PDN Training Tour Kickoff 2025

Good morning. Welcome to the Kickoff Live event for the 2025 Personal Events Network training tour. It is here. I got here quick this year for sure. And we are excited about having another big year.

We have another great lineup of classes. Coast to coast. A couple of them will actually be outside of the boundaries of the continental US. I'll be going back out to Hawaii. Probably will be down in Puerto Rico.

Some of the other tour instructors will also be leaving the continental US. Very exciting year. We have some new sponsors joining us, and I'm going to give you the rundown. I'm going to give you the information that you need to understand why you should be interested in joining us on a range in a classroom, at a seminar. A lot of combo classes will be at over 50 locations this year.

We'll have over 150 classes taught by 15 instructors, plus myself. I'm Rob Pincus, the executive director of Personal Events Network, and I think this is our 13th year of doing the tour. Personal Events network actually turns 20 years old as a project this year. We started in the fall of 2005, working on a DVD project that was originally going to be 12 DVDs, taped over the course of a year, and we would see if anybody was interested in them. And, here we are 20 years later with tens of thousands of active members, at the Personal Events Network, as well as hundreds of thousands of subscribers and we've put out a lot of DVDs over the years.

Of course, we stopped doing that a handful years ago, and now we put everything out directly to you at Personal Events network.com. You can see some of the stuff on social media, some of the stuff at YouTube as well. Wherever you're watching this right now, we appreciate you tuning in. And I want you understand what the tour is all about. Starting around 2010, we transition started the transition from DVD to streaming.

We knew that that platform was going to be the better option, obviously, moving forward. In the late 2000 and teens, we stopped doing DVD entirely. In between the launch of personal events network.com and the transition to complete streaming. We wanted to bring something else to people. It's one thing to send a DVD to the home and obviously streaming information to your your smartphones or tablets, your computers anywhere in the world.

But we wanted you to be able to join our contributors, and we have an amazing group of talented contributors with different specialties, different areas of interest based all over the country. And of course, because it's the PD and training tour, they'll be traveling hopefully to a location near you and giving you the opportunity to not just watch or listen or read the information that this great team provides, but also get out on the range, get on the mats. In some cases, or even just sit in a classroom and learn from them directly. A much more interactive and valuable way to do skill development and to take on the knowledge that they offer. The first one is network training tour has come in a couple of different variations over the years.

We've always had other instructors involved. Usually it's people that have been on the videos or on the DVDs that we started in the early days. Nowadays, we have people who've written articles as well as contributed to the videos here at personal events network.com. Almost all of them also run their own businesses. So you can check out, for example, Alessandro Padovani.

He runs safer, faster defense. You can check out what he's doing. We've got Stronghold Dynamics is one that you'll see on Instagram posting a lot. In fact, they shared the opportunity to watch this live video recently. And that's Mike DiSalvo.

He's based out in California. Some of the other people we have based in North Carolina, we have Ryan and Amber Hoover with their fit to fight Republic. They specialize in extreme close quarters, some armed, some unarmed. Great information. If you're not just looking for the firearms stuff.

Of course. I mentioned D'allesandro really quick in passing. You talk about other businesses, as an example. He specializes in close quarters work also. Not only does he run women's self-defense specialty classes, but he also brings a lot of practical knife defense information to person events network and to you, hotel room seminars out in the dirt, on the mats, in different, dojos and training areas around the country.

You can look for him. Maggie Mordaunt is based out of Las Vegas. CCW Maggie. She goes by and she actually runs the Women's Defense Network so you can check them out as well. All these social media handles are going to be tagged and listed in everything that we put out.

You can look at hashtag PD and tour 2025 hashtag PD and tour 2025 is a great way to search any of the social medias to get information about what we'll be doing. And of course you can go to Personal Events network.com. Follow the links to the PD and training tour website. What you're going to start to see this coming week is all of the populated classes that will be happening all over the country. Now, Personal Events Network again relies on this team of contributors, team of instructors and the businesses that they have set up.

