My friend and shooting partner, Mark Feldmeier and I are always looking for quality firearms training, and when we heard that Kelly Venden from Criterion Tactics was going to be running a 2-day 3 gun course at NE Shooters in New Hampshire, we jumped on the opportunity to train with this legendary tier one operator.
Kelly (Shooter) Venden is one of those quiet professional that has done it all. Kelly brings 30+ years of continuous federal service providing relevant and real-world experience from numerous Air/Ground/Sea operations, and extensive training environments. As a Special Operations member, SGM Venden participated in many National Command Authority directed operations; the most famous being the first successful hostage rescue in recent history. Operation Acid Gambit was an operation to retrieve Kurt Muse, an American civilian living in Panama and widely reported to be a CIA operative from the Carcel Modelo, a notorious prison in Panama City. Mr. Venden's specialties include Operations and operations planning, weapons, tactical employment/deployment, operational technical surveillance (TSE), training program evaluation and development.
Kelly's company, Criterion Tactics, currently provides innovative pre-deployment and sustainment training to active duty professionals for worldwide operations. Staying engaged with the SOF and LE community, Kelly ensures up to date mission operations requirements are adhered to in order to work successfully alongside users, getting firsthand input for future readiness requirements.
The training schedule was as follows:
Day 1 Tactical Shotgun & Pistol (1/2 day per)
* Tactical Mindset/Situational Awareness
* Tactical Kit review
* Shotgun Manipulation Skills
* Pistol Manipulation Skills
* Marksmanship Fundamentals
* Close quarter operations
* Static to Dynamic Position Drills
* Dynamic One-Handed Pistol Manipulations
Day 2 Tactical Rifle
* Tactical Rifle and Kit review
* Rifle Manipulation Skills
* Close quarter rifle operations
* Static to Dynamic Position Drills
* Tactical live fire movements
* Bilateral rifle manipulations
* Practical Pistol & Rifle Application Drills
Before the course started Kelly reviewed some of the basic admin stuff, talked about big boy range rules, and finished off with a very good medical brief. We were good to go!
Our class had a broad level of experience, from just beginning tactical shooting all the way up to Andy, a retired Marine Corps Warrant Officer with lots of combat trigger time. Given this wide spread in tactical proficiency, Kelly and his assistant Greg were able to provide training that was challenging to all, without completely overloading the folks with less tactical shooting experience. That in itself can be a challenge.
One of the principles Kelly teaches is efficiency of motion. I understand that to mean; the smoothest, most direct path for your body parts to follow to complete a given task is going to be the smoothest path. And smooth equates to speed. That makes a lot of sense to me. Another tenet of Kelly's training is (excerpted from the September edition of the "Cri-Tac Caller") "Perfect Practice Promotes Proficient Performance (5 P's). Conduct of every technique should be conscientiously performed precisely, fundamentally perfect...at a speed where perfect perfection is key! Speed comes with proficiency; confidence comes from perfect practice. Perfect analogy; you drive without thinking of applying brakes, gas, or turning the wheel. Shooting must be the same "ingrained" responses to the recognized environment."
Kelly runs a good number of drills that all build upon each other. None of them are terribly difficult. The key is to perform the drills as efficiently as possible. If you haven't run the drills before, the challenge will be to perform them perfectly. If you are familiar with the drills, the challenge is to perform them perfectly and faster. I saw my efficiency increase, which means faster times on all drills. And that was my goal.
This was a great course! Kelly and Greg did a great job disseminating good info, nobody got hurt, my efficiency increased, and it was just plain fun! I don't know what more you could ask for from a course like this. It was well worth the money and ammo expenditure! read more
