Latest / The Junto Podcast / E8: Slow is Slow, Fast is Fast: A look at Shooting Techniques

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E8: Slow is Slow, Fast is Fast: A look at Shooting Techniques · The Junto Podcast

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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto Podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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As always, I'm your host, Edgar Mills.
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Music.
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Hey, America. Welcome to Episode 8 of the Junto Podcast.
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So, as always, thanks for listening. I appreciate you guys for tuning in.
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So, what are we going to talk about today? Today, we're going to talk mostly
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about Osprey Shoe Solutions training methods, the way I go about training humans to shoot guns.
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We're specifically about guns. We're going to talk about some leadership and
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teamwork stuff a little bit, but mainly about shooting guns.
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So if that's what you're into, stick around.
1:01
So my gun shooting life started well before i joined the army but much like
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most people there was no formal training at all it was just what i'd learned
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from my granddad what i'd seen on television and that just ain't enough so when
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i went to the army even as an infantry man,
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rarely did we get to shoot pistols it was it was all rifle in the in the infantry
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or machine guns or whatnot.
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And fundamentals apply to both rifle and pistol, obviously, but being a good
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pistol shooter is a whole nother level of training.
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You could be a good rifle shooter and not be a very good pistol shooter.
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Whereas if you're a very good pistol shooter, chances are you're a very good rifle shooter as well.
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There's just more variables. It's a smaller, it's easier to manipulate to move
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when you're shooting and while you're shooting,
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which makes it a little bit, I don't want to say harder to control,
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but every little variable matters there.
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So I really started, I really learned how to shoot a pistol when I joined the
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special forces and my team sergeant, his name was Ken, was an excellent shooter, like a rock man.
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He was, he was awesome and he did not miss.
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And he did a good job of explaining and training me how to shoot a gun.
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I got very good at shooting a pistol for SF standards.
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I got very good at shooting a.
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But there is a methodology in
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the big institutions, in SF, in law enforcement, in any big institution.
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There is a kind of old paradigm, old school methodology that doesn't really
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break down the nuance as far as it could or should.
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And why is that? Well, probably because you've got a lot of people.
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You're trying to train a lot of people in a short period of time.
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And when I say a lot, when it comes to SF, I mean, you might have a whole company
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doing advanced urban combat at one time.
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That's, you know, that's anywhere from 80 to 100 shooters online doing things.
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Now, obviously, smart people break that up into smaller bites.
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But the point is you're kind of, especially in the conventional army,
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training to the lowest common denominator.
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And what that makes for is very generic
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instruction and then
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you know if you if you're not picking up the very basics then
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they'll send you off on the on the far side of
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the line you know to do some remedial stuff and then
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somebody will will try to figure out what you're doing wrong so no
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matter how sexy everybody is all the all the sefalc and
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sephardic and all this and that range 37 dudes
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anybody who is very
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good at shooting they go beyond they go
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outside of the institutional and organizational venues
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that being said Sephardic produces some incredibly good shooters however that
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doesn't mean they're the best and not only that even even the top shooter at
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Sephardic still chances are a top shooter at Sephardic probably shoots on his
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own as well Probably does competition shooting.
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But let's talk a little bit about police agencies. Okay.
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I've known, I've trained with many SWAT teams and not full-time SWAT teams.
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Let me caveat what I'm about to say is all of the SWAT teams I've ever trained
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with have been part-time or residual duty SWAT teams.
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Up to 40, 50 guys. Yeah, true. But they are patrolmen and canine guys and whatever, detectives.
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So their training time is is
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limited and i i'm gonna argue that's kind
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of like just by poor planning on the behalf of
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leadership mostly but we can get
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into that another day their training is is i hate to say worse but worse when
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it comes to training to the lowest common they get the majority of their firearms
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training in the in the police academy and then after that it's you know,
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minimal minimal hours per month i'm not
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saying days per month guys i'm saying minimal hours per
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month and that's most of these little smaller
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agencies out there so the the cops that are out there on the street right now
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who do shoot well 100 it's because they go and shoot matches on the weekends
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or they go seek out their own training from some of these YouTube sensations
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or whoever else, the tactical guys.
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And I'm not bemoaning those guys. Some of them are good. Some of them are not.
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What I'm saying is they seek out additional training on their own.
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A lot of guys are hesitant to do that.
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Bullets cost money. Yes. But where are your priorities?
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If I was a law enforcement guy, if I carried a gun every day for a living,
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I would train additional people,
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additional time into the lethal force that I have on my, on my hip for sure. A hundred percent.
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Uh, the same as, as within the military.
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I know it was different in the early two thousands for me and my experience
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as a, as it is like today, these days, I know a lot of SF dudes, young SF dudes,
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older SF dudes who go out and chase down matches on the weekends.
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USPSA, PCS League, or whatever. Whereas you didn't see that in the early, early 2000s.
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And certainly not in the 90s. When I was an infantryman, I didn't know anyone that shot competition.
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And that was in the 82nd. And you would think, yeah, there's something like
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60,000 dudes or something.
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Somebody's got to shoot. I just didn't know those guys.
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And you would have thought that I would have. You would have thought they would
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have been prominent, but they weren't. So it's a good dynamic that young soldiers
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and cops are going out these days and shooting.
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And I completely attribute that to social media and YouTube.