The host ranges, the host facilities, the gyms, the dojos all around the country that are hosting these classes. To be able to bring the classes to you, to be able to get you in the classes so you don't deal with personal events. Network. We're not going to be taking your information for the registrations. We're not going to be taking your money for the registrations.

All of that goes directly to the instructors, to the host facilities. Everybody's doing this out there on their own. We come together as a team to be able to give more people a higher level of awareness about the classes that we're running. Another guy that's joining us on the tour again this year is Christopher Jerky. He's based out of Ohio.

He was really instrumental with the Uska for a number of years as one of their lead instructor development guys. He's joined with us both with guns for everyone, National. He does a lot of work with Creekside Consulting in Michigan and with my own company, I.C.E. Training Company. Don Edwards, runs Green Line Tactical.

Don, former military special operator. He has really invested himself and his team heavily in the area of low light and no light training. He runs the, low light, night optics, and it's a night optics summit. They call it a specialty event. That'll happen in the fall after the tour is over.

But you can find him teaching all over the country. He does a lot of long range classes. He also has some really cool experiences where you get to shoot out of a helicopter as well. An airborne ops class that he runs. But again, his specialty is low light and no light.

Great. Red dot transition class. Also, if you're interested in that. I mentioned guns for everyone. National.

Chris Jerky does a lot of work with their instructor development team led by Edgar, Anton and Edgar and Isaac started guns for everyone in Colorado, over a decade ago. And guns for everyone. National is the, obviously nationwide, organization that they now run, a nonprofit that encourages people to be more responsible gun owners get the education that they need. They also run the gun maker's match, some other competitive events that happen around the country. And the Edgar is one of our instructors.

He does a lot of work with me down in Mexico. And also, again, he's based out of Colorado, will be doing two different instructor development courses. I know that I'll be out in Colorado with him in June. One is our, essentially the entry level, the two day course, and we have a three day follow on course as well for people interested in that coming up. And that will be on the tour calendar as well.

Jason Grotto just north of Edgar. There's a lot of work down in Colorado, actually. Excuse me. He is based in Wyoming. His company is WYO tech.

He specializes in long range shooting. A lot of long range opportunities to shoot up in, Wyoming, obviously. So, get with Jason if you're interested in that. He also is one of our intuitive defensive shooting instructors. He runs carbine classes.

He also hosts some classes I was here. Personal ones network. We're headquartered in the Twin Cities. Just outside of the Twin Cities. And I was actually getting together with pivotal offense, with Clayton.

Clayton's going to be teaching some medical stuff with, Wyatt out there. As part of the tour as well this year. We've got Jarrod Hutchins. She's based out in Texas, clearing the chamber. She specializes in small classes.

A lot of private events that she runs. Women, mom and moms and daughters, girls group. But she also travels all around the country doing, classes. She will also be in Colorado, I think, coming up relatively soon. She's got, a busy training schedule ahead for 2025, and she's been with us on the tour for a number of years.

Ken Ortega is also based out in Las Vegas. Homeland personal protection. He'll be traveling more this year. He actually is from New Mexico. Originally been living in Vegas for a long time.

Bases all of his training out of there. Boulder city, just south of Las Vegas, actually. And, he'll be traveling around on the tour as well. Pistol and carbine classes, especially, Kevin. Dixie.

No other choice. Training, used to be based in the Midwest here. In Missouri, not too far from where we are right now. And now he is down in Atlanta, and he's actually standing up his own training facility. I'm really exciting for him to be able to have his own range.

Bring people down there to him, as well as being able to travel all around the country. He does classes up here in the Twin Cities with the aforementioned pivotal defense, and I know he'll be moving around, a lot to get a lot of good training done. Take a look at what he does. He also runs an event during the tour called the Train and Learn event. The Train and Learn Event.

