Training

As a supervisor in a factory that made automobiles I was responsible for the training of my workers. I wasn't directly responsible for training each person, but it was one of the things I did when nobody else was available and I needed the new guy on the line so I could go back to being a supervisor rather than an absentee-replacement.

The goal of "training" is to develop muscle memory. The standard spiel I gave new people was to tell them that one of the very toughest tasks they ever mastered was tying their shoes and most of them were able to master that by the age of six.

Now they can tie their shoes in the dark. They can tie them when they are half asleep or hung-over or drunk or when somebody is yammering in their ear. They can tie them when there is thunder-and-lightning outside or when they get a muscle cramp. The executive function of the brain "subcontracts" the work to muscle-memory and muscle-memory gets the job done.

The key is repetitions...thoughtful repetitions that are done correctly. The number 10,000 repetitions is frequently mentioned but some gifted athletes can nail it in as few as 500.

As a mental exercise, consider your right and your left arms. They have the same bone structure. They have the same muscles and nerves and joints. Now throw a baseball with your "strong" side and then throw it with your "weak" side. Almost all of the difference is lack of repetitions, lack of training with your "weak" side.

If you threw a baseball with your weak side 1000 times over the course of a week, you would close 2/3rds of the gap between the performance between the two sides. It is that simple!

Because you can compare your strong side (good example) to your weak side (untrained), you will have good, well informed training.

Handgun training

Frankly, handguns are much more difficult to shoot than a .22LR long-gun.

It is my opinion that a new shooter who gets two full hours of competent training in handgun shooting is a full year ahead of most shooters who casually train themselves by shooting tin cans off of fence posts.

While the self-taught shooter will have a better mechanical skills with the handgun than the newly trained shooter he will have bad habits burned into his muscle-memory. Once in muscle-memory, it is very difficult to weed those bad habits out. Doubly damming, they will pop out at the worst time. They will conspire to make the shooter fail when they are under the most stress.

In general, most trainers like to work with women who are more likely than men to come into training with no bad habits and are humble enough to listen and try to understand what the trainer is imparting.

The trained shooter is also likely to have a more balanced understanding of using a handgun. For example, the self-taught shooter is less likely to train as much on swiftly and safely unholstering his weapon as the trained shooter will...he just doesn't think about it.

As the trained shooter gets repetitions, each repetition will be more thoughtful and deliberate. They will learn more with each repetition. He will get more GOOD muscle-memory with each repetition.

OK, I know some of you are chomping at the bit and about to dash down to comments and kick my butt. "Two hours is NOWHERE near enough...."

No arguments from me. But I am comparing NO formal training to the first two hours. Hopefully, the new shooter will recognize that their skills are plateauing and seek more training. Maybe they will get into something like International Defensive Pistol Association competitions which is chock-full of "practical" shooters.

Those are my perceptions. I know I have at least one certified trainer as a reader. Please kick-my-ass in the comments for the benefit of any newbie or wannabe shooters who stumble across this blog.