End of the Year Commentary...

So, time to look at my shooting goals from this past year and find out how I did.

On the defensive tactics side:

DT Goal: Attend other shooting classes. Observe DT, in additional to shooting techniques. See if anyone seems to really understand the "tactics" part of CQT. Use further information to refine the classes I intend to teach, particularly with regard to tactical thinking, and defensive thinking. Flush out curriculum guides with more depth and detail.

Class-wise, I only made it to one external class this past year. My goal was more, but after the first one, I decided against the higher-level courses from that particular instructor. Not necessarily because the class was bad (it wasn’t, though it was a little narrow in viewpoint and opinion) but because there wasn’t anything new in it, nor were the training drills and instructional correction any different or more effective than I’d seen in the past.

Again---this doesn’t make it bad. It just means (given a limited amount of time and training funds) I’d rather spend them both on something different that’ll help me grow more as a shooter/instructor.

I do note that when I run into an instructor, one useful thing to find out it not only how much training they’ve had, but where. More importantly, what the breadth of their training was like. For example, the training class I went to this past year had as its instructor someone who has indeed had a lot of training---almost all of which was either LEO-related, or from one singular organization. That organization may have been good, but it was certainly true that sometimes the instructor spoke the Gospel According to the Organization.

Doing that leads to a certain narrowness of perception, and occasionally a set of movements/techniques that aren’t necessarily optimum, along with the (seemingly obligatory) comments about how martial arts training isn’t effective versus firearms.

[sigh] That gets really old, particularly when it is spoken by someone who’s hand-to-hand movement versus a firearm is basic, at best. This isn’t meant to be a slam on the instructor, mind you. It is certainly true, however, that if your understanding of a particular topic is narrow, you shouldn’t make sweeping statements.

One of the things that has come to mind from a curriculum perspective is that many places really don’t teach a shooting class that goes between the “intro” class and the “defensive tactics” class. Seriously---DT classes assume a certain amount of knowledge and skill. Intro classes get you started safely. How do people manage to get from the intro level to the DT level?

Don’t just tell me “practice”---because if someone just goes to a weekend Intro class (even one of mine, which includes more hands-on shooting than most) they still don’t really know a lot of what they might need to effectively practice anything more than basic bullseye shooting. And DT classes assume you can do a lot more at the beginning of the class!

So one of the things I’ve done is create a “fundamentals” course. In many ways, this came about because of Manny Bragg’s influence on how I view instruction. His Level I course (for competition, true) really takes each person and works with them on the fundamentals of shooting. His focus is different than mine would be, but the fact remains that most people’s shooting fundamentals really aren’t that good! Even people who are very good shooters sometimes have aspects of their fundamentals that are shaky. They’ve learned to work around them, but the holes are still there.

And mostly, no one has classes to analyze and fix your fundamentals.

Well, now I do. ☺ People who have taken an intro class, and done a bit of range time practicing bullseye, or people who have been shooting for years but want an analysis of their fundamentals (which really are what separate decent shooters from very skilled shooters)---this new class will give you the knowledge and skill base needed to practice further, to get better at shooting, and to prepare you for DT classes.


DT Practice: From a DT perspective, work on shooting on the move, reactional draw/move/shoot, and force-on-force drills for CQT retention, and CQT space/acquisition/shoot practice.


I’ve spent some time working on my own skills for this. That’s just practice. Need more, but that’ll always be true. No matter how good I get, more practice will always be necessary. Shooting skills are perishable.

The main thing to review, however, is that we had a CQT course at the dojang. One of the best things that helped me prepare for this was a book on how to safely set up force-on-force drills and scenario training: Training at the Speed of Life, by Kenneth R. Murray. The book itself doesn’t give any specifics on scenarios and drills directly---what it DOES do is talk about the psychological background required for successful training, along with some serious discussions of how to maintain adequate safety while having people point real guns at each other. In general, I was very happy to find out that the procedures that I had planned actually covered almost all of the safety guidelines that Murray’s book suggested, though there were a few other things I added.

I’ve already written about how other people see CQT courses (apparently, if you’ve taken a DT course, that means you can teach CQT) so I won’t repeat it. The class seemed to go well, and many of the students want to meet again, perform more drills, and work with a resisting opponent more.

