mike Ox

3 Firearms Training Myths and 3 Quick Fixes to Improve Your Shooting

Record numbers of new shooters combined with a HUGE number of firearms instructors with combat experience have created an explosion in firearms training.

In almost all cases, the schools are delivering great instruction.

But most students leaving these classes are buying into one, two, or three of the following gun training myths…even though the instructors don’t believe in these myths and don’t want their students to fall for them either.

This is important, regardless of whether you’re an instructor or whether you’ve trained with an instructor in the past, plan on doing so at some point in the future, or just plan on doing your own things with tips you pick up online, on books, or on DVDs.

Myth #1
Training Is Practice

I want to start off by saying that I’m a big fan of live firearms training. I’ve been to dozens of classes with dozens of high-speed instructors over the years and even the “mediocre” classes were great experiences and this is not a criticism of firearms instructors at all. They’re given the almost impossible task of conveying a lifetime of instruction, practice, and experience into as short of a class as possible at a price that students can afford.

With that out of the way, myth #1 is that firearms training is equivalent to practice. It’s not.

Training: Where a student is taught how to do something by an instructor.
Practice: Where a student repeats what they’ve been trained to do until they can do it automatically, or without thought. It becomes a conditioned response that bypasses the parts of the brain that are most paralyzed in extreme stress situations.

Training is when you watch proper technique and try to duplicate it until the instructor says, “you’ve got it” and you move to learning the next technique.
Practice is when you repeat that perfect form at various speeds, consciously paying attention to every detail, until one day you wake up and realize that you can do it perfectly, automatically, and FAST, without having to think about it.

Training is what most civilian and law enforcement shooters do.
Practice is what elite SWAT units, military units, and competitive shooters who consistently win do.

When shooters are looking for a firearms class to go to, most want to get as much training as possible for their time and money, so they look for the class with the most credible instructor who’s covering the most “cool stuff” in as few days as possible. (This is a false economy but that’s a conversation for another day)

Instructors, on the other hand, know that they may only have one shot with a student and the student may live or die based on the information they’re taught. It’s a heavy burden that causes instructors to try to cram as much information and training as possible into the limited class time that they have. I get it. I appreciate it. But it’s not practice; it’s not how most instructors learned and became good; and it’s not a good long term solution for students.

This approach may get students performing to a given standard during the class, but it won’t “stick” without repetition. Most experts agree that students will lose 60-80% of the benefit of what they learned within a few short weeks without frequent and timely practice after the initial instruction.

Practice is truly the single biggest missing ingredient in modern firearms training. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty passionate about it. That’s why I co-wrote Tactical Firearms Training Secrets, co-created Dry Fire Training Cards, and 21 Day Alpha Shooter work closely with Matt Seibert in promoting Insight Firearms Training’s Deadly Accuracy Course, helped former Force Recon Marine, Chris Graham, launch 30-10Pistol, and helped Retired Navy SEAL, Larry Yatch, launch Concealed Carry Masters Course.

We want to revolutionize firearms training and take it from a model where the focus is on getting students to be able to perform by the end of the class to a model where firearms instructors not only get students to perform in class, but focus on teaching students how to practice properly, after the training, so that they can get the full benefit of the training that they paid for.

In the meantime, here’s what you can do as a student.

When you’re taking a class and taking notes, constantly ask yourself, “What points do I need to write down so I can practice this properly when I get home?”

At the end of a class, in addition to having notes of facts, figures, and how-to’s, you should also have specific drills to do that are based on what you learned in the class. Some of them should be dry fire drills and some should be live fire drills, but ALL of them should be ones that you can shut your eyes and rehearse in your mind.

Again, the sooner you start this practice after your training and the more frequently you do it, the more long term benefit you’ll get from the training.

Myth #2
All Gun, All The Time

Most shooters go to firearms classes to get trigger time in, to shoot better, and/or to learn and practice tactics. As a result, that’s the kind of classes that are mostly offered.

And an increasing number of defensive shooting classes teach a little bit of situational awareness, deterrence, and disengagement, but the vast majority of the class is still focused on the gun because that’s what students demand.

Again, I get it. I love guns. I love gun stories. I love learning about guns. I love shooting. But my day has gone incredibly bad if I ever have to fire my gun in self defense.

One of the sayings I keep in my head is:

“An Ounce of Deterrence Is Worth a Pound of Lead”

And, I have to add in situational awareness and disengagement to deterrence.

Sun Tzu may have said it better, “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

Regardless, if you can avoid conflicts with pre-fight skills, then hopefully you may never have to find out whether your gun skills are adequate or not.

You probably realized this, but the skill of being able to avoid and deter confrontation becomes more and more valuable as you get older. It may not be as sexy as gun play, but you get to use it a lot more and it might save you from a conflict escalating to where you have to use your gun at all.

How can you practice this?

1. Every day, watch people and situations. Study them. Evaluate the people around you and your surroundings to get a general feel for how safe or unsafe you are. Then, BE COMFORTABLE LEAVING situations when things start getting hairy. Click >HERE< for a systematic proven approach for this.

2. As you find yourself in disagreements and conflicts, begin the practice of disciplining yourself to add water to the fire, rather than fuel.

3. In disagreements, step back mentally while they’re happening and “take the temperature” of both yourself and the other person. Pay attention to the impact of the words you use, the volume, and your body language. And be prepared to physically leave and regroup if one or both of you can’t calm down or you run out of verbal tools to calm things down.

