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Originally posted this over on the AK side of arfcom which is usually a decent place to visit, but to my dismay a few jerks came in dumping all over the thread because they didn't like his gear or what he was wearing. I expect that kind of trash on the AR side but it was a big surprise on the AK side.
Anyway, thought I'd repost over here for anyone interested. It was a good class, got to shoot some full auto's that various people brought along which was a nice bonus.
After hearing what Sonny had to say about Marco I'm really excited about taking the Behind the Lines sniper course later in the year. Thanks for sharing more detail in PM Voron, I think you sold me on the course.
Had a chance to attend Sonny Puzikas class at Impact Zone here in Houston, along with Nitcra, NinerRider and Keith from Tac47Industries. The class was about 20 total in size with a mix of one or two complete newbies, serious recreational shooters, ex military and a couple of guys that have trained with Sonny alot. I'd say half of the class was ex military and probably close to half had taken rifle instruction clases like this one before. The really nice part is that not one person was a mall ninja type and there was no ego during the course...everyone was professional, safe and had a sincere desire to learn. Sonny delivered on the learning...and boy did he ever.
There is way too much to cover without writing a book, but I'll hit some of the high points that I picked up. Sonny would demonstrate a technique, step through it slowly and then execute at full speed. We'd then do the same so we could get the movement down and pick up speed at our own pace until we were getting pretty fluid. During the class we all developed an impromptu buddy system and helped each other step through the mechanics of the movements, double checked each other for safety and really helped evaluate each other during the exercises. That helped tremendously in getting the technique down and Sonny was always there spot checking, correcting on the fly and elaborating on the mechanics.
The interesting part is that his class isn't really about AK's specifically...yes we learned some interesting techniques that are AK specific (like how to do mag changes with 2 30 rounders taped together), but on the whole you could easily plug any rifle into the equation and get the same results. The main thing about the class is that the weapon is actually irrelevant, it's how you employ it that matters (sounds obvious, but there's a lot of subtle things going on in his training). The class is completely focused on movement, every action is based on it and every drill had movement in it. Most of our shooting was done while we were moving....offhand shooting, mag changes, transitions and lateral displacement, you name it we did it on the move. All shooting was done from about 3-10 yards and depending on the exercise we'd either all be online at the same time, or we'd be split into 4 groups while doing some of the more complicated drills that required a lot of space.
The heat was brutal and I think the pace of the class took that into consideration. We did a lot of physical exertion but he didn't try to kill us and there were numerous hydration breaks, and a couple periods where we discussed the higher level concepts of movement and then got back to the details of this or that technique. I found the pace to be a tad slow on the first day but we rocked it out in the afternoon and on the second day it was all run and gun. He normally does 4 day classes and so the 2 day had some elements of compromise, made sense after he explained it during the class AAR on Sunday. Overall the pace suited me quite well and I enjoyed the combination of discussion and execution, he has a good sense of when to do what.
The class is 100% real world shooting. There was nothing fancy or silly, no square range mentality and nothing 'gimickee'. The techniques are actually all based on body mechanics and nothing is forced...the reason you change mags this way or that, or draw your secondary and shoot like this or that are tied directly into how your body moves. There was more than one thing he demonstrated where he looked like a drunken monkey, but when he broke down the mechanics you could easily see why that move was faster, more fluid or more efficient. I discovered a number of things that I had been forcing due to my Army training and he could explain exactly how that training affected what I was doing. Very subtle and interesting stuff.
Sonny himself is an interesting character. Like all of the really great NCO's, officers and instructors I've met over the years he is extremely intelligent. He's also a lifelong martial artist and a student of EVERYTHING... Karate, Systema, Jiu-Jitsu, etc etc. You name it he's probably studied. His whole approach to training was remarkably like Jeet Kun Do (no way is the way)...he never said that anyone's training was best, he simply said study as much as you can and incorporate what works for you. The tone of the class was more oriented toward martial arts where you happened to employ a rifle, as opposed to a rifle class based on shooting. As I said there was movement in everything and there was attention to detail on the smallest parts of each movement.
