Kristen Day – Women Training Firearms With Kristen

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. I have a great friend of mine on the show today. I’m so excited about having Kristen Day. We were talking just before the show. How long have we known each other? I don’t know who introduced us, I don’t know, but it’s been a very long time and I’m so excited to have you on the show today. I know you have a business called a visual business. We’re not talking about that today, but people might be interested that you do that work so they can go out and take a look. But Kristen with Women Training Firearms with Kristen WTF? I’m so glad that you’re with me today. Welcome to the show Kristen.

Kristen Day: Thank you Trisha. Super exciting as always to chat with you. It’s always a good time and lots of laughs usually.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I’m pretty sure we get a lot of that out before we started the show today, right? Uh, let’s start with I know your favorite part. Let’s talk about you a little bit. So tell us a little bit about Kristen and then let’s talk about WTF.

Kristen Day: So well I’m from originally from California. Virginia military kid moved down here 11 years ago and was kind of forced to start my own business. That’s the official business part, and I’ve always been interested in firearms and wanted to be a cop. When I was younger, it just didn’t pan out. But I always still shot, um, you know, pistols and I’ve enjoyed it. Found a nice little group because hello, Texas that I could shoot with some other ladies and got into competition. And in getting into competition, people ask me, hey, you know, I have questions. You should help me by gun. You should teach me, you should pay me. So hence my business started. So that’s kind of the nuts and bolts, you know, married to young girl. Well, old young girls and out of the house. Empty nester. No. No no dogs, no kids. Just a husband now. And I enjoy traveling for shooting matches. So that’s the the The Nutcracker of Kristen. No, I love it.

Trisha Stetzel: And, um, tell me or tell the audience a little bit more about these shooting competitions because you and I connected on this a few years back and I’m like, there’s such a thing. I guess I knew, but I didn’t really know. So talk a little bit more about these shooting competitions that you do.

Kristen Day: Absolutely. And actually, that’s funny because I was talking to a gal at a clothing store yesterday and I said something about shooting competition. She goes, oh, my friend does shooting competitions. I said, oh cool, where where does she do it? And she’s like, oh, well, she just goes to XYZ range. And I’m like, okay, maybe that’s not a shooting competition. So there are groups that you can gather. So I think it’s just a matter of I kind of going back to your point that sometimes people don’t understand what it is. So if you like to go shooting, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a competition. Um, you might go to a group that has maybe like, um, like a some sort of match or fun thing at the range. That’s not the same thing. So I’m more of actual active pistol shooting. Um, and Idpa is one of them for International Defensive Pistol Association. Uspsa is another one United States Practical Shooting Association, I believe it is. And then of course, Steel Challenge is another one that’s pretty popular. Um, IPsec, which is IPSC, is kind of a similar version over in the other side of, you know, across the pond, so to speak. So, um, but it’s basically you’re moving and shooting.

Kristen Day: You have a target array, you have, um, steel things that you have to hit. There’s moving things that you have to hit. You’re all on the clock. Everything’s done super safe where everybody’s unloaded, walking around with holsters and guns in their holsters. But everything’s unloaded until you get up to the line. When it’s your turn to shoot the safety officer, so will say load to make ready. You load and make ready. And then beep Timer goes off. Everything’s lost. You forget what you were gonna do. You sometimes you don’t, sometimes you do. And you basically run and shoot. But if you drop a mag, you have to decide, am I going to pick it up? Do I load another one? If you shoot extra because maybe you missed a target. Everything’s on the clock. And this is also why I tell um ladies because I train mostly ladies. That’s really important to to do something like this, because it’s not necessarily like I want to win, which is fun by, by the way, but it’s fun. And it’s also it’s good preparation for like what happens because you we for most people practice at a range where you’re, you’ve got down lane and then you’ve got your target that’s at the other end.

Kristen Day: You pick up your gun, you shoot, shoot, shoot. You’re not running. You’re not running up range, you’re not running down range. You’re not moving side to side. You’re not reloading as you shoot. Whereas you think about it at your house that’s like that. You know, your house is not going to be like a down lane, you know, not moving, you know, static target kind of thing. So and then, of course, you know, when stuff like that happens, you’re able to think on the fly, whereas because you’re preparing for it. Whereas in your house, if something goes down and somebody breaks in, you’re like, what am I going to do? You get that tunnel vision. So it allows you to kind of prepare for like, I’ve already got all this, like the shooting, the guns ready. All these things are muscle memory. Now I just have to be focusing on who’s the bad guy, where is he at, and how do I stay safe versus is it loaded into can I rack the slide? Like what happens if it gets jammed? I mean, it’s going to be muscle memory jam fix. Boom. Moving on. You know. Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. Thanks for sharing that I there by the way, you guys need to go out to Kristen’s website and check out some cool pictures that she has out there because she’s definitely a BA. Yes.