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Now everybody is on social media and everybody is a little sort of a little superstar.
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So when you see some guy out there burning it down and you wonder,
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hey, man, can I do that better than him?
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Sometimes guys are just so hyper competitive that once they see someone doing
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a thing, they got to do it better.
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And that's a good thing. And that's a good thing.
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So, yeah, the dynamic, I think, has changed over time.
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So the institutional training has been very slow to change, though.
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It's been very slow to change. and that comes you know I.
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Is it an unwillingness to change? Is it because the bureaucracy is so thick
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that to change any training doctrine is just beyond the pale?
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I don't know. You know, I don't know why that is. But I know that the war,
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over 20 years of combat, I know for sure that that created different dynamics.
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And people were shooting for real in a real situation.
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And they were learning that the bullseye-style shooting just was not it.
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All right, completely broke my train of thought there.
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What we're talking about here is training. We're talking about institutional
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training, specifically military and law enforcement, and the shortfalls of that.
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And we're talking about the need, based on priorities, the need to get out and train on your own.
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At at shooting matches taking courses with
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credible people and things like that so let's get
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into it who's the credible people there there's a lot a lot of a lot of guys
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flashy guys out there on youtube i'm certainly not one of those flashy guys
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and i don't necessarily say flashy to be derogative however my my catchphrase
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is no frills i don't f around with a bunch of.
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So, but there are a lot of credible guys. Now,
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some of those guys who have some credible pedigree or some credible background,
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or they were Navy SEAL for about four years and then got out and became social
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media influencers and started training people how to shoot guns.
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What I do see is a lot of weird little techniques that aren't the optimal techniques.
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I see a lot of weird little nuances and idiosyncrasies from these dudes that look sexy as hell.
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But when it comes down to really being the most efficient, that they're not.
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And I see that a lot from these big name dudes, big name dudes.
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So the good thing about these big name dudes, from my perspective,
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is that most of them charge so much for a class that your average guy is not
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going to take their class.
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So, you know, they're looking for the big money, and that's great.
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And they're going to get people who want to pay big money just to stand around
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with a, you know, a nice looking Navy SEAL.
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So methodology out at OSS, right? the way I train is very much a jump in the deep end approach.
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And the tactics and techniques, well, not tactics, the techniques that I use
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for shooting are not ever changing, mind you.
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Principles, one, principles versus techniques.
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Principles are never changing, are etched in
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stone and blood and they are
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rules that must be followed whereas techniques
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are methods of implementing
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those principles and they may change and they do change and i use the catchphrase
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all the time techniques are like a-holes everybody got one most of them stink
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so yep there's your old school dad joke for the day so techniques come and go
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and some of these flashy youtube guys,
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that's that's their flash that's their catch is their little their little silly
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technique or their little product that is just ridiculous but they explain it
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in such an awesome way that you have to have it.
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So my techniques may change.
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Yeah. So my techniques may change, but the principles never will.
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And what, what would prompt my techniques to change?
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Well, if someone shows me a more efficient, faster way to do a thing,
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I'm completely open to it.
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Now, earlier in my career as, so nevermind my career as a soldier.
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Yeah. As a Green Beret, my job was to train people and I trained lots of people.
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From Algeria to Ukraine to wherever, how to shoot guns and do tactics.
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But my instructional skill evolved because you approach it a little differently
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when you're training third world guys who,
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I mean, I don't want to get into politics, but who may eventually become your enemy or whatever.
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And there's also guidelines from DOD on what you can and can't give up as far as TTPs go.
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At any rate, when you start training more and more soft guys,
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American soft guys, your own soldiers,
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then your techniques really have to, your training technique,
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your instructional methods really have to get tuned up.
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Because one, in this business, in the soft business, there's a lot of judgmental
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dudes out there and they will sharpshoot you to death.
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So you have to be correct. You have to come correct when you're delivering the goods.
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So that's one is, is tuning up instructional technique.
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And then you're tempted to train.
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So this is my early, my early years, I trained two skill levels.
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And that's not to say you can go out with a USPSA Grandmaster and a new shooter
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and do the exact same things on the range.
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But almost you can, because it's about how they perform the task,
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the act of performing the task itself, right? Not necessarily the outcome.
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Obviously, a Grandmaster is going to move faster and get better hits than a new shooter, right?
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A day, in theory, should execute the task the exact same way.
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A newer shooter might just be doing it slower. I don't know.
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So I used to have a catchphrase, and I wrote a blog yesterday and put it out.
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I used to have a catchphrase way back when I was the SOCOM marksmanship team
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or marksmanship program in COSC.
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And that catchphrase was, pull the trigger cartoonishly slow.
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And even at that time, I didn't understand the implications of that. Now I do.
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The implications of pulling the trigger cartoonishly slow is that you will learn
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to pull the trigger cartoonishly slow, and you will learn that very well.
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But when it's time to pull the trigger fast, you're not going to get the same
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result. The reason I thought pulling the trigger cartoonishly slow was the correct
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answer was one, because that's how I learned.
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And that's what I think, I don't know, Pat McNamara, somebody called that institutional inbreeding.
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So I learned sort of somewhat inferior technique and then I perpetuated that.