It's probably been running about 6 or 7 years now. And what it focuses on is taking people who are new to the firearms industry. Maybe they have a YouTube channel, maybe they work in a gun shop, and if they want to start a training company and bring those people together, to network and learn. Also to get some time on the range, but also do business development. So it's a really unique event in the space, you want to look for.

I think that's coming up in, May or June this year. Mike DeSalvo I mentioned earlier, he's, on my list down here at the bottom, but he is, running out of San Diego. He actually accompanied me to teach in Puerto Rico last year. He travels around doing pistol carving. Also, this guy.

Big mind for science. If you take a look at what he's contributed to person events network.com, you're gonna see that he talks a lot about, integrating the body's natural reactions, how humans collect and process information. Definitely one of the guys that can explain why we train the way we train or why you should train. The way that our contributing team thinks is best for you to be prepared to defend yourself or others. Check out Mike's stuff, seminar format, as well as live fire range stuff.

And then, two guys that have been with me for for a long time, both in ICI training company, through the Uska program that we did as a collaboration, obviously here at Personal Events Network, and they've hosted our training talk live monthly show for a number of years. Derek Poole, who's out of Florida, and Barrett Kendrick out of Louisiana. It really is an incredible team. Any one of these, instructors, you could probably spend, you know, 4 or 5, six, seven days with them and always be learning something new and definitely be getting better prepared to use the personal events skills, the medical skills, the unarmed defense skills, the firearm skills, obviously, or just learning, the strategy, the tactics, the training protocols. Again, several of the people on that list do instructor development, helping others that want to help others as well.

So it's just incredibly proud to work with these people. They will be traveling again over 150 classes, over 50 locations all around the country. And the tour officially kicks off this week. So the tour normally runs about six months. So we're kicking off this week.

We're going to go to the end of September and it doesn't mean that people aren't out teaching and training all year round. It's just when we focus on the tour. So what makes a tour class really for us is the collaborative marketing. Obviously the, sort of third party recommendation that we're all giving to one another to to encourage people to seek out this information. It's all vetted information.

These are all incredibly professional people. Most of them have been teaching for a long, long time. I don't think there's anybody on the list. As I as I look up and down the the cheat sheet I've got here under the camera, I don't think we've got anybody who's been doing this for for less than a decade, honestly. Chris Jerky might be one of the guys who, I've known for the least amount of time, but I think I've been working with him now 6 or 7 years.

And he really, again, focuses on instructor development and supporting a lot of the other teams that are out here on the tour. But everybody else here, if you've been watching Personal Fitness Network, even going back to the DVD days, you're very familiar with a lot of these names, obviously. The other side of the tour, the other list, the other cheat sheet that I've got, is the tour sponsors. Tour sponsors are important. They not only do they help, cover some of the travel expenses for the instructors as they're moving around.

But also, they provide product, both for demonstration and use in the classes. So let's say that that you show up to a class, one of my classes, we're doing an intuitive defensive pistol class, and you're getting breaks 30 minutes into the class or we find out, you know, an hour or two hours in the class, you've made a purchase. The gun doesn't just fit your hand super well. It's not, optimized for you. You're not being as efficient as you can be.

Maybe some of the levers or buttons are hard for you to reach. The the way the ergonomics work, they don't. They don't really, get together with your hand. Well, so it might have been a bad choice, or it might be an actual, malfunction. Something we can't just quickly fix on the range of broken parts.

Something like that. Boom. Kinnick is going to come to the rescue. So I'll be traveling around, as will the other instructors. When we do, our live fire classes will bring a lot of these products.

A lot of these sponsors, provide them to us so that we can have them with the classes so that I can hand you a clinic. In this case, it would be an MC nine, LZ, one of the new offerings. We're also going to have the MC nine Prime, sort of the bells and whistles version of the MC nine LZ out on the tour with us this year, and you'll be able to use that gun, probably in a G-code holster. So Kennewick, USA Kennewick is, obviously made outside of the country for the most part, but not the the prime their new can Kennewick MC nine Prime is a US made gun. They're imported through Century Arms.

