Training Question (edit - IPSC/IDPA competition worthwhile for training?)

[GoRon]

My pistol training is under the guidance of a former Chapman instructor who runs our ranges tactical pistol shoots.

Often the IDPA and IPSC guys will shoot with us. Some of them are really fast and accurate. They do have a tendency to overrun their cover and blast away with no regard to amount of shots sent down range.

Our trainer will often incorporate some of the gun games stuff to mix it up, like using a timer for example. My attempts to get all good hits and use cover/concealment properly obviously keeps my times slower than some of the gun games guys. One friend who has taken up IPSC used to be much slower and less accurate than me. Now he uses many more rounds to get good hits and doesn't always use cover/concealment properly but has improved immensely. His progress and the fact that he has beat me in our informal timed competitions has me re-thinking my approach.

You could learn bad habits from the games but the speed and accuracy gains from the games are hard to dismiss.

What is your guys/gals opinion on training? Should it be strictly tactically sound or do the "games" have their place for those that take guns seriously?

 

[ShackleMeNot]

As long as you remember that gun games are gun games you can use them for the practice they provide. You can still shoot IDPA and IPSC while maintaining good tactics. You won't win the match but you can get faster and more accurate by shooting a lot of rounds on the clock.

Also, it might just be semantics to some but I don’t consider IDPA or IPSC “training”. To me they are practice for what you should already know.

 

[BullfrogKen]

I agree with everything ShackleMeNot says.

If you decide to treat IDPA or IPSC as training, and not as a game, then make up your mind not to look at your scores and ranking at the end of the match. Evaluate yourself for what you did good, what you could have done better, and what you did poorly. Your rank amongst others isn't necessary for that evaluation, and will only serve to distract you from your goal.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

The way I see it, it doesn't matter if you call it training, practice, fun, or whatever. Competition is going to involve honing some critical skills that are applicable to self defense.

People say you fight like you train. That may be true, but you also fight like whatever your default behavior is, be it trained, practiced, or what have you. Some things in competitions are not good for the tactical world and some things tactical are not competition efficient either. With that said, I have never heard of a competitor involved in a self defense shooting that tried to find a shooter's box before he started shooting.

Put another way, NASCAR drivers don't avoid driving on regular surface rounds as regular drivers out of fear that it will ruin their ability to handle a crisis on the NASCAR track or vice versa.

And I would add as others have stated, it is good to be challenged and put under pressure. The more times you operate under pressure the more likely you are to operate smoothly under actual crisis pressure.

 

[GoRon]

The reason I ask is that I shoot with a mixture of LEO's and competition shooters.

The LEO's are more deliberate, take their time, maximize cover.

The competition guys are rushing, for obvious reasons.

I switch back and forth in mindsets myself depending on the situation.

I figured there must be folks that shoot competition and have to use real world tactics on the job. Just want to make sure I don't develope bad habits.

 

[1911 guy]

Which do you want?

You want to get the other guy slowly or get killed fast? I'll go slow. Watch the gamers. They totally disregard cover and angles. It's an obstacle course with a gun. It can teach you a lot about gun handling on the move, navigating the obstacles and shooting on the move, but how to use cover isn't part of that. Play the gun games, they're fun and you can glean useful things from them. Just remember to seperate what's games and what's training. Running past a corner because you know the target is over there, not moving and can't shoot you isn't very conducive to good training. Glean what you can, then move on to more "real world" stuff for a while. Take a few classes. Then go back to the games because they're fun.

 

[ShackleMeNot]

If you want to use competitions to practice your defensive shooting skills here is some advice:

Wear exactly what you wear every day. Use the same holster, belt, gun, mags, sights, and cover garment you were wearing on the Tuesday before the match to shoot the match. That means if all you had was a P32 or snubby in your pocket when you went to the store that should be what you use. Could you get a better score with a better gun? Probably. But you didn't carry a better gun, did you...

You will never win a match if you use proper tactics. Who cares. Actually take your time and pie corners properly rather than sticking 49% of your body around cover and blasting because you know where the targets are and that they aren't going to shoot back. Shoot the stages cold without watching other shooters go first.

If you really want to know how you will perform under stress, take a force on force class from a reputable school and find out how easy it is to get killed when you are facing thinking bad guys who fight back.