Kristen Day: Well, I will tell you about about pictures. I had to use all of my own pictures because, uh, stock photo sites, when you’re looking for women and guns, they’re not quite appropriate. Um, they’re usually not safe either. And, um, we have enough people that are not in the two way realm or not in the same political, um, side that I am, that, you know, or don’t want us to, you know, have guns and, you know, that’s their choice. But, um, uh, we I always work to, uh, show anybody in the sport at a good light being safe. So, like, to put a picture with somebody, you know, with their gun pointed to their head is not going to be appropriate. So, you know, I always make sure when I even take pictures of my students that everything looks good, because all it takes is one person who’s an anti-gun person to go, oh, they’re doing this. And it’s like, girl, you don’t know. You weren’t there. You don’t know so well.

Trisha Stetzel: And it really is about safety. And I know that that’s something that is, you know, near and dear to your heart, which is why you teach the classes. So let’s talk a little bit about safety, because we do have in our state of Texas we’ve got open carry. Uh, and you don’t necessarily have to have a safety course to carry a gun around. Um, so let’s talk a little bit about that and why taking a safety course is so important.

Kristen Day: Absolutely. So and I’ve gone through the safety and I tell my ladies to I’m, I’m 100 about safety and I’m ridiculous about it because if you practice safety all the time, even with a wooden gun or a plastic gun and demonstration, you’ll never see me sweeping a person. It’s always down into or outside or away from them, or I’ll turn my body a different direction. It’s it’s always safety. Always. And not only that, but it’s like, how do you pick up a cup? You pick up a cup with your hand wrapped, you know, around it you’re not walking around with your pointer finger outside your cup indexing it, you know. So and and I’ll tell ads I’m like, all right, finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot. And they’re all nodding and they’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know like I got this. But man, when I tell you when we get to the range or we start putting the that everything else takes over and it’s just like finger, finger, finger, finger. Oh I didn’t realize it because they’re all in the moment. So once you start practicing that habit you’re putting into muscle memory. So that’s the that’s one of the points of the safety side. And why I think it’s important to your point. Additionally, your license to carry basically teaches you the safety components, the laws, the laws that you should be aware of.

Kristen Day: And I think it’s important to know where to go for more information. I may forget on my ah, is this place a is this place a 36 or 30 out seven and then somebody’s like, well, what’s a 36 and which one’s which one’s which and which can I carry out? Well, I can’t remember everything. You know, lawyers, they have tons of books because they have to refer back to these legal things. So I have some apps. Um, actually, it’s on my website that I use to remind me of some of these things or reciprocity, because I travel a lot for shooting competitions. Uh, just because I’m able to do, what, a lot more, let’s say more than I. More of what I want. Of course, I can carry, you know, more places because I have a license to carry, and we don’t require, um, through constitutional carry, don’t require you to have a license. That doesn’t mean you can go to any state and have the same laws. So reciprocity will remind you what states, uh, what laws you have to follow. Like, um, if you pulled over, like, are you required to to declare that you are carrying and that you are a card carrying member? Um, you know, those some of those things, it tells you what what your reciprocity is in these, um, in this in the app.

Kristen Day: And I just think it’s important to know the laws and my, my rule of thumb is if I were to if there was two people do the exact same incident and go to court and one is does not have their license, and And then I have my license that I think that I will look a little bit better with the law because of the fact that I took this class. I have a license to carry, and I’m showing people the Anti-gunners know that I take this seriously, and that I wanted to learn the laws and I wanted to be safer. So I think that I would look better with the, you know, in a better light of the law. That’s that’s kind of how I see it. Yes. You’re not required to have it in the state of Texas, but I can carry more places because I do I can buy a gun quicker. And I know that’s not a thing for anti-gunners. You know, they’re not favorable for. But, um, but you still we already went through the background check, so it’s not like I’m not going through the background check. I just already did that. And I went through it extensively and there were renewal. So so that’s kind of my my point on that. Okay.