And now, that's the canning that is produced in the US. Will be out with us on the tour, so we're excited for them to now have a US produced gun. And we're going to be excited to be able to share it with you on the range. And even if your gun doesn't go down during the lunch break, towards the end of the day at the classes, there's no problem with, hey, I'd like to shoot a few rounds out of it. So we're going to take some freedom ammunition, and one of our sponsors will load it up in the magazines for the clinic.

And we'll give you a G-code, probably a paddle holster at that point, and put you out of the range and let you, after having gone through the class with your gun, get your hands on some of these other products, which is which is always, a lot of fun. Hi. This is also back. We can see their, Lightwave technology, sites. These are actually their co witness sites that are set up to, go with the red dot.

They're more of a suppressor height type site. This site set will be the one that we're featuring out on the tour on some guns. We'll also have the fast fire their H3 system, which we talked about again. We talked about it last year. It was having a tour with us.

You also see that probably mounted on some of the kinetic guns that we're going to have in our demo collection. So let's see. We've got Kinnick, we've got G-code, we've got hive is we've got freedom munitions again is out there. We just did another video, set up with the hush ammunition in their subsonic offering. If you haven't seen the gel test of the x def, they're hollow point, defensive round, which is very affordable, very reliable, in my experience.

Defensive round, feeds really well. Good. Hollow point. Performs really well in the gel. Check out those videos.

We've got all of these sponsors, for the most part have been with us for years. We will have videos. If we don't have them up already, we'll have, some new videos coming out with the newest latest products, as well, during the tour and all of the social media that is posted by myself, by personal Events Network or any of the other members of the tour team that I was talking about earlier, will be posting videos and pictures not only of their use and their thoughts, but also, I think really importantly, the students thoughts. So people just like you that come to the classes, what did you think when you tried out the MK nine owls? What did you think about the G-code holsters?

Gideon Optics is one of our new sponsors this year. Gideon is an up and coming company they've probably been on the market for, I'm going to say 4 or 5 years now and maybe have known about him for 4 or 5 years. They are based in western Pennsylvania. They have just added, an enclosed emitter optic that's going to look great on this Mk nine or the Mk nine prime. This micro prism actually sitting up here on this rifle, or in this case, AR type pistol, a great, etched reticle on the wall as well as the illumination.

So it's a great backup, really high quality, really affordable price. And they are really starting to break out and expand their line. So I mentioned the enclosed emitter, for the MSI, thin platform footprint, for your slim carry guns. But they also have some great lpv oes as well as your traditional open emitter pistol dots. And again, micro prisms, red dots for rifles and pistols, things like that.

So keep an eye on on what we're going to be sharing information wise. We have not had very many videos with Gideon at Personal that's network.com. That's all going to change this year and we're excited to have them on the tour. Another company that's joining us for the first time on the tour is real avid real avid makes all kinds of accessories. For those of you don't know, I also own a firearms manufacturing company.

And in our assembly area, the mats. A lot of the tools that we use are actually real avid products. It's high quality stuff. And you're going to see some of that out on the range as well. Not just for, for demonstration.

And hey, take a look at this. See this here's a tool kit. Here's a nice work mat, things like that from real avid. But also sometimes in these classes, it's just a reality of being out on the range and running hundreds of rounds a day, maybe a thousand rounds over the weekend in some of these classes, through a handgun or through a rifle, things can go wrong. Or maybe your optic goes down.

We're going to take out our real heavy toolkit. We're going to pull one of the Gideon demo optics off of our demo gun and put it on your gun, and maybe you'll be able to run that, you know, or just run our demo, and we'll see how it goes. Right. And all the classes, we're always trying to it be very adaptable. Take care of the students, give them the information they need, and let you have the experience to leave with as much preparation as possible.