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The idea is if you pull the trigger incredibly
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slow then you'll be able to see what's going
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on with your front sight or you'll be able to tell whether
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or not you're manipulating your gun left right up or down or whatever when you
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squeeze the trigger and that's all fine and well but when the beep goes off
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now we're talking about something completely different so over time so so my My challenge,
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when I first started shooting competitions with my mentor, Dan,
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and my son, Zeke, we were down in Tampa, Florida.
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And my challenge was speed. I could put rounds on target with no problem whatsoever.
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A-zones were the goal. That's what I thought was the most important thing,
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is putting two really close shots close together in the middle of the A-zone.
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And my challenge was speed.
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I would go and shoot a match, and I would maybe get fifth place or sixth place
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or something like that, and never number one, number two, number three,
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because my time was just slow.
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So even if I ran a clean stage, I was still slower than a guy who picked up
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a couple of Charlies or whatever.
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So, and even then, because I was still in the military and I knew I was going
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back to my unit and I knew that I was going to deploy another two or three times,
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I was hesitant to accept the looser hits and trade off for speed.
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I was hesitant to trade accuracy for speed.
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Well, after, you know, going back to my unit, multiple deployments,
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and then shooting matches in Colorado Springs with my son.
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Again, I was still hesitant to really open up the speed and accept a little bit looser hits.
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And then that kept me marginal. That kept me lower on the ranking there.
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So eventually, a retirement came and went, and now I began to open up.
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And I learned how to pick out different metrics to work for a different thing.
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Every shooting drill or every shooting session didn't have to have two alphas,
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two alphas, two alphas, two alphas.
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I could I could really speed up and
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accept a charlie Or maybe even two charlies sometime depending on what I was
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doing and how fast I was trying to go So I was you I was looking at different
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metrics now not just where the bullets hit But how fast did they hit how controlled
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was I and how out of control was I?
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How much of the sight or the dot did I see?
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Did I need to see? and how still or how shaky was it.
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When you start to look at different metrics and you can start to push different
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little smaller pieces of the, of the over of the overall sequence there.
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And I learned how to push speed and I learned how to accept a C zone here and there.
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And then you just not accept the C zone, but you decipher where did it go wrong?
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Where did it, how did I hit that C zone?
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Did it have to do with overswinging my arms on a target transition or were my
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wrists and my hands just loose and the gun was moving?
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Did I manipulate the gun when I squeezed the trigger? There's a lot of things you can look at.
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And so instead of going slow enough to hold on to the A-zones.
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You go fast enough to kind of go off the rails a little bit and figure out,
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okay, what was it that caused me to go off the rails?
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That's a far more analytical way
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to train and it's a far more
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beneficial way to train and i
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think ultimately here's what happens and
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i do this with newer shooters inexperienced shooters
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or whatever i have them shooting fast
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early i think that's very
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important i think and I use the analogy and
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this mostly applies to guys probably but when you were
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16 and you got your driver's license
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and your very first opportunity to go drive by yourself
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for the probably first two miles
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you you were obeying the speed limit and making sure
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everything was safe but then you got off into a parking
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lot or you got off onto a dirt road somewhere and then
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what did you do yeah man you cut
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loose all right i had a 1972 ford
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ltd out drifting in the backwoods of
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of suburban atlanta so yeah then you go and tear it up right you go and go wide
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open see because we all think we're race car drivers until we get sideways in
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the middle of a road and then off onto the ditch or whatnot.
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We learn where the limits are. And guess what?
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Even a 72 LTD, that car could outpace my ability.
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Just like your gun can outpace your ability.
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Chances are you're not going to shoot the gun faster than it can cycle.
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It's just, I don't know that I've ever seen that happen with a modern handgun.
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So why not get a gun, your pistol, in a controlled environment,
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controlled and safe environment, and push it?
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Try to push it out see where your limits are at what this
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does for you as far as grip and recoil management
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goes is that it gets you very uncomfortable very quick and it causes you to
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focus on what you need to do to feel comfortable to or to feel more in control
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and i encourage people to shoot fast enough well i honestly i tell people to
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shoot as fast as they can pull the trigger.
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If the gun feels like it's out of control, you know, hang on to the gun,
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keep it pointing on target, but keep, keep riding it.
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And what that will do is intimately show you where your, your grip is weak and
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there you, and you should do that.
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There's no reason not to do that. The problem with most indoor ranges is that
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you can't, you can't draw from the holster and you can't shoot rapid fire and things like that.
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But out on most outdoor ranges, you can, and you should.
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So, and then the next thing I go into is the draw. Now, you may say,
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why are you starting with recoil management before you start with the draw?
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I think chronologically, yes. There are three, the three things I think are
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most important when it comes to shooting a pistol.
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In chronological order are, you have to be able to draw your gun efficiently.
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Two, you have to be able to hit what you're shooting at.
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And that sounds oversimplified, but I'll explain in a sec. And then three,
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you have to be able to shoot fast.
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And I'll explain that in a second. So you have to be able to get your gun.
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If you're a concealed carrier and you're carrying in some obscure position,
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you have to train to get that gun out fast.
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The gold standard is one second, just as far as time goes.
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But that's not always the answer. It's not the only answer, and it's not always
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one second might be too slow.
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So you need to dry fire that and train and learn to get your daily carry pistol out as fast as you can.
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Now, if you're shooting a rig, a belt rig for competition or whatnot,
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yeah, set that thing up where it's most conducive for you to lift that gun straight
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out of the holster and go to work.
