{"id":4978,"date":"2016-06-16T19:39:56","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T23:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.luckygunner.com\/lounge\/?p=4978"},"modified":"2017-09-27T00:13:36","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T04:13:36","slug":"how-to-practice-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.luckygunner.com\/lounge\/how-to-practice-shooting\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Practice Defensive Shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m often surprised by the number of supposedly &#8220;serious&#8221; shooters who have accumulated\u00a0multiple handguns, ostensibly for self-defense, but don&#8217;t own a shot timer. Taking a wide\u00a0assortment of arms to the range for an afternoon of blasting away just for the sake of making some noise can be a fun way to spend a Saturday, but it is not what I&#8217;d call &#8220;practice&#8221; and it&#8217;s a terribly inefficient way to\u00a0actually improve one&#8217;s marksmanship skills. Likewise, picking a\u00a0shooting drill from your favorite high speed, low drag tactical instructor and running it over and over until you get a score you can brag about might feel a lot like meaningful practice, but it&#8217;s really\u00a0a waste of ammo compared to a more strategic approach.<\/p> <p>The video below offers a few guidelines for approaching your handgun practice the same way you would practice anything else that you intend to become proficient at: with an intentional plan. If you&#8217;re looking for some specific drills to try after watching the video, check out the <a href=\"http:\/\/pistol-training.com\/drills\">drills section<\/a> on pistol-training.com.<\/p> <h2><strong>How to Practice Defensive Shooting<\/strong><\/h2> <p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XEYZyQPV0RA?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Full video transcript below:<\/span><\/p> <hr \/> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the self-defense world, you hear a lot of talk about the importance of training and practice. Training is\u00a0pretty straightforward. That\u2019s when you spend some time with a skilled instructor who can teach you new techniques and critique your current performance. That\u2019s pretty vital, especially when you\u2019re just getting started and learning the fundamentals.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> But then it\u2019s up to you to practice on your own to actually improve, and that\u2019s where there\u2019s some ambiguity. Rarely does anybody actually talk about how to practice.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Practicing doesn\u2019t just mean shooting. You could go to the range every week and fire off a couple of boxes of ammo and never actually improve. That\u2019s why I\u2019m not impressed when somebody tells me how many years they\u2019ve been shooting or how many rounds they shoot every year. That\u2019s completely irrelevant. The quantity of your practice doesn\u2019t mean anything if it\u2019s not quality practice.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So how do we get quality practice? There are tons of drills and tests and exercises online to give you something to work on at the range, but those aren\u2019t really all that helpful on their own if you don\u2019t have some kind of plan. So instead of just telling you what drills to do, I\u2019m going to suggest a few guidelines for developing your own meaningful practice strategy to improve your shooting.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first thing you have to do is determine your goal. What exactly are you trying to accomplish?<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> And be really specific. If you just say \u201cI want to be a better shooter\u201d, that\u2019s not really going to help you out all that much. You need a concrete goal\u00a0so you know when you\u2019ve achieved it. So maybe you want to win a local IDPA match. Or maybe you just want to be able to pass the\u00a0FBI qualification test. Pick something that&#8217;s ambitious for your current skill level, but also something that\u2019s reasonable considering the amount of time and resources and motivation you have.<\/span><\/p><p><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you have a goal in mind, the next step is to start breaking it down into smaller components. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Figure out what individual skills you need in order to achieve your big goal, prioritize those skills, and\u00a0start making\u00a0measurable short-term goals that are just outside your current ability level.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So for example, for me, I put a priority on a quick accurate first shot out of the holster and also the ability to\u00a0make\u00a0multiple accurate hits in quick succession at ranges from about 3 to 10 yards. I think those are two of the most important skills you can develop\u00a0for concealed carry and those are the ones I want to be able to perform at an expert level under any circumstances.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So\u00a0I have some very specific short-term goals in those areas. Right now, my goal is to be able to hit a 3&#215;5 card at 7 yards from concealment in 1.5 seconds, any time, on demand. I also want to be able to consistently shoot a 2.5 second <a href=\"http:\/\/pistol-training.com\/drills\/bill-drill\">Bill Drill<\/a>. I\u2019m getting close on both of those goals, but I\u2019ve still got a lot of work to do.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So then, I\u2019ve got to break it down even further. I don&#8217;t go to the range and just shoot\u00a03&#215;5 cards and Bill Drills &#8212; that&#8217;s\u00a0just what I use to measure my progress. \u00a0I have to look at each individual\u00a0component of\u00a0those skills. So if I\u2019m not happy with my draw stroke,\u00a0maybe I&#8217;ll just work on clearing\u00a0my\u00a0cover garment and getting a full firing grip on the\u00a0gun in the holster for a while. I&#8217;ll just do that one step. Or maybe if I\u2019m yanking shots off target\u00a0on my Bill Drills, I&#8217;ll run some drills\u00a0that are designed to work on trigger control\u00a0and\u00a0sight tracking. The key is to isolate the individual components of each skill that you&#8217;re not very\u00a0good at and work on those.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One more critical piece of meaningful practice is to track your progress.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You have to have some way to know whether you\u2019re actually improving, and the easiest way to do that is to record your results on certain drills and tests and look at how they change over time. I don\u2019t write down my times or scores for every single drill that I do, but I always record my first and last drill of the day, and I make a few notes about what I worked on in between.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I record my first drill because for self-defense, only your cold performance matters. I might be able to do some pretty impressive shooting once I\u2019ve had a chance to get\u00a0warmed up and tweak a couple of things. But if I can\u2019t just walk out on the range without any prior preparation and shoot a drill under my target time, there\u2019s no reason I should be able to expect that I could do that\u00a0when it really matters in a life and death situation.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I usually try to wrap up my range session with the same drill that I started with. That gives me an idea of what my current potential is. So if I need a new goal to shoot for, I will often use that score from when I\u2019m warmed up as my new target for my cold performance.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you start using some of these guidelines and choose some\u00a0drills that are appropriate for your goals, I guarantee you\u2019ll start to see some rapid improvement in your shooting, and you\u2019ll be getting a lot more out of your time at the range.<\/span><\/p> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m often surprised by the number of supposedly &#8220;serious&#8221; shooters who have accumulated\u00a0multiple handguns, ostensibly for self-defense, but don&#8217;t own &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.luckygunner.com\/lounge\/how-to-practice-shooting\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21,17,108,58],"class_list":["post-4978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-toolbox","tag-handguns","tag-self-defense","tag-technique","tag-training"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.9 - 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