Today’s market is full of so-called shooting and tactical instructors. The last decades have seen a propagation of retired military special operators becoming civilian shooting and tactical instructors. Most of them, however, were not even instructors in their previous careers or never built-up programs of instruction or developed new technics or tactics. Therefore, the parameters to choose your tactical instructor in today’s market are even more important than before!
But what are those parameters? Here are several suggestions to help to choose your next instructor.
1. What are you looking for in your training?
With this question, I don’t mean what topics you are looking for, e.g., shooting skills, close-quarter battle, combat clearing, and so forth. The question is related to the educational objectives you are trying to achieve with your training. Examples could be:
improve the shooting skills of your operators
improve the teaching skills of your trainers
evaluate your techniques and tactics
teach new/ different techniques/ “ways to do it”
train the trainer in new skills (e.g., live-fire shooting house, use of NVGs/ LASERs)
develop a training curriculum.
The definition of your training objectives is essential to maximize your scarce personal and financial resources.
2. Does the instructor have the required knowledge/ experience?
You can now choose your tactical instructor based on the training objectives that you previously defined. Probably there will not be one tactical instructor that fits all.
Here are several factors to consider that will help with your choice:
Teaching skills: Where did he acquire his teaching skills? Who did he teach (only special operators, soldiers, police)? Did he train the trainers? Where do their lesson/ course plans come from? Did he write course syllabus/ programs? How long is his experience? Does he have experience in training other cultures?
Note: Obviously the skills required for teaching special operators, police officers, or civilians respectively for operators/ users or trainers are not the same.
Level of experience: Where did he acquire his experience (career, 1-week courses, etc.)? How did he acquire his experience (as an operator, as a trainer, as a developer of techniques/ tactics)?
Note: Will the instructor be able to explain/ justify what he teaches? Will he be able to adapt the techniques and methodology to the class respectively to the role/ mission of your organization?
Knowledge: What is the general knowledge in the various subject matters (acquired in a course, historical knowledge, broad knowledge)?
Note: A broad and historical knowledge of a subject matter and an open-minded personality, will allow a better understanding and readiness for various ways/ options to solve problems.
Conceptual skills: Does he have experience writing concepts (tactical, technical, instruction)? Is he able to understand your needs/ requirements?
Note: Conceptual skills are the abilities that allow an individual better understand complex scenarios and develop creative solutions.
To choose an adequate tactical instructor, you must first define your educational/ training objectives. Afterward, you will need to evaluate the skills of the various available instructors according to your needs. For example, a competition shooter may be adequate if you want to improve the shooting skills of your operators. On the other hand, the operational experience of a special operator will be useless, if you want to develop a new training curriculum.
Choose wisely.
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