The following is an excerpt from the July 96 edition of Jeff Cooper's
Commentaries  which was posted in the Firearms & Politics Mailing List.
BEGIN QUOTE ************************************************************
It appears that everybody wants to get into the firearms training act.
Various groups large and small are springing up hither and yon, offering
weapons training to all and sundry, with or without qualification.  It
takes more to be a professor of arms than most of these people are
prepared to offer.  Back in the days when I ran Orange Gunsite, the
qualifications for an instructor, just as coach not a range master,
were as follows:
        a.      He must be better than just good with his own weapon.
He need not be an international champion, but he does need to be able
to do anything he asks of a student, easily and on demand, and more
besides.
        b.      He must be possessed of a powerful desire to impart.
He must want his students to be, if anything, better than he is.  It is
not enough for an instructor to be a good shot, he must be able to
produce good shots.
        c.      He must display an adequate command presence, since he
has no military or  administrative authority over his students.  This
means that his bearing, posture, voice,  general appearance, and
patience must be such that he can command without rank.  This is  not a
common attribute.
        d.      He must have "seen the elephant" either in a military
or a law enforcement capacity.  He must have been shot at and shot
back, so that he can tell his students that he knows exactly how it
feels.
        e.      He should be reasonably fluent in one language other
than his own, since this business is international in scope.
- From the foregoing it is obvious you cannot just whistle up a firearms
instructor, nor can you create a firearms academy with personnel from
the employment agency.  Too many people are trying to do this and it is
not only dishonest, but definitely dangerous.  We have many examples.
END QUOTE *************************************************************
My Comment:  I'm not sure I agree with "d".  Assuming your instructor
himself received a thourough grounding in correct technique and tactics,
then "a" & "b" is all you really need in an instructor.
The fact that he either did or did not shoot somebody once upon a time
strikes me as fairly irrelevant.
Regards
John
--- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 
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