Thinking Man's Corner

Article by: Leo H

I generally start my new students off with a series of dry fire exercises intended to develop a working understanding of the concepts of grip, sights, and trigger control. My intent is to work on programming the subconscious to effectively drive the gun to a successful shot. But like almost everything else nowadays, it’s all about programming. There are many differing philosophies to each of the concepts I listed above. Many don’t seem to actually work when you move on to the live fire portion of your program. Garbage in is equal to garbage out.

For a large part of my life I had folks tell me, “Practice makes perfect.” I bought into that for quite a long time. In fact, I can’t tell you how many students I’ve passed that saying on to over the years. I felt I was passing on pearls of wisdom to those entrusted to me in my mentoring, teaching, coaching role of a firearms instructor. Of course, I was wrong.

Practice doesn’t actually make one perfect. What it does do is ensure you are fairly good performing whatever you are currently practicing… even if the technique is wrong! So… we come to the new quote; “Perfect practice makes perfect.” With that in mind, our dry drills become increasingly important as the repetitions they generate build a permanent model into our subconscious.

As an instructor, one must not be willing to accept mediocrity. I have chosen a personal ethos for myself of “Semper Optimum” which means “Always My Best.” I provide training only where it is well researched, properly documented, thoroughly rehearsed and which I believe has relative importance to the target audience. Students must be prepared to give all of their attention and make every attempt to perform to the best of their ability. It’s all relative. I teach… You learn.

You might ask, “What does that have to do with dry fire?” If you begin your training by only permitting as close to perfection as your student is capable; you are setting the line as to what is acceptable and what will not pass muster. Write a perfect program. Get an expected result. Student responsibility is centered upon listening and learning. Student accountability is focused upon performance.

Your instruction should not permit “participation awards.” Either you are performing to the accepted norm… or you are not. If not, moving forward into new areas which require solid foundational skills can not be expected to provide the desired outcomes. Garbage in equals garbage out. It’s better to hurt feelings than it is to build unrealistic expectations.

I close this entry by passing on the words of a now retired instructor. I was attending an Officer Survival class in the early 80’s and the following advice was passed on by the lead instructor during that class… “If you don’t know what you’re doing, make damn sure you do very little of it.” I found the statement to be important to me then. It’s still important to me now.

Semper Optimum