Myth #3
The 21 Foot Rule

Two fundamentals of fighting that have been around for thousands of years are:

1. Use deception.

2. Close distance before surprising and engaging your opponent.

Bad guys know these rules…and they use them.

While we’re practicing being in our lane at the range, squaring up to a target 10, 11, or 21 feet away and drawing and engaging from the holster, bad guys in real life approach from the side or behind and hide their true intent until they’re too close for you react when they finally expose their intent.

Don’t get me wrong…many bad guys are dumb as a box of rocks. And I thank God for them. They expose their intent from a distance or are dumbfounded when their “victim” turns the table on them.

But I don’t want the effectiveness of my training to depend on an attacker being from the shallow end of the gene pool. You want your training to reflect reality…not just a best case scenario.

“If you learn “indoor” techniques, you will think narrowly and forget the true Way. Thus you will have difficulty in actual encounters.”
Miyamoto Musashi, “The Book of 5 Rings”

It’s definitely OK to practice shooting at targets on a one-way range at set distances. It’s a great way to develop fundamental skills.

But make sure that you also practice responding to threats to your right side, left side, and behind you. What would you do if you were 2 feet away from someone who pulled a knife on you? Would you bet that he won’t stab you while you take 1-4 seconds to get a concealed gun into the fight? I wouldn’t. There’s no one right answer to this question, but there are definitely some wrong answers and there are some answers that are more effective than others.

When you get a response, test it out with a training partner and an inert training platform. If it works, practice it until it’s automatic. If it doesn’t work, try something else.

And, I would deserve a trip behind the wood shed if I didn’t give you a one-stop answer to an incredibly effective way to address these three training myths in the comfort of your own home, for a fraction of the cost of the live training equivalent.

The SEALed Mindset Concealed Carry Masters Course addresses all three of these myths, head on, and gives students and instructors a framework for their training that reflects the realities of the world we live in in addition to the constraints of a linear range.

It’s a unique and innovative approach to firearms training that takes advantage of time-proven accelerated teaching and learning techniques that have only been affordable to military and elite law enforcement units, until now.

If you’re not familiar with it, I strongly suggest checking it out at www.ConcealedCarryMastersCourse.com

What are your thoughts? Have you unintentionally bought into any of these myths? If you’re an instructor, have you found any novel solutions to these problems? Please share by commenting below.

Ox out.

by Mike Ox

Mike Ox is an avid defensive and competitive shooter who has co-created several firearms training products, including Dry Fire Training Cards, Dry Fire Fit, 21 Day Alpha Shooter, and See Faster, Shoot Faster. His brain based training focuses on accelerated learning techniques for shooting as well as controlling brain state and brain chemistry for optimal performance in extreme stress situations. Learn more about dynamic dry fire training for defense and competition at www.DryFireTrainingCards.com/blog

Photo courtesy of Rick Dembrosky

Trigger Slap Drill for Better Trigger Control

I just ran into a video again from a couple of well known instructors who are great shooters. They that claimed that you shouldn’t practice a slow, deliberate trigger press because you don’t have time for that in a gunfight.

It was one of those times when I hung my head and shook it in sadness.

You see, while I agree with that sentiment, that advice is going to cause most shooters lots of frustration. It all depends on context.

Why?

Because there are different training techniques that are appropriate at different times in your life as a shooter.

When you’re first starting out at a new skill…be it walking, driving, typing, or shooting, you need to be slow and deliberate.

You need to map the new movement patterns in the brain to make it a coordinated movement.

Once the movement is coordinated and controlled, speed comes naturally.

I can slap the snot out of the trigger and shoot 6″ groups with .14-.18 splits at 21 feet with a Glock 26…but it was a deliberate process to get to that point. (A process that I’m going to share with you)

If you go straight to speed before developing coordination, you’re going to sabotage your performance.

So today, we’re going to break down how to grip the pistol tightly and run the trigger quickly without disturbing sight alignment with sympathetic movement–it’s going to take a little explanation, but it’s pretty straight forward and the drill itself only takes about 1 minute.

In layman’s terms, sympathetic movement is when you try to move a joint in your body and you get movement from another joint at the same time that you didn’t plan on or want.

There are a few causes of sympathetic movement…here are 6 biggies:

Speed. The faster you try to move your trigger finger, the more likely you’ll get sympathetic movement.
Grip intensity. The tighter you grip, the more likely you’ll get sympathetic movement and, in fact, when I see left or low left groups, one of the first things I have shooters do is relax their shooting hand grip.
Too heavy/long of trigger for your trigger finger. Heavy trigger, a fatigued/weak trigger finger, or too long of a trigger press for your trigger finger. When you don’t have enough strength to easily press the trigger back, the brain recruits additional muscles in the hand to get the job done.
Stress level…specifically whether or not you’re in “startle” or fight-or-flight mode.
How granular the map of your hand is in your brain. (we’ll cover this)
The biggest factor combines with #5 and can mitigate the other 4…It’s how well developed and precise your neural pathways are for pressing the trigger straight to the rear while gripping and without moving your other fingers.

So, how do you make the jump from a slow, deliberate trigger press to quickly slapping the snot out of the trigger without compromising accuracy?

Fortunately, there’s a quick and easy process to improve both that will work for any shooter reading this…including you.

Let me start with the map of your hand in your brain. We’ve got 27 total bones in each hand.

And each of these bones and the joints between them are mapped to a specific part of the brain.

For someone who wears heavy mittens or swings an axe all day, there’s not much need for a detailed map of the hand in the brain, so the brain will prune detail on the map to improve efficiency. Over time, the map will look like a club with no individual fingers or joints.

They won’t be able to feel things very precisely and they will tend to move their fingers as a unit…kind of like a lobster. Typing is almost impossible. If you think of it in terms of TV resolution, it’s like trying to watch a TV show on a watch.

Some people, like pianists, illusionists, detailed machinists, and brain surgeons need to have VERY granular maps of their hands in their brain. They need detailed nerve maps and they need precise muscle control. Some can feel the difference of a few thousandths of an inch and can make incredibly precise movements. Their resolution would be like the latest 4K high definition.

To experience practical example of this, try looking at the palm of your hand and touch each finger to your thumb, one at a time, without moving any other finger. You’ll probably find that you get sympathetic movement, even if you don’t want it to happen. As a general rule, the quicker you do this drill, the more sympathetic movement you’ll have. The more granular the map in your brain, the less sympathetic movement you’ll have…even at higher and higher speeds.

The same thing happens with shooting. If your brain doesn’t have a highly developed script to follow for moving the end of the trigger finger straight back and forth while gripping with the rest of the muscles in the hands, you’re going to get sympathetic movement that will mess up sight alignment and cause loose groups. For right handed shooters, this usually shows up as groups to the left or low left.

One easy way to improve your trigger finger isolation is with coin rolling. I’ve got a video on this >HERE<

Another is with the Trigger Slap Drill that I’m going to share with you.

What you want to do is get a baseline of how quickly you can do 5 slow, deliberate dry fire reps while keeping your sights lined up with a 1” target and then improve that speed over time. I call it the trigger slap drill because eventually you’ll get to where you’re shooting so fast that you’ll probably find that you’re slapping the trigger without it affecting your accuracy.

Here’s how to do it:

You’re going to need to remove all ammo from the training area. You’ll also need a pistol that you’ve rendered inert for dry fire practice, an airsoft pistol, a Dry Fire Pistol from SIRT, or some other platform with a moving trigger.

Use Discount Code “ArmsGuide” (not case sensitive) and get 10% off your new SIRT

Finally, you’re also going to need a metronome or a metronome app on your phone. They’re free. I use “MetroTimer.”

Start off by picking a 1” target at chest-to-eye level and stand 6 feet away. I like using mini-driveway reflectors or Birchwood Casey targets.

Set the metronome to 1 beat every 2 seconds or 30 beats per minute. That’s 2 seconds to press the trigger, release, and start the next press. (Yes…I can do a video on this.)

Aim at the target and dry fire press the trigger 5 times in a row at that 2 second pace while keeping your sights aligned with the target throughout. Simply press and release. Press and release. Don’t rack the slide between reps.

If you’re using a laser, it’s easy to tell how you’re doing.

If you’re not using a laser, what you need to do is watch your front sight the entire time and make sure that your sight alignment doesn’t leave the target. This is called “calling your shots” and it’s a very valuable skill for shooting.

On some guns, the trigger will have a dead trigger if you don’t rack the slide between reps. On others, it will be spongy and have some reset.

On Glocks, you’ll have a dead trigger…but you can hold the slide out of battery by putting a piece of 550 cord out the side of the ejection port and get a resetting trigger. If you do this, make sure that the cord you’re using is thick enough that you don’t get a clicking sound as you’re pressing the trigger. It helps to gently ride the slide forward against the 550 cord instead of letting it fly.

With an airsoft, you can either do the drill with a dead trigger or you can push down the follower in an empty magazine, jam a piece of masking tape in, and it won’t engage the slide release and lock back on an empty mag anymore.

On 1911s and other light, single action triggers, do what you can on a dead trigger.

On revolvers or semi-autos that have a double action first shot like some Sigs, Berettas, H&K, etc., your times will be slower and your finger will get a workout, but the drill remains the same.

How’d you do?

If it was easy, back up to 10 feet and increase your cadence 10 beats per second and repeat until you find the fastest speed where you can keep the sights on target for all 5 shots.

If it was hard, slow down 10 beats per second and repeat until you find the speed where you CAN keep the sights on target for the entire 5 shots. You can also switch to a bigger target, like a 2” driveway reflector. I use these a lot for practice with my Dry Fire Pistols.

If you get a bigger target and slow down and still can’t keep your sights on the target, it may be an indication that your hand or trigger finger aren’t compatible with your pistol or trigger. Hand size, hand & finger strength, grip size, trigger pull length, and trigger weight can make a world of difference. In fact, switching from the wrong gun (for you) to the right gun (for you) can make shooting go from something you endure to something you love.

When you figure out the speed that you can do 5 reps, record your training platform, distance, target size, and your speed and then do 20 seconds of reps at that cadence.

For reference, my metronome (MetroTimer app on the iTunes store) goes up to 250 beats per minute and I practice 1” group at 10-15 feet for 20 seconds at that pace with my Dry Fire Pistol. I’m slower when I’m using a Sig, H&K, or other pistol with a long, double action trigger press on the first shot.

As a comparison, world champion shooters shooting light, single action triggers shoot bursts as fast as 600 rounds per minute with a live gun.

All of that to say, don’t really get too caught up on your speed compared to others. Just get your baseline and work to improve it.

Play around with it…

Try it with a tighter shooting hand grip and see how it affects your speed.

And try it with a looser shooting hand grip and see how it affects your speed.

Try it one handed (with each hand) with a tight grip.

For the next several days, push the envelope with 10-20 second sets at the fastest speed you can shoot and still keep your sights aligned with the target. Just go for raw speed and use however loose of a grip you need to maximize speed.

