You ever know somebody that had a problem with drugs or alcohol, or gambling, or whatever who got "cured" and then became all holy-roller and high-horse about how evil their former addiction was? I was ruminating the other day about my lack of drive to sign up for more, and more, and MOAR classes, and I happened upon something online where I referred to myself as a "training junkie". That's not a term I made up, as I've heard it used to describe others, or heard others use it to describe themselves.
What happened for me was a bit of a lightbulb moment, which wasn't really a moment at all and took me awhile to figure out. The realization that I came to is that I don't need more classes, I need more range time. Much like the shooter looking for MOAR when it comes to gear, trying to find that one magic item that will suddenly make them shoot like Enos or Butler. but it never comes. Well I've been stuck in a rut of trying to find that one instructor that's going to give me the magic pill that allows me to shoot better. It finally dawned on me that these are two sides of the same coin, and just like what the gear guy needs is more practice, what the training-class guy needs is more practice too.
Look, I've enjoyed every single class I've ever taken. Even the WORST training/instructor experiences I've had have been enjoyable in the end because I was surrounded by like-minded folks and because we shared a common bond of bitching about, or making fun of, the instructor. It's fun to get out of town, go out to dinner, and hey, even if the instruction sucks you're still outdoors all day shooting guns, which is a good thing. There is nothing wrong with treating a class like Outward Bound with guns and just going for the fun of it. But if your goal is just to get better, you are going to reach a point of diminishing returns, especially if you aren't doing anything to practice in between.
Kyle Defoor (who, by the way, offers what I think are some of the best "advanced" classes in the market) has said "a gunfight is an athletic event", and having never been in a gunfight myself it seems like a logical statement, but I think SHOOTING is also a bit of an athletic event, for lack of a better term. One thing I've noticed in the shooting sports in general is that a guy that is naturally athletic, or who grew up involved in sports (which is usually one in the same, since people rarely do anything they're not naturally good at) is going to take to shooting more quickly and naturally. Not being a physician or a head-shrinker I have no idea why that is, but it holds true over and over again. Now, by "athletic" I don't mean some juice-head that can't scratch his own shoulder because he's so "swoll", as I've seen those guys righteously struggle more than many others when they're trying to learn to shoot after getting big. The point of this is that there are some guys, and I know several of them, that can do virtually NO shooting between classes and show up and shoot better than 99% of the line, still complain to themselves about their own performance, and can actually use semi-annual courses as a tune-up just to keep the skills up.
I don't know about you, but I'm not that guy. I'm the guy that started out life playing sports like any other kid in the '80s, then became a teenager and decided all that shit was for losers, and started doing other things. Of course, I was never very naturally good at sports, I just tended to be taller than the other kids which gives you an advantage in most sports played under the age of 12. So when I got into shooting it was after a decade of basically not doing anything athletic, and that decade was spent in my teen years when people's bodies are chaging the whole time, so what you thought you could do when you were 12 is unlikely to be the same when you are 22 both due to a fond mis-remembering and an actual, total, physically different person.
So I struggle with shooting. Carbines I do OK with because they are frankly more about manipulations than anything else if you're doing anything other than trying to make the holes touch. Pistols, I struggle mightily. My eye focus is all fucked up, I rush the trigger and try to make the gun go off, I squeeze the grip too hard, etc. I can, and have, successfully teach others to shoot pistols better than I do, because I can see in them the same mistakes I make, and know what to do to correct them, I just can't seem to implement it for myself. So I keep going to these classes, hoping I'm going to get the magic pill. I'm going to encounter the one instructor that's going to tell me "put your pinky finger HERE" and it's all going to be better. it's not going to happen any more than that fancy new $200 trigger is going to have you shooting like Taran Butler.
What I need is more practice, not more instruction. Even with the little nuggets I've gotten here and there, they don't overcome the months of inactivity in between. Now, going to the occasional class is certainly better for your shooting skills than not shooting at all, that's not what I'm saying. But given that a class is probably going to run you $1k+ for a weekend including tuition, ammo, lodging, etc. there are probably WAY better ways to spend that money if your real goal is to get better. Of course, there are also way worse, depending on what kind of better you're looking for. I read a post the other day from a guy that shoots 1k rounds/month at the static range and only made Sharpshooter at his first IDPA classifier because he's not used to a timer, moving, engaging multiple targets... Sure, I suppose he's gotten better and better at Dot Torture, and maybe his holes have gotten closer and closer together, but if his goal has been to become a better practical, or all-around, or defensive shooter he's probably well beyond the point of getting any real return on the expense of the static range. At this point he would get more out of shooting one match per month and dryfire practice of the skills he's lacking at home than he will spending 2 nights a week at the indoor range trying to make the bullet holes touch.
Someone out there is surely saying right now "but you're constantly brow-beating people about more training!" and "didn't you just start your own training company?" and the answer in both cases is yes. I absolutely believe that you need to get some amount of training under your belt to start with. You need an introductory course. you may need two or three introductory courses. You should go take at least one intermediate or "advanced" course so you can see how much you suck. But beyond that, what you really need is practice. There is no such thing as a class that can make up for 4-6 months of not doing shit, not practicing what you learned in the last class, not dry-firing... So while yes, you absolutely need some training to start you off, what you need to do with that $1k after a few classes is take your ass to the static range, shoot some local matches, and get in your dryfire practice. going for MOAR classes isn't going to help you. and in fact, with the huge number of "advanced" classes that are nothing more than drills with the occasional supervision, they are often little more than practice that costs you twice as much because you took time off from work and traveled to go do it.
Randy Cain has told the story of his first rifle class at Thunder Ranch where they spent three days shooting positions at various distances, and that's basically all they did, and how he was disappointed when he started out on his drive home. But at some point on the road he realized that he kept telling himself "I could have stayed home and done that", and then after a few hundred more miles realized "yeah, but I wouldn't/didn't." That is the benefit of the multi-day course. If you're the guy that has a good baseline of skills, but never gets to a range, or never gets to a range that allows more dynamic shooting, then maybe what you do need is the occasional class to tune up and keep sharp. and let's not forget, they are fun. But if you don't have those limitations and you're not just looking for fun and you genuinely want to improve, what you should be doing is making the time to practice at home or nearby. If your baseline skills are that good you can probably stay just as tuned up and get better at things you're never going to get in any class simply by attending an IDPA or USPSA match once a month and doing a little dryfire in between.
So, much like the pothead or the drunk who got clean, I'm more of a reformed training junkie myself now. Which means I'll probably get on my high horse and get preachy about it from time to time. Or maybe this blog post got it out of my system.
PS
Our "Clinics" at Goal-Oriented Training are an attempt to offer this very type of supervised, structured, practice. When we started the company I mistakenly thought that more people realized that this is what they really need. Either due to poor marketing on our part, or due to my being completely wrong about what people think they need, the Clinics haven't done as well as I'd have hoped and thought. I'm not sure if it's because people don't understand the format or concept, or if they simply don't want to actually practice and be measured and prefer the silent anonymity of the bulk class where they can quickly hide their performance with tape. Our Clinics aren't about fun (although they are, in fact, fun) or war stories or hobknobbing with Tier 1 guys, they are simply about taking an opportunity to spend 6 hours on the range focusing on a single skill, or a series of like skills, to get better as a shooter, and to get an opportunity to have your performance weighed and measured. Maybe the problem is that people are afraid of winding up like this guy.
