CCW Training: Are We Practicing the Wrong Skills?

[bwframe]

Interesting article link I got in NRA's Shooting Illustrated email today. Written by INGO's own Tamara...

CCW Training: Are We Practicing the Wrong Skills?

...Over the last couple years, I’ve started paying more attention to the skills we practice ostensibly in relation to using a handgun for self-defense and their actual frequency of use in reality. Conversely, there are skills that frequently show up in defensive encounters that are, unfortunately, almost never practiced.

Take the reload, specifically the out-of-battery (or slide-lock) reload. Thanks to the video camera-encrusted panopticon in which we live these days, there are literally thousands upon thousands of defensive-handgun uses available to review. These videos tell us that the need to speed reload an empty gun is a non-event, statistically speaking.

The best counter-argument to this I have heard came from the late instructor Todd Green. Namely, practicing with the gun is going to involve reloading it, and if you’re going to be reloading in practice, you may as well use those repetitions to learn how to do it rapidly and positively...

[BehindBlueI's]

Agree and when I did teach my class reflected that. Speed reloading is a very low reward skill in the real world. Speed draws are unlikely to be what saves the day and are mostly applicable to counter-ambush situations, not anti-mugging situations. Disguised draws that use slow to the holster motions followed by a fast and unexpected presentation combined with getting good hits and getting off the X win encounters but seldom look sexy and aren't fun to practice.

[TheDude]

Agree and when I did teach my class reflected that. Speed reloading is a very low reward skill in the real world. Speed draws are unlikely to be what saves the day and are mostly applicable to counter-ambush situations, not anti-mugging situations. Disguised draws that use slow to the holster motions followed by a fast and unexpected presentation combined with getting good hits and getting off the X win encounters but seldom look sexy and aren't fun to practice.

Right, who made the thread of like 200 gunfights and almost nobody reloaded?

[bwframe]

So we are back to 5 shot revolvers in the pocket holster?

I guess that weak hand shooting practice is wasted effort also?

[BehindBlueI's]

So we are back to 5 shot revolvers in the pocket holster?

I guess that weak hand shooting practice is wasted effort also?

Mission dependent. If your mission is repelling random miscreants who want your wallet and/or virtue, yup. The ol' j-frame in a pocket will perform wonderfully. "But they are hard to shoot and capacity is low and reloading is hard and .38 isn't a great round and draw speeds suck and..." and yet nobody is showing me the stack of case files of people dead with an empty j-frame in their hand. You've heard my spiel on random vs targeted violence enough I won't repeat it here.

Weak hand isn't wasted, and neither is reloading. It's just a low reward skill. WHO is probably slightly more likely to come into play as people get entangled, but how hard is it to make near contact shots? ECQC is more important than pure marksmanship at that point, being able to access and use your gun without losing control of it. I say this as a guy who disabled his dominant hand in a fight and ended up using less lethal off-handed.

If you have unlimited time to practice, or have mastered more pressing fundamentals, knock yourself out. Sometimes just the fun of a new challenge can keep you motivated to practice. The FAST drill isn't any sort of realistic encounter training, but it's fun and if that fun keeps you practicing what's the harm? Dot torture includes a WHO component, but it's a small portion of the overall drill and it's fun. Just don't short change things that matter, like a smooth and consistent presentation with a good index, rapid sight acquisition, target transitions, shooting while getting off the X etc atrophy because reloads are cool. Unfortunately a lot of folks don't consider these aspects and only work on quick draw, split times, accuracy by volume, and the required reloads. Then when they go hell-for-leather from their surrender position they get shot.

[Vigilant]

Meh, statistics be damned, lll continue to aspire to become the most well rounded gunfighter I possibly can. Besides that, it’s fun. Oh and as far as Tamara being “INGO’s own” if you read her material, she has quite the disdain for places such as INGO.

