PackingPastor
New member
I'm working toward becoming an instructor. What do I need? Business license? (It'll be a side job only, and I'm doing it on my own.) Insurance? Certification? If so, from whom?
Becoming an instructor
- Thread starter PackingPastor
- Start date
grizzerr
New member
Depends on what you teach and what state. At a minimum you should have insurance. Establishing your business as a LLC gives you a bit more credibility and buffer in potential lawsuits. Building a resume of classes attended and instructor certifications will add to your credibility as an instructor. If you're going to teach CCW most states will require you have an NRA Handgun Cert as a minimum.
Before you get to questions about the type of business entity or the amount of insurance you should carry, the first thing you must decide is whether you have something worth teaching. If all you are going to do is regurgitate the same old weak BS that everyone else is pedaling, save your money and your efforts. It took several tries for me to find quality instruction and I probably would have found it faster if there were fewer options.
PackingPastor
New member
Thankfully, in GA, a class is not required to get a GWCL-only $75, so whether I'm certified or not doesn't matter for that. I think I have a lot to offer, J, but I'm interested in what set your favorite instructor apart from the others.
PackingPastor
New member
Also, I'm trying to supplement my income from my other job, so if this costs more to set up than I'll make from it, it's not worth the effort.
I have had several very good instructors and they had several common traits. First, they all had a level of knowledge and experience above and beyond the guy that liked to shoot and got an instructors certificate. They all spoke the kings English and could communicate very effectively. They were flexible and could explain their concepts in several ways. They were also flexible in allowing individual variations in technique and were not out to remake the world in their own image. They all had a high level of skill and could demonstrate the effectiveness of their techniques.
On the other hand, the bad instructors that I have had likewise had common traits. They typically answered question by asserting their authority and with responses that were devoid of reason. They were unable to explain why a certain technique was advantageous and told me I needed to do things just because it was the right way and I needed to trust them. Usually, they lacked any significant knowledge or experience and their presence as an instructor was nothing more than an attempt to involve other people in their fantasy of being a cop or soldier. They were also very insecure and often became competitive with the people they were supposed to be training and were more interested in showing they had the upper hand than they were in transferring information.
Although I am an NRA member, I am not a fan of their training programs or their instructor certifications. I think their first steps handgun program is an insult to the intelligence of almost anyone of even average intelligence or ability. I also think their instructor certification programs are very poor. I have seen numerous NRA certified instructors that aren't much more than beginners themselves. Two local instructors come to mind but shall remain nameless. The NRA seems to think that they can take most anyone off the street and make them an instructor in two days of training, which I think is absurd.
I have likewise been disappointed by those that relied on some type of law enforcement or military credentials as the basis of their training. The military makes little use of the handgun and I was quite surprised when I found most had little more than an afternoon of training and met a very modest qualification standard. I was also appalled to find out how little training our police receive and the meager standards to which they perform. I understand now why our local police have killed or wounded so many innocent bystanders. Like many people that are not versed in firearms, I believed that our police were highly skilled and highly trained and at some point I appealed to friends in law enforcement to help me. Needless to say, I was amazed to their skills and knowledge were grossly lacking. I also realized just how little confidence I could place in the police to protect me.
The hardest part of the process in my experience was finding good instruction. I eventually did find several good ones but I wasted a lot of money along the way. I also made the good instructors job more difficult by showing up with bad habits and a lot of misinformation.
I have likewise been disappointed by those that relied on some type of law enforcement or military credentials as the basis of their training. The military makes little use of the handgun and I was quite surprised when I found most had little more than an afternoon of training and met a very modest qualification standard. I was also appalled to find out how little training our police receive and the meager standards to which they perform. I understand now why our local police have killed or wounded so many innocent bystanders. Like many people that are not versed in firearms, I believed that our police were highly skilled and highly trained and at some point I appealed to friends in law enforcement to help me. Needless to say, I was amazed to their skills and knowledge were grossly lacking. I also realized just how little confidence I could place in the police to protect me.
The hardest part of the process in my experience was finding good instruction. I eventually did find several good ones but I wasted a lot of money along the way. I also made the good instructors job more difficult by showing up with bad habits and a lot of misinformation.