I had a phenominal time and my head is still spinning with all the details. It was also really cool to take the class with good friends and meet some new ones too. Thanks also to gcmj45acp for taking photos and hooking us up with pics when it was over.
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Anyway, thought I'd repost over here for anyone interested. It was a good class, got to shoot some full auto's that various people brought along which was a nice bonus.
After hearing what Sonny had to say about Marco I'm really excited about taking the Behind the Lines sniper course later in the year. Thanks for sharing more detail in PM Voron, I think you sold me on the course.
Had a chance to attend Sonny Puzikas class at Impact Zone here in Houston, along with Nitcra, NinerRider and Keith from Tac47Industries. The class was about 20 total in size with a mix of one or two complete newbies, serious recreational shooters, ex military and a couple of guys that have trained with Sonny alot. I'd say half of the class was ex military and probably close to half had taken rifle instruction clases like this one before. The really nice part is that not one person was a mall ninja type and there was no ego during the course...everyone was professional, safe and had a sincere desire to learn. Sonny delivered on the learning...and boy did he ever.
There is way too much to cover without writing a book, but I'll hit some of the high points that I picked up. Sonny would demonstrate a technique, step through it slowly and then execute at full speed. We'd then do the same so we could get the movement down and pick up speed at our own pace until we were getting pretty fluid. During the class we all developed an impromptu buddy system and helped each other step through the mechanics of the movements, double checked each other for safety and really helped evaluate each other during the exercises. That helped tremendously in getting the technique down and Sonny was always there spot checking, correcting on the fly and elaborating on the mechanics.
The interesting part is that his class isn't really about AK's specifically...yes we learned some interesting techniques that are AK specific (like how to do mag changes with 2 30 rounders taped together), but on the whole you could easily plug any rifle into the equation and get the same results. The main thing about the class is that the weapon is actually irrelevant, it's how you employ it that matters (sounds obvious, but there's a lot of subtle things going on in his training). The class is completely focused on movement, every action is based on it and every drill had movement in it. Most of our shooting was done while we were moving....offhand shooting, mag changes, transitions and lateral displacement, you name it we did it on the move. All shooting was done from about 3-10 yards and depending on the exercise we'd either all be online at the same time, or we'd be split into 4 groups while doing some of the more complicated drills that required a lot of space.
The heat was brutal and I think the pace of the class took that into consideration. We did a lot of physical exertion but he didn't try to kill us and there were numerous hydration breaks, and a couple periods where we discussed the higher level concepts of movement and then got back to the details of this or that technique. I found the pace to be a tad slow on the first day but we rocked it out in the afternoon and on the second day it was all run and gun. He normally does 4 day classes and so the 2 day had some elements of compromise, made sense after he explained it during the class AAR on Sunday. Overall the pace suited me quite well and I enjoyed the combination of discussion and execution, he has a good sense of when to do what.
The class is 100% real world shooting. There was nothing fancy or silly, no square range mentality and nothing 'gimickee'. The techniques are actually all based on body mechanics and nothing is forced...the reason you change mags this way or that, or draw your secondary and shoot like this or that are tied directly into how your body moves. There was more than one thing he demonstrated where he looked like a drunken monkey, but when he broke down the mechanics you could easily see why that move was faster, more fluid or more efficient. I discovered a number of things that I had been forcing due to my Army training and he could explain exactly how that training affected what I was doing. Very subtle and interesting stuff.
Sonny himself is an interesting character. Like all of the really great NCO's, officers and instructors I've met over the years he is extremely intelligent. He's also a lifelong martial artist and a student of EVERYTHING... Karate, Systema, Jiu-Jitsu, etc etc. You name it he's probably studied. His whole approach to training was remarkably like Jeet Kun Do (no way is the way)...he never said that anyone's training was best, he simply said study as much as you can and incorporate what works for you. The tone of the class was more oriented toward martial arts where you happened to employ a rifle, as opposed to a rifle class based on shooting. As I said there was movement in everything and there was attention to detail on the smallest parts of each movement.
I had a phenominal time and my head is still spinning with all the details. It was also really cool to take the class with good friends and meet some new ones too. Thanks also to gcmj45acp for taking photos and hooking us up with pics when it was over.