Then, pick a speed that’s less than your max speed and work on gripping as tightly as you can while still maintaining accuracy. The tighter your grip, the faster you’ll be able to get back on target for your next shot with live fire, BUT the more likely that you’ll have sympathetic movement while pressing the trigger.

It’ll only take a minute or so per day, and it’ll have a huge impact on your trigger manipulation skills.

I suggest working both ends of the spectrum…work on pure speed with a loose grip and work on increasing your speed while maintaining as tight of a grip as you can.

You’ll have up days and down days, but the general trend should be that you’ll get noticeably quicker in just a few days and dramatically quicker over a couple of weeks. Of course, you may not realize how much you’re improving if you don’t keep track…so keep track.

When you max out your speed, start focusing on increasing grip intensity at your max speed.

*Spoiler alert*

You’re going to be able to do this quicker without recoil than with recoil.

That’s not the point.

The point is to train the brain how to articulate the trigger finger quicker without your wrist or other fingers moving.

I’m always looking for data. If you would, try this drill today and share your baseline below…please share the platform you’re using, a rough estimate of how tight you’re gripping (100%, 50%, etc.), your distance from the target, size of the target, and what your cadence is.

Then come back to it after doing the drills for a week or two and share your improvement.

And, for more high speed techniques for improving as quickly as possible with a pistol in as little time as possible, check out our home study course, >HERE<. It incorporates more than a dozen accelerated learning techniques to help you shoot up to 2x quicker and 2x more accurately in just 21 days for less than the cost of a single trip to the range.

Questions? Comments? Want to see video of this drill? Fire away below. to share your thoughts.

by Mike Ox

Mike Ox is an avid defensive and competitive shooter who has co-created several firearms training products, including Dry Fire Training Cards, https://se965.infusionsoft.com/go/dftcmedia/loadout

Dry Fire Fit, 21 Day Alpha Shooter, and See Faster, Shoot Faster. His brain based training focuses on accelerated learning techniques for shooting as well as controlling brain state and brain chemistry for optimal performance in extreme stress situations. Learn more about dynamic dry fire training for defense and competition at www.DryFireTrainingCards.com/blog

Featured Image:Rick Dembroski

How Impressing Your Friends Can Save Your Life

When you think about training to use a firearm to stop a lethal threat, it’s healthy to think of it as serious business…because it is.

But just because the end result is serious business doesn’t mean that we can’t have fun along the way…or, more importantly, that we SHOULDN’T have fun along the way.

One of the things that you learn when doing long distance runs or hikes is that sometimes your goal is the finish line, but a lot of times, a better goal is the next intersection, the next ridge, or the next tree.

It’s the difference between looking at an elephant and being overwhelmed about how to eat it all at once and just looking at the process as a series of small, individual bites.

Training for self-defense shooting is the same in many ways.

Some people can maintain a serious demeanor 24/7 and the desire to survive a conflict that may or may not happen at some unknown point between now and the day they die is enough to drive them to train and practice on a regular basis.

Most people aren’t wired that way.

Most people operate better when there a frequent series of intermediate goals…sometimes fun goals…on the way to the end goals.

Which leads us to “impressing friends” with your shooting abilities.

Something that most serious shooters, myself included, scoff at on the surface.

On one hand, I really don’t care what anyone thinks. All I care about are measurable results.

On the other hand, the process of learning physical skills that you can execute under stress is a physical/emotional/chemical process and I’m a firm believer that if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.

The fact is, the more rewards (in the form of neurotransmitters) your brain gets for executing a skill correctly, the faster and deeper that skill gets hardwired into the brain.

And the more punishment that your brain gets for screwing stuff up…in the form of embarrassment, the more motivated you will be to change/fix your technique.

Here’s where “impressing friends” fits in.

When you shoot in front of friends…regardless of whether it’s at a match, at a qualifier, or in a class, your brain will release neurotransmitters based on how you do…either compared to others or compared to how you’ve done in the past.

It will reward you with dopamine and serotonin when you do well and it will punish you with cortisol when you perform craptastically. That’s a good thing. Because if the “stress” of a buzzer or performing in front of friends throws you off a little, how much do you think the stress of a life and death situation will throw you off?

It’s a free, powerful training hack that you can take advantage of…or ignore at a cost.

This isn’t new.

Effective teachers, coaches, instructors, bosses, and parents use the leverage of social pressure to reward good behavior or punish bad behavior all the time.

Effective leaders know that if someone they’re in charge of is doing something good, it’s important to get them recognition in front of their peers.

In some cases, it’s recognizing people for how they perform compared to their peers. In other cases, it’s recognizing how people perform compared to how they did in the past…how much they improved.

In fact, I am a strong believer that this is why most courses of fire and qualifications are scored and have levels of performance rather than JUST being pass/fail.

Scores and rankings, like “expert”, “marksman”, “distinguished”, etc. allow people to compare themselves to others and to their past performance…and to impress friends, regardless of whether or not that’s their primary goal.

A little pin or medal on your chest won’t help you in a life or death situation…but it might just inspire you to practice enough to get it or keep practicing to maintain your status.

So, the next time you’re shooting with your friends, competing, or qualifying, pay attention to the emotions that you get when you perform well and use them as fuel to keep taking time to refine your skills.

Use these emotions as fuel to do more dry fire leading up to your next competition, class, or qualifier.

Use these emotions to encourage you to reinforce good things and fix bad things.

And, whenever you think about practicing, think about the good feeling you’ll have the next time you do live fire and perform better because of the dry fire practice you did.

Who knows…that extra practice you did so you could look better in front of your friends may just be the practice that helps you put more effective rounds on target when your life is on the line.

Train hard, cheat, and use every tool you can to train more effectively…specifically, cheats like what we use in the 21 Day Alpha Shooter program to slash the amount of time and money that it takes to improve dramatically as a shooter.

by Mike Ox

Mike Ox is an avid defensive and competitive shooter who has co-created several firearms training products, including Dry Fire Training Cards, https://se965.infusionsoft.com/go/dftcmedia/loadout

Photo courtesy of USCG

Slaying 3 Sacred Cows Of Firearms Training

One of the things that I find fascinating about the world of firearms training is how fast opinions or personal anecdotes become set-in-stone rules.

“Rules” like…

The 21 foot rule

EVERYONE will have tunnel vision in a defensive shooting situation

2 to the body and 1 to the head solves all problems

You’ll never see your sights in a gunfight

All fine motor skills fail under stress

And more

These rules are almost sacred cows in many firearms training circles…even though none of them are necessarily true for all people all of the time.

But believing them and basing your training on them may actually make them true for you and put an artificial ceiling on how well you perform in a high stress shooting situation.

Today, we’re going to quickly address 3 of these sacred cows and show you how you can train beyond their limitations.

Let’s start off with why these sacred cows can limit your performance.

There’s a rule in brain science that says that your brain is efficient and will only grow as far as you push it. If you don’t push it, it will reduce your ability to perform. (use it or lose it)

If you don’t practice lifting heavy things, you’ll get weaker.

If you don’t practice moving fast, you’ll get slower.

If you don’t practice jumping, your vertical will go from feet to inches.

Etc.

The reason it’s important to start with this is because if you buy into a belief that isn’t necessarily true and train as if it is true, the chances of you performing beyond your training in a life or death situation is incredibly slim.

Nobody believed a 4 minute mile was possible…until Roger Banister opened the floodgates.

Nobody believed it was possible to complete Steel Challenge in under 80 seconds…until 3 shooters did it in the same year.

There’s a tendency to think that all practice is good, but if your practice puts an artificial lid on your performance, then you might want to consider practicing in a way that will help you perform better.

Let’s start with “Everyone gets tunnel vision in a high stress situation”

If that’s how you train, you’re probably right.

That’s what happens to most people under stress.

But what if people are different and we exist on a spectrum?

And what if people at one end of the spectrum have complete tunnel vision under stress and people at the other end have much wider peripheral awareness?

Let’s take it one step further…

What if there are specific drills that we can do to change which end of the spectrum we’re on rather than just settle for bottom-of-the-barrel visual performance when it counts the most?

There are. They’re ridiculously simple and they’ve been used and proven by fighter pilots, race car drivers, professional athletes, and hundreds of shooters who have gone through the at-home Tactical Vision Training program.

Myth #2: “All fine motor skills go to crap under stress”

We know this isn’t necessarily true because brain surgeons operate in extreme stress situations and people successfully release retention on their holster, press the trigger, hit the mag release and other fine motor skills in high stress shooting situations.

A better way of stating this rule is that

#1. The more you precisely and deliberately you practice a skill, the better your chances are that you’ll be able to perform at a high level under stress.

#2. The more you’re able to moderate your response to stress in a situation that’s causing other people to freak out, the more fine motor skills you’ll retain. (I cover a proven process to blunt/moderate your sympathetic stress response that you can do in the comfort of your own home in Upgraded Shooter.)

Finally for today, Myth #3: “You Won’t See Your Sights In A Defensive Shooting”

Some people won’t.

It depends on how they practice and their stress response to the situation.

Your stress response may be so high that you can’t change the focus of your eye anymore. Again, that’s a function of past exposure, your general stress conditioning, and ability to handle stress.

But in talking with people who have used a pistol in self defense, a pattern emerges…shooters who are disciplined about focusing on their front sight in practice tend to see their front sight in a high stress shooting.

Shooters who aren’t disciplined about focusing on their front sight in practice rarely use their sights in a high stress shooting. This makes sense when you remember that the brain adapts to the demands that you place on it. If you don’t train it to use the front sight in practice, why would you suddenly use it in a life and death situation?

FYI, I practice and teach both sighted and unsighted shooting and blend the two, but I’m a strong believer that sighted shooting is a base level skill that everyone needs to know how to do.

One of the interesting things that has come out of doing a lot of video analysis of shooters is that a huge percentage of shooters THINK that they’re using their front sight, but video review clearly shows that their sights aren’t lined up with their eye.

How can a shooter think they’re seeing their sights but not really be looking at them?

In doing video review with shooters, I have them aim an unloaded pistol or SIRT at the center of the lens of a camera and take a dry fire shot. It’s incredibly binary. The pupil, rear sight, front sight, and target will be lined up if they’re using the front sight. They won’t be lined up if they aren’t.

(If you haven’t gone through a private video coaching session yet, you need to sign up now by clicking >HERE<. It’s fast, easy, and has been completely life changing (beyond shooting) for many of the shooters who have been through it.)

“Seeing” your sights and knowing that they’re in front of you is very different than shifting your focus to a particular spot on your front sight and knowing that the sights are perfectly aligned.

It’s fairly common to see it take 1-2 seconds for shooters to shift focus to their front sight and for their focus to stabilize. When that 1-2 seconds is added on to the end of a reactionary gap and a drawstroke, shooters normally end up pressing the trigger before their vision has stabilized and before they’re truly using their front sight.

