CCW Courses
Every aspect of the class was educational and the instructor was professional.
Enjoyed your sense of humor, made the class more enjoyable.
Well done, the class went very fast.
It was great! John is a great instructor and makes the class interesting as well as informative. He
is extremely knowlegeable and answered all my questions.
Knife Classes
I had the 2 day defensive knife class this weekend with John McCreery. It was worth every dime. I
had a great time and learned alot. Prior to this I had no idea of how to deal with someone at bad
breath distance with a drawn knife. Now I'm fairly comfortable I have the tools to deal with that
situation. I just need a lot more practice with these new skills. I haven't had any luck getting
friends that carry to try FOF but maybe I can get one to work with for the knife drills. I'll be
watching for more advanced classes and take them as I can.
Thanks to John, Gabe, and Michael Janich for the opportunity for me to get much needed training.
I was the other student at Defensive Knife in Mentor. What a great class!! I left the class on
Sunday feeling very confident with a knife (after more practice of course) and was very pleased
with the amount of new material I learned. Another great SI experience!
Day 1: Start with some basic lecture about knife styles, target zones that are the focus of MBC,
carry positions, ways to open the folder, and then we worked on our draw. We both had
Spyderco folders. From there we went to the five cuts that are the foundation of MBC. We worked
these cuts over and over until the drills became more instinctual. Worked the "25" drill many
times. At first I was unsure how useful all this drilling was until.....
Day 2: Whoa!!! This was where all those drills came into play. It all makes perfect sense. We
worked on defending/counter attacking from all five cuts using the 5 various cuts in various
combinations. The possibilities were virtually limitless and the "concepts" in Martial Blade
Concepts really became evident. After working through about 3 or so defense combos from each
of the five cuts we became pretty tired. This took the bulk of the day. We finished with the
Hubud-lubud drill and worked on breaking contact and drawing the gun. This is the drill you see
Mr. Janich do on some of the TV shows. We also finished with the Outside-Outside drill which is
great for working some of the cuts/checks and developing coordination with your partner.
Great class with a superb instructor. John welcomed all questions and explained how everything
worked until we got it. Some things we understood quickly, while other techniques left us
puzzled at first. As said before, thanks to all who made this possible: John, Gabe, Mike.
If you don't have any knife training, sign up and get some!
Close Range Gunfighting
John McCreery was fantastic in his efforts to not only cover every bit of SI material, but also in
making sure that each student was getting the most from the material. Patient, kind & egoless,
John made it clear from the jump that he was here for you.
I found John to be a truly outstanding instructor. He had two qualities in particular that
instructors (and other teachers) often lack. He had infinite patience and a great sense of humor.
He needed both with me.
The two Johns did a great job taking us through CRG. This is my second time for this course and
I think there is tremendous benefit to these courses when you take the lessons home and
practice with dry and live fire and airsoft, then come back a year or two later (I first took CRG in
2007), and put your skills to the test. As always, there is much to learn from the ongoing
experiences of the instructors and the other students, and a few new ideas have crept into the
curriculum to make CRG even better.
Thanks, John (and you too, John) for a great class. I feel much more dangerous than I did on
Friday.
John, I learned a ton this weekend from your instruction. In just the first couple hours on
Saturday morning you gave a couple pointers on my draw stroke and presentation that helped
tremendously. I totally agree with your method of burning things in with dry fire before taking it
live. I also benefited from your way of breaking things down and clearly explaining the
techniques in small steps. During the whole class you had the right combination of correction
and encouragement.
I took the May CRG course, and really learned a lot. I've been shooting just a hair over a year right
now, and the two Johns, as well as the other students, were very patient with me. I have the CRG
DVD, but discovered that what I had been practicing from the DVDs needed to be improved. I
wanted to do pretty much everything dry once or twice just to get a feel for the 'right' way of
doing things, and everyone was very understanding. I will say that, though I hope and pray I
never need to use the skills I have started to learn, I feel much more confident that I could give a
good account of myself if I cannot avoid an issue.
I look forward to taking other courses with them in the future.