And a lot of times that means using our gear or using some of our loaner gear out there in the class. Another piece of gear, that's out here on the table that, I use pretty, pretty frequently in class, if not every class. And it's really close. Is the cert pistol NLT cert next level training on the NLT CERT company has been with us, I think, since year one of the tour. They may be the only sponsor that's been with us absolutely every single year.

And, it's great to be back with them. I will be out at NLT headquarters in Washington state. It's been a couple years since I was out there, with Britain, Mike and their team doing classes. But I am to do some classes this year on the tour. You'll see those pop up probably be in August.

The Pacific Northwest. Great time of year to be out there, with great people. And they are really serious, and dedicated to helping people get as much out of their training products as possible. And obviously, the laser training, we can do a lot of things with the cert pistol that we can't do live fire. So if we're in certain environments where we can't have a live gun or it's not safe, not prudent, not best practice to have a live gun, even if it's cleared and triple checked and double checked, we switch to the cert pistol or the cert stick.

The rifle version of the the CERT trainer. I just did an extreme close quarters class, extreme close quarter shooting class. Where in the morning we did live fire contact shooting or shooting when contact is imminent. Compressed shooting positions. Then in the afternoon, we worked on trying to make sure that we can retain control of our gun.

If someone gets a hand on it, trying to dissuade them or make it impossible in some cases, for them to get their hand on the gun based on the way we move it, the way we carry it are ready position. Whether we're in two hands or one hand, almost all of that work is best done with a cert pistol, especially when you're in a classroom setting. Everybody's learning how to do it. And obviously any of the hands on stuff, the cert pistol is great for that as well. Another company that is with us this year, back with us this year is Cape Gun Works.

Cape gun works. I'll be teaching there in less than a month. I'll be up in, Massachusetts at on the Cape. Obviously. Cape Gun Works is an incredible story.

I want to say it's been ten, 12 years since I first met the owners. Brendan and Toby. First they were students. They came to a class hosted by, John Green up in Worcester. This is before they even had a shop.

Then they opened a shop. Then they started hosting classes. They had a little kind of strip mall gun shop with, with big plans and, great guys, really dedicated not only to their own personal education, but also providing products at a fair price and trying to develop opportunities for other people to train. They ended up going through instructor development, teaching with me in different parts of the country, starting to teach on their own, obviously in Massachusetts. And then they built the Cape Gun Works that exists today on an incredible range and retail facility in Massachusetts.

And they're very active in the fight to defend gun rights, in that, somewhat oppressed area, actually oppressed area. If you're a gun owner, it's not the easiest state to own guns in. It's certainly not the easiest state to own a gun range or to sell guns in, but they are fighting a really good fight up there. They also have an online store. So if you go to Cape Gun works.com, you can find a lot of the products that we talk about at person events network, fair prices.

They'll ship anywhere. Obviously they have to abide by if you're in California, they can't ship you the regular capacity magazines, stuff like that. But Cape gun works. Com is the online retail sponsor of the Personal Events network training tours. So check them out.

And if you're in New England, maybe come train with us. When I'm there. I'll be there for sure in April. I may be back in September as well. Also at Cape Gun Works.

The Cape Gun Works is the home of Rapid fire Radio and Toby. One of the aforementioned owners of Cape Gun Works is the host of Rapid Fire Radio. I will be on rapid fire radio this week doing another, conversation with Toby about kicking off the tour and talk a little bit more detail about the classes. I'll be offering. Not just in Massachusetts, but all over the country.

So take a look at rapid fire radio, all of the instructors, all the contributors on the the person on network training to our team this year will take turns, throughout the next six months, they'll probably each be on there 2 or 3 times, jumping on maybe just, you know, ten, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Some of them will go longer and talk more about their training, their experiences, talk about the products, that we have, out on the tour with us to talk about the sponsors and what they what they do, what they do to support us and support people who want to be able to defend themselves when they go to protect themselves. Tour sponsors, you know, if you if you go back over the years and you look at the other kickoff events or the other tour wrap ups or the tour updates, sometimes I'll do from out at the ranges where I'm actually teaching the classes. At the end of the day, you'll know that I always talk a lot about the sponsors. Now, it's not just because they're their advertisers.

