Walk Before You Run

Shooting is actually a fairly complex activity, there are a lot of small things you need to be aware of and control in order to shoot well.  Things like sight alignment and picture, your breathing, your position, trigger control, and follow through.  If you don't take the time to build a solid foundation for your shooting skills, you will not be able to advance them to more advanced methods.

Everyone wants to go to the gun store, buy a gun, and then go straight to the range, and shoot precisely while hanging upside down on spy-rigging under a helicopter.  That actually may be a bit of a stretch, but I think that is the attitude of some shooters.  They don't want to take the time and build that solid foundation.  But the truth is, if you can't shoot accurately during slow fire, you can't do it during rapid fire.  And the same goes for movement, if you can't shoot where you want while you are standing still, you aren't going to be able to do it while you are moving.  So, while you may want to go straight to more advanced techniques and skills for self defense, make sure you have the building blocks to do so.

If you don't know how to build those blocks, or you don't know why your bullets aren't going where you want, find someone who knows how to teach others to shoot that is willing to help you.  Rifle and pistol shooting share most of the same fundamentals, becoming better at one will help you become better at the other.  Shotguns have a few more differences, but becoming a better shooter in any discipline will help you across the board, provided you remember the differences.  But some sort of basic instruction will help inexperienced shooters build a solid foundation so that they can move on to more advanced skills.

I can often look at a student's target, and identify what the problem is just by seeing where their hits are at the range.   Most of the common issues people have when shooting have tell-tale patterns that manifest themselves on the target, and experienced shooters can diagnose them.  If you have problems with more than one of the fundamentals, focus on fixing one of them at a time.  Aiming and trigger control are the two that should be focused on first, because they have the largest effect on downrange results, then you can work on breathing, hold control, and follow through,  And as you become more proficient in one fundamental, you have to keep practicing that fundamental as you move on to the next one.

Only after you have the basics down, should you worry about things like drawing a pistol from a holster and shooting, or shooting on the move.  It is going to take some time, and some rounds downrange in order to get to that point though.  But I will cover more about pushing yourself and your comfort zone at the range in my next post.