Fire Drills

Remember back when we were kids in school?  Once a year there would be a fire drill, when we were led outside to the playground, check to be sure everyone was accounted for and then file back into class.  I don’t know of many school aged children who took it seriously.  It was a break in the monotony of our math lessons and a chance to see our friends in another classroom.  These fire drills are meant to practice the school’s emergency plan in the event of a fire at school. What if the drill included the smell of smoke or the sound of emergency vehicles?  Would we have taken the situation more seriously?

Practice time shooting at the range is no different.  To get the most out of our time and ammo, we should challenge our effort as if we were role-playing our emergency plan.  We don’t want to simply go through the motions lazily like when we were kids walking in line for those fire drills. Once we have mastered the fundamentals and our shots are consistent, increasing the level of complexity or adding a source of stress to our practice is the next step.  Stress adds realism to your shooting experience.  When controlled carefully, a small amount of pressure while shooting can benefit you exponentially when a real emergency occurs.

For a new shooter, just thinking about the fundamentals you need to perform is enough to add a sufficient amount of pressure.  Competition between friends for a higher score or the loud bang of a rifle in the shooting stall next to you can take you off your target.  In fact, changing the location of the range or even the firearm used produces a high level of anxiety with a new shooter.  Learning to work within those parameters is a great place to start.  With more experience, one would not be as easily affected by these circumstances.

Let’s take it one step further.  Last month I became certified as an Instructor to teach the NRA course Personal Protection in the Home.  One of the training exercises was to first shoot a group of six shots “leisurely” hitting the center of the target.  There was no time constraint, no rush, just shoot at your own pace.  We marked our grouping and were instructed to shoot two shots as fast as we could, successfully placing them in the same area as our previous ones.  Our instructor timed us and called out our missed shots, driving us to go faster and faster.

Even this small amount of pressure, which I was not accustomed to, revealed several things.  Increased heart rate, a tendency to jerk the trigger and rushing to make the shot indicated my level of anxiety.  The addition of a harmless timer and the mild embarrassment of missed shots being exposed for all to hear were more than enough to degrade everyone’s performance – especially mine.  However, each successful pair solidified my confidence and experience under these conditions.   I knew what to expect and every effort came more natural than the last.  After the first few drills I began to relax and the startled feeling from the clock didn’t affect me as it did on my first few attempts.

Working through malfunctions and reloads at top speed will certainly improve your response time until you are no longer thinking about shooting, but simply shooting.  Recording your speed on these tasks will give you a baseline and show your progress.  Any demonstration of skill requires some amount of pressure in order for us to improve.  Our end goal should be to establish the muscle memory and mental stamina to offset the body’s natural reactions in an emergency.    Think back at your school’s fire drill, the goal was to get you out of the building safely, quickly and, most of all, calmly.

Step two: After the basics

Sometimes when I ask the ladies, “what are your shooting goals?” they say “I want to shoot better.” I usually follow up with “what do you mean by better?” And they give me a look that means, “duh better”.  This has prompted me to outline a few options for those who want to shoot “better”.

Fundamentals, Target Shooting and Recreational Fun

There are a few examples of beginner shooting goals right there in the heading.  Work on your fundamentals, so they are the BEST they can be.  You can perform these without thinking and your shots are on target every time.  If you were a robot instead of a breathing human being, your fundamentals would be a precise program written for perfection.

Target shooting and hitting bullseyes perfectly every time.  Read: you are always in the 10 ring.  You are so accurate that you hit the same hole every time.  It looks like you have shot only one round, but really you have shot 50.  Try this achievement at every distance available to you at your local range.

Shooting for recreational fun.  I don’t mean going to range and gossiping with your girlfriends while holding a firearm.  What I mean is shooting fun targets, take bets as to who can do it the best, no pressure situations.  Try some trick shooting, like splitting a playing card in two or a poker target and see who can shoot the best hand.  And enter a local shooting competition for fun.  Local ranges may host a bullseye contest to benefit a charity or win a prize.  It’s not about winning, although that is nice, consider it a part of your overall experience as a shooter.

Shooting Sports, Competitive Shooting and Join a Team

I’ll be upfront with you; I don’t have a lot of experience with shooting sports.  I have an idea of what they are about and what is involved, but not a first-hand account.  Shooting sports and competitive shooting events are like all other sporting events, but shooting is the game.  There are local clubs that host these events and they have a set course you must shoot and you are scored based on your time.  Your time is calculated by the reading on the timer and then offset by the scoring mechanism in place.  For example, if you missed the target they might add 2 seconds to your time and if you shot a perfect target, they might take away 2 seconds from your time.  Better hits equals a better time.

And like many other sports there are teams you can join, where your scores are compiled as a team.  Then you are ranked and placed like a track team or swimming team.  Look up local ranges (both indoor and outdoor) in your area to see what the offer.  Many times these events are low cost, hosted monthly and have a moderate ammunition requirement.

Defensive Shooting and Further Training

Working on your skills can lead to other opportunities in training.  Once you have a good understanding and execution of the fundamentals and your shots are going where you expect them and want them to go, you might be ready to seek out more advanced training.  You can always learn more and get a different perspective by training with other people.  In this skill, more is better.

