Earlier this month, on August 18th and 19th, I had the unmitigated honor and privilege of attending the first annual Paul-E-Palooza conference in Windham, Ohio. I've spoken of this event before on the blog, but in sum, it is a gathering of some of the finest tactical/self-defense instructors in the country, if not the world, all to honor Paul Gomez and his innumerable contributions to the tactical community.
Much to my surprise, I found myself a part of the faculty, conducting a class on hemostatic agents along with Morgan Atwood of BFE Labs. I'll talk a little about that later. More importantly I had the opportunity to also train with a variety of the instructors present, although not as many as I would have liked. Below, I will go over in brief the courses that I did. Bear in mind that all of these courses consisted of 2 hour blocks and often represent a significantly condensed version of the full course material. Even taking that into consideration, the value of this conference is tremendously high!
Craig "Southnarc" Douglas: Managing Unknown Contacts (MUC).
Normally taught as the opening section of the Extreme Close Quarters Concepts classes that Craig Douglas teaches, MUC is a systematic approach to learning how to deal with being approached by an unknown. Be this in a parking lot outside a grocery store or a dingy back alley, it provides a well-structured set of tools to potentially defuse a violent assault before it ever starts. Alternately, if you are unable to deter a would-be assailant, it sets you up in as ideal a position as possible to deal with the attack itself. I'm not by any means doing this justice, just know that as far as I'm concerned, this is quite possibly one of THE best courses available on dealing with the - as Craig puts it - the criminal assault paradigm.
Craig's delivery is smooth, thorough, and very easy to grasp. He is an excellent teacher in every sense of the word. Despite the condensed nature of the material, I came away from this class with a brand-new set of tools in my repertoire, material that I can use to train with for months to come. I am incredibly stoked to be attending the full ECQC course - which includes MUC - when it comes to my area soon.
Paul Sharp: Striking Off The Fence
Paul Sharp is another outstanding instructor. An athlete by any definition, Sharp's solid foundation in MMA and the striking arts makes for an outstanding class that ties in perfectly with the MUC material. Consider it the next step, so to speak. Again, despite the condensed nature of the material, expect to walk away with a good foundation of striking combinations and footwork that let you work off the fence structure that is part and parcel of the TPI paradigm. Sharp has an easy-going manner, but is still able to effectively convey his thoughts on the material. I would sell a kidney to do a full 2-3 day class with Sharp on just about any subject he'd care to teach. Not necessarily MY kidney, but... I digress.
William Taylor Mock: Paul Gomez Inspired Pistol Modifications.
William Taylor Mock is a Texas-based gunsmith who has worked with Paul Gomez for several years. His lecture block consisted of discussing the modifications to - primarily - the Glock platform that Gomez had arrived to over the years as being the pinnacle of a carry pistol. It was an instructive block with good discussion of the topic, that also delved into carry methods. Mock's work is impeccable and precise. I would have zero qualms about having him do work on one of my own pistols, particularly if I ever end up owning a Glock.
Pete Morgan: Combatives for the non-permissive environment.
Pete is a UK-based instructor who is a long-time student of Den Martin, one of the more (in)famous British doormen and combatives instructors. The material delivered in inimicable fashion by Pete is straight-forward and brutal. Based in part on the old WWII combatives, Pete Morgan's version of this material eschews a lot of the more dubious parts, and does an excellent job of condensing it down to the useful stuff. The material is very focused on the various settings that we often find ourselves in, bars, restaurants, etc, places where we can't always control how close people get to us. Pete is yet another instructor that I would gladly pay good money to attend a class with.
Caleb Causey: Massive Hemorrhage Control
Caleb Causey is the owner and lead instructor at Lone Star Medics. Highly experienced, both in the civilian EMS setting and as a combat medic, Caleb provides a very comprehensive class on dealing with traumatic injuries in the pre-hospital setting. The material is detailed, but still accessible even to the layman. Highly recommended, even more so if you can swing doing the Medicine X course that Caleb offers through Lone Star Medics, as that will cover a lot more material including more hands-on experience than you can shake a stick at!
There was a bunch of other instructors attending and I dearly wish that I could have attended more classes, but doing my own block of instruction as well gave me something of a time restriction. Classes also filled up incredibly quickly and some were just full before I got the chance to sign up. The facility was fairly impressive and is one that has a lot of promise as a future conference site for the sheer versatility of it.
All that being said, the Paul-E-Palooza was an incredible success. Almost 40000 dollars were raised to benefit Paul Gomez's children, and much learning was accomplished. Incredible instructors, new friendships and a weekend spent with like-minded folks, it hardly gets better than that.
Well, ok, so here is where it gets better. This is becoming an annual event and next years conference is already being planned! Go to this if you can swing it in any way, shape, or form! Seriously, you'll be missing out if you don't!
The lecture block that Morgan Atwood and I did went off fairly well for something that was rather off the cuff. Not as many attendees as we might have hoped, but given the instructors that had the same time-slot, I think we did quite well. Good questions were asked and answered - hopefully to the satisfaction of the students there. We were also quite fortunate to have in attendance a few luminaries in the field of tactical medicine who all provided invaluable feedback to us during and after the class.
Lastly, I would just like to thank Raven Concealment Systems and their crew. The work they did in acquiring the facility, setting everything up and helping out everywhere, was simply amazing. They are a fantastic group of guys and even though I don't always care for their designs( I am admittedly horribly biased and pedantic when it comes to kydex), the quality, customer support, AND community support is simply unparalleled. Yeah, they have a waitlist for most of their products. It's worth waiting on and it's worth it to support a company of this caliber with your hard-earned dough.
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