How to train, yet again

[GEM]

But What About the Fundamentals?

You have to learn the fundamentals first.

tacticalscience.substack.com

Coaching the weird things out, value of unopposed & more

Here's some Skill Acquisition content for you to explore over the weekend. I hope you enjoy it!

mrtenniscoach.substack.com

Argues that realistic training has more benefit than just the square range. I know that I have asked friends who buy guns, do the gun talk, to take a class or compete. They say they are not 'good enough' and must go to the square range to practice. Unsupervised and just banging away at a stationary target may not be that useful, according to the studies. A good read. Training with PawPaw shooting rocks - maybe not enough.

 

[scaatylobo]

But What About the Fundamentals?

You have to learn the fundamentals first.

tacticalscience.substack.com

Coaching the weird things out, value of unopposed & more

Here's some Skill Acquisition content for you to explore over the weekend. I hope you enjoy it!

mrtenniscoach.substack.com

Argues that realistic training has more benefit than just the square range. I know that I have asked friends who buy guns, do the gun talk, to take a class or compete. They say they are not 'good enough' and must go to the square range to practice. Unsupervised and just banging away at a stationary target may not be that useful, according to the studies. A good read. Training with PawPaw shooting rocks - maybe not enough.

Having done a 'few' decades' worth of both I speak from some experience.
If you have not done HANDS ON weapon retention = you do NOT KNOW HOW.
Having not DONE force on force training you are NOT TRAINED in that confrontational skill.
I am not saying the outcome will always be horrible.
BUT ----- if you do find yourself in such a mess, how it turns out is not likely to be one you TRAINED for.

 

[shafter]

The main thing is a high level of proficiency with the firearm. This means accuracy and speed while being safe. Those two fundamentals really need to be locked in before even considering more advanced training like force on force or weapon retention etc.

It does no good to be banging away with a Sim gun or running and gunning and missing all the shots.

 

[Jeff White]

Training has to be a continuous process. A good program starts with the fundamentals, the basic weapons handling and marksmanship skills that most "experienced" shooters feel they have advanced beyond and would consider beneath them. One should never pass up the chance to perform the basics under the watchful eye of a good instructor. These skills are not only perishable but we all pick up habits that might be slowing us down or cutting into accuracy.

Once you can perform the basics to standard (what standard to meet is a thread in itself) move on to more advanced skills, shooting while moving, shooting from unconventional positions, shooting with a partner.........again when you can meet the standard.....

Move to tactics. Tactics will be different for the private citizen and the professional. The armed citizen will likely never have the occasion to fight as a member of a squad or team. This will be dry fire training until the standard is reached and only then will it move to live fire training.

Finally you move to Force on Force training. When you can perform all of the scenarios you've decided you need to train on to standard........You go right back to the fundamentals and start over.

This is how the military and LE tactical units train. It's just as applicable to the armed citizen who wants to be as prepared as possible.

Now I know that someone is going to post that is not necessary and it will be hard for a private citizen to train that way.

However, the private citizen has several advantages over the professional. The private citizen has no duty to act in any given situation and this cuts down the number of possible scenarios he needs to train for.

It should be relatively easy for the armed citizen to create a Mission Task List, which is the Army name for a list of possible scenarios you might have to face.

Once you have that list you can make another list of the individual skills you will need to be proficient in to face those scenarios. Once you break things down this way it's easy to come up with a program to follow.

Yes, I know that hundreds of thousands of people successfully defend themselves every year with no training at all and that a lot of people will cite that as their reason not to train. It's a personal choice and I'm not going to criticize anyone for making that choice.

If you do decide to give yourself every chance to prevail if you are unfortunate enough to be in a situation where those skills are necessary what I posted above is a good place to start. It's not an easy journey for the armed citizen because quality force on force training can be hard to access. It can be done.

 

[Old Dog]

I've known some guys who owned easily 10 to 25 thousand dollars worth of firearms, yet had never taken a training course.

I tried explaining to one friend that the $1900 he'd spend (plus lodging, food, travel and ammo) for a week at Gunsite for the Defensive Pistol 250 class would not only be money well spent, but an experience he'd love and never forget... He said he'd rather buy a new gun for that money and just go to his local range whenever he felt like it.

I have no answers.

Just because someone can afford nice guns, and love guns and everything about them, doesn't make them a real "gun guy" (or gal).

I guess if one has never had any decent training, one simply doesn't know what one doesn't know.

Seems some folks make a vow to themselves that when they graduate high school (or college, whatever), they'll never take another class of any kind ever again.

I saw it in the law enforcement community; people who called out sick on weapons training days (right? the days that most of us looked forward to every year), never would've dreamed of spending their own money for a good class at Gunsite, Thunder Ranch or Firearms Academy of Seattle.

 

[MarshallDodge]

Training classes are good for teaching you some tactics and gun handling skills. Add in some competition under a timer, and you get to put those skills to work.

 

[Shawn Dodson]

"The purpose of tactics is to affect human perception." -- John Boyd

I've taken many defensive courses. Only one touched on "tactics", and that was Shivworks ECQC.

All the others simply taught techniques.

