2014 PDN Training Tour Update 7/3

Rob Pincus here and I am still in Colorado, although I don't have a beautiful mountain backdrop. I'm in the part of Colorado that you don't see in many of the postcards or any of the movie scenes. This is like Colo-Kansas-Braska out here on the front range. This is actually just to the East of Fort Collins at the Pawnee Sportsmen's range. This is where I've been training for three years in a row on the tour and we're finishing up an advanced pistol handling class today. So this is actually the seventh, sixth or seventh class I've done in Colorado. And as I said in the last update, when I was up in Leadville at over 11,000 feet with the mountains, this is one of my favorite places in the world. And we've had some great classes. We've had several different hosts. We've done rifle, we've done pistol. This is the advanced pistol handling class, which is one of the most active and physical classes that we do. This is a relatively small group. We've done two different classes of advanced pistol handling here on the front range. We did one in a place called Nunn, Colorado, about 40 miles from here, the other day. And now we've got this group here. Now, one of the things I love about the tour is that it allows me to do some smaller classes, allows me to do larger classes. One of the things I want to talk about this week is CrossBreed Holster company. Now, CrossBreed Holster company is one of our sponsors. They're obviously a company that's near and dear to my heart. They are great people. I was good friends with the founder, Mark Craighead and his family and friends that continue to run and work at that company, just do a great job. I'm really proud to have collaborated with them on a couple of different projects. Most notably the I.C.E. training Modular Belly Band made by CrossBreed Holsters. So that modular belly band project that we came out with a couple of years ago has really become a lot more useful and a lot more popular than I ever thought it would be. Now, I've been a fan of the belly band holster for a long time. The belly band style holster is really low profile. It doesn't require any clips or any kind of straps or anything to come over an existing belt. And of course you can use it without a belt. So if you're spending a lot of time going to and from the gym, if you're just wearing shorts, or sweatpants, or for the women who are wearing yoga pants, or maybe jeans without a belt, the belly band's a great option. But the old style belly bands had, at best, a leather pouch and sometimes just the elastic band itself would have an opening in it that you stuffed the gun down into. So it wasn't a very positive retention on the gun and it made it very difficult to present the gun smoothly and almost impossible to safely and smoothly reholster the gun. So in the training environment, I want to be able to get the gun out quickly and then be able to multi times during the day to be able to go right back into the holster without any safety issues and without any really cumbersome maneuvering of the hands and opening that pouch. Any kind of holster that collapses is really hard to train with. So that was one of the big motivations for the evolution of the belly band. A nice thing about the belly band modular system is it's got this built in Kydex and leather holster. Of course, that's what CrossBreed is known for. And that's what allows me to come up very smoothly and quickly, and reliably be able to go back in without having to dig open a pouch or some of the stuff that we used to have to do with the old style belly bands. Now this I.C.E. CrossBreed Modular Belly Band features the elastic band itself and a holster piece which is custom fit, obviously, to a lot of different types of guns. Goes on with a hook and loop fastener. And we also got a safety strap that'll go on over the gun as well. In case you're not wearing pants with a belt, you're not gonna have that pressure pushing back against the hook and loop to keep the Kydex and leather CrossBreed holster piece attached to the belly band. You want to use that safety band. Also, if you're using a heavier gun, maybe a double stack gun, like the M&P subcompact, the XD subcompact, maybe the Glock 26, that extra weight with a fully loaded magazine, you may also want that safety strap. For me, using especially the XDS or something small like a J frame or maybe an LCP, this is a great way to go. Remember the belly band doesn't have to be worn center line, although it's great for center line carrying, it can also be worn back at the four o'clock, five o'clock, obviously left-handers can wear it over here. That's one of the big advantages of the belly band also. One of the things we've seen a lot of too recently is women not only switching to center line carry but also really loving the modular belly band because it gives them the option, as I said, of wearing the gun comfortably in a low-profile environment with the yoga pants or with the sweat pants or without having to worry about wearing a belt. So I'm a big fan of all the CrossBreed stuff. Of course, my everyday carry is the Appendix from CrossBreed. The single clip, the super tuck, and the mini tuck that have two clips are great holsters. I've got the Ram Mount holster mounted in the truck that permanent Ram Mount that also will accept a lot of different types of guns. And the Bedside holster is another great one for home defense when you're staging that gun right on the bedside inside of a good Kydex holster. So CrossBreed again, close to my heart, great company, great people. Take a look at them at crossbreedholsters.com. Now, as for the tour, I've still got several courses left and I'm gonna be on both ends of the country. I'm actually flying back East. I've got a family event for 4th of July weekend and I'm going to be teaching in Michigan while I'm there. Then I'm gonna come back to Colorado, pick up the tour truck, drive to the Pacific Northwest. I've got classes in Washington, classes in Oregon. Then I'll take another break to fly back to Florida where I'm gonna do a course and New Jersey. So those will be my last two courses on the East coast for the tour. And then I go back to the West coast, pick up the truck, drive up to Alaska where I'll be finishing the tour up. Now, two classes I want to tell you about, July 26th and July 27th are broadcast classes with another one of our sponsors Gander Mountain Academy. The 26th is our dynamic defensive handgun class, dynamic defensive handgun class is team taught with all of the other instructors from the Gander Mountain academies at all locations. I do the lectures, the local instructors handle the ranges, and we alternate throughout the day. And on the 27th we're doing the updated counter ambush lectures. A full day of lectures on all the concepts that underlie the idea of counter ambush training and worst case scenario high reality-based home and personal defense training that you can do. So all of those lectures, again, we broadcast through the video conferences. So that's interactive with me. I'll be in Florida at the headquarters Lake Mary facility, the flagship facility, and the rest of the Gander Mountain academies will have the support staff there, but you'll be able to interact with me through video conferencing. So if you can't get to a live fire class, get to one of those classes and understand what you should be doing when you're out doing live fire, or picking your gear, making your training plan, allocating training resources, and all those other things that we talk about in the counter ambush concepts. The tour is finishing up really strong. We still got classes coming from Grant Cunningham, Mike Sikelander, Caleb Causey, Chris Fry, everybody's out there busy running around doing a lot of good things all over the country. Check out personaldefensenetwork.com to learn more. Of course, the tour dates and locations and course descriptions are there as well as all of our free and premium video and article content. We've updated constantly there. You know, even since the last tour update, there's new training videos up there, a new training article has been added as well. And you can see some of that extra stuff on the premium side if you decide to be a premium member. Even if you don't, join 100,000 others who have chosen to subscribe to our free newsletter and you'll get updates every time we post information as well as some bonus material there as well. I appreciate you watching this tour update. If you haven't had a chance to see all of them this year, go back and check them out. We talk about the sponsors. We talk about the locations. We talk about the courses and we talk about training concepts in each one of these updates. And while you're at it, go back to 2013 and 2012 as well. There's a lot of great stuff in the tour update archives. I look forward to bringing you more from the 2014 tour right here, all over the internet, and live maybe in your state soon. Hopefully we'll see you on a range.