The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery. Massad Ayoob

are going to be asking me why we do it this way, and why we don’t use technique X instead? I have to explain that? Hey, Coach, brief me on that one more time…”

      Teaching not only ensures that we have it down, it puts the final imprimatur of understanding on our own performance in that discipline, sharpening us like the double-stamping of a coin. Since the inception of ASLET, the American Society of Law Enforcement Trainers, I’ve been chair of its firearms committee. ASLET’s motto is qui doscet, disket. Translated loosely from the Latin: “He who teaches, learns.” Thousands of my brethren and I have learned the truth of that through ASLET and similar organizations such as IALEFI, the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors.

       Make sure your self-defense training is not confined to just the gun. OC pepper spray requires training to use to its best advantage.

       On qualification day at an LFI-I class, the instructor’s target…

      You’re not comfortable with public speaking or perhaps some other element of formal teaching? That’s fine, but if you look around there will be people in your family, your neighborhood, your workplace or somewhere else in your ambit who are interested in acquiring a defensive handgun or have already done so, and desