SOMETHING DIFFERENT: Krav Camp Coming August 17-19 in PA

For all of you training junkies, here's something different.  It's a 3-day blended course offering both firearms training and Krav Maga hand-to-hand combatives all rolled into one.  The instructors will include Ernie Kirk, one of the foremost Krav instructors in the world.  Think of him as the Jeff Cooper of Krav Maga world and you won't be far off.  Or Ray Chapman.  Anyway, you get the idea.

From the website InternationalKravCamp.com.

Get ready for 3 action packed days of hand to hand Krav Maga training, offensive and defensive knife training, handgun shooting, and AR shooting.  Topics will include but are not limited to: beginner and advanced Krav Maga, Knife workshops, firearms handling, kickboxing, empty hand vs. knife, handgun live fire, shooting from, in, and around vehicles, carbines live firearm.

Our elite staff of instructors will make the novice student feel comfortable training as well as push the experienced students to heights they never thought possible

So what the heck makes this school special?

Well, Ernie Kirk for one.  GSL Defense Training brings in instructors for internal training of our instructors (and interested staff) almost every year.  It's our chance for some non-incestuous training, if you will.  Well, in 2016, we brought in Ernie Kirk.

That's him, with GSL's secretary, Lois Morton. 

We brought him in for a day of knife/counter-knife and a second day of cheap shots, home invasion defense, gun retention and disarms and defeating restraints.   Oh yeah, and a little church security thrown in for good measure. 

We have had some very good instructors come to teach us in the past, but Ernie Kirk was arguably one of our best internal training seminars to date.  Some fantastic Israeli-trained and -certified Krav experts from throughout the midwest came to join him that weekend.  We got some top flight training that – for a change – didn't involve shooting.

Here he is assaulting Steve Davis, giving our GSL president an opportunity to block and counter-attack simultaneously. 

Moreover, he and his team of instructors took time and coached our chair-bound instructor Jeff Shuck on modified tactics and techniques that would work for him.  You know you've got a good instructor when they can teach outside of their familiar comfort zone.

We played a little rough too, which was not part of the plan.  I got a concussion out of the weekend (my own fault), but I learned a very valuable lesson:  Never, ever retreat when stunned.  Always advance and attack!

What else makes this course something that merits a second look, despite the distant location? 

Well, when was the last time you did something like this (link if embed fails):   Training about hand placement during gun defenses.  As they say, "Train for reality, train for success".

The price for three days of training is affordable too – just over $400.  You won't come back high-speed, low-drag, but you'll have learned new things, made new friends and shared some great memories.