned after spending hours in front of a computer.
I also know that darn few people are signing up to take it in this new format. This is the real loss, as any training makes people better and safer handling guns and NRA Basic Pistol has trained probably hundreds of thousands, if not a million or more people over the years… and those people help teach safety to others in their sphere of influence.
John
I am a member of Guns Save Life not because GSL is perfect, because sometimes you aren’t, but because GSL walks the walk instead of just talking the talk.
Good work on this class. Looks like a lot of young people learning while enjoying themselves.
I took my 14 year old daughter to the Sunday class and I just can’t believe how great this was. Every kid in America should have training like this. the pictures may look like a bunch of young people goofing around but it’s not. these are 100% serious life saving skills taught by professionals in such a way that made it fun and interesting for the students. Everything was hands on and you could tell the instructors genuinely cared about doing it right.
My daughter is shy and on the quite side but by lunch time she was already friends with several other students. and during training they ALL came out of their shells and worked together. By the end of it I knew the instructors did this for love because there is no way anyone is going to get rich doing this. The kids not only got snacks, drinks, pizza for lunch, ammo ( a lot of ammo ), gun use, range use, a REAL Krav Maga instructor, training gear etc. for $100 !!!!. I met some wonderful like minded parents who are Patriots and enjoyed that very much.
My daughter got training on everything from safe
dating advice to surviving an active shooter ( God forbid ), fighting ( Krav Maga ) instruction which is actually kicking an attackers ass every time in 15 seconds advice. improvised weapons, even legal advice !!!!. She loved it and we had a serious heart to heart talk on the long drive home. I have 2 more daughters and I will be bringing them as soon as they are old enough. If this was $ 1000 a person I would pay it and I don’t waste money on anything that doesn’t work.
I have recommended this class to others today and I swear and promise that if you sign your young one up for this and watch them go through it, you will walk away knowing you made the smartest investment of your life, and in your child.
My deepest gratitude to John Boch and the entire staff who did the training and all the behind the scenes work. I just can’t express what this means to my peace of mind and my daughters safety. THANK YOU my friends !!!!
Thank you, Bill, for the kind words.
We put a lot of work into developing Personal Protection for Teens and I might add, in the end we all volunteered our time and efforts as instructors, including Mr. Martin. This is a passion of ours.
We’ve looked at the written evaluations and will be making changes based upon constructive criticisms to make it even better and more enjoyable for the kids. In truth, the whole class came about because of evaluations from our Personal Protection in the Home class (for adults).
Those changes for next year include shortening the training day to end by 530 by streamlining some of the content. We’ll likely be adding more “interactive” stuff for the kids to bring home important points, kind of like the “Silly String” Tueller drill exercise and improving our stabbing dummy to better simulate real tissue.
Thanks for not only bringing your daughter, but also sticking around. And thanks again for the kind words.
John
Had a conflict this year but my child will be there next year and I hope to fly in two more. This is how you raise strong confident adults.
A wonderful bunch of students and a great class to teach! It’s a serious subject and these kids were motivated, all the while smiling and enjoying what they were learning. I’m looking forward to doing it again next year!
The fact that you had those kids smiling like that tells me you guys have a great thing going there. Kids don’t like going to “school” in the summer time and if it wasn’t good stuff or if it was boring, they would be pouting and moping around like truly unhappy campers.
I’m a GSL training alumni and loved it. I should prod my teenage relatives to go next year. You are doing this next year, right?
Absolutely we’ll be doing it again next year. It’s important, more so for teens now than it’s ever been.
When my grandkids are old enough, I damn sure will be sending them to this class. We’ve got a few years before that happens.
My wife and I still have fond memories of our experience getting our CCW license training with the GSL team.
Sam
As an instructor, it was rewarding to work with young people who were receptive and eager to apply what they were learning. Even the ones that were reserved in the beginning seemed to overcome their inhibitions and understand the validity of self-defense…and have a good time on top of it. The proof is in their grins.
My two children benefited from and enjoyed the Saturday class a lot. Having taken the GSL Critical Threat Management course I have nothing but good to say about the training this organization provides at a very affordable price. Good job, GSL!