We’ve talked about the importance of having a plan to better your marksmanship skills, now let’s talk about how we’re going to do it. This is where standardized tests which cover a variety of shooting skills come in handy. Things like the Dot Torture Drill and the FBI Pistol Qualification can show you where you are strong and what may need improvement.
This creates another problem: We all like to be reminded of what we do well. It’s an ego boost, and it inspires us to do more. Being reminded of our shortcomings, however, is the opposite of an ego boost.
This idea comes via my friend Michael Bane, and he learned it while training for triathlons and other extreme sports. The idea is simple: Find out what you stink at doing and practice that, rather than practicing the things you’re good at and boosting up your ego.
For instance,I am not that much of an AR-15 guy. I did not join the military, so I did not carry an M16/M4 around with me all day. I’m a decent shot with one, but it’s a tertiary platform for me, after the pistol and the shotgun. I know enough about the AR as a defensive firearm that I can run a defensive-carbine class, and I’m pretty good at beyond 500 yards with one, but as far as I’m concerned, all my defensive guns are 50 yards and under guns, but aside from 3-gun competition and a couple of hunts, I’ve never really worked with an AR from that range out to 500 yards or so.
This has led to an interesting “donut” in my AR skills. 50 yards and under? No problem, and I’m actually quite good at 500 yards and up. Where the donut lies is in-between those two distances, from 50 yards out to 300 or so, which is why I recently attended a class about engaging targets at those ranges. Those distances are a weakness, and I needed to train for them.
The temptation arises to pick a weakness and work on it to the exclusion of all others. For instance, aside from my struggles with an AR, I have the reaction time of a glacier. As a result, my time to first shot is about 1.5 seconds on a good day, and on a bad day, a Galapagos tortoise might get the drop on me. Am I fixating on that one area? No, not really. I am working on it, but it’s one metric out of many that I keep track of, such as time in between each shot and how fast I can make a 25-yard precision shot.
Training your weaknesses isn’t limited to your defensive pistol skills or measurable metrics. For instance, if you can spot trouble and maneuver away from it before anything happens, that makes a sub-second draw a moot point. There is also more than one way to save a life, so knowing how to set a tourniquet and perform CPR can be just as useful as clearing leather in a timely manner. Strive to become, in the words of Sheriff Jim, a “man at arms,” (or woman, as the case may be) rather than a one-trick pony. The problems of life come in all shapes and sizes. Have the ability to respond to as many as possible.