We do have an advertising relationship with them, but notice that they're category exclusive, first of all. So we don't have multiple hand gun companies. We have multiple companies. We are specifically locked in, to a category. And that means, it's somewhat exclusive.

So, so every year, we go back and that's why we have a lot of these, these companies that come back year after year. And they've been with us. Some of them going all the way back to the beginning of the tour, like, not cert, because we go back to them, we say, here's what we learned, here's what the students said, here's, what their thoughts were. You know, here's here's the the feedback we get to them helps them in their product development. I think the MC nine LSS is a perfect example of a very evolved product from the original McKnight.

In fact, I did a video, private two months ago you can find at Personal Events network.com comparing the original MC nine to the MC nine LZ, and I'm sure you're going to see one coming up later this year that will compare the MC nine L's to the MC nine Prime, because that also is an evolution. It's a full featured version of that same platform from the from the meta family of guns. And really some huge steps have been made, and I'm sure that at some level of the conversation, the feedback from gun owners, from students, from people were actually training and working with the original guns, leads to the evolution and the development like it would at any good company that's listening to what their customers want and need. So we have a great relationship with these sponsors. They provide the product they provide.

Obviously, some funding to get the instructors to help them do their travel. We get out to the students, you get to experience their products firsthand. And don't be shy about it. If you're if you're coming to a class and for whatever reason, you know, somebody else's gun went down and they got the MC nine LZ and and, you know, an hour later, somebody else's gun goes down and they get the MC nine prime, your guns running great, but you're really curious about it. Let me know.

Let the other instructors know. It's part of the experience of going to a training tour class. It's one of the things that makes it different. Yeah. You get the logos and you get the advertising and you get a patch, maybe a t shirt.

There's something special about the certificate because it's a training tour class, but really it's about the high level of interaction. Not just watching a video, not just listening to a lecture, not just reading an article, but but spending five, six, seven, eight hours, maybe two, three, four days with this contributor team. People who are really passionate about what they do as educators, not just as performers, not just demonstrators. They don't want to just talk to this, this empty camera lens. They really do want to interact.

And part of that interaction is involving the gear as well. So again, running down personal events network.com is a place you can go to get all the links, all the videos. You can see the contributions from these instructors. Again, well vetted, well experienced. You can go and see what they're training, what they're talking about@network.com.

Go to PD and training tour comm. You'll see that calendar again. It's not completely populated today as we do our kickoff event. But over the next couple weeks you'll see that get filled out with, those scores of classes that'll be happening all over the country. Get registered, get to the range, get to the classroom, get out on the mats.

Incredible team. Alessandro. Amber. Ryan. Derek.

Barrett. Maggie. Chris. Mike. Am I forgetting Ken?

Is out that Jerry's out there. Kevin. Dixie's out there. Edgar. Jason and Don think I got everybody.

And then, welcoming back Kinnick. G-code. Next level training, cert cap, gun works, freedom munitions, highways and rapid fire radio. Being joined this year by real avid and Gideon Optics. Lots more to come along the many months of the tour.

And we will do some tour updates. And of course we'll wrap everything up in the fall. Most important thing you can do is take a look at Personal events network.com. If you're watching this video, you know we exist. You know how to get there.

The links are all over the place. Take a look at what these companies offer. Take a look at exactly what these instructors are offering in their classes. Get signed up, and, hopefully we'll see if not in one of my classes, at least I'll see you in social media, because it's important that you tell people you're out there training, encourage other people in the firearms community, and otherwise to be as prepared as they can be to defend themselves or others when they need to. Thank you.