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So, yeah, the gold standard is about a second.
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Train faster than that. and then and get that down as a subconscious task. Yeah.
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And then the next most important thing is being able to hit where you're shooting
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at. Now you would think, okay, well, that's the most important.
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Okay. I kind of agree that it is, but you still have to get your gun out in order to do that.
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So what two things inform being able to hit where you're shooting at the most?
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Well, visual focus, what you're looking at, and then.
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That's it. Grip. If you have a solid grip, a consistent grip,
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and when you present your gun up into your line of sight, if you're looking
24:29
at that target, you should be able to put rounds on target.
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Whether they're perfect A-zone rounds or semi-loose C-zone rounds at 30 yards,
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if you hold the gun the same every time and you're looking at a fine point on
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the target, yeah, you're going to be able to hit the target.
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The grip and visual focus are the two things that inform accuracy the most.
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Not breath control, not trigger control, absolutely not stance.
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Grip and visual focus. Those two things will put rounds on target.
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And then I said third was you've got to be able to shoot fast.
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And why do you think that is? Why not just one or two well-placed controlled shots?
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Well, from a concealed carry or self-defense perspective, if you watch video
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after video after video, or if you've ever been in an actual gunfight,
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there is a adrenaline factor and a pucker factor, and people subconsciously tend to shoot fast.
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You see cops do it all the time. They'll dump entire magazines and then have to go into a reload.
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Now, I don't know if they train to do that or because they're scared out of
25:47
their mind or because I don't know why they do it, but if you see civilians
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do it as well, there's some subconscious effort there telling them to shoot fast.
25:59
The first time I ever shot at anyone who was shooting at me was with a rifle, and I shot fast.
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My eyes looked like T-saucers, and I was staring at muzzle flash, and I was running.
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My fire team was running and we were returning fire at a high rate of speed
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trying to get to cover i didn't plan on shooting fast the prevailing thought
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in my mind was get to cover,
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so there's a subconscious reaction that takes over when you do when things like
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that happen now as far as competition goes why shoot fast well most competitions
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require two rounds per target.
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Look, splits matter in the competition. However fast you can shoot those two
26:46
rounds, or they might throw a curveball at you.
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And this has happened to me many times, even in my own match that I set up.
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Instead of having two rounds per target, you change it to three rounds per target
26:58
and see how many dudes run the whole stage shooting two rounds per target.
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I've done that before because you're so ingrained to shoot two.
27:07
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
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So it's good it's good to work outside of that habit but the point is you're
27:14
not going to sit and take two slow aimed fire shots on every target that slow
27:18
you down now what's a good what's considered to be good splits uh you know it
27:23
depends on distance and whatnot but.
27:26
Anywhere high speed pros are out there shooting you know one five one six splits,
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and i'd say average folks are shooting somewhere between one eight and about two two splits and,
27:40
critical are the splits you know i don't i don't know but
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i know tens of seconds and hundreds of seconds add up
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eventually depending on how long the stage is so yeah it's kind of it's kind
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of important to be able to shoot fast and uh and grip is what allows you to
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do that high hands maximum meat on grip and locked wrists and then how much
28:03
force well however much force you need.
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That stops the gun from moving inside of your hands
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it doesn't have to be max arnold schwarzenegger
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clamp down to be
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able to control the gun and in fact kind of the more relaxed your shoulders
28:20
and upper body are the faster the more agile you can be over tensing your body
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tends to slow you down a little bit but your grip yes it should be fairly hard
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hard enough that the gun doesn't move when you pull the trigger.
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The only thing that should move when you pull the trigger is your trigger finger.
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And then, of course, it's going to recoil. There's no way to stop that,
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ladies and gentlemen. There's no way to stop it.
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So what you're looking for is that consistent grip so that the gun bounces right
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back to where it started.
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That's what we're looking for, is that the gun bounces right back to where you're looking.
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So if you're looking at the A zone, the top half of the A zone,
29:00
or the A itself or you got a little black pasty on
29:03
target and you start there boom boom
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boom boom boom boom you should finish there ideally and
29:11
that's that's recoil management that's that's what it is you're not going to
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stop it from recoiling but you can certainly you can certainly predict where
29:19
and when it's going to land back on target and that's what the some of these
29:24
modern dudes are calling predictive shooting versus reactive shooting,
29:30
where you're reacting to what your sights are telling you.
29:33
So for more difficult targets or longer targets or whatnot, yeah,
29:37
you might get a little bit more of a sight picture while still maintaining target focus.
29:43
You before you actually drop the hammer or squeeze the trigger so the point
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of all of what i'm saying here is and we go over these a lot of these things
29:53
in class or on the range but learning to shoot fast early will help you get
29:59
consistent faster i believe.
30:03
Slow down and get your hits is a it's a trap it's a slow guy trap it's a feel-good
30:12
trap Because anyone can go slow and get the hits.
30:16
Anyone can go slow and get the hits.
30:19
And if you go cartoonishly slow, absolutely, you're going to get the hits.
30:22
And it's going to feel good. You're going to be like, oh, look, I'm dead on the A.
30:27
Awesome. It only matters if you can do it under time and stress. Really, it does.
30:34
Everything beyond that is just bullseye shooting. Now, if you're in the bullseye
30:38
shooting game, yeah, that's a whole different thing.
30:42
Yeah. aim relax breathe relax aim
30:46
squeeze take your time exhale deep
30:50
long exhale at the bottom of your breath slowly squeeze
30:54
the trigger until the wall breaks all
30:58
that stuff and there's a time and place for that you know long range precision
31:02
shooting has there's a time and place what we're talking about here guys is
31:07
action shooting or performance shooting dynamic stuff where time and stress, time and stress,
31:14
or problem solving on a move, that kind of thing.
31:18
Shoot fast well what if you don't have even
31:21
the most basic knowledge of hand yeah of course you
31:24
have to understand the principles of the
31:27
grip you have to have the grip first if you
31:31
just pick up a gun and start blazing away with a teacup you know whatever or
31:36
the air for what i'll call the air force grip where everybody's got their their
31:39
thumbs all tucked under you're never going to be able to build anything on that
31:44
foundation because it's not a repeatable stable foundation It's, it's, it's flawed.
31:50
So of course the foundation has to be solid, but, and if I see problems with it, we work on it.
31:56
And, but how do you test, how do you test it though?
32:00
You shoot fast. If I tune your grip up and then we shoot one slow aim fire and
32:05
another slow aim fire, you're not really getting the full effect of,
32:09
did I, did my change have any effect at all?
32:13
So even then you test it by shooting it fast.
32:17
So, yeah, you have to have the foundation of the grip. The grip is the foundation
32:20
that the house is built on.
32:22
And once that grip is stable and repeatable, that's it. Go fast.
32:29
Everything else is a little technique that can be tweaked.
32:34
High hands, maximum grip coverage, locked wrists, and there you go, let her rip.
32:41
And tension, right? What kind of tension? Well, inward tension on the grips.
32:46
Lateral. inward left and right tension our right
32:50
hand or not our right hand our firing hand provides the the front strap and
32:56
the back strap tension we don't need any more i've had a lot of people come
33:00
out to my place and they want to they want to ask about doing am i supposed
33:03
to push with my firing hand and and pull with my support hand and all that stuff.
33:10
That stuff went out of style with frigging Barney Miller and Hill Street Blues.
33:16
I think that stuff is from like the weaver stance or something.
33:21
Stuff that has long since been, I don't want to say debunked,
33:25
but discovered as to be not the most efficient way to do business.
33:30
So the isosceles stance with lateral pressure from your hands.
33:37
And now, where do you lock your elbows? Well, that's up to you.
33:40
Some people have a very distinct bend in their elbows when they fire.
33:45
Some people lock their arms straight out when they fire. I don't do that.
33:50
And I don't, primarily because I learned how to shoot guns with wearing body armor all the time.
33:57
And it's kind of difficult to, when you got a bunch of kid on,
34:01
not just the plate itself, but all the other stuff.
34:05
It's difficult to get those arms completely locked.
34:10
But when it comes to presentation and how far you should push your gun out,
34:17
I refer to a fellow named Frank Proctor.
34:20
He is a former SF guy and a grandmaster professional shooter.
34:25
And that guy makes it look easy.
34:27
He's kind of, I don't know how tall he is, but he's got long arms.
34:31
And when that guy shoots, he's got a pretty distinct bend in his elbows. Yeah.
34:37
And he's smooth as butter smooth as butter so yeah i like the way that looks
34:42
i don't think there's anything wrong with either way locking out or keeping
34:48
your elbows bent at any rate,
34:51
see which one helps you shoot faster and then do that one all right i'm going
34:55
into instructional stuff here's what i'm saying folks is is there's nothing
34:59
wrong with shooting fast,
35:01
the bare fundamental you need before you start
35:04
shooting fast is the is the grip but the
35:07
way to test that grip is by shooting fast so
35:10
and then the other thing is the only thing
35:13
you can't dry fire at home is recoil management anything
35:17
else anything else you can dry fire at home you can draw you can you can try
35:24
your sub-second draw you can do multiple target transitions you can do lateral
35:29
movement from from array to a target array to target array you can do sprints to and from.
35:37
You can do mag changes if you
35:40
want to practice malfunctions by all means practice malfunctions you
35:44
can do all those things in your basement or in
35:47
your living room the only thing you can't do
35:50
at home is shoot the gun fast and feel the
35:53
recoil and that is one of the reasons we
35:56
impress upon it so much out here it's one of the reasons we impress upon so
36:00
much out here because it's the one thing you can't do on your own and i'm not
36:04
trying necessarily to work myself out of a job by all means come out here and
36:08
train but a good dry fire program will give you exponential,
36:15
exponential improvement in a short period of time if you're holding yourself accountable.
36:22
And that's the facts. You will see visible improvement from one range time live
36:29
fire to another live fire if you dry fire in between.
36:33
And don't try to learn everything under the sun all in one sitting.
36:39
Pick a task, work on that task, and then get to a point where you can repeat that task comfortably.
36:47
And there you go. And then move on to another task or go back later to confirm
36:53
that you can repeat that task.
36:56
Dry fire is critical and you don't need any fancy stuff. You can download an
37:01
IPSC shot timer on your phone.
37:04
If it's a timer with a part time, you can dry fire at home.
37:10
You can set up almost anything as a target.
37:13
I happen to like Ben Stager's dry fire reloaded book.
37:18
Because you can get one package that comes with little IPSC targets and little
37:22
steel poppers and whatnot that are down to scale.
37:26
You can paste those up all over your house.
37:29
You can use pictures of your mother-in-law, you know, whatever.
37:32
It does not matter as long as you are focusing on the target,
37:37
bring your gun up to your line of sight.
37:39
And when you pull the trigger, the gun remains still and stable.
37:44
So dry fire is critical but you cannot dry fire recoil management it's important.
37:52
So i call that methodology i kind of call it the deep end methodology by throwing
37:57
people in deep end but here's another thing that going fast early does and i
38:05
think it helps people get comfortable quicker i've seen people come out absolutely
38:09
nervous to have a loaded gun on their body.
38:12
I mean, you know, very new shooters or very nervous shooters.
38:16
And then after, you know, 40 minutes of, of doing various recoil management
38:24
type stuff, it's completely gone, completely gone.
38:28
So shooting fast early helps you get more intimate with your gun quicker to
38:33
learn how it reacts at speed, how it reacts, how the gun reacts.
38:39
And obviously, most of that is from your input, but it helps you to identify
38:45
your input, either the shortcomings or whatnot, faster.
38:51
So, I mean, overall, I think it's very important.
38:56
This is my idea behind going fast early.
39:01
And I said this in my blog, and a few guys have said this, more famous guys
39:06
have said this, but the military, the old military trope, slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
39:12
There's still Navy SEALs out there spitting that stuff. There's all kinds of
39:16
dudes saying that still.
39:17
And the fact of the matter is slow is slow and fast is fast.
39:21
You can be smooth either way.
39:24
You don't necessarily have to start out slow to get faster. You don't necessarily have to.
39:31
You can start out fast and have an instructor to help you identify the flaws there.
39:39
You can tune those up fast, and you can have those faster sooner.
39:47
Being smooth is important yes i i concur but if you read the blog you'll see that,
39:55
i kind of call the the slow smooth smooth
39:58
and fast as fast thing it's kind of like a unintentional lie that supposes that
40:05
you will eventually get fast but i'm here to tell you you don't have time for
40:10
eventually you need to learn to get fast early you need to learn to get fast straight away.
40:17
Now, in the armed, like say police business or military business,
40:22
if you're a newer shooter, but you deploy, guess what? You've deployed.
40:28
Gunfight is not a quick draw until it is.
40:31
And if it is, it is. You can either rise to the occasion or you won't.
40:38
In the civilian world, you see a lot of cops up close and personal type engagements.
40:44
Every gunfight is not a quick draw unless it is.
40:48
So we can't hope that we're going to eventually get fast on our one training day per month.
40:54
Speed has to be intentional. It has to be built in intentionally
40:58
and deliberately and you have to work on it
41:01
and you have to go fast and you have to learn to go fast if
41:05
you want to win that's it if you want to win if you're just out plinking whatever
41:09
go out and plink but if you want to learn to shoot faster and more accurately
41:15
then you have to train it you have to train it in the competition world you're
41:21
never going to win if you're not fast.
41:23
In the law enforcement or military world, there's a potential for you to lose, to lose it all.
41:33
And furthermore, not just lose it all for you, but then endanger your team or your partner.
41:39
So think about that. Speed's not this extra thing that comes along if you think
41:45
you're a hot rod. No, no, no, no.
41:47
Speed is still a thing that needs to be built in. it needs to exist it has to
41:52
exist for you to be better ask any competitor ask any competitor.
41:59
And that speed matters now there's plenty of shooting matches
42:03
out there that they may they may favor accuracy
42:07
over speed right they may favor the gun piece over
42:10
the shoot the shooting piece and they may favor points
42:13
over time whatever man idpa is
42:18
kind of a a everybody it's a slower moving sport than uspsa but it's still by
42:23
no means slow and it depends on where you're shooting at and who you're shooting
42:27
against but in every in every competition i've ever shot at there are highly competitive,
42:35
highly competitive humans out there who do not want to lose.
42:41
So you have to go fast if you aim to be competitive.
42:45
And if you're out there just doing it for fun, okay, great. But it should be
42:50
fun to see yourself improve and get faster.
42:53
Speed is not something that we have time to eventually catch up with.
42:57
We have to train it intentionally.
42:59
We have to train it intentionally.
43:02
And then obviously the question I ask every class and every private session
43:06
and everyone I train is, what's more important, speed or accuracy?
43:10
It's a trick question, right?
43:13
Equally important. One's not more important than the other.
43:17
If you and I are standing five yards apart and I do a 0.85 draw and put rounds
43:23
all over your torso before you've ever even squeezed one perfect round off,
43:28
then speed mattered more.
43:30
Likewise, if I pull my gun in 0.85 seconds and blaze up and miss every single
43:37
shot and you take your time and get the two perfect rounds on my heart, right?
43:44
Accuracy mattered, right? So you have no way, no possible way of knowing how
43:50
that's going to shake out.
43:51
So you have to train both. You have to train both.
43:55
And in my blog, I talked about training up close, three and five yards.
44:00
I advocate that only because that's where you learn to go fast.
44:05
You have to train your body to move faster than you're used to.
44:09
You can't just, depend on incrementally. Hopefully I drew a little faster this
44:15
time than I did last time.
44:16
Go up close and where you're controlled and you have, you still get feedback
44:21
and go as fast as you can safely go.
44:25
Push the limits, push the limits up close.
