How Should You Practice After Training?

[JohnN]

This is an excellent article detailing how you can practice and personalize the training you just paid your hard earned money for. Going to classes is great but we have to practice what we learned or quickly loose the edge.

How Should You Practice After Training?

 

[cedartop]

I must admit, I don't know who Claude is, but it was a good article. This is one reason we debrief at the end of our classes. It is not just to review what was learned, but also to discuss what needs to be taken away and worked on. FOF classes are great for this type of thing.

 

[JohnN]

Claude Werner

Claude Werner is a retired U.S. Army officer. He served in Airborne, Ranger, Special Forces, and Mechanized Infantry units and commanded a Special Forces A-Team and Bradley Infantry Company. He is an NRA Certified Instructor for Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, Personal Protection in the Home, Home Firearm Safety and is a Certified Refuse To Be A Victim Instructor®. For five years, he was the Chief Instructor at the elite Rogers Shooting School. Claude is a Four Gun Master in the International Defensive Pistol Association and has won several sanctioned IDPA championships in the revolver division using snub-nose revolvers.

 

[NIFT]

Going to classes is great but we have to practice what we learned or quickly loose the edge.
How Should You Practice After Training?

Mr. Werner is very good in what he has to say, and I fully agree that, without proper practice, skills go away quickly. Shooting--especially defensive shooting--is a highly perishable skill that diminishes very quickly with time.


Adding a few things:

1. Safety first, foremost, and always--muzzle control, finger off the trigger, and so on.
2. Practice the basics until safety becomes a reflex, and trigger control becomes subconscious muscle memory. Do a lot of dry firing with all ammunition in another room!
3. Alternate basic marksmanship practice with scenario-based shooting, to keep the fundamental skills sharp.
4. Make the scenarios realistic to your situation. If you are SWAT/SRU, your training should be very different from a non-LEO preparing for home defense or concealed carry, and vice versa!
5. Make distances, rounds fired, movement, oral commands, practical and applicable.

There are many other factors, but those are a few to consider.
Of course, as "Cedartop" will agree, Force-on-Force is the closest thing to the real thing! Suarez International will have a FoF class, April 2 and 3 in Roanoke, just 10 miles outside Fort Wayne.

 

[esrice]

Very good article.

A few INGOers and I are trying to solve the "problem" of perishing shooting skills by combining our training experiences into regular structured practice sessions where we can push and encourage each other. I think that time spent really practicing is necessary to stay sharp, physically and mentally. But that practice has to be relevant, and not simply range masturbation. (sorry for the term, but I bet you get it)

 

[Sailor]

Teach the rest of your crew what you learned. That helps cement it.

 

[rhino]

Claude Werner

Claude Werner is a retired U.S. Army officer. He served in Airborne, Ranger, Special Forces, and Mechanized Infantry units and commanded a Special Forces A-Team and Bradley Infantry Company. He is an NRA Certified Instructor for Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, Personal Protection in the Home, Home Firearm Safety and is a Certified Refuse To Be A Victim Instructor®. For five years, he was the Chief Instructor at the elite Rogers Shooting School. Claude is a Four Gun Master in the International Defensive Pistol Association and has won several sanctioned IDPA championships in the revolver division using snub-nose revolvers.

He's got some serious credentials, there. The military stuff for the experience and being an instructor much less chief instructor at the Rogers school is impressive.