Bttbbob
New member
Although, I will agree with some of the above statements. I will explain why you have the experience that you have. The NRA Instructor courses are based on the thought process of basic instruction. This is so that they can teach the BASIC fundamentals of shooting. This is basically target shooting, for the uninitiated. They even tell you that in the Instructors manual. The problem that we are seeing is, Instructors teaching things they are not qualified to teach. Yes they were in the military, yes they had to qualify. But they were not Primary Marksmanship Instructors or Combat Marksmanship Instructors. Those jobs are the real deal. They are highly qualified. I have yet to see a military Marksmanship Instructor that was not exceptional at his trade. I ran a pistol and rifle range in the Marine Corps and call out plenty of instructors every year when they use their military background as credentials and they were in supply or truck drivers.
As an NRA Training Counselor, I have trained hundreds of Instructors. If the candidates cannot grasp this concept, I do not get them certified.
If you look at folks like John Farnham, Clint Smith, Jeff Cooper you will see that they are previous military firearms Instructors. I am not talking about the you tube commandos and marketeers. I am talking about the serious trainers.
The biggest problem with all of this, when I first started teaching firearms training over 3 decades ago, there were only 10 schools in the country. Now there are 10 or more in every county. Our school is one of the oldest in Florida, we have been in business since 1987. I have seen 50 come and go in that time frame. Not all are qualified. Google is your friend when looking for someones credentials.
I suggest doing your homework. Getting references. Go view a class before you spend your hard earned money. One good dead giveaway is the cost of the class you are attending. If its too cheap, thats what you will get. Is the instructor qualified to teach what they are teaching? Who trained them? Is the technique that they are teaching a well known technique? Is it proven? Do they make statements like "My way is the only way". Do that have certifications? Has the school or instructor been around a long time? One statement I make always......".There are only so many ways to shoot a gun, and they were all invented before you and I were born." I am a student of firearms and self defense, all I do is pass on what I have learned over the years.
For those that want to become an Instructor there are limited ways to become one. The NRA Instructor Program qualifies more than any organization, next will be LEO via FLECTCH, state organizations like FDLE. These are the only credentials that are normally acceptable to most. Depending on what you want to teach it can cost from 300.00 to 30,000 dollars depending on where you go to school. My training has cost me or the taxpayer over a quarter million dollars. Me at least 30 grand with travel, ammo, course fees and lodging.
Our motto is the same as the Marine Corps," Let’s be damn sure that no man’s ghost will ever say “If your training program had only done its job.”
JVSfirearmstraining
New member
I started taking NRA instructor certifications in January of 2013. I took them from a training counselor (Bob) that I had taken multiple other classes from. Bob said he saw the attitude in me to become a good trainer. I have NRA instructor certifications in basic pistol, basic rifle, home firearms safety, personal protection in the home, refuse to be a victim, and am a certified range safety officer. I am still building the confidence in myself to instruct alone. I have been working with Bob on his other instructor classes for the last 6 months. Bob has a training team that knows each other socially and personally. We all trust each other with our lives. I will say that you need to work with a training team once you get certified. Also another big thing is make sure to get liability insurance no matter what you decide to do. NRA endorsed instructor insurance through Lockton is the best bang for the buck but you have to be a certified instructor.
You have to make a true commitment to become an instructor. It is not cheap to pay for the classes. I spent over $4000 for classes last year. I have spent close to 50 hours a month training, studying, and preparing for classes this year. I am scheduled for an Armorer class this month and the NC concealed carry laws next month.
Good luck with your decision.
Jim
You have to make a true commitment to become an instructor. It is not cheap to pay for the classes. I spent over $4000 for classes last year. I have spent close to 50 hours a month training, studying, and preparing for classes this year. I am scheduled for an Armorer class this month and the NC concealed carry laws next month.
Good luck with your decision.
Jim
I find it very beneficial to instruct classes with the assistance of other instructors. Get some type of certification by a nationally recognized organization (NRA is the most common, but not the ONLY option). Find other instructors to conduct training with, and practice training before getting out there and training members of the general public.
Pir8fan
,
Actually, an LLC doesn't give any protection from torts related to a person's conduct. It may provide protection from a student's actions. A better buffer than a single member LLC is a corporation. Single member LLCs are easy for attorneys to penetrate. A properly maintained corporation is more difficult. Additionally, to obtain the best tax benefits for a profitable company, the LLC or corporation probably should elect to be treated as an S-corp. Single member LLCs are disregarded entities for tax purposes and are treated just like a sole proprietorship.
Bob, you seem to embody most of the qualities that I find distasteful in an instructor. I fully understand the concept of "basic instruction". However, the basic handgun instruction provided by the NRA is not geared for someone that is just new to shooting. It seems to be geared for the person that has absolutely no understanding of simple physics and the functioning of machinery. In my opinion their basic training curriculum is so basic as to be worthless. If a person truly functions at the extremely low level that the NRA believes, he or she should not be learning to shoot a handgun and I would question whether they should be eating with a fork.