 

[fastbolt]

You want to see why most people would stand to benefit from training classes? Just observe them at a training class.

Then, there's that group who proudly attend one or more training classes, but somehow don't bring back anything of discernible value when it comes time to perform.

In earlier years of martial arts training there were those who practiced to look good in front of the wall mirrors, and those who practiced to be able to draw upon and execute their training under stress and duress.

Training has to be a continuous process. ...

This ^^^ is the core of it, to put it as simply as possible. Once I was accepted in our FTU as a newly minted 'firearms instructor', I quickly realized it was going to be an apprenticeship program, and a continuous process.

In a way, it's like being a student in one of the belt-ranked systems who reaches the advanced beginner stage of achieving first degree black. You've worked hard to reach a point where you have an adequate command of the basics, and you're looking to continue to learning more advanced skills ... while now knowing that it's continually working toward mastery of the basics that's going to remain important.

As a trainer, though, now you have to be able to unlock and understand the ways to pass your knowledge and training on to others. In LE training nowadays, you can find a training program called Instructor Development. While it's not specifically tailored to firearms training outside the classroom environment, the core principles of understanding adult learning methods is still helpful.

Dunno what they're doing in the last few years, but I attended a LE Firearms Instructor Update class before I retired, I was appalled at the lackluster skills demonstrated by a dismaying number of 'working' firearms instructors from various agencies. Then again, nowadays you can find people assigned to be agency firearms instructors after they're sent off to a basic instructor class ... and then 'they are one'. I rather miss the days when an agency had the ability to have some vetted instructor talent in-residence, and treated newly minted instructors as apprentices for the first 2-3 years. Guess that was one of the benefits of working for an agency of roughly medium size.

Bottom line, training remains a continuous process for some years. Depends what you hope to achieve in the way of training and abilities, though.

 

[jmorris]

If you only do one thing, at best, you'll only be good at one thing...

 

[Old Dog]

Dunno what they're doing in the last few years, but I attended a LE Firearms Instructor Update class before I retired, I was appalled at the lackluster skills demonstrated by a dismaying number of 'working' firearms instructors from various agencies. Then again, nowadays you can find people assigned to be agency firearms instructors after they're sent off to a basic instructor class ... and then 'they are one'. I rather miss the days when an agency had the ability to have some vetted instructor talent in-residence, and treated newly minted instructors as apprentices for the first 2-3 years. Guess that was one of the benefits of working for an agency of roughly medium size.

I had the exact same experience at the last instructor update/re-cert I attended. I was flat out told by one lead instructor that his (female) boss had directed him at oone point that the next instructors selected for the instructor academy would be female as they had no female instructors (solely because no female officers had ev expressed any interest). The newly drafted instructors were not good at teaching, showing little interest in teaching or improving anyone's skills, and themselves were barely average shots with average to poor skills.
Previous to my retirement, we drew most of our instructor talent from the tactical teams, prior military folks and usually folks with instructor experience in.other areas. DEl changed a lot of things.

 

[JTHunter]

Having done a 'few' decades' worth of both I speak from some experience.
If you have not done HANDS ON weapon retention = you do NOT KNOW HOW.
Having not DONE force on force training you are NOT TRAINED in that confrontational skill.
I am not saying the outcome will always be horrible.
BUT ----- if you do find yourself in such a mess, how it turns out is not likely to be one you TRAINED for.

"Force on force" doesn't really fit for an arthritic septuagenarian (70+ y.o.).

 

[Jeff White]

"Force on force" doesn't really fit for an arthritic septuagenarian (70+ y.o.).

Why do you think all FoF training is "running and gunning"? Do you think that arthritic septuagenarians never have to face an attack?

There are plenty of scenarios that teach the proper mindset and judgement skills that can be performed by someone with physical limitations.

 

[JTHunter]

Why do you think all FoF training is "running and gunning"? Do you think that arthritic septuagenarians never have to face an attack?

There are plenty of scenarios that teach the proper mindset and judgement skills that can be performed by someone with physical limitations.

Not at all. As for "mindset", having had a "home invasion" in the late 80s and being an "old Boy Scout", I just feel it's better to "be prepared" by having both handguns and "unconventional weapons" close by. I've done what I can to prep the house with dual locks on all doors, even the slider. There are multiple MD lights that light up the main approaches and, unless I'm coming back into the house within 5-6 minutes, the door gets locked. I try to keep my eyes moving all the time and, having ridden minibikes and motorcycles for 18 years, I learned to keep my head on a swivel. When I'm walking back to my car from a store, I look around first to see who/what is in the immediate vicinity and what they are doing. I do NOT carry as ILL-ANNOY has made it so expensive and I give this bloody state enough already !! And, if the business has the proper signage, that sign has the "force of law". For the past 15 years, I've had to go to too many medical facilities (Dr. offices, hospitals, dentists, nursing/rehab facilities, etc.), mostly for an aged parent, to make it worthwhile.
Many times, I have thought about different "what if" scenarios and tried to calculate "what AND if" I could do in those situations. Some of those ideas come from both real and imaginary scenarios posted on various gun forums as well as a now defunct show that used to review actual happenings.