New Blood: Don’t forget the Founding Alumni Discount! (+ Suarez Comment)
You may or may not recall my post about the Founding Alumni (FA) discount. Basically, if you trained or paid for training, prior to November 10th 2016, you qualified for FA status. This gets you 20% off prices for standard classes at the new 2017 rates. So you basically train at the old 2016 prices. This does not apply to all classes, such as CQBC and Combat Patrol / Direct Action – check the class pages for that. (CP/DA is alumni only anyway, but FA discount may apply to a second attendance). It does not apply to mobile classes or ones where there is a discount anyway. So it is basically for standard classes at the VTC, and once you get into repeats of classes where no discount applies you may be eligible for FA discounts, so just email me about that.
Email me and ask.
Part of the FA status that you may have missed is that if you bring a new student to class, you get 20% off their price as well. So that is either 40% off yourself, or 20% off each depending how you want to play it.
We have a very healthy and active alumni body at MVT, but the challenge is bringing in new students, who understand how vital this training is. For example, I am trying to drum up more numbers for the July 7 – 9 Combat Team Tactics Class. The fact that this class is not full is a classic indicator that new student numbers are down, even though alumni keep coming back. The election result has had a very big part in that, across the industry, which is massively foolish.
In order to encourage new students, I am willing to be flexible with how the discount is applied. We all know how valuable CTT is, so if you want to repeat it in July, and bring someone, then of course you both get a total of 40% off. But maybe you can ‘sponsor’ or ‘send’ a new student to CTT and they come for a 20% discount, and we can discuss applying your 20% to another class that you want to do. Or even you just send someone, and they are ‘sponsored’ by a FA, and they come for a 20% discount?
Don’t try and ‘legalize’ the crap out of me on this one. I am simply trying to encourage new students, and reminding you of the existence of the FA discount. You can simply show up for class and bring someone, or you can email me and propose how we work out a ‘sponsorship’ for a new student. By offering this, I am of course opening myself up to a wave for fraud and abuse, but I hope to avoid that. The key thing is that new students come and train. You also have to email me with what you want to do, if it is more complex than the simple FA discount offer, before you start making assumptions that I am going to go with it!
I look forward to hearing from you, and seeing you at repeat classes, preferably with new students in tow.
Email me before working out complex multi-layer discount plans, with variable interest rates, and all the rest, please! I wouldn’t have to say that, if I hadn’t seen it all before!
See at bottom for links.
On the note of tactical training with a warrior mindset, Shooter in Texas sent me the following essay, which is by Gabe Suarez. I do not have the original link, it was sent via email. I offer no opinion on Suarez, because I know nothing about him, but this article hits the mark:
Profound? No, simply an observation from life. It happens in police/military circles as well as in any industry and in society as well. We see it in the gun world…perhaps especially now that the specters of Hillary and Obama have passed into unpleasant history.
Finally, they think, they can now be like “normal” people.
Point out that we are still at war with Jihadists, and that the Urban Terrorist Movement (Antifa, BLM, etc.) have joined the war against “normal people”, and they discount the entire discussion. It is as if being normal, now they are immune from all those evil possibilities that people like me consider when we leave the house in the morning.
But I would wonder what the motivation was in the first place. Excellence in all things, skill-at-arms being one of them, should be the driving force in life rather than a reaction to the perception of the presence or absence of danger.
Thus, if peace and love broke out everywhere, the martially-inclined individual would still purse his studies as if he was to face the fight of a lifetime in the next few days.
The hobbyist doesn’t hold such a position. They see themselves as “average guys” and hold the position that “civilians” don’t need to concern themselves with such things. Here is a short post from a few years ago. It bears repeating.
***
I want to introduce you to an imaginary man – John Smith. John Smith is a private citizen. That means that he is not hampered by political directives at federal, state or local levels. But John thinks he is “just a civilian”. John has sought mediocrity his entire life. It is what he was trained for since birth….don’t make waves…be a nice guy…you can’t do this…you can’t do that. And sadly, he believed it all and grew up to be…a good boy.
Then John realized he’d better buy a pistol and carry it because his neighbor was robbed, beaten, raped and brutalized, and the police did not come in time for anything but the report.
So he went to the local gunstore and allowed the over-sized cigar smoking salesman to patronize him into buying a double action only Smith and Wesson because it had several safeties and a real heavy and long trigger pull. “It was great for a mediocrity-seeking civilian like John”, announced the salesman as he wiped doughnut juice on his Police Revolver Club t-shirt.
John asked about the Glocks and M&Ps, and that SIG with the Red Dot on it that looked so modern and cool. “Oh no…those are for professionals son….you are a civilian…you don’t need anything like that”.
Money was not the issue, but being a mediocrity seeker, and not wanting to be guilty of the sin of arguing, or being presumptuos about his status as a man, he bought the Smith and Wesson and went home. He did go to a free handgun clinic at the local range after he passed his CCW class. But he was a civilian and did not need to go to one of those “commando schools”, or learn how to kill things like that ad said. And he certainly didn’t need to lift those intimidating weights which he read were bad for you anyway. He was a civilian and didn’t like carrying a gun in the first place. And he rarely did.
So John went on with his life doing his best to avoid bad things, bad places and bad people. But one day, as much as he tried, trouble came to him. He found himself at church when some crazy wild eyed bearded guy decided today was his jihad day and began shooting people as he yelled “Allah Akbar!”. The congregation was also full of mediocrity seekers and those that did not get shot outright, ran away like properly conditioned civilians should.
But John was torn about running with the rest of the herd, or fighting. He knew that he needed to do something, but that “something” was nothing he had any skill for. Still, he drew his pistol and tried to aim it but it felt strange in his hands….after all civilians did not need to train like Delta Force so John spent his free time playing tennis, and catching butterflies with his wife instead. Speakimng of his wife, at that moment a round from the terrorist caught his frozen wife in the face and dropped her…as he turned to see her fall three rounds hit him in the chest, two piercing his heart…..and the last thought that he had before he lapsed into blissfully unconscious death was,
“……but I am just a civilian”.
You want that for yourself? No? Look…you can be a warrior, or you can be a sissy. That is that. Remember when you were ten years old? What did you play? Did you play nice guy butterfly collector? Were you enthralled by Mister Rogers? Did you daydream about getting along with everyone?
NO!!
You played games where you were the hero….YOU killed the freaking dragon! YOU saved the maiden! YOU saved the day. Your games, like all normal little boys were filled with storming castles, sinking ships, and blowing up enemy planes.
So what happened to you? You became…..socialized and civilized. You suppressed yourself to fit in with lesser men…and the women that wanted them. You became domesticated because you thought that was what you were supposed to become.
Become the warrior your heritage calls you to be – whether your profession is an accountant or a dentist or a teacher…or a gunfighter. A man is a warrior because he says he is, and he lives it everyday. But that is not what we are supposed to be.
I would not consider life worth living, nor myself successful, if I had to pretend to be other than what I am for the approval and acceptance of lesser men.
Be the warrior in your heart. Live as a warrior. Watch how your life changes!
If you want to be truly dangerous to your enemies, train at MVT.
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