VIP Protection and Tactical Seminar review...

[Farmer]

The other week wrapped up one of the most badass weekends of my life, a 4 day tactical training and VIP protection seminar hosted by Stephen Grosch aka Bravo and lead instructor Steve T. Well worth the time, energy, and money to go and participate in this.

What we got was basically weeks worth of training condensed into 4 action packed days, highlighting what was most important to our group. While we learned tactics on how to protect Executives and VIP's, it was also tailored to our group on how to protect yourself, your gf, or wife and kids. And it was obvious that both Bravo and Steve T knew how to teach effectively, because they would take what was normally a two day course, and pare it down to a couple hours hitting the most relevant stuff for our group's needs.

The training was divided into two skill sets - Hard skills and soft skills. The hard skills was probably the most fun to learn, like how to use a knife, impact weapon, etc, but more importantly how to defend yourself against these attacks (glad we were given training blades and sticks to practice these moves with friends back home), but the soft skills were probably more useful. Learning how to recognize dangers before you are put in a dangerous situation, how to avoid them all together, and how to prepare your gear to be ready to move from a hostile situation.

What we learned wasn't about standing and fighting. It was about learning how to not get hurt and to stay safe, even if that means using the hard skills. But hopefully the soft skills will keep you from needing to.

Finally, on the last day we did an actual field training exercise working a protection detail for a couple of ladies. We had no idea whether the guys staring at them or coming up to talk to them were planted there by our instructors, or if they were just real life people, and had to respond to potential threats accordingly. It was exhilarating, difficult, and such a learning experience.

If these guys offer this again, it is definitely worth it, and if they ever do a level two class then I'll def be there there myself.