iChokePeople
Master
- Feb 11, 2011
- 4,556
- 48
Some of us had the opportunity to spend a surprisingly nice November day on the range with John and Granger of our own ACT this weekend, and I wanted to make a few notes for those who might be considering this kind of thing and wondering what happens.
We all met at the clubhouse at Riley Conservation Club, just south of Terre Haute. After some admin/safety talk and brief introductions, we moved immediately to the range. We started off with a little warmup work to get our heads and hands warmed up, then went quickly into the curriculum.
John's 201 curriculum picks up very well where 101 left off, covering basic movement and alternate firing positions. We each did some shooting from kneeling, prone and supine positions, and did some work while moving to 12, 3, 6, and 9, including moving across the target and making you decide how to handle that change in position. All of this was very useful and helped everyone get ready for the drills to come later.
In here somewhere was the highly-anticipated ACT hot dog lunch, which was both a great opportunity to rest and refuel and a great chance to get some off-line discussion with John and Granger and with other students.
The afternoon was filled with drills using the skills we started to learn in the morning, and were excellent in helping to develop those skills and help everyone understand and put them to use. The moving target for the box drill was excellent and tended to keep people from getting lead feet in a relatively safe position. The figure eight drill ended up being a LOT of fun.
The day was a great learning experience for me. Having a competent instructor there watching you and giving you immediate feedback is invaluable. A good instructor will quickly pick up any mistakes you're making, if any, and offer suggestions or corrections. Rather than shoot 500 rounds building a bad habit, you can get someone to help you after one magazine, or after one string of fire, and you can start to fix your issues immediately. Lots of things a good instructor will mention aren't really "mistakes", just options. Alternatives. Other ways to do things. There's almost always another way to do something.
That's also one of the huge advantages of a correctly-sized class environment. Not only did I get to have John and Granger offer me their expertise on MY performance, on MY rounds fired, on MY trigger time and ammunition cost, but I also got the benefit of watching all of the OTHER students, and hearing John and Granger work with them. I got more training value out of each round I fired by having them there, and I also got training value from all of the things my fellow students tried. I got to watch them work, and think. I got to watch them try things in different ways that I hadn't thought of or hadn't tried. I got to see what did and didn't work, hear comments from the instructors and other students, and got to learn from each of those. I had some great suggestions from other students -- it's amazing the level of detail that 12 sets of eyes will catch. I got to watch people of all different types, backgrounds, with different bodies and without some of the possibly bad ideas and habits that limit MY development. That's a really great thing.
There was a recent thread where applying the term "martial artist" seemed, to me, to take on a... sort of an elevated tone in which a person is claiming to be something more than a "mall ninja" or the like. To me, the martial artist is the one who is dedicated, maybe to a point that some would call obsessed, with improving himself/herself, to studying, to relentless pursuit of perfection that will never be achieved. The martial artist doesn't accept current wisdom or paradigms as gospel, he doesn't accept that there's just one right way or one right choice. I saw a lot of people yesterday who seem to be on that path, with varying levels of obsession. If you're dedicated enough to pursue that knowledge and skill, to give up a easy day on the couch for a day of work, to put your ego and pride aside to seek and accept the advice of others, whether teacher or fellow student, you just might be a martial artist. Being a martial artist is about committing to the journey, it doesn't say anything about having reached any particular destination.
I rethought my way of doing things many times yesterday. I don't think there was a single student in the class from whom I didn't learn something or see something that made me rethink something I was doing, or not doing. And I definitely don't want to be #2 when those two young ladies are around. Wow.
Thanks to all of the other students, it was very nice to meet you all.
And thanks again to John and Granger for their wisdom and for their way of keeping the class light, fun, and interesting.
It was a great day of training and any who are on the fence about trying this training thing, about seriously trying to improve, DO IT.
We all met at the clubhouse at Riley Conservation Club, just south of Terre Haute. After some admin/safety talk and brief introductions, we moved immediately to the range. We started off with a little warmup work to get our heads and hands warmed up, then went quickly into the curriculum.
John's 201 curriculum picks up very well where 101 left off, covering basic movement and alternate firing positions. We each did some shooting from kneeling, prone and supine positions, and did some work while moving to 12, 3, 6, and 9, including moving across the target and making you decide how to handle that change in position. All of this was very useful and helped everyone get ready for the drills to come later.
In here somewhere was the highly-anticipated ACT hot dog lunch, which was both a great opportunity to rest and refuel and a great chance to get some off-line discussion with John and Granger and with other students.
The afternoon was filled with drills using the skills we started to learn in the morning, and were excellent in helping to develop those skills and help everyone understand and put them to use. The moving target for the box drill was excellent and tended to keep people from getting lead feet in a relatively safe position. The figure eight drill ended up being a LOT of fun.
The day was a great learning experience for me. Having a competent instructor there watching you and giving you immediate feedback is invaluable. A good instructor will quickly pick up any mistakes you're making, if any, and offer suggestions or corrections. Rather than shoot 500 rounds building a bad habit, you can get someone to help you after one magazine, or after one string of fire, and you can start to fix your issues immediately. Lots of things a good instructor will mention aren't really "mistakes", just options. Alternatives. Other ways to do things. There's almost always another way to do something.
That's also one of the huge advantages of a correctly-sized class environment. Not only did I get to have John and Granger offer me their expertise on MY performance, on MY rounds fired, on MY trigger time and ammunition cost, but I also got the benefit of watching all of the OTHER students, and hearing John and Granger work with them. I got more training value out of each round I fired by having them there, and I also got training value from all of the things my fellow students tried. I got to watch them work, and think. I got to watch them try things in different ways that I hadn't thought of or hadn't tried. I got to see what did and didn't work, hear comments from the instructors and other students, and got to learn from each of those. I had some great suggestions from other students -- it's amazing the level of detail that 12 sets of eyes will catch. I got to watch people of all different types, backgrounds, with different bodies and without some of the possibly bad ideas and habits that limit MY development. That's a really great thing.
There was a recent thread where applying the term "martial artist" seemed, to me, to take on a... sort of an elevated tone in which a person is claiming to be something more than a "mall ninja" or the like. To me, the martial artist is the one who is dedicated, maybe to a point that some would call obsessed, with improving himself/herself, to studying, to relentless pursuit of perfection that will never be achieved. The martial artist doesn't accept current wisdom or paradigms as gospel, he doesn't accept that there's just one right way or one right choice. I saw a lot of people yesterday who seem to be on that path, with varying levels of obsession. If you're dedicated enough to pursue that knowledge and skill, to give up a easy day on the couch for a day of work, to put your ego and pride aside to seek and accept the advice of others, whether teacher or fellow student, you just might be a martial artist. Being a martial artist is about committing to the journey, it doesn't say anything about having reached any particular destination.
I rethought my way of doing things many times yesterday. I don't think there was a single student in the class from whom I didn't learn something or see something that made me rethink something I was doing, or not doing. And I definitely don't want to be #2 when those two young ladies are around. Wow.
Thanks to all of the other students, it was very nice to meet you all.
And thanks again to John and Granger for their wisdom and for their way of keeping the class light, fun, and interesting.
It was a great day of training and any who are on the fence about trying this training thing, about seriously trying to improve, DO IT.
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John and I did a two man version of the figure 8 drill. Atleast we didn't shoot each other....
