Who is FZ OPERATOR?
Paulo Martins, former SMU Commando with a passion for shooting excellence.
That's all from my military past, this isn’t the place for war stories, for that buy a book. Why? Because I'm a quiet professional and being former X, Y or Z guarantees NOTHING when it comes to being an Elite shooter/instructor.
Mission
To teach and expose my students and shooting community to Elite levels of performance. Before I decided to take this journey of shooting instruction, I wondered if I had anything to teach. Was my path the right one?
So, I decided to win every single patch/coin in existence to prove I was indeed among the Elite. It turned out that in fact I had a few things to teach to the new generation of shooters. Soon after, my students started to kickass and winning patches/coins of their own. Another reason I decided to give classes is due to the poor level of instructors in the shooting community. Today any idiot can be an instructor. To counter this tendency, I took it as my duty to create future shooters with a high level of skill and critical thinking.
After conversing with the usual suspects of Performance shooting I decided to create a standard of Elite lethal shooting performance, the
OPERATOR CHALLENGE.
Vision
To achieve shooting excellence and rid the world of subpar instructors that have no business in teaching about shooting (I don’t oppose if they teach about eating crayons). To protect the new and inexperienced shooter here's a few tips on how to spot a low performing instructor:
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Doesn’t use a timer regularly or even worse, it doens't know what it is.
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Doesn’t do, recommend or believe in dry fire.
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Can’t do a sub second draw with one shot to the head/A6 from 3 meters.
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Can’t do a sub second reload for both pistol and rifle.
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Can’t do a Bill Drill or even worse, doesn’t know what it is.
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Doesn’t shoot pistol and rifle with the same high level of performance.
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Tells "war stories" or calls up previous experience in military/police to justify his subpar shooting performance.
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Low performance because of "tactical" reasons.
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Uses the word tactical more than twice in class.
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Shoots the same way since ever. For example, if a student asks the why of a technique or recommends another way, the instructor replies, "I have learned like this, so it's like this.". There's no critical thinking by the instructor/not allowed in class.
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Can’t move much because he's a fat-ass (he's only good if stationary).
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Talks to students as if: he's a drill sergeant/students are retarded.
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If you're better than him he says your technique is wrong "cuz tactical".
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As his shooting level is low, he makes money of single man/vehicle CQB/tacticool courses.
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Doesn’t "put himself out there", ex: doesn’t go to courses/matches. Basically isn’t a student anymore as he knows everything and has achieved Nirvana.
If any of the above is true, you're training with a low level instructor. When in doubt, be brave and ask your instructor to do some of the above metrics in front of you/ the class. If he dodges the request or can't perform, you have your answer. It's completely OK to learn from someone like this, hell, maybe he/she is a great/cool/kind person and you like to be in that group, good for you and be happy.
Just know that, that is shooting NOT trainning. It's a beers&bullets club where the purpose is to have fun, NOT to be good. Again, it's completely ok as most people don’t care about Elite Performance.
Just know if that is what you're looking for, you will never attain it in such an environment.
If you think you will, you might be a gun dummy.
My advice, CHOOSE WISELY!