Trisha Stetzel: No, I think it’s great. And um, from a safety course perspective, what you’re teaching are all of your courses around licensed to carry or LTC or do you offer other types of safety courses?

Kristen Day: So I don’t particularly offer like, hey, I’m offering XYZ class on Friday or Saturday. I basically get people who say, I’m looking to do X and I say, well, what’s your experience? What’s your comfort level? And I create my material based on that. But nine times out of ten, I do a lot of one on 1 or 2 on ones. And and then it’s basically I teach, of course, all about safety. Talk about the fundamentals. Um, like stance grips, um, I, I dominance as well as what parts of the gun, the parts of your bullet, the bullet travel because, uh, again, focusing on women. We like to know all the things. You put a gun down in front of a guy who may be comfortable or semi comfortable with a gun. He’s going to pick it up. Bing, bing bing bing. He feels good. A woman, you put a gun in front of her, whether she’s experienced or, let’s say, less than experienced to no experience. We’re going to look at it and go, hmm, what happens if I do this? What happens if I do that? Well, what about this thing? What is this thing? Do we want to know all the things? Because women, we do things emotionally, so we know this can kill somebody. So a guy, guys know that too. But we are going to feel that more, um, we’re going to feel it differently. And because we do everything on emotion. So, um, I think that’s really important to, to understand. So my class is catered to the people. I do a lot of situational awareness. So I do small groups on situational awareness. Some um, I do some basic safety and some fundamentals.

Kristen Day: But obviously you can’t shoot in somebody’s house. But I do a lot of dry fire. And I like to show people that you can dry fire in a house so that you will turn around and do it. Because if I were to say, Tricia, you know, I know you haven’t drive for, let’s say, ever. And I’m like, hey, you know, you can drive fire in your house. And you’d be like, what? No, I’m not going to do that. But if if we did it in a session at, say, my house or your house and, um, you’re like, wow, we did this. I can do this. I can do this because I did it with her. So I, I like to do that that way. So that first of all, in a home setting, it’s more comfortable than it is, you know, at the range where you got people watching you, men and people judging. That’s kind of how we see it, right? Whether they are or not, it’s another story and it’s a lot more noise. And so now our anxiety levels are a little different. Whereas if you’re in the comfort of somebody’s home, it’s comfortable. It’s and it’s just more lackadaisical as far as comfort level, not safety level. I’m still 100% safety. But talking about my house, it’s like, oh, I shoot in this direction because of this. I shoot in this direction because of this. This is not a good direction. Think about how your bed is, what your. So we kind of talk a little bit about that self-defense thing as well. So all the things all the things.

Trisha Stetzel: You know, and, um, I think, you know, from, um, from the ears of the listeners, they can tell that women are typically your target, uh, for these types of safety courses. And I think it’s really cool, Kristen, that you’re catering to women because it’s not something that we might seek out. So let’s talk about marketing. We talked a little bit about this before we started the show. And how do you market these safety courses to women. How do they know about them.

Kristen Day: Well it’s pretty much word of mouth. So like we were talking about before, it was like I don’t really market. And then we kind of drill down on that a little bit. And there’s I think there’s a huge difference between marketing and soliciting. So marketing is basically networking. Um, networking and uh, paid advertising is more soliciting because you’re actually paying to get an audience. I haven’t really had to solicit my business, um, because word of mouth happens, and I’ve been networking since I’ve had my business in Texas, uh, 11 years for my one business. And then, of course, now my second one. And people know because I post pictures of me going to the range and my competitions and I’ll post videos. And so it just kind of gets around actually, even, um, some guys that I shoot with, they, they refer me to their wives or their friends that are female actually just got one recently. It was a girl who was being, uh, stalked, and she and her husband, um, want to be better prepared. He actually, ironically, was a military vet, a marine Corps, but he wants his wife to learn, you know, all the things, because of course, it was a long time since he learned how to shoot.