Bob, I certainly agree with you, we are seeing lots of instructors trying to teach things that are not qualified to teach like how to shoot a handgun. If you have never seen former military instructors they did their job very poorly, I suggest you get out more. I have been through the rounds with these people as well and if were not in poor taste I would name names. I think that your statement that you are a former military firearms instructor and that everyone that has been a military firearms instructor is extraordinary is self-serving BS at best. My point is that everyone who has done nothing more than learn a few buzzwords and some primitive techniques does not begin to have the level of knowledge and experience to provide the quality of training that I Believe is necessary to do the job well.
Bob, I am not familiar with John Farnhamm, however, I have attended classes at both Gunsite and Thunder Ranch. To say that Jeff Cooper learned his craft in the military is nothing more than a misleading half-truth. Just Cooper did serve as a firearms instructor in the military and he found the methods taught by the military to shoot a handgun were grossly inadequate. He then set out to find the very best techniques for shooting a handgun effectively and spent considerable amounts of his own money and time developing what he called the modern technique of the handgun. Clint Smith after his military service, worked as Col. Cooper's chief range officer and learned his trade from the Colonel. It is grossly inaccurate to try and credit the military for the skill and knowledge of these two men.
Bob, I have to tell you that if it is your mission in life to keep military supply clerks and truck drivers from using their military background to become handgun instructors, you are not getting the job done. If you have trained hundred of instructors, did you really find that many qualified candidates? I also find it ironic that you say that you have trained hundreds of instructors and now surprisingly training centers are popping up everywhere.
Bob, obviously you have not read my profile you would see that I have found what I believe to be the best training available and did so several years ago. As I said in my profile, I suffered through a lot of deplorable and worthless training before a local criminal defense attorney recommended Gunsite to me.
I do not think it is sound advice to tell anyone in search of quality training that the price of the training equals the quality. Some of the worst training I've had was also the most expensive. Again, the thing that most of these charlatans rely upon is the fact that the average layman in search of good training as a preconceived ideas about firearms training that are categorically wrong. Such as the military and police are experts on the subject and Masters of the hand gun.
As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that qualifies a person to be an instructor is his skill and experience with a handgun. If you have never been in a gunfight and your ability to shoot a handgun is very modest, please don't hold up your certificate with the golden seal and tell me that you are fully capable of teaching me how to defend myself. My desire to learn to defend myself with a handgun came from the simple fact that I had a person that said openly and publicly that he would find me and kill me.
Bob, for my money there is only one way to become an instructor and that is by having skill or knowledge that sets you apart from the crowd.There are two local gentlemen that are among the most skilled men that I have ever seen when it comes to shooting a handgun. One is a criminal defense attorney and the other gentlemen is a cattle raiser that has been in numerous armed confrontations. Neither holds any type of instructor certification, although I would be willing to let them name their price for a weekend of training. In both cases, they possess attributes that the certified instructor does not begin to have and can never acquire by going to an NRA seminar.
I'm not impressed with the price of your training. As I said before price and quality do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. If the truth were known, I have paid a considerable amount of money for my training as well as the finest weapons available. Some of the poorest training I have never received was also extremely expensive. I think that the training process for instructors is ridiculously easy and many are not much more than novices themselves. Both the financial cost and the aggravation that I have experienced would have been greatly reduced it were not possible for someone with absolutely no real-world experience to go to a two day seminar and become an NRA certified instructor and hold themselves out to the public as a person capable of providing quality training.
Bttbbob
New member
Number 1 bolded- I have seen many military instructors and they are a cut above. Have you been in the military? Have you trained with a military PMI? Military Instructors are talented because they get the training and experience, in your own words. You can't become experienced without on the job training. It's hard to get that in the civilian world if for noo other reason than the cost of ammo. You can't learn this on youtube or out of books. Experience and training to teach not just know how to shoot. I have seen gold medal winners that were excellent shots that you would fall a sleep in the first 10 minutes. So that dawg don't hunt. The way that people become good instructors are with a good solid base in marksmanship instruction (including the ability to evaluate and critique) to fix the problem a shooter has. Once there is a good marksmanship base, Defensive shooting Instructors that are good, have a thorough understanding of the modern technique of gunfighting, or the Applegate/Sykes/Fairbairn method of Instruction or possibly some of the offshoots such ass CAR specialties. . I mean I am not sure there are any other techniques. A good defensive shooting Instructor is one that has taken classes from an Instructor trainer that knows Defensive shooting techniques and mindset. So how do you get that? You spend money either the governments or your own to go to a trainer that has the knowledge, skill and ability to teach you how to teach students to defend themself. And the guys that have spent the most time and money to learn their trade will not come cheap.