This is one of the big reasons for point shooting, and there’s definitely a place for point shooting, but if there was a simple way to increase the speed that your eye can shift focus and your brain can process that image, wouldn’t it make sense for you to use it?

(There is…and that’s one of the reason why I created our Tactical Vision Training program)

With each of these myths, if you buy into them and reinforce them by talking about them and training them, they’ll probably be true for you.

So challenge yourself. Push yourself. Doing so will make “ordinary” easier…just like lifting heavy weights makes lifting lighter weights easier over time.

One of the quickest, easiest, and most dramatic ways to do this is with vision training. Doing just a few minutes of the right vision training per day, like what we have in our Tactical Vision Training program, can increase your peripheral vision, increase the range of motion of your eyes, the speed that you can move your eyes, and the speed that you can accurately process what your eyes are seeing.

It’s something that you can do for shooting that will have a positive impact on EVERY area of your life and almost everything that you do.

It can help you see threats faster when you’re driving, get your focus back on the road when you need to check your speed, change your radio, or check your mirrors. It will help you find things faster when you’re shopping, and identify and avoid trip hazards when navigating uneven terrain that you’re not familiar with.

And, of course, it will help you see your sights quicker and more accurately so you can shoot better and have more fun at the range.

Questions? Comments? Share them by commenting below…

by Mike Ox

Mike Ox is an avid defensive and competitive shooter who has co-created several firearms training products, including Dry Fire Training Cards, https://se965.infusionsoft.com/go/dftcmedia/loadout

Top 10 Reasons Dry Fire Beats Live Fire Practice

Ask any world class competitive shooter or high speed tactical shooter about dry fire and they’ll tell you that it’s the secret to their success…it’s what separates the men from the boys.

But ask a typical Facebook commando about dry fire and you’re likely to hear something along the lines of, “I shoot once a week…I don’t need no stink’n dry fire, and neither does anyone else.”

The fact is, for the majority of shooters, dry fire is a LOT more effective than live fire at becoming a faster, more accurate, and more confident shooter.

Don’t get me wrong, you still need live fire…but today we’re going to cover the ways that dry fire is better than live fire, and how to make it easier and more fun than you thought possible.

First off, what is dry fire?

Dry fire or dry practice is going through all of the manipulations that you do with a firearm with no live ammo present.

From a safety perspective, it’s impossible to have a negligent discharge or accidental discharge if you’re doing dry fire, because no live ammo should be present. If there is live ammo present, then it’s user error and you’re doing something other than dry fire.

“Old school” dry fire, like what 90% of articles on dry fire talk about, focuses only on trigger press. It’s boring, and it doesn’t even work for most shooters because their brain creates separate neural pathways (muscle memory) for dry fire and live fire.

“New school” dry fire, like what we began to make popular 7+ years ago, is not only fun, but is WAY more effective than live fire alone.

What can you practice with dry fire?

Everything that you’d practice with live fire, up to and including recoil control. (As I write this, I can hear gasps and cursing when people read this…but get strapped in and hold on and I’ll tell you how it’s done)

When I’m working with shooters at the range, I’ll oftentimes have them go back and forth between dry fire and live fire on the exact same drills…dry fire to focus on perfecting/fixing their form and live fire to validate the change.

In military and law enforcement, when they’re practicing team tactics, they almost always start by learning and memorizing the technique with dry fire, then progressing to sims, and, depending on the unit, progressing to live fire.

If you limit yourself to the belief that dry fire is just a tool to help with trigger control and flinch, you’re SERIOUSLY shortchanging yourself…keep reading to see why.

#1 Dry fire is less expensive and takes less time than live fire.

That’s really 2 things, but they go together.

If you do 10 repetitions per minute for 5 minutes per day, you’ll get in another 1,500 repetitions per month…for free. Do that with live fire at a range and you’ve got to pay for travel time, range fees, targets, and spend time packing, driving, loading mags, waiting, taping, waiting, driving again, cleaning, and more…oh, and you’ve got wear and tear on your gun and you’ve got to pay for 1,500 rounds of ammo.

So, it’s obvious that dry fire is cheaper and faster than live fire, but is it effective? That leads me to…

#2 Frequent Small Block learning beats the traditional fire hose approach of teaching & practicing firearms skills with live fire.

The mind learns best with frequent small chunks of learning or perfect practice, spread over time.

It’s how we learn martial arts, all sports, and how successful schools teach.

Current firearms training does the exact opposite…it crams as much as possible into a 2, 3, or 5 day class. Students see dramatic improvement during the class, but their skill level drops like a rock over the next few weeks unless they continually practice what they learned. If you look at #1, that continual practice is prohibitively expensive for most people if you only do live fire.

Dry fire is the missing ingredient for most instructors. Dry fire is what takes firearms classes from simply being a fun experience for most and life changing for 1 or 2 students to being life changing for the majority of the class.

For students, dry fire is what makes your investment in training pay performance dividends for the rest of your life instead of petering out after a few weeks.

#3 Live fire distracts you from proper form and fundamentals

When things go “boom” a few inches from your face, it tends to be distracting…and a little exciting.

As world champion shooter, Max Michel says below (paraphrased), dry fire kicks the snot out of live fire for mastering fundamentals and improving:

One of the biggest problems I see with shooters doing live fire is that they either dip their wrist or dip their entire arm after each shot to see where the previous shot went. It’s incredibly tempting to check to see where your shot went, but what ends up happening is that your body will actually move the gun out of the way before the bullet leaves the muzzle and you’ll end up with groups that string up-and-down.

Live fire conditions shooters to think that when rounds go astray, it’s a problem with the sights and they end up chasing their groups around the target. Usually, the problem is the shooter. Dry fire conditions shooters to focus on the sights and trust the sights. It’s MUCH easier to develop the habit of getting a follow-up sight picture after every shot with dry fire than with live fire.

On this note, unless you’ve got a bench-rest or a vice, TRUST YOUR SIGHTS. If you draw your gun and plan on shooting a target 5 times, there’s no reason whatsoever to check and see where your 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, or 4^th round impacted and try to adjust. Just TRUST YOUR SIGHTS and aim at the same spot every time, without shifting your focus to the target between shots. If you trust your sights for an entire shooting session and you’ve got all tight groups that are off the mark, then it MIGHT be the sights…otherwise, it’s probably the shooter.

#4 Live fire confuses new and inexperienced shooters’ brains

I mentioned in #3 that having things go boom in front of your face is exciting. Well, shooting causes the brain to release several neurotransmitters and happy chemicals, including dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, adrenaline, and endorphins…kind of like a cocktail of alcohol, coffee, cocaine, pot, and sex…except on a smaller scale and it doesn’t kill you.

This cocktail gets released regardless of whether you’re shooting great or poorly, and since the brain likes this cocktail and it isn’t associated with performance, the brain doesn’t have a whole lot of incentive to shoot better. As long as it gets it’s chemical hit, it’s happy, regardless of performance…and this feedback loop sabotages 100s of thousands of shooters.

It’s why you see people going to the range and just spraying lead downrange, not really hitting anything, and still LOVING the experience.

There’s nothing wrong with loving shooting (I do) but if you reward random performance with that release of neurotransmitters, you can only expect to get random performance in the future…whether it’s at the range or in a life-or-death situation. If shooting is just for fun, that’s OK. If your shooting may also be for fighting at some point, it’s not.

But, if you take control of the neuro-chemical feedback loop and tie the release of those neurotransmitters to good performance, you can have your cake and eat it too.

Dry fire lets you focus on form and fundamentals in a calm, relaxed, controlled state. And when you’ve got the form and fundamentals down and add good performance and the chemical cocktail that you get from live fire to the mix, all of a sudden you’re rewarding solid fundamentals with chemistry that makes your brain really happy, speeds up the learning process, and increases the chances that you’ll be able to perform at a high level under extreme stress.

#5 Dry Fire is more private/low vis/better OPSEC than live fire

Tyrants hate armed subjects. Always have. Always will. Whether it’s restrictions on ranges, ammo, or guns themselves, there’s a constant push to limit our ability to defend ourselves and to practice with our chosen self-defense tools.

If you live in an area that is particularly anti-gun or think that restrictions may increase in the future, dry fire is the absolute best way to continue to keep your edge and sharpen it beyond what you thought was possible in the privacy of your own home.

#6 Dry fire is safer than live fire

Since there is no live ammo involved with dry fire, it’s inherently safer than live fire training. Again, if live ammo is introduced, it’s no longer dry fire. You still must treat every gun as if it’s loaded…even when you know it’s not.

It’s because of this that I prefer and strongly recommend that you use an inert training platform that is incapable of firing live rounds. It could be a SIRT from www.DryFirePistol.com, a blue gun, an airsoft gun that you’ve rendered inoperable, a real gun that has a training barrel or barrel plug, or a real gun where you’ve replaced the trigger with a non-functional resetting training trigger.

With an inert training platform, you can do 360 degree training while standing, walking, moving, falling, rolling, crawling, and recovering from the ground.

Another HUGE aspect of safety is that if you train at home instead of at a public range, you avoid being around other shooters who don’t have good muzzle and trigger finger discipline.

#7 Weber-Fechner says dry fire rocks!

Ok…that statement is complete nonsense, but the sentiment is true. It’s nonsense because Weber Fechner isn’t a real person. Weber-Fechner is a law in psychophysics that combines the work of Ernst Heinrich Weber and Gustav Theodor Fechner. The Weber-Fechner Law states that your ability to sense things gets worse with the more stimulus you have or the faster the stimuli are happening. Max Michel refers to this in the video above when he says that 70% of your dry fire practice should be done at half-speed.

When you go full speed…TRUE full speed…the only 2 things you’re going to be aware of are the beginning and the end. Everything between will be executed subconsciously and a blur.

When you slow down, you’re able to identify and eliminate wasted movement during every step of whatever technique you’re practicing. More importantly, you’re able to repeatedly practice perfect, efficient form.

The more you do this, the more likely it is that you’ll execute that exact same perfect, efficient form at full speed under stress.

#8 Comfort at arms

It’s a lot easier for a new or inexperienced shooter to get comfortable manipulating a gun when they’re not in constant fear of it going “BOOM!” in their hands.

Getting a student comfortable handling and manipulating a firearm that’s incapable of firing projectiles will not only be easier and lower stress for them, it’ll be easier and lower stress for you. Your relaxation will be contagious and they’ll learn better and faster the more relaxed they are.

If/when they break safety rules…normally muzzle or trigger finger discipline…the potential cost and devastation is much lower with dry fire than with live fire.

When a shooter learns these lessons during dry fire, they’re a more confident, safe, and relaxed shooter when it’s time for live fire.

#9 Range Training Limitations

At your typical range, there are restrictions. LOTS of restrictions. You can’t move and shoot, can’t shoot behind cover, can’t work from a holster, can’t work from concealment, can’t turn and draw, can’t shoot multiple targets, can’t shoot faster than 1 round per second, and more. Some ranges won’t even let you shoot at “humanoid” targets!