 

[MBane666]

I have a slightly different take here. I think competition is a critical component of learning to be a good shooter for two major reasons — increasing gun manipulation skills (especially malfunction clearances) and the "innoculation" of shooting under stress.

As I've mentioned on other forums, it's surprisingly easy to pick out non-competition shooters in simulations/f-on-f exercises because they simply do not have the fluid gun-handling skills of a veteran competitor. BTW, I've run this past some of the top LEO and military instructors in the country, and they're pretty much in agreement.

I also think we have probably overstated — or over-exterpolated — the old saw that you'll fight like you're trained. You will indeed fight like you're trained, but on the level of the MICRO, or basic, skills as opposed to the MACRO, or tactical, situation. What I learned from a decade in very high-risk sports was that while speed and fluidity in the basics were the ante for survival, mental flexibility and high-speed problem-solving were what actually kept you alive.

Any potentially lethal situation is a pure chaos system...there are too many factors acting on the system for simple "cause and effect" analysis. For example, we often talk about "moving to cover" as an absolute, but I can craft a simulation based on real world events where moving to cover will get you killed every time.

One of the most interesting training concepts I've heard lately (I heard it from Walt Rauch) is the idea of "timed cover"...either implicitly or explicitly, I see cover routinely treated as "olly olly oxen-free" — "I'm safe and behind cover, so I can catch my breath and take my time." However, you're in a chaos system; an indeterminably numbers of factors are acting on that system, not the least of which is that your opponent is "moving!" Every second you stay behind cover, the cover becomes less viable.

I've run simulations where the cover is timed, and it can totally change your tactical actions.

Sorry to be so long-winded! i think the important thing for us is to FIND THE BASICS in the various situtations we might find ourselves and make darn sure we have them down cold. I have shot comeptition and training out of race holsters, belt holsters, IWBs, thigh rigs and a shoulder holster...the basics of the draw and presentation never change. Bruce Lee once noted that style is an impediment to fighting skils, I think that's true here.

Michael B

 

[Keith Wheeler]

Sorry to be so long-winded! i think the important thing for us is to FIND THE BASICS in the various situtations we might find ourselves and make darn sure we have them down cold.

Shorter version: I've done a bit of rally racing. Can I treat driving to work like a rally stage? Uh nope. Same idea -- when on a stage I can bomb through intersections, use all the road, do the "game" tricks I need to get the best time on the stage, stuff you just can't do on the street. Do the car control skills I learn help when I have to react to some surprise issue on the street? You betcha.

 

[sefus]

Slow is smooth; smooth is fast.

 

[Jeff White]

MBane666 said;

As I've mentioned on other forums, it's surprisingly easy to pick out non-competition shooters in simulations/f-on-f exercises because they simply do not have the fluid gun-handling skills of a veteran competitor.

The only reason for that is the number of repetitions they get in practicing for their game. Give anyone the same number of repetitions in training to fight and their gunhandling skills will equal that of a competion shooter.

You have to watch out for the thing you do on the range biting you in the butt in combat. The cold ranges that are the norm in competition shooting will ingrain habits that will get you killed in a fight.

The dead officers in the Newhall massacre many years ago died with hands full of spent brass from their revolvers. Why? Because that's what they did on the range. The same danger awaits someone who thinks that IPSC or IDPA is the end all of combat training. Imagine engaging one assailant, then clearing your pistol and holstering it, about that time the second assailant makes his attack.

I've seen too many officers draw fire two rounds and holster automatically because that is the drill they were told to fire to believe that a guy who only competed wouldn't automatically clear his pistol and holster before the fight was over.

Jeff

 

[Double Naught Spy]

The dead officers in the Newhall massacre many years ago died with hands full of spent brass from their revolvers. Why? Because that's what they did on the range.

In the Ayoob files, Ayoob reports officer Pence died with spent casings in his pocket, which attests to the legacy of range training, a CHP-officially denied point...but the point is the same. The officers performed a stupid procedure that served no purpose in a battle.

My point here is that it isn't likely officers fired with hands full of spent cases while at the range and it isn't likely they did it in battle either because as a result of range training since they would not have done it at the range. Putting spent brass into pockets, however, would not impede the act of shooting.

