BLUF: Fantastic class for shooters of all skill levels.
This class began on a chilly Saturday morning in the beautiful environs of Knoxville. I was attending as a birthday present from my Lovely Wife. I've had quite a bit of formal and informal pistol instruction over the years, and she's had almost none, so we were a good representative sample of the shooting population.
After a few administrative notes, Randy started going over the PESTS EAT FAST methodology, which formed the foundation for the day's instruction. We covered situational awareness, body mechanics and attitude before we even got close to working on our drawstroke and dry-firing.
After lunch, we moved to the live fire portion, where we built on the concepts we'd covered earlier. The first step was firing One Perfect Shot, getting trigger and grip just right. From there, we moved on to shooting from the draw, then multiple shots, stepping off the X to shoot, headshots, and after-action drills.
Throughout the course, Randy was exceptionally helpful, patient and professional (despite his tendency to digress into ...creative... analogies). My LW was sick that day, and had to rest in the car some, but he was happy to give her individual instruction to get her back up to speed when she returned.
Lessons Learned:
- Pistol shooting is a perishable skill. Last October, I scored Expert on both the target and reactive courses before heading to Afghanistan. After a year behind a computer with no practice, my accuracy was nowhere near Expert.
- Things I need to work on: Overextending my shooting arm dips the muzzle; slide fingers around the grip when starting the draw; keep thumb flagged on the draw
- Bring lunch; don't count on easy access to fast food
- Don't bring a new gun to a class.
- No, really. Don't bring a new gun to class.
- Bring more ammo than the minimum required
- Mag loaders are worth every penny; time spent loading is time spent not training
- You don't know what you don't know. LW couldn't stop talking about this all the way home. There's a lot more to defense than just putting holes in the paper, and it's exciting and fun to have so much to learn.
- The SIG 556 is a FANTASTIC weapon. I tried to steal Randy's after he let us shoot it, but he caught me before I got it into my car.
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