[nakinate]

This sentiment is echoed by John Correia of Active Self Protection. He's watched thousands of self defense footage and I believe he's said he had only seen a civilian reload once or twice. As far as a fast draw is concerned, a sub second draw probably isn't necessary or worth the training investment for most people, but 1.5 second draw to first shot is very doable and could be immensely beneficial in the real world.

Most important though is knowing what your skills actually are. It's very helpful to know how fast your draw actually is, so then you know when it's your turn to go. Knowing your accuracy at varying distances is helpful too.

I'll still be practicing reloads from time to time. I'm a sucker for the Fast Drill as an evaluation tool.

[Trapper Jim]

Interesting article link I got in NRA's Shooting Illustrated email today. Written by INGO's own Tamara...

CCW Training: Are We Practicing the Wrong Skills?

...Over the last couple years, I’ve started paying more attention to the skills we practice ostensibly in relation to using a handgun for self-defense and their actual frequency of use in reality. Conversely, there are skills that frequently show up in defensive encounters that are, unfortunately, almost never practiced.

Take the reload, specifically the out-of-battery (or slide-lock) reload. Thanks to the video camera-encrusted panopticon in which we live these days, there are literally thousands upon thousands of defensive-handgun uses available to review. These videos tell us that the need to speed reload an empty gun is a non-event, statistically speaking.

The best counter-argument to this I have heard came from the late instructor Todd Green. Namely, practicing with the gun is going to involve reloading it, and if you’re going to be reloading in practice, you may as well use those repetitions to learn how to do it rapidly and positively...

Ability driven training modules are usually worth the time, money and effort one can put into them, however the platform that tells the tale to the man in the mirror is are you a 70% or better shooter in any of the shooting sports? This is the real measurement of marksmanship and gunhandling before other investments to be worth it IMHO.

[BehindBlueI's]

This sentiment is echoed by John Correia of Active Self Protection. He's watched thousands of self defense footage and I believe he's said he had only seen a civilian reload once or twice. As far as a fast draw is concerned, a sub second draw probably isn't necessary or worth the training investment for most people, but 1.5 second draw to first shot is very doable and could be immensely beneficial in the real world.

Most important though is knowing what your skills actually are. It's very helpful to know how fast your draw actually is, so then you know when it's your turn to go. Knowing your accuracy at varying distances is helpful too.

I'll still be practicing reloads from time to time. I'm a sucker for the Fast Drill as an evaluation tool.

Fast draw times mattering mean you've screwed up several other things first. I know first hand. As a rookie I screwed up several things first and got in a fast draw contest. The other guy got fouled in his shirt, I won, he surrendered when he looked up from trying to clear his shirt and saw I was about to shoot him in the face. That's the one time in my career draw speed meant anything and that's because I did so many things wrong to get to that point.

I agree on the fun factor and as long as one has the time to practice the secondary/tertiary/fantasy skills then why not? I'm spending more time practicing Spanish at the moment then dry firing. I'm a big believer in thresholds. Once you attain a certain level of proficiency at any given task, further gains are deep into diminishing returns. That applies to most things in life.

The simple fact is technical skills are great, and the better you are the more scenarios you are equipped to face...but the vast majority of scenarios citizens are faced with in this nation aren't challenging from a fundamentals perspective. The shots are not challenging. People aren't living or dying based on a few tenths of a second difference in split times or reloads or draws, they are getting killed because their tactics sucked. They drew on a drawn gun, they died reaching for off body carry, they died because they couldn't operate the gun they had, they died because they engaged multiple suspects whiel standing still or failing to notice all of their opponents, etc. They get in the fight to begin with because of situational awareness fails or because they know jack-poo about managing unknown contacts. They get disarmed because they have zero ECQC skills combined with that lack of knowledge about managing unknown contacts. It's literally irrelevant how good a shot you are if you can't get the gun in play, and a lot of losses die without ever firing a shot, and that includes some pretty well trained shooters both with and without a badge.

[Coach]

PRACTICE? Most people just don't do that.