Become and instructor

Becoming an instructor is one of the most rewarding options (in my opinion).  I enjoy teaching others, no matter what the skill is, and I have a long history of teaching a wide range of topics.  There is always a practical test of your skills you must perform to qualify, but after completing our first topic, it should be no problem.  When I became a firearms instructor, I became a better shooter.  I understood what needed to be shared from my experiences and how my experiences applied to each individual.

Choosing the teaching pathway also opens you up to share your knowledge base with others.  In the firearms world, there are always people who learn on their own, but when you gain the skills needed to teach someone, you will learn what you need to do to improve other shooter’s skills.  In the end you can help everyone become  a better shooter.

 

Definitions: Mindset & Levels of Awareness

Mindset (Oxford Dictionary) is the established set of attitudes held by someone: "the region seems stuck in a medieval mindset", a habitual or characteristic mental attitude that determines how you will interpret and respond to situations, the thought processes characteristic of an individual or group.

Unaware – These are times when you are asleep, watching TV, occupied with a specific task (for example when I’m writing this) and daydreaming.

Aware – You are conscious of your surroundings, cognizant of those around you, have mentally identified potential threats and where they may emanate from.

Alert – A specific potential threat or threats have been identified; this is a heightened state of awareness.

Alarm – Whatever action was planned in the alert level is now implemented.  Again, taking action does not necessarily mean using force.

Maintaining Awareness – It is difficult to maintain a heightened level of awareness for great length of time, particularly in your own home, which is considered a sanctuary from the outside world.  Make a conscious effort to remain alert to your environment, whatever it is.

Below is a link for a watered down (practical everyday person) OODA loop.

The Blue Collar OODA Loop

Photo shoot 2015

We have finished our latest photo shoot for the year.  The pictures are posted on our Facebook page.  Here is a preview of what you'll see.

Natural Aiming Area and Flash Sight Picture

“You can’t miss a shot fast enough.”

A shooters natural aiming area (or NAA) is the instinctive alignment of the shooter, gun and target in a specific stance.  A good defensive shooter is one where their natural aiming area can be achieved in a variety of positions.  Practicing good fundamentals will strengthen your natural aiming area, so that you will stop thinking about the fundamentals and instead naturally assume a good shooting position.

In a close range encounter, you will not be able to achieve a perfect sight picture.  The additional skill to your NAA is flash sight picture.  Flash sight picture is an imperfect alignment of your target as you recover from your firearm’s recoil.  Specifically, it is used to quickly acquire your target during a rapid, close range engagement.  Think of the last time you were shooting at the range.  With your eyes focused on the front sight you should be able to see the recoil of your pistol go up then down onto your target.  As soon as the front post is coming into the target, you will get an instantaneous sight picture of your target.  This is your flash sight picture.

You need to develop your skills in both your natural aiming area and flash sight picture to shoot fast and accurately in a defensive situation.  One more thing to think of, the farther the target is away from you’re the more time you have to acquire your sight picture.  Conversely the closer the target, the less time you have to acquire proper sight picture.

Next time we will return to preparing yourself mentally in a defensive shooting situation.

Home Defense

Today, I am opting to share a link to Personal Defense Network's article, the Five Fundamentals of Home Defense.  A couple years ago I was beefing up on my knowledge of what to do if my home was invaded and came across a similar article from PDN.  I thought it was very informative and helpful to know what to do in case of an emergency.  What it also gave me was a baseline for all the other information I wanted to learn and a premise of how to view my own personal safety.

Five Fundamentals for Home Defense

Defensive Accuracy versus Target Shooting

“A slow hit beats a fast miss, but there is such a thing as taking too much time.”

What is defensive accuracy?  Defensive accuracy is the ability to shoot the center of mass as fast and accurately as you can, the resulting shots should be covered by the spread of your hand.  As we progress from novice to intermediate shooters, I would hope that shooters’ goals will also change.

Many beginners learn the fundamentals and focus on target shooting.  To review the six fundamentals – stance, grip, trigger control, sight picture/sight alignment, breath and follow through.  All of these fundamentals should be performed perfectly in order to hit a bullseye.  In contrast to defensive accuracy where your fundamentals may not be perfect, your ability to stop the threat will be.

Take sight alignment.  There is a degree of deviation from perfect sight alignment when shooting for defensive accuracy.  Aim at the center of mass of the exposed target area, when aligning your sights and acquiring sight picture, your shots will be spread across your target.   To determine your accuracy, your shots should be about the size of a sheet of copy paper.  You are looking at a larger area and at a closer range as your target. A defensive encounter will not afford you the time to gain a perfect sight picture as it does in the range.  Therefore you will need to practice a new set of skills.

Do not think of defensive accuracy and target shooting as opposites.  They are stages in the progression from being a beginner to becoming a marksman.  As first you are only concentrating on the basics.  You want to perfect these before moving on.  This may mean that you skills will allow you to shoot a small 3-4 inch grouping on your target.  Once you are satisfied with your progress, try shooting a piece of paper as your target.  First shoot slowly and keep in mind your fundamentals.  Then change to a clean target and shoot faster.  Aim for one shot every two seconds.  Assess your progress and continue until all your shots are on the sheet of paper.

Next time we will cover natural point of aim and flash sight picture.