On the competition side:


Competition Technique Goal 1: Practice reloading such that in shooting videos, reloading no longer forces wait times between shooting episodes. A specific reloading speed is not the goal (so, no specific reloading time), but instead a consistent ability to reload within the time necessary while moving during stages.

Competition Technique Goal 2: Practice distance accuracy, such that consistently I can achieve 2 A hits at speed on a 30 yard target, and from 50 yards consistently hit steel plates during slow fire.

So, did I meet my goal? The answer here is-----somewhat. It is certainly true that my reloads are a bit better, and my distance accuracy is considerably better. It is also most certainly true that I have a long way to go on both of those issues.

The two Level I classes I took with Manny this past year showed me several things I can do to increase my accuracy, and as I made Master much earlier than expected, showed that it was working well. I’ve been working further, and as an example, my Bianchi scores (from the first match early in the year to the second match late in the year) increased significantly. In addition, while my shooting (according to some match videos) hasn’t increased in speed significantly, I am both getting more A-hits, and significantly reducing the number of follow-up shots necessary on steel.

Much practice is still required. Obviously. To that end, one of the things I’m doing this coming year is going out for a week of training at the Rogers Shooting School in Ellijay, GA. If you haven’t heard of it, let us suffice to say that it is----difficult. (This, by the way, is seriously understating the case.)


Overall Competition Goal:
In the long term, reaching Master class is the goal, but isn't the goal specifically this year--instead, the goal is to consistently shoot to my level of ability for all stages in a match. That, coupled with the technique goals given above, should be sufficient for the moment.

Then, after I made Master class in May:
I've been looking at some of the "skills tests" worksheets and lists that several shooting coaches (and GMs) make available, in terms of what they think are important. For my level I think I have a decent grasp of most of them, except for reloading (still fumble those, and I shouldn't!) and long-distance accuracy. (Distance meaning accuracy past 15 yards.) I'm certainly not perfect at the others, but I do all right. That distance thing, though---I'm just very, very inconsistent. I can make those hits, I just don't always have the discipline to do so.


…so you see that I kept those two main technique goals throughout the year. Too bad I didn’t work on them as much as I should have. I am better---but there is still a LONG way to go. Those two aspects of my shooting are significantly behind some of the rest of my skill sets.

Some good things happened this year---I won the Area 3 Championship in the Production division. Note: this doesn’t mean I won high overall, just that I had the highest score out of all of the competitors from Area 3. I was actually 3rd overall, behind two grandmasters. I can live with that, at the moment. (Next year, though….)

I also went to the Nationals in Las Vegas, and had a decent match, though I didn’t completely shoot up to my level. The first two days went well, until the last stage on the second day when I received 5 procedural penalties for something that I still think was a stage procedure description error. [sigh] My third day, after that, wasn’t quite as good. I still managed to get 25th overall in Production, so that is a respectable showing for a first time ever. Still debating on whether or not I’m going back this coming year…I’d like to go, but the dates are problematic.

So, overall—did I meet my goals last year? If one was feeling generous, one would probably say that yes, I performed work towards each of my goals last year, and progress was demonstrated. That being said, it is certainly true that more could have occurred. I was talking with our Sectional Coordinator for USPSA, and he made some comments about high-level USPSA shooters, mentioning that to shoot competitively at my level, I need to be dry-fire practicing multiple hours per week---and he’s right.

There is a large gap between GM and M in this sport---one much larger than you would expect from the classifier requirements. The question is, do I really want to spend that much of my rather-small free time into working towards GM? I’m not sure yet, and I think answering that question will be a part of determining my competition goals for the coming year.

DT-wise---I need to spend more time practicing. What I really need is a training partner, I think. Currently, the people I train with are all learning from me, and so when we train together, I spend most of the time working on their issues, instead of working on my own. I don’t begrudge that (most of the time) because I thoroughly enjoy teaching. But it is certainly true that if I had a training partner of similar skills, we could work together and push each other farther.

I think at the moment, I’m going to set up a training schedule for myself that includes more alone training-time than has occurred in the past two years, so I can concentrate exclusively on my skill base. I’ll still go shooting with other people quite a bit, but I need to make certain I’m getting the work done that I need, also.

In other news:

We seem to have a line on a range area we can use for the classes I want to teach. It is extremely likely that one of the new things I’ll be discussing in this coming year is a schedule of training courses I’m presenting, and some discussions of how they went. More on that as events develop.