Is it only Military trainers, no. It may be LEO either federal or State. I have trained with both. The reason they are normally a cut above is because they could afford to take the training to learn to train the trainers.
Now I have known and trained with some of the best trainers in the world and they all had one thing in common. They spent a lot of time and money to learn their trade.
And you can say that Cooper's training in the Military isn't where he learned his trade but you would be wrong. He received his base training which was the foundation for his modern pistol theory. He also found the errors in the training in the military and worked to fix it at his 1st facility called API. That was even before Gunsite. That is what good trainers do. They look to see if they can improve upon any technique they teach.
Look I don't claim to be anything special, I am nothing but a student of the gun and pass on what I have learned about shooting and self defense by what I have learned from some of the best in the industry.
Bob,Your opinion of military instructors seems greatly biased by the fact that you were once a military instructor, which again is purely self-serving. I was never in the military, however, I have trained with more than one instructor that I know for a fact was a military instructor and had served at the local joint reserve base in that capacity. My experience with a relatively small sample is that the military instructors lacked fundamental skills with a handgun. I could not describe them as being a cut above anything rather I found them to be just another flavor of ignorant.
There are two levels of experience that we are dealing with in this situation. The first level of experience is with actually using a handgun for its intended purpose. The second level of experience is in teaching or transferring your knowledge to other people. Of the people that have the requisite experience with using a handgun for its intended purpose, there is only a small number that will develop the requisite skill as a teacher to transfer that knowledge to others. The vast majority of the people posing as instructors lacked experience in using the handgun for its intended purpose and also often seem to lack basic skill with a handgun.No matter how much practice you get as an instructor, if you do not have the skill and experience at the first level, you will never be able to become an effective instructor.
I hope that your reference to gold-medal winners is not an attempt to slander one of my former teachers, Lanny Bassham, who won an Olympic gold medal in 1972. He is an exceptional public speaker and has a program that I would highly recommend to anyone that has to function under pressure, called "Mental Management".
I certainly agree that the ability to diagnose the problems the shooter is having and then to provide a solution is the heart of marksmanship instruction. Unfortunately, these are skills that very few possess. As I struggled to learn to shoot a handgun, I found that the vast majority of instructors could do no more than randomly recite some buzzwords or catchphrases. They could not begin to provide solutions to my problems.
I have no problem with the price of top quality instruction and in all honesty I feel it is worth every penny. However, I do have a problem with being defrauded and certainly the greater looming danger of being improperly trained and ill-equipped and unable to defend myself had the need arisen. In my experience, low quality instruction was never offered to me a discount and was every bit as expensive as getting first-rate instruction from schools like Gun Site or Thunder Ranch. I have no problem paying the cost of good instruction, nor do I have a problem with any of the associated expenses. However, I do not like being swindled and being put in a potentially dangerous situation. I think that your insinuation that I got low quality training because I was unwilling or unable to pay the price of good training is absurd. I think that as a woman i was exploited by dishonest and unethical instructors.
In the grand scheme of things, I spent far more money on low quality training and questionable guns recommended by inept instructors than I spent on first-rate training and high-quality guns. Money was never an issue, rather the issue was my personal safety. After numerous bad experiences with certificated instructors, as well as assorted military and LEO types, I have become quite cynical. If you cannot step up to the firing line and show me what you can do and also show me some documentation or record of your first-hand experience of defending your life for the handgun, you will not see me sitting in your classroom.
I will say the Col. Cooper did not learn his trade in the military with great confidence. True, he did service in the military as a small arms instructor. However, the driving force behind his modern technique of pistol craft was the fact that he found his military training to be so grossly inadequate and went in search of more efficient and effective techniques to employ a handgun. His modern technique was a significant departure from the training he received in the military and he certainly says so. I think that you have been running a bluff for so long, that you feel it's a little late to back down. You certainly remind me of the man that lied so much about having horse that he had to go out and buy a saddle.
I'm glad you clarified the fact that you do not feel you are special. Your otherwise arrogant and condescending tone had left me with the exact opposite impression.
