What bdickens and SSN Vet said.
My wife had not had ANY formal instruction in handgun when she took Vicki Farnam's basic course. After 2 days of instruction (much of which was devoted to avoidance, awareness, safety etc., not pure skills) she and 4 other new female shooters passed the following test: Pistol is set up with one live round in the chamber, 4 live rounds and one dummy round in the mag. Dummy placed by someone else, the shooter does not know the position of the dummy, but not the first or last in the mag. Second mag fully charged w/ live rounds. Target is an 8X10 steel plate at 8 yards. To pass the test, the student must have 100% hits, and zero procedural or safety errors. In other words, sweeping any body part or other person, finger entering the trigger guard when moving, drawing, reloading, or stoppage reduction, failure to move laterally during the draw, failure to move during the stoppage reduction or reload, failure to scan prior to the start, incorrect stoppage reduction procedure (tap, rack, re-engage), incorrect reloading procedure like dropping the first mag before the reload mag is in hand, or incorrect slide manipulation.
Shooter comes to the line, interview position, and on command begins moving laterally back and forth, scanning 360 degrees. On command, shooter moves laterally and draws simultaneously, holding on target w/ finger in register until the electronic timer signal to begin. At that point, she must move again laterally before firing continuously at the target. When the dummy round is encountered, she must reduce the stoppage while moving with the trigger finger in register. Tap rack bang. When the last round in that mag is fired, she must reload while moving with finger in register, then fire two more rounds. Time required must not exceed 22 sec for a mid level student, or something a bit more ( I forget) for basic. That is to earn a DTI pin. One miss, one error, and the whistle is blown and that test is over at that point. John and Vicki believe in stress while performing.
Long post, but I wanted to post it for 2 reasons. First, because I'm proud of my wife. Second, because this kind of performance is doable with good training in a fairly short period. Of course, it is a perishable skill, but still.... Impressed me that Vicki could get 15 students to this level in a weekend, and only have one student unable to pass the test ( a male sudent, FWIW). Students could shoot the test over, and many did before passing.
Back to OP. Vicki is very experienced, and she says the most remarkable beginning students often are women. The examples posted above are not surprising.
Steve