IT is interesting as all four officers who died at Newhall were all in the CHP for 2 years or less, according to Ayoob, and all had Vietnam experience. You have to wonder just how entrenched such a behavior is supposed to be for what Ayoob refers to as "near-rookie" officers who had other battle experience.

The same danger awaits someone who thinks that IPSC or IDPA is the end all of combat training. Imagine engaging one assailant, then clearing your pistol and holstering it, about that time the second assailant makes his attack.

I've seen too many officers draw fire two rounds and holster automatically because that is the drill they were told to fire to believe that a guy who only competed wouldn't automatically clear his pistol and holster before the fight was over.

True enough. Folks have to realize that competition isn't real life battle. Then again, officers need to realize this as well. Assuming the issue at Newhall was training-related and then incidents you describe, there are some serious training shortcomings evident.

 

[Glamdring]

MBane666: I don't really disagree with you, but from what I have learned most of time if your behind cover, in non military type gunfight, you will survive even if shot.

Because MOST of the time, the badguys don't want to wait around for LEO, or more LEO, to show up.

IIRC Keith Jones adds time to the distance & cover equation as something that favors the good guy.

 

[Matthew Temkin]

I could not agree with Jeff White more about competition skills coming back to bite one in the butt.
Or poor range training, for that matter.
Unrealistic training/competition habits is just a bad thing waiting to happen.

 

[1911 guy]

Some cold range drills.

Observation is the first thing to suffer from a static range situation. Fire X number of shots, clear, holster. Here's a drill I learned that makes you look around.

When shooting this drill, shoot one person at a time. The shooter engages the target, his/her pals B.S. behind the line. Someone, the shooter must not know beforehand, has X number of fingers extended. Not obvious. Perhaps hanging at sides, arms crossed, etc. Shooter has to fire his/her first two or three, then come to a ready position and assess. Look around. Watch peoples hands. See the hands, return to target and fire that many rounds. 1 finger, one more round. 3 fingers, 3 more rounds. Four shots called for and you've only got two left in the gun? Tough. Shoulda brought a reload.

Side step when presenting the handgun. Most ranges will have a hairy fit if you shoot from the draw but most will allow a small sidestep. Have your shooting partner stand behind you, you have your pistol at the ready. Partner says "threat - left / right". You sidestep and fire. The idea? GET OFF THE "X".

Switch hands in the middle of a magazine. The most common reason to switch hands will be shooting from behind cover that extends from your off side toward your strong side. Example, a right handed shooter approaches a corner with the wall extending to his right. The left hand puts the handgun into play before the other half of his body. This is why I like ambi safeties.

 

[sturmruger]

Before I started shooting IPSC I was a great target shooter, but a poor defensive shooter. I had never tried to shoot on the move, or shoot more then one target consecutively. After 3 years of shooting IPSC these are all skills that I have a good basic understanding of. Jeff is correct a lot of the reason that gamers tend to shoot better is that we really spend a lot of time and money trying to get better. I could be a C shooter my whole life if I don't start practicing I will never make A which is my end goal.

 

[MBane666]

I think we're pretty much on the same page here, but, Jeff, I don't totally agree with your assessment that gun manipulation skills are SOLELY the product of repetition. I would say, rather, that high level basic skills are the result of REPETITION UNDER PRESSURE. I actually had a great "lab" on this...I was following 2 students through an advanced CCW simulations class. One was a casual competitor in both USPSA and IDPA; the other a life-long committed shooter whose practice regimen included daily dry-firing, shooting regularly on his private range and workign with his friend on mini-competitions and scenarios...but no formal competition for fear of ingraining bad habits. The casual (USPSA C-class) shooter exhibited such better gun handling skills — again, especially in malfunction clearances — that the other shooter re-evaluated his stance on competition.

There's a lot of current learning theory that we are hard-wired to learn and remember better under stress, apparently some software leftover from when we were running from sabre-toothed cats. The classic psychology text on the subject is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's FLOW: THE PYSCHOLOGY OF OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE, which in my view is pretty much required reading.

