In my classes I often have students who claim to be shooters who get tired before they have fired all of their 125 rounds of qualifying ammo. Many recreational, weekend shooters don't shoot this much at one time.
One guy came into my shop and confidently informed me that he was a "shooter" and had no bad habits. He had two.
What is the problem here? Is there even a problem?
Here is the thing. Training for an activity, whether in a classroom or on your own, is usually quite different from dabbling in the activity for partial self-gratification. Which you choose could depend on your own desire to improve your personal best, to compete with other people, and your own self-discipline.Neither (training or dabbling) is subjectively better than either. It all depends on what you want. However, don't make the mistake of confusing the two.
One version of the typical weekend shooter takes a couple of guns out to whatever range they use, puts up some targets and fires maybe 20-50 rounds through each. How many rounds often depends on the cost of the ammo. Ammo can be expensive so shooters limit what they buy and limit the number of rounds they shoot.
Another weekend shooter buys as much of the cheapest ammunition they can buy, takes it out and fires it off with no thought to skill set, or improvement. They just go out to blow off as much ammo as possible. Nothing wrong with this but it is not training.
So what IS training? Training is a repetitive physical and mental exercise that is followed on a regular basis. You can do this on your own or in a classroom.
The following is an example of self-training.
My fellow blogger MetalXWorksDivas, started shooting a year or so ago. She took my CCW class to get a basic idea of what was involved. She is a natural shooter. Excellent accuracy right from the beginning. Accuracy however, wasn't enough. There is more to shooting than just being able to take deliberate aim and hit a target, just as there is more to swimming than just a dog-paddle.
What was next for her was to take two more classes. Another state's CCW, and a gun safety class for women i.e. MORE training.
Then she found a local indoor range, bought a year's membership, and started shooting every week. Around 100 rounds of 9mm per session. This range features an IDPA match every Thursday and she signed up. Now she is regularly firing around 200 rounds a week. I built her a shotgun, set up an AK-47 for her, now she is shooting in carbine and shotgun matches. She isn't in the classroom, but because these matches are repetitive and force a person to keep shooting and analyze their mistakes, I would never argue that this wasn't training. She has fun, she learns from this, and she improves her skills all the time.
What stops the average weekend shooter from training? Cost is an issue, but it is also mind set; what the shooter thinks they should be accomplishing. Most American shooters are obsessed with the long range shot as being the one that demonstrates their skills. Many shooters see this as being the only way to demonstrate their skills. With a handgun, deliberate shots at 25 yards that hit a bullseye or a pop can is considered Good Shooting. I won't argue this, but this this teaches you nothing about defensive shooting, and unless you are competing in 25 yard matches nothing about target shooting. It only demonstrates that you can hit a target.
One of the wonderful things about the shooting sports is the instant feedback one gets from their activity. Most weekend shooters set an immediate goal of as-many-rounds-as-it-takes-to-hit-the-target. Once this goal is reached, the sights are adjusted, the box of ammo is empty, they are done. They feel accomplished, walk away. Nothing wrong with this, all shooters do these things, but it isn't training. It is self-gratification.
If you are going to learn to shoot defensively you need to go beyond most CCW classes. Set up a training program for yourself like the Diva did, or enroll in a shooting class. There are lots of them out there for whatever type of shooting you may wish to do. Defensive pistol, Sniper, Long-range rifle, Tactical Rifle, Shotgun. There are plenty of classes out there which allow you to improve your skills.
3 comments:
shooting 4 idpa matches, one steel and one 'action' pistol match taught me more about my shooting than i'd picked up in a lifetime. and i did all that in one month!
yup. and safety! the emphasis on safety is really eye-opening in any public match.
When you are in pistol training you should have confidence and concentrate on your target and trigger. Trigger control is one of the toughest things in pistol training which you have to learn seriously and get success over your target as well.
personal protection training
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