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Speaking as someone who has been to his school, I can tell you that what Clint teaches is as useful today as it was then. The most telling part of his teaching happens when you begin actually shooting, though. I remember walking into his office in Mountain Home, and his first statement to me was: Leave your ego at the door, because I am going to trash it the first day". He made this statement not out of arrogance, but because he knew I was an IPSC shooter. What you don't see (or feel) in his videos is the sheer intensity of the actual hands-on shooting that is done in his courses. No DVD can capture this, believe me.
The biggest blow my ego ever suffered occurred when I entered his kill houses to clear them. Inside, I found that targets that I nailed with double-taps in the critical mass area didn't move or fall away, signaling that they had been neutralized; I also found that when failing to "slice the pie" properly, a hidden paintball gun began shooting me rapid fire, all over the place up and down my body.
I also found out that the same thing happened when you charged up stairways too quickly as well. he also had innocent bystanders that popped into hallways after you fired the first shot. Of course, all of his videos may seem basic, but I can assure everyone that if you spend the money and go to his school you will:
1) Be very humbled by everything you don't know.
2) The "M" card you have in IPSC or IDPA is not even worth the paper it is printed on (just entering one of his kill houses will teach you this quickly).
What I gleaned from Mr. Smith all those years ago was this: Gunfighting is a very brutal thing that often erupts very quickly. Your tactics to survive one, therefore, must be as efficient as possible. Don't buy into the latest "magical fad" because there is no magical fad. There are time tested and battle-proven techniques that can be practiced and mastered to handle just about any situation, the key is to learn them and learn them well. Clint learned his craft from the founding father of our discipline, Jeff Cooper. While many others have come along and caused our techniques to evolve over time, the core principles remain the same.
So while Clint may seem to some as "basic", I assure you that he is that way because he knows what works and what doesn't from actual experience.....
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"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined". - Patrick Henry
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