44:29
Now don't do that day after day after day, right? Also, you need to be shooting
44:33
at 25, 30, 35 yards and beyond.
44:36
How fast can you draw your pistol and
44:39
put four rounds on target at 25 yards
44:42
i know plenty of people that can't put four
44:45
rounds on a target at 25 yards so still
44:49
there is there's that balance obviously it's
44:52
going to be slower than your your bill
44:55
drill your bill minus drill up at seven yards but
45:00
there's guys out there that can get pretty close to that yeah
45:03
the target's smaller so the deviations matter
45:06
more and that's where we learn out
45:10
at distance is where we learn that the little the
45:13
little things we noticed up close they have
45:16
a much bigger impact out at distance all right so
45:19
if you are somehow manipulating your gun when you pull the trigger say down
45:24
and left like many people do that's going to be a big problem out at 25 and
45:31
so all that does is help you identify that and gives you an opportunity to tune that up.
45:38
So shooting perfect is awesome, but imperfect shooting allows us to see where
45:44
we have weaknesses, as long as they're consistent, right?
45:50
Patterns. If we're all over the place all the time and there's just no consistent
45:55
data, you know, that's unusual.
45:59
I don't see that happen a lot, but you got to be able to establish patterns
46:03
to be able to establish corrections for those.
46:06
But out at distance is a good place to do it.
46:10
As a civilian, the chances of you ever shooting your gun at 35 yards are slim
46:16
to zero in a real situation.
46:19
Absolutely. But there's always anomalies, right? You guys remember that guy
46:24
up north somewhere in Minnesota or somewhere?
46:26
He was in the mall and did, what was it, 40 yards shy. He shot 10 rounds,
46:33
8 rounds on target at something like 30 or 40 yards.
46:37
That was a good piece of work there. but my
46:41
immediate question was where are the other two rounds at now i
46:44
wasn't there so i don't know but i'm sure maybe he had a good backstop
46:47
maybe you know he he felt
46:50
comfortable taking those shots or maybe he was just divinely guided you know
46:54
i don't know that's rare though that's an anomaly for sure now maybe for cops
47:00
sometimes they're more likely to get into that that distance because most videos
47:05
i see cops immediately turn and run away so they try to put distance i guess that's their,
47:10
mostly their SOP is to try to get away and then somehow take these difficult
47:17
shots under stress at distance that they can't even do on their qualifications at 20 yards or 25 yards.
47:26
I hate to keep, I don't poo-poo the cops. I got, I love the cops.
47:30
I got a love-hate relationship with the cops.
47:32
And it's mainly because of the training, the training mentality.
47:37
At any rate, train to go fast people
47:40
there's nothing wrong with it what's wrong
47:43
with it if you just blaze up you get no data from
47:45
it and you just continually do the same thing
47:48
over and over and and you're not performing well eventually all
47:52
right it's about the the the way you perform
47:55
not necessarily the outcome however eventually now
47:59
we're now we're praying for eventually right if you're
48:02
not putting rounds in acceptable spots your accuracy
48:06
is not going to eventually be there either so you have
48:09
to you have to put it all together so that
48:12
you're putting the fast rounds on the
48:15
a-zone the fast rounds on the a-zone
48:18
at whatever distance so anyway
48:22
there's different ways to score there's different ways to measure when you're
48:26
out shooting so it's not always did i get the a-zone hit sometimes we might
48:32
care more about time sometimes we're working that's what we're working on trying
48:35
to push time a lot of times with my clients when we do private sessions or whatnot.
48:41
If they if they have any experience at all the first thing we'll do is go do
48:45
a timed or cold shot at seven yards from the draw just one round how fast can
48:52
we put one round the a zone at seven yards clearly the goal is is one second,
49:00
if we can't do that cold, well, that's, that's something to train for,
49:03
but that's one of the things I do just, you know, just to get the beep going
49:08
early, to get, to get the mindset correct to let's get ready to go fast.
49:14
So there are my thoughts folks on, on pistol training. And this,
49:18
this translates to rifle as well.
49:20
There are my thoughts on pistol training. Go fast. There's nothing wrong with going fast.
49:25
If you think there is, if you think it's somehow dangerous or counterproductive, reach out to me.
49:33
If you're an old NRA guy and you wear your red shirt everywhere and your red
49:37
hat, and you think everything I'm saying is bull crap, please, you know, hit me up.
49:42
I'm happy to talk about methodology and I'm happy to go out and trained with
49:47
whoever to solidify my point of view.
49:53
If you're a USCCA trainer, which I am, and you're an NRA trainer,
49:58
which I am, and you're not stepping out of their curriculum,
50:02
and you're only doing what their curriculum has to offer,
50:06
you're shortchanging your students.
50:09
I'm just saying that outright. You're shortchanging your students if you're
50:14
training NRA or USCCA curriculum.
50:17
USCCA is a little bit better when it comes to, I don't know,
50:20
they kind of delve into like different sort of tactics for home defense and
50:27
church defense and things.
50:29
But when it comes to shooting the gun, there's still, there's still a little
50:34
old, old paradigm, perfect front sight picture, breathe, you know,
50:39
trigger squeeze and all that stuff.
50:40
So if you're not breaking outside of those curriculum, then you're doing your students a disservice.
