Since the UAAP season has begun, it’s easy to unwind from a hectic school/work week by spending your weekends indulging in sweet collegiate basketball goodness. But admittedly, not all teams play their best and sometimes you leave games angrier than when you first walked in.
Or maybe your frustration stems from something deeper than that.
Does it feel like everything is far from peachy and there is no end in sight? Do personal encounters (work or otherwise) with brown-nosers, judgmental self-entitled pompous creatures, or downright unpleasant pathetic excuses for human beings, stress you out to the point that you’re three seconds away from doing a “HULK SMASH!!!!!” on anything and everything around you?
Now before you unleash the beast on unsuspecting but utterly deserving victims, might I offer an alternative that will get you away from that toxic environment and possibly get rid of all that stress?
Prior to the start of the season, I had the pleasure of attending Green Jacket Shooting’s Handgun Familiarization Course because Nics Calanoc, former schoolmate (ANIMO LA SALLE)/test driver/writer/photographer/momma bear extraordinaire, reached out to me and asked if I was interested in trying it out.
As someone who is rather fond of firearms, I jumped at the chance because, why the heck not?I thought shooting was fun and a great way to relax.
At the time, I was exhausted and extremely stressed out. It had also been a while since I last went to a shooting range, so the invitation could not have come at a better time. Anyway, the great thing about this class is you can go into it with or without a handgun. If you have your own gun and ammo, pay the course fee and you’re good to go. If you don’t have any of these, GJS will provide them for you for an additional fee. Much like fullcourtfresh.com, they’ve got everything covered. (SELF PROMOTION FTW!)
They only ask that for one day (usually a Saturday but apparently they’ll alternate that with Sunday now), you invest several hours of your time (8:30am to 3:30pm) and to keep an open mind throughout the entire thing. The course is taught at the outdoor BuCor Firing Range in Muntinlupa. This isn’t a class where you just head on over to an range, pay the fee and shoot a few rounds. But it’s also not like you’re expected to show up in camouflage (although a couple of guys did and it was pretty awesome) and war paint.
Each class of 8-10 students is taught by Nicky, along with two other instructors, Alfie and Reign. Since this is a handgun familiarization course, it’s fine if you show up knowing close to nothing. In fact, they prefer it: they will teach you what you need to know.
The great thing about this class is that they’re pretty hands-on with all the students. Seriously, like even during the exercises when you’re ready to shoot your target and all, they will be there by your side, offering advice, making corrections, and muttering hilarious snarky comments about college acquaintances/colleagues/enemies/frenemies who you wish were the targets instead.
Each class ends with the Pièce de résistance, the “Top Gun”. This is a timed exercise where you have to apply everything you’re taught. Speed is key and any mistakes or missed targets will cost you. Whoever comes out with the best time, wins a special certificate and bragging rights over their fellow course-takers. However, even if you don’t get the “Top Gun” award, everybody gets to go home with a certificate and awesome badge to remember this day by, so it’s all good. It was definitely a day well-spent. I am merely one of the many satisfied customers who emerged from this (at least in my mind) a much more competent shooter.
I can go on and on until I run out of ways to describe how much fun this class was, but to give you a better idea of GJS and what they can offer, Nics was kind enough to answer a couple of questions.
- What is Green Jacket Shooting?
Green Jacket Shooting is actually a group of avid amature shooters that decided to help the firearm industry by creating a course that is a hybrid between a gun rental and proper gun safety and gun instruction.
- Who are the people behind it?
The people behind it were me (Nics Calanoc) and Walther Lee.
- What inspired you to start this course?
After taking Marck Tan’s Handgun Operator 1 of Tactical Applications Consulting, we saw 2 problems in the shooting industry. First, there are ranges where you can rent a gun but they don’t really teach you how to use it properly. Yes they tell you how to put in the magazine, switch the safety off, rack the gun and shoot; but they don’t teach you the fundamentals behind it. And after what we have learned and seen, there is a big difference between throwing bullets down range and making your shot count. We saw the responsibility to teach as much people as we can about the fundamentals of shooting. Second, we saw that not everyone has the time and money to shoot a lot of rounds and really become good and shooting. Even if you have a gun, you can’t just shoot and think you’re good at it. You have to learn from someone, right? So in a good amount of time, we try our best to at least end the day with every student being familiar with the nomenclature, lifestyle and capabilities of both the handgun and the shooter.
In the end as shooters, we saw a responsibility to make more responsible shooters for a better gun community in the Philippines in the best way we can.
- What can one expect when they take the course?
After seeing other courses and even other classes being held at the range, we can say to people considering our classes that they can expect to either learn new things about shooting or to reinforce what they have learned. What they can expect is our full attention, our assessment, our coaching on improving your shooting, and making every shot count.
- What is your target market for the course?
Our Handgun Familiarization Course was designed for either those who never shot, for those who have an idea of how to shoot, and for gun owners who want to progress from just knowing how a handgun works. We have taken teenagers, working men and women, and even senior citizens!
- What do you want people to learn/experience from the course?
What we want every student to experience is the actual firing a gun. With so much media and movies with shooting, it is easy to imagine how shooting would feel like. But once the gun is in your hand, 90% of the time that impression is wrong. As for the learning, ultimately we want every student to walk out with that feeling of knowing that they can control a gun. It is easy to fire a gun, but most just end up throwing lead down range. When I say control of a handgun, it isn’t also just knowing how it works. Controlling a handgun means you are not afraid of it, can manipulate it, and make your shots go where they need to go.
- What are your future plans?
Right now, we have plans of increasing our line-up of pistols so that we can teach more students. In equal effort, we are trying to devise more courses wherein the information they get from our classes is still something that doesn’t require them to have a handgun and at the same time encourages them to get one. But yes, we are also in the plans of making classes for people who have their own guns and to elevate their shooting level. Bottom line, we are making sure every shot counts in our classes.
If you’d like to know more about Green Jacket Shooting, you can check out their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/greenjacketshooting.
Credit: Photos were taken by Jade Lu
.
.
.
If you’re lucky, you might get to try out one of these babies at the end of the class. These guys work hard but they play harder.
Nics, thanks for trusting a somewhat trigger-happy person like me with one of these… even though you look ready to piss your pants.