Dry fire doesn’t have any of these limitations…in fact it’s the preferred way to learn a lot of these skills.

Now, interestingly enough, one of the criticisms of dry fire is that you can’t practice “recoil control” during dry fire. I would argue that this is completely inaccurate…and there’s a tie-in to typical range training limitations.

Recoil control is a function of proper grip. If your grip is correct, your gun will have minimal recoil (for the caliber), the sights will naturally come back into alignment, and you won’t have to adjust your grip, regardless of whether you’re firing 1, 3, 5, or 17 rounds in a row.

Dry fire is the absolute best place to practice getting a proper grip and support hand grip on your gun. Live fire simply gives you feedback on whether or not the grip that you’re practicing in dry fire is correct or not.

#10 Linear range training scars hurt

The guys at SEALed Mindset really made me sensitive to the problems that training on a linear range can have on people when they need to operate in a 360 degree environment.

If you haven’t trained in a 360 degree environment with a gun, how do you suddenly know how to move safely and effectively in a real life shooting situation? Simply put, you don’t.

If all of your gun handling happens in the confines of a lane at a range, on a 180 degree range, or in the woods with no other people around, you’re not going to know how to manipulate your gun, move, and engage targets if you’re confronted with 2-3 active shooters in a mall.

Dry fire with an inert training platform allows you to increase the stress level and practice situations that simply aren’t safe with a gun capable of firing live rounds.

A few years ago, a group of special operations and SWAT personnel teamed up to break down and test everything that they’d been taught during their careers about shooting. They formed a think-tank and high performance-high stress shooting lab called SEALed Mindset. There were SEALs, SF, a Recon Marine, a SWAT commander with more than 1,000 dynamic entries under his belt, and other combat veterans.

They taught 140+ classes per month for more than 3 years…most months, they were running 100+ force on force classes. They tested AND PROVED, under stress, what works and what doesn’t when it comes to gunfighting.

One of the things that they learned is that the ideal training ratio for high stress combat performance is 80% dry fire, 10% live fire, and 10% force on force. The interesting thing is that you never want to do more than 10-20% of your training with live fire. You can go the other direction and do 99% or even 99.9% dry fire, but if you want to make the fastest gains, you don’t want to do too much of your training with live fire.

In almost all cases, this doesn’t mean that you have to shoot less than you currently are…it just means adding in a few minutes of dry fire practice per day.

Dry fire practice like what you get in the Concealed Carry Masters Course. It’s a 9.5 hour DVD course that’s unlike any other firearms training you’ve experienced or heard of.

There are classroom components and teaching like in most courses, but the magic of the course is that almost half of the course is follow along dry fire drills where you watch the instructors demonstrate perfect form on your TV and follow along with them in your living room.

Sound familiar? If you’ve ever bought an exercise video, it’s the same idea…only you’re doing firearms training.

This process of watching the instructor with the intent of copying him and then repeating what you see takes advantage of one of the most powerful learning hacks in the brain…mirror neurons…and it’s just one of almost a dozen accelerated learning techniques that are embedded in the training.

When combined, they’ll act like a rocket to propel you forward as a shooter faster than you thought was possible.

Questions? Comments? What are your thoughts? Share them by commenting below.

Photo courtesy of Next Level Training, makers of the SIRT Pistol

Use Discount Code “ArmsGuide” (not case sensitive) and get 10% off your new SIRT Pistol

by Mike Ox

Mike Ox is an avid defensive and competitive shooter who has co-created several firearms training products, including Dry Fire Training Cards, https://se965.infusionsoft.com/go/dftcmedia/loadout

Pool Noodle Plate Rack for Airsoft & Pellet Pistols

A couple years ago, I went to Wal-Mart to buy some of my favorite targets (I’ll tell you about them sometime soon) but they were out.

I had my Malinois with me, and we used the garden exit so she wouldn’t have to walk on hot pavement any more than necessary.

Pool noodles were on sale…cheap…and I had an idea.

I got some, sliced them into sections, and I had myself a set of reactive targets for about 10c apiece and we’ve been using them ever since. Click this video to see me using them as a plate rack:

If there’s no volume, click the speaker icon.

We shoot them with Airsoft, live fire, and my new favorite…the Sig P320 and P226 CO2 powered pellet and BB pistols. (Let me know if you want to see a review of the Sig CO2 pistols…that’s what my 8 year old is using to shoot IDPA now. He can’t shoot IDPA with a real gun yet because of the angle of the bullet when he needs to make close head shots.) We’re even setting them up in the house for the “He Hates Cans” drill from Dry Fire Training Cards!

Have fun with this one. It’s a great way to add variety to your at-home training.

And, if you’re interested in the at-home firearms training that delivers the most bang for the buck of anything on the market check out our home study course by clicking >HERE<

by Mike Ox

Mike Ox is an avid defensive and competitive shooter who has co-created several firearms training products, including Dry Fire Training Cards, https://se965.infusionsoft.com/go/dftcmedia/loadout

Photo courtesy of SIG

mike Ox

Myth #1 Training Is Practice

Myth #2 All Gun, All The Time

“An Ounce of Deterrence Is Worth a Pound of Lead”

Myth #3 The 21 Foot Rule

Use Discount Code “ArmsGuide” (not case sensitive) and get 10% off your new SIRT

Use Discount Code “ArmsGuide” (not case sensitive) and get 10% off your new SIRT Pistol

Myth #1
Training Is Practice

Myth #2
All Gun, All The Time

Myth #3
The 21 Foot Rule