LFI-I Review

[porschefan]

On Sunday I finished up a 4 day LFI-I class in Enfield, NH. I had been hearing about LFI for nearly 15 years in various magazines, forums and conversations. I finally had the time available to take the class for myself. Like most of you I’ve been carrying concealed for years and learned to shoot a pistol decades ago. I had read a ton of information on the legalities around the use of deadly force, including Ayoob’s own “In the Gravest Extreme” and Andrew Branca’s “The Law of Self Defense”, both of which reside on a bookshelf in my home office.

That being said, I still learned a huge amount of info in LFI-I. No amount of reading can replace talking with and asking questions of someone with the kind of real world experience Mas Ayoob has. It’s not just theory with him; he can back everything up with case histories and many, many personal experiences in the courtroom.

I should point out that I’d corresponded with Mas via email, read hundreds if not thousands of his articles in various publications, own some of his books and read many of his posts on Glocktalk before I took the class so I had some preconceived notions about him and his personality. He CAN come across as arrogant at times (he even refers to himself this way) but I don’t think it’s intentional as much as it is born of absolute confidence in what he speaks of. He can be very blunt and very opinionated as well. You may find yourself disagreeing with him at times but you’ll never find him speaking without having very well thought out reason behind what he says. Again, you may not be swayed but you can never say he’s just spouting off.

He’s also quite clearly passionate about the right of the citizen to use deadly force when necessary. I can’t stress enough how important the info he covers in the class is. If nothing else you’ll come away understanding EXACTLY what the circumstances are that justify the use of deadly force. It’s not to say that you’ll never be prosecuted, that’s up to the prevailing DA and the grand jury, but if you listen to the lessons and take them to heart you’ll at least know that you’ve got a strong case and the law on your side.

As for the shooting portion of the class, it turned out to be more than I thought it would. This was the one portion of the class I was skeptical of, I had heard over and over that if I wanted to learn anything about shooting I needed to go to a “real” school like Gunsite or Thunder Ranch. I’ve been shooting since I was a small kid, nearly 30 years now. I’ve had professional training in shooting before. Ayoob’s Stressfire system does work if you’re willing to give it a chance. I especially benefitted from the single handed shooting tips, most notably for the weak hand. I can honestly say I’ve never shot better single handed than I did at LFI after being exposed to the Stressfire technique.

Before the class shoots their qualification course of fire the instructors all shoot to give us something to compete against. Mas shot a perfect 300. I was fortunate enough to win Top Shooter in the qualification. I managed to tie an IPSC/IDPA shooter for high score with a 290 and won on the basis of a smaller group size. In the interests of full disclosure I will note the class was only 7 people and a couple of them were new to guns.

Bragging as much as possible I will point that my score beat the one posted by Gail Pepin, LFI instructor and multiple IDPA and GSSF champion. Gail shot the match cold and hadn’t fired a round in a week or so but I’m still putting a feather in my cap damnit.

As a fun thing a few of us got to shoot some segments for the TV show Personal Defense TV (shown on the Outdoor Network). The were up filming some segments of the class as well as a product briefing by Clyde Caceras of FirstLight who came by and showed us his company’s very nifty new product, the Liberator. If you’re into tactical illumination I’d suggest you check it out. Clyde, if you’re reading this I’m still waiting for that testing sample I asked you about!

Once class concluded I volunteered to shoot some H2H self defense segments with Mas for the show. If you happen to watch It keep an eye out for a slightly chubby Asian guy getting his arm twisted into interesting shapes. The guys at PDTV promised to send me DVDs of the show so I can show my family my “acting”.

I’ll wrap things up this way: I absolutely feel I got my $800 worth and would enthusiastically recommend that anyone who carries or plans to carry a weapon for self defense spend $800 of their own hard earned cash and put your butt in a seat for LFI-I.

My sincere thanks to Mas Ayoob, Gail Pepin and Bill Goldstein for their instruction, patience and caring. In addition I’d like to thank Chief Russell Larry of the Grantham, NH police department for speaking to us. Chief Larry, you're great guy and I can only hope that more police chiefs come around to your way of thinking when it comes to the 2A and armed citizens.