50:47
And if you can't train beyond their standards, specifically NRA and USCCA,
50:54
then you're doing yourself a disservice if you're not training beyond,
50:57
performing beyond their standards.
51:00
And then there's all the RSO class out there.
51:05
The old boys who are lifetime RSOs. And then you get out there with your own
51:11
little quirky things that you say are dangerous that aren't or quirky things
51:15
that you allow to pass that shouldn't.
51:20
I know I've seen the various kinds of guys out on the range,
51:24
and some of them are just unpleasant people to be around.
51:27
Or they're poopy or they're in charge. So when they're in charge,
51:31
they want to be large and in charge.
51:35
That's not everyone. I'm just saying there's a lot of those guys out there too, right?
51:40
There's the NRA class of sort of FUDs that, heaven forbid, you shoot faster
51:47
than one round per second.
51:48
Then there's the rso class out and especially idpa that if your if your toe
51:54
was was within an eighth of an inch of touching the ground on the other side
51:59
of the fault line you're disqualified,
52:02
or or or they shoot when they shoot the the stage they're consistently 12 or
52:10
15 out of 20 they never change the way they shoot but they know every rule in
52:15
the book you know what i'm saying man.
52:17
So be aware of those guys as well.
52:20
If you want to learn to shoot fast, there's guys, local guys,
52:24
you can come out to Osprey Shooting Solutions.
52:27
There's another fella out there who is a pro shooter, grandmaster,
52:32
Deshaun Jenkins, who, if you're not following that guy, you should be.
52:36
He is a blazer, man.
52:39
He shoots fast and he shoots well and he wins.
52:42
He wins, wins wins so Deshaun Jenkins is another good guy to follow I don't
52:48
know his at right now I won't.
52:52
It up while we're still on here and then of course our partner and buddy kurt finnell,
53:00
who is k factor 85 on on
53:03
instagram he is a he
53:06
is a tactical games he
53:09
is a tactical games champion and elite division and
53:13
that's his primary goal in life is to smoke down the
53:17
tactical games so kfactor85 on
53:20
instagram and then let's see what deshawn d
53:24
jinx d g e n k s 412
53:28
on instagram that's deshawn and
53:31
oddly both of these guys shoot for lago and they both shoot aliens deshawn i
53:37
think shoots a lot of different guns he shoots some cz's and various guns kurt
53:42
right now shoots uh the lago alien and i think atlas at any rate if you want
53:48
to learn to go fast, follow these guys.
53:50
If you need to train to go fast, come out here and train or go out to Jenkins and train.
53:56
And also my buddy, Force Solutions, and that's Dennis Russo.
54:01
He's come around in the competition world. He's been training hard over the
54:07
last, I think, two years, maybe.
54:09
He's been training very hard in the competition world. So check him out as well.
54:15
Next Saturday, we have the OSS Challenge. Now, right now, I think we have an
54:19
even number of people because it's a two-man team event.
54:23
But if you and a homie want to sign up, we still have space for you and a homie
54:27
to sign up. And now you can sign up for that at OspreyShootingSolutions.com.
54:31
And that is in support of the Special Forces Foundation.
54:35
We have April 12th and 13th, we have a Practical Pistol Day course and then
54:42
a Dynamic Pistol course.
54:44
You can take both of those for a discount or you can take each separately or
54:48
one separately i highly encourage i think i'm going to try this format out for
54:53
a while to have them back to back on a saturday and sunday that way you get
54:58
all the goodness for practical pistol and then you go in fresh and hot for,
55:03
dynamic pistol that's how i'm going to run my rifle next month and then that's
55:08
the way we're going to do it for a while until i get some feedback otherwise
55:11
so those are coming up mid April, 12 and 13, I do believe.
55:16
So OspreyShootsSolutions.com on those as well.
55:21
We have a land nav course coming up May, May, I want to say four,
55:28
five, and six, possibly.
55:29
It's three days. It's a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, first weekend in May.
55:33
And that's a three-day land navigation course. That's one day in the classroom.
55:37
And then that's an overnighter out in the Talladega National Forest.
55:40
It's going to be very challenging, eminently challenging.
55:44
Even if you think you're a pretty salty navigator, this is going to challenge you.
55:50
I set this course up kind of framed after the star course in in selection so
55:57
there's long movements between each point and we're going to have point sitters
56:01
out for each of those so get into that that's a good one there's still probably
56:06
we could probably accommodate,
56:09
two or three more folks for that and anyway as always reach out edgar mills
56:14
at ospreyshootingsolutions.com if you have any suggestions or questions or you
56:21
just want to debate a topic.
56:23
And then finally, on thejintoepodcast.com website, if you want to write a blog,
56:29
if you want to write a paper, a well-written paper on anything from philosophy
56:34
to politics to firearms training,
56:37
if it's well-written, we will look over it and post it.
56:41
I'm not going to post a lot of inflammatory stuff. and
56:45
if you if it's written at a fifth grade
56:48
level i'm not going to post it however use microsoft
56:52
office to to tune up
56:55
you to edit all right and we'll post we'll post your thoughts as well and then
57:01
as always thanks for listening folks i love you guys i'm glad you're out there
57:06
listening thanks for hitting 3 000 downloads i look forward to to to getting
57:12
bigger as far as the podcast goes,
57:14
and I look forward to seeing you guys out here training in whatever capacity. Reach out.
57:20
Music.