Personal Protection Lecture-Shay VanVlyman

[Never A Victim]

This is a review for a personal protection and personal safety lecture presented by Shay VanVlyman at Indiana University on 04/18/2016. This was a free course hosted by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus as well as Henry Holsters. Shay is the owner and lead instructor at Mindset Laboratory based out of Indianapolis, Indiana. I have taken a few force on force classes with Mindset Laboratory and I was very excited to hear Shay speak in a lecture-only format.

The central question regarding this lecture was, “Who is responsible for your safety?” While most gun owners could answer this question pretty quickly and affirmatively, not everyone attending this lecture was a gun owner. In fact, I would guess that some were new to the idea of being responsible for their own self-defense.
To help illustrate the point that you are responsible for your own safety, Shay discussed case law such as Warren v. District of Columbia, which ruled that the police have no duty to protect you. While the police are there to help, they have no duty or requirement to save you-that’s primarily your job. Once the point was made about you being responsible for you, Shay spoke about the Dunning-Kruger Effect. This is the phenomenon in which the less you know about a particular topic (in this case how to defend yourself) the more you think you know. This was used to drive home the importance of getting training (armed or unarmed) once you’ve made the decision to be responsible for your own safety.

On the topic of getting training, Shay went over the Three R’s (Relevance, Realistic, and Recent) as well as the three zones of training (Comfort, Learning, and Panic). Other topics of using knives for self-defense were covered in addition to being aware of your surroundings regardless of what physical tools you have to defend yourself. Being aware, verbalizing when something makes your uncomfortable, carrying a high power flashlight, and not going bad places, were all discussed in order to keep yourself safe.

This lecture did not disappoint. Even though it was free and didn’t involve shooting, stabbing, or punching anyone, this is exactly the kind of training that those who live the martial lifestyle of self-defense need to attend. For those who attended and had no idea what role they played in their own self-defense or those of us who already understood the importance of training, everyone left the lecture knowing something they didn’t know before. I would highly recommend this lecture (or listening to anything Shay has to say) as well as force on force training from Mindset Laboratory.

 

[cosermann]

And, there ended up being free pizza . . .

 

[Expatriated]

You can tell from my sig line what I think. But, Shay has it right. We are obsessed...literally OBSESSED with gear. I bet most of us spend $1,000 on gear for every $1 we spend on good training or mindset. INGO'ers are probably better than the majority of gun-toters, but...then again, maybe not.

I was reflecting on this fact the other day when thinking about Cooper, Cirillo, Awerbuck, and Pat, all gone now. Giants and pioneers in the industry we have come to use as a fashion show as much as we use it to actually push ourselves and develop our skills. Interesting to think about how many combined bad guys received their just rewards at the hands of these masters, without any help from Aimpoint, Magpul, or Larue. Improvements in equipment shouldn't be shunned (Pat kept current on gear till the very end), but oh, how often do we elevate it above skill and mindset?

A few years ago, Louis Awerbuck was interviewed about how the industry has changed over his 30 years of instructing. He said that "Simplicity is gone. Fanciness has replaced the brain." He later went on to say that Americans think everything is for sale. And as such, we try to "buy" ability. As opposed to trying to put in the time to earn it.

I'll take it a step farther and say now that we don't even try to buy the ability, just the gear that implies we have the ability. Guys used to pay to go to a class, not really put much time practicing the skills, but say, "I've had that training" and they're trying to convince themselves and others that they have the skills. Which was sad in and of itself. But sadder still is the current line of thinking where people don't even spend the money or time on training any more--they just buy the gear that somehow represents the ability someone with the training would have.

Spend a decade becoming proficient with a gun like Col. Cooper? No way, much easier to just buy the gun that Col. Cooper espoused and call it good. Spend hours learning rope work, survival, fire-starting, etc, etc, etc? Why? Much easier to just buy the latest rappelling device, survival knife, or space age striker. Spend time on the range discussing the why of tactics and running through drills dry? Just sit and discuss mindset? Too much bother; ballistic masturbation is more fun--700 rounds a day sounds like we did something when we brag to our friends.

Do yourselves a favor and invest in your mindset. There are probably precious few of us that wouldn't be better off selling one of our guns and putting that money into training to improve our mindset and our skills.

Find a good trainer. Shay's a good place to start if you're wondering.

Don't go to a bad one. One that fits Awerbuck's lament: "Many members of the new breed, however, are of the ilk who have false resumes, have coasted to notoriety on others’ shirt tails, and have no mitigating redeeming qualities except that sometimes their third-hand information actually does help a blinkered trainee."