AAR WEAPONIZED GEOMETRY, Dilley TX, 7-9MAR2025
OVERVIEW – I attended Kinetic Consulting’s Weaponized Geometry class from Mar 7 – 9, 2025. The class was run at The Ranch just outside of Dilley, TX. An impressive, 300 acres training facility with an 11,000 sq ft shoot house. The class was taught by Jon Dufresne, a former Army Ranger and security consultant. The class was attended by eight students from varying backgrounds and professions.
GEAR - I wore the same holster and magazine pouch that I wear day to day as a CCW rig. The holster is from JM Custom Kydex. The magazine pouch is from Blue Force Gear. A TQ from Snake Staff Systems lives in the second pocket in the magazine pouch.
GUNS – We used UTM Glock 17s provided by the instructor. For every scenario, students could select either an iron sight or red dot equipped pistol. The pistol ran fine for the first half of the class but started to choke pretty regularly towards the end of both day two and three. This is common with UTM and one of the reasons we moved to airsoft a few years ago.
POI – This was a three-day class. The first half of T-day 1 was spent in the classroom covering safety and some high-level concepts for room clearing. Topics covered included principles of CQB, variations in tactics depending on situation, human behavior and decision making, and priorities of life. The second half of the class was spent in the shoot house practicing concepts with a partner and doing some force-on-paper.
T-day 2 started back in the classroom. Jon talked for about an hour covering angles, pieing, and the rules we would be using for force-on-force. Then we headed back to the shoot house and got started. For the majority of the day we were broken into two groups of four with one group serving as the role-players for the other.
We didn’t run any scenarios on day 2, Jon just had us serving as moving, (in some cases) shooting, 3D targets for each other. Students could clear as fast or as slow as they wanted. Role players being bad guys were instructed to only go down when they took effective rounds to the head or upper chest so some of the fights took longer than others.
T-day 3 was spent on scenarios. All the scenarios were minimally directed from the students’ point of view, allowing multiple ways for us to solve the problems. Gas station robberies, workplace violence, home invasions, etc. Jon acknowledged that in some cases the right answer might be to just leave the area.
Students were told that they could play everything as aggressively as they wanted and then after the scenario, talk through options that they would have if they were on or off duty (for the cops), did or didn’t have their family with them, etc. This allowed for some good discussions and interesting looks at different thought processes and skill sets. Once again role players were instructed to continue fighting until they took solid hits to the high chest or head.
We finished out the day with “duels”. Two students would stand in doorways, facing away from each other about 10yds apart. Each student had a pistol with 5 rounds. On command they could turn and fire or move out of the doorway for cover and try to work angles. If you got hit anywhere or ran out of ammo, you lost. There were a few rules (no running out of the shoot house, circling around, and ambushing your opponent) but students were allowed to play it however they wanted.
I’ve done similar drills fighting around vehicles or using more of the shoot house, this is the first time I’ve done it just using opposing doorways. It was a good illustration of some of the concepts discussed during the course and a fun end to the day.
LESSONS LEARNED –
Your shooting needs to be up to the task. There were a couple of scenarios that required extremely tight shots passed unknowns/friendlies. For my scenario, it was a home invasion with a hostage taker in my “son’s” (one of the other students) room and a second shooter in the hallway between my location and the crisis site. It required me to sort out the first engagement, go through the door to the crisis site, and make a headshot on the hostage taker.
A force-on-force class (or God-forbid, a real-world incident) is not the time to train that. It’s the time to validate the training. In the immortal words of Harry Callahan “A man’s got to know his limitations”.
Holding terrain is much easier than taking it. The “duels” at the end of class did a really nice job of highlighting the advantage to holding ground that someone else has to take. The students that owned the doorway and forced the other guy into cover were almost always the winners. Moving into space that someone else controls is dangerous as hell.
Communication needs to be practiced. The end of all of the scenarios was some kind of call of help. Either 911, or a supporting unit depending on your role. If you don’t have some kind of structure in your head for how to clearly and concisely convey information, it’s probably going to be a mess.
I have a light on my gun. I’ve carried a light on my pistol for years. I’ve used it doing building searches and low light hundreds of times. None of this class was conducted during low light but Jon made it a point to show the class how useful lights were to control an adversary’s vision. Despite that, and the fact that I carry one on my pistol, I didn’t use it a single time during force-on-force. Definitely a training gap.
OVERALL –
This was an excellent class and a ton of fun. Because the students were presented with a range of options rather than any particular SOP, we could explore different ways to solve different problems. To me, that seems very appropriate for a solo CQB class. There is just no “right” way to do it but some things work better than others.
Jon’s instruction was well structured and well delivered. He also did an excellent job of managing some difficult student issues and stayed patient with a problem student through the entire class. I’ll look for another opportunity to train with him in the future.
The scenario here was I'm home with the family, in bed, when the alarm goes off.
Once I heard stimulus (role player yelling "dad help me") I start a hasty clear to the "kids room".
Entering the hallway, I started to pie the near room when I ID'd the shooter in the entry way (known trumps the unknown). Once that shooter was reduced I entered the "kids room" where I had a hostage taker behind the friendly. I pushed hard to my left to get an angle on the hostage taker and took a single shot that hit his mask in front of his right eye.
Once he was reduced, I scooped up the hostage and moved back to the start location to hard point until help could arrive.
Key take aways:
React to stimulus - Once I heard the role player acting as my kid start yelling, this went from a systematic, to a hasty clear.
The known trumps the unknown - I left uncleared space to my rear on a couple of occasions because I was presented with a known threat or stimulus that necessitated aggressive action.
Speed is good, control is better - Only move as fast as you can make decisions and act on them.
Commo - My end of scenario commo was weak throughout. I need to work on that.