Kristen Day: And of course, as you know, in the military, nine times out of ten you’re learning more about rifles. And it’s not like we’re going to conceal a rifle in our clothing, or so it’s firearms. Uh, sorry. Uh, handguns. It’s going to be what we’re going to use more, uh, more. So, so and that’s where my focus is, is on that. So I have done couples before, but that’s usually because a husband and wife want to learn together. Um, or they or he knows and is coming to maybe comfort her. But I remind him, you’re a keep your mouth shut. You’re only a good active participant. Um, not a negative one and not a like. Oh, yeah. And this and this. No. Like, if you want to hear, if you’re here to learn, you’re here to learn. Um. And I’ve taught some men that have taken classes and they learn something. So because there’s, because, you know, you think about it, they don’t need they don’t usually take classes to learn. We take classes to learn. Um, as far as is this as concerned? Um, as men though don’t because some things come innate to them. You know, that’s just a thing that’s kind of naturally they’re good at. So yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. And I think that I’m just going to call it social marketing. You’re really good at talking to people and letting them know what it is that you do. And you’re so adamant about safety and the things that you do. And you’ve always been an amazing partner in every way that I’ve ever worked with you. So I appreciate that very much. Uh, how can people what’s the best way for folks to get in touch with you? Let’s say, uh, if there are a couple of ladies that are listening to the show today and they’re like, you know what, I think this would be a really great thing for me to get some other people together and get on Kristen’s calendar. How does that work?

Kristen Day: Awesome. Let me I want to finish one other comment on. The other thing is the social networking is basically our social marketing. It’s basically networking. It’s it’s about being top of mind and having communications. And how is somebody going to know what you offer if you never bring it up again? Like the clothing lady yesterday we were just casually talking about clothes. And then of course, because I carry on my person, I was like, oh, well, I need to have something because I shoot competition and I choose to carry, I need to have blah, blah, blah. She goes, oh, and then of course, you know, it always comes up. So if, if you and it’s in a noninvasive way or a non like, you know, like I’m not trying to sell to you way. It’s just kind of like, oh, well, I do this and I like to do this. It’s it’s nice when it comes up casually. But so to answer your question, uh, basically WTF Kristen so if you were to, uh, go on to Google or any of those internet browsers and you type in WTF? Kristen Kristen. Com it’ll redirect to my church my church version, which is women training firearms, Christian Comm.

Kristen Day: I also have a Facebook page, uh, group. Excuse me if you search for it. It’s, um, it’s private. Just because we’re all women, we want to be frank about how we have conversations, and I just kind of keep it that way for right now. So if you do a search for WTF Christian in a Facebook group, I’ll show up. And as long as you’re a lady, I will let you in. And it’s more of like a come lurk learn and just, you know, get to know me better. And if you’re interested, um, also, my website has my contact information, quite honestly, my phone number, my email address. And, uh, you can just reach out and say, hey, I want to learn one on one. My me and my bestie, my bestie. And I want to learn, I can learn, I can do it that way. Or if you’re like, hey, I want to do more of a situational awareness class, a little bit about firearm safety and maybe do a class after that. Um, I do small groups as well, so you’re amazing.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you for coming on with me today. Um, any any parting words? Like anything top of mind for you, for people out there that may be on the fence about taking a safety course, they haven’t taken one. Or maybe they have a gun and they haven’t picked it up in years. What piece of advice would you give people?

Kristen Day: So glad you said that. So two things. Uh, shooting is a perishable skill. If you don’t use it, you lose it. Um, I dry fire, uh, usually every other day or so, and I live fire, uh, at least once a week, and I keep my skills up, and that’s, uh, when you don’t use it, you’re going to start to lose it. And number two, which should actually be number one, is you are important enough. I have if I had a dollar every time I heard a woman tell me, well, I want to do these lessons with you. After soccer practice is over, after school starts, after summer is over, after the kids you know are old enough after this. And I always say, and actually, I wrote a blog on it, bad guys don’t care. You need to get training now so that you are ready when you know what hits the fan, because the bad guys, they’re not going out to get trained. They’re not getting their license to carry, they’re not obtaining their guns legally. They’re doing everything illegally. And they don’t care that you’re ready or not. So they’re going to take advantage of you not being ready. So you need to make yourself a priority, make your family a priority and just get it done. I love bam yeah. Bam.

Trisha Stetzel: Uh, Kirsten, thank you so much for being on with me today. I really appreciate you taking the time. I know how passionate you are about this particular topic, and I know that you’re amazing at what you do, and I hope that people take your advice and put themselves first and their family first. Uh, because that is really what matters here.

Kristen Day: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Trisha, for having me, I appreciate it.

Trisha Stetzel: You’re very welcome. And that’s all the time we have for today’s show. Join us next time for another exciting episode of Houston Business Radio. Until then, stay tuned, stay inspired, and keep thriving in the Houston business community.