We CHOOSE (albeit sometimes unconsciously) the behavior we allow to become internalized. I totally agree that some of the worst "offenders" are not compeititon per se, but square range-cold range standards. When I practice on my own, I ALWAYS practice stepping off-line...laterally, at 45 degrees, etc., because that simple act quickly shifts the odds back to my favor (done it in simulation a lot...not a panacea, but it helps). I spent a bunch of time back in the day working with SWAT cops, and I still spend a lot of time on hot ranges...which IMHO are much safer and teach better gun-handling skills that cold ranges.

I strongly recommend taking a shooting class that emphasizes stress...the advanced classes at GUNSITE, the nightmarish Rogers Shooting School in Georgia (which uses the Bill Rogers' designed target system in use at Quantico and at Blackwater), some of Tom Givens classes at RangeMaster in Memphis.

Michael B

 

[Jeff White]

MBane666 said;

I was following 2 students through an advanced CCW simulations class. One was a casual competitor in both USPSA and IDPA; the other a life-long committed shooter whose practice regimen included daily dry-firing, shooting regularly on his private range and workign with his friend on mini-competitions and scenarios...but no formal competition for fear of ingraining bad habits. The casual (USPSA C-class) shooter exhibited such better gun handling skills — again, especially in malfunction clearances — that the other shooter re-evaluated his stance on competition.

Did you observe and evaluate each shooters training yourself or are you taking their word for it? People tend to practice what they are good at. They should be practicing what they aren't good at like malfunction clearing. But most fail to do those tings in unsupervised training. For most people it's much more satisfying to go to the range and work on the skills you are already good at.

Training to clear malfunctions is a lot of work. You have to set up the malfunction deliberatly. That takes time. But it must be done. The fact of the matter is, that most people who train on their own don't take the time to train on those things.

There are plenty of ways to induce stress in a training program without competition. Time limits, some of which are unknown to the shooter, more complicated scenarios, shooting form unconventional positions are all ways of inducing realistic stress.

I'm not saying that there is nothing to be learned from competition, because there definately is. But you have to be careful about what you take away from competition.

A person's IPSC or IDPA ranking is absolutley not any indicator of how he will perform in a fight. All it proves is that he can meet a certain standard of speed and accuracy in the controlled environment of a match. It tells you nothing about his mindset or his ability to perform under the stress of an actual life threatening situation.

Jeff

 

[GoRon]

A person's IPSC or IDPA ranking is absolutely not any indicator of how he will perform in a fight. All it proves is that he can meet a certain standard of speed and accuracy in the controlled environment of a match. It tells you nothing about his mindset or his ability to perform under the stress of an actual life threatening situation.

The reason I posted this question is because I never really gave it thought. I always figured practice of any kind was good. Now that I am farther along in my pistol training I am seeing distinctions and schools of thought I didn't know existed when I started shooting (a couple months before I joined here).

So it is safe to say that the games will help you better your skills, that is obvious.

The danger is in believing your skills will translate into proper tactics if the SHTF.

The truth is that the tactics part is a whole different skill set from the shooting part.

A mediocre shooter with good tactics trump the grandmaster with poor tactics if things go wrong and you must use your gun.

The games to a greater or lessor extant encourage good shooting skills but bad tactics. There are those who have been taught good tactics (cops etc...) but many lack good shooting skills.

It is probably obvious to many of you but it just dawned on me not long ago that these are somewhat unrelated skills, competition vs tactics.

I guess as a non LEO, tactical shooting skills is another hobby I have acquired as well as my marksmanship shooting in general.

It can be divided into three different hobbies, firearms enthusiast, competition shooter and tactical shooting.

 

[blackhawk2000]

I shoot ACTS matches. www.actshooters.com We stress proper tactics, and do not mandate how you run the COF. It's up to the individual shooter to figure it out on there own. You will get penalized if you are not doing things in a tactically sound manner. It's primarily rifle, but pistol is used. We are looking to branch out to other states.

 

[Jhorn]

I think the best thing you can do is get as much trigger time as possible, the more types the better!

 

[BullfrogKen]

MBane666 said: ...but no formal competition for fear of ingraining bad habits. The casual (USPSA C-class) shooter exhibited such better gun handling skills — again, especially in malfunction clearances — that the other shooter re-evaluated his stance on competition.

I've never shot a competitive handgun sporting event. Closest I've come is dueling trees. I have my own reasons for not doing it. Avoiding learning bad habits is among them, and not simply bad shooting habits . . . .

I agree with much of what Jeff already said. Not much to add. . .

I don't believe competition is necessary to ingrain good skills. I've seen scores who don't compete that know how to handle a gun efficiently and effectively.


Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

 

[ShackleMeNot]

GoRon,
You are on the right track.

The hierarchy of survival principles are:

Mindset
tactics
skill
gear

Most gun owners reverse the order and put gear at the top. Gun message boards and magazines are perfect examples of this. Do a count and you’ll find 100,000 posts and articles on Glock vs. 1911, the newest gadget, what’s the fastest holster or which backpack is best for SHTF. There will be some posts and articles about shooting skill (my hits are low left….) and even rarer still are posts about tactics (I ran out of my house with my pistol at 2 AM when I heard someone in my shed. Did I do anything wrong?). The holy grail of posts or articles is one on Mindset. I guess it isn’t cool to talk about staying in the fight after you have been shot or pushing your own limits in training.

Skill is what is reinforced by “practical” competitions. You WILL get better at the mechanics of shooting fast and accurate. You will get better at reloads and clearing malfunctions on the clock. Your draw stroke to full extension should get faster.

Using good tactics is tough enough without hundreds (thousands?) of repetitions of bad tactics. YOU WILL NOT WIN AN IDPA OR IPSC MATCH USING PROPER TACTICS. If your goal is to win the match you will be doing things you shouldn’t to shave time off the clock.

Mindset trumps all. A sheep with a machine gun is still a harmless sheep. An unarmed wolf intent on beating you to death is a very dangerous animal. It isn’t the gear; it’s the Mindset.

 

[Chris Rhines]

My take - tactics are subjective. Proper tactics change depending on the situation. If the you find yourself in a USPSA match, the correct tactics are the ones that let you win the match. The tactics you use on the street as a private citizen are different. If you're a street cop, different tactics still.

Tactics cannot be reflexive. You have to think.

-

If you want to shoot practical competition (and you should!), shoot to win. Otherwise, don't waste your time. If you're worried about ingraning bad habits, don't. No one has ever come up with a situation where a competitive shooter got into a gunfight and was injured/killed due to "competition tactics." It's a gun culture urban myth on the order of the 5.56mm bullet tumbling in mid-air.

- Chris

 

[Jeff White]

Chris Rhines said;

No one has ever come up with a situation where a competitive shooter got into a gunfight and was injured/killed due to "competition tactics." It's a gun culture urban myth on the order of the 5.56mm bullet tumbling in mid-air.

I've got a one word answer for this: Newhall. Unless the official reports or officer dying with the expended casings from their revolvers in their hands or in their pockets (whichever version you choose to belive) is totally false, you can't possibly make that statement and be credible.

People will default to their level of training in a fight. They will unconsiously do those things they have been trained to do on the range because their minds will be occupied with other things.

Games are games. Training to win a game is not training to win a fight and is absolutely no indicator of how a person will perform in combat. Gun games are all performed on the square range. Every one I've observed has been run on a cold range for safety reasons. People who participate in these games are just as likely to carry their cold range habits to the street as a police officer is likely to carry his range habits on the street. People who train continually to draw, engage a target with one to three rounds and holster, will most likely perform that same drill in a fight.

I've seen it time and again in training. Get a new group of officers on the range, give them a scenario different from what they are used to and watch them subconsiously fire the same drill they've fired for years.

This is especially evident in patrol rifle and tactical rifle training when you run every exercise as if it's a fight. The officer is used to working the weapon in his hand. Should he run out of ammunition or have a malfunction he'll most likley fumble with trying to load or clear the malfunction when his target is 7 meters away instead of transitioning to the handgun on his hip.

I don't compete. But I train. I've been involved with training soldiers and police officers how to fight my whole adult life. I've seen nothing that would make me believe that someone who trains to game is any less susceptable to defaulting to his training in a fight then a professional is. My experience is the exact opposite.

I've yet to see an IPSC or IDPA rating as a prerequisite for selection on a SWAT team or a military special operations unit.

Jeff