"Roberts Under the Hat"
We have all heard the saying practice makes perfect. Those of us that played sports heard it constantly. We have heard from our coaches you want to succeed you have to work hard. I use to hold these statements as true as the Ten Commandments until I entered the gunfighter arena. After over a decade of working in the profession of arms, I have learned that these statements simply are just not true. Some say that for something to become neurologically conditioned it must be repeated in excess of 1000 times. We know the fancy term of neurological conditioning as muscle memory. Well, many of us already know that not all muscle memory is a good thing. So if I am practicing on the range every day, shooting thousands of rounds but practicing bad shooting habits that are tactically unsound, I have now created a bad muscle memory. Many of you have probably already heard and felt the shift from instructors and training cadre that practice does not make perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect. So this leads to quality over quantity. If I shoot 1000 rounds with bad technique, is it better than shooting 100 rounds with the perfect technique? It is not, and probably 98% of you agree with me on that mindset. A gunfighter must fight the way he or she trains. However, we must crawl before we can run. We must build sound fundamentals on the range before we move into scenarios or reality based training. It has been my experience in teaching firearms that bad habits will very often get you by on the range. You may even shot a 250 or 300 score every time with your box full of nightmares. The problem is, without a good base to build from; these bad habits will surface when it is time for the meat to meet the metal. I hear all too often that it is just too expensive to train, I don’t have time, and I can’t find ammo, blah blah blah. The good news is that this is all a load of crap. I once had an old wise firearms instructor tell me that for every live round of ammunition you fire, it should be preceded by 50 dry fire drills. When you do not have bullets, be creative. Practice your draw from your duty belt or concealed rig in various types of situations. Create a threat practice, a good five-point draw presentation, come on target, acquire your sights, and fire a dry fire round. Guess what boys and girls? You just spent zero dollars, and it took all of 3 minutes. Another drill I use when watching TV is rapid target acquisition drills. I pick up one of my sons realistic toy guns. The one I use makes noise, slide works and is fairly realistic. I bought it at Wal-Mart for 7 dollars. Or you can choose to use your cleared, empty, checked and double checked, sidearm or duty weapon. As the scenes change, I acquire and engage every person on the screen and try to do so before the scene changes again. Sounds a bit weird and some of you are probably looking at this screen funny right now, but it works. I know it works because my acquisition on the range has got much faster. Mine follow up sight picture, and target transition has increased greatly and I do not always do it from a good shooting position. A lot of times I do it sitting on my couch. Bad muscle memory or possibly realistic style training. How many of you have practiced presenting your weapon and engaging from the front seat of your patrol car or POV? It all comes down to thinking outside the box and being creative. Gunfighters, we have to train. We can make all the excuses in the world for not training; however let's call a spade a spade, ITS JUST PLAIN LAZINESS. Laziness and complacency will get you on your back with nothing registering on the EKG machine. Always remember that you carry the cloth of a gunfighter, and you have an obligation to your family and yourself to wear it competently. Train perfect, train hard, train real.
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Robert HecklerFormer US Army infantryman and combat veteran. worked in law enforcement as a patrol supervisor, instructor, and SWAT operator. Holds a BS in criminal justice management and currently working towards his masters Archives
August 2015
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