Student Reviews our 1 Man Room Clearing Course

I was fortunate to attend my second Warrior Poet Society ‘WPS’ class with Instructor John Lovell earlier this month in Atlanta, GA. The following is a general overview of my experience in the class.

Day One – 1 Man Room Clearing Course

I have to tell you about the location for this class. It was at an old abandoned prison. Razor wire on the fences, bars, a guard house and solitary cells. It was a pretty cool place. Like something from a zombie film. There were plenty of rooms, open areas and dark corners. Perfect.

The start of class was an introduction and safety brief. The class was made up of 9 gentlemen from all over the country. There were varying backgrounds but we all had previous firearms training. This seemed to be a new subject for most of us, it was to me for sure. First thing, John had us run a simple drill that helped highlight how little I actually knew about room clearing. This was followed by a lecture in the classroom. Terminology, principles and tactics were discussed. John kept the classroom stuff to a minimum explaining that we would all get more by seeing and doing. For the rest of the class John demonstrated all of the techniques and concepts of room clearing before having us run the drills that would build our knowledge and skill. A lot of the drill we ran were dry fire drills. John is huge on safety and safety was stressed throughout the class. We were exposed to team room clearing, just enough to give us something to compare and contrast with the one man skills we came to learn.

Lunch was a short drive to a place that served food. I got to break bread with John…by this I mean he took one of my fries while he waited for his food. There was another lesson here, always be aware of who is hungry around you. John is easy to talk to and very willing answer questions. I was able to get some answers to some questions that would help me translate what I was learning into entering unknown structures safely, unarmed, as I do on an almost daily basis (I’m a Firefighter/Paramedic).

After Lunch we got down to the one man clearing skills and techniques. Since the prison was a pretty good size John was able to have us use different areas of the facility that we hadn’t seen before. This kept us from “gaming” the drills by knowing the layout. The last drill of the day was Force on target. For this we used UTM. We all either switched out the BCGs in our ARs or used John’s UTM G17s. We used what we had learned up until that point to clear a house, finding and shooting all the bad guy targets. This went well for me until I announced I had cleared the whole house, John then showed me the target that was in the coat closet. Bad guys hide exactly were we would hide if we were bad guys, dark corners, behind doors and in closets. John then ran that same drill to give us the best picture of what we should be doing. When John would demonstrate something he would often borrow one of the student’s rifles to use. He happened to use mine for this run. The rifle is a M&P15TS, not DD or BCM level by any means, I am proud of it though and it ran smooth with the UTMs through the whole class. Anyway I was pretty stoked that John used my AR to clear a house, two A zone headshots to each target with my rifle. A good end to the day.

Day Two – 1 Man Room Clearing Course

We started right where we left off. We ran another dry fire drill to refresh yesterday’s learning. From there we moved into force on force training. We had three role players who acted as the primary opposition force, bad guys. John set up several scenarios for us to work through. The first two runs were simple room clearing through two different building we hadn’t seen before, no real scenario just clear through and shoot all the bad guys. I did ok on the first building, i didn’t get shot at least. The second building was not as good. I got shot about 30 seconds after entering. For these drills we didn’t “die” we just continued with the drill after getting shot to get the rep in. During these scenarios there was some down time while we waited our turn. This is where the WPS culture I mentioned came out. We all got to know each other and help each other out by just sharing mags or talking over concepts we learned in class. All these guys were great, warrior poets all.

After lunch, we came back to the prison for two final scenarios to bring together all we had learned. These were meant to push us to think and function under stress. The first scenario I won’t reveal. I will say that I didn’t get shot and I got the bad guys…ok one of them was a completely lucky headshot as I lost my balance and fell out from behind concealment. Not graceful or repeatable, but funny after the fact. The last scenario was an active killer. John has a video about this on YT. As you begin your run, John follows you and counts the number of people killed as you make your way to engage the threat. This is no joke and you feel the stress, screaming, yelling and gunshots as you are going towards it. I was not happy with my performance. I had seen the video and knew I needed to move quickly. Your choice is to, move fast without proper tactics to stop the killing and expose yourself to more danger, or move carefully and tactically, giving yourself the advantage while people are dying. I tried to do both instead of moving straight to the noise. I tried to use my imperfect knowledge of the layout of the prison to move quickly into a position that would, I thought, give me an advantage. I ended up running halfway around the place before I got to where in need to be. I shot the bad guys and got shot in the process, acceptable. However, too many people “died” during my run around, not acceptable. I know you’re thinking it was simulation no big deal. Well, it was the closest I have been to combat (outside of a burning building that is). I pray I am never in that situation in the real world, if i do find myself “there”, I pray I will be enough to stop the killing.

This class and the WPS has shown me what a protector is. He is someone regardless of his skills, knowledge and experience will act quickly to save others no matter the odds or personal cost. This class was a huge eye opener for me and it has changed how I see things around me. It was motivational as well,I have many areas of my skill set that I am motivated to improve on. I am by no means an operator now, but I have gained a very useful set of skills that will help me should I find myself or someone else in harm’s way.

I am a lover of people and a protector who fights for more than myself. I train my hands to fight and to heal, and train my mind to face evil. I strive to be a Warrior Poet.

1 Man Room Clearing Course with John Lovell – https://warriorpoetsupplyco.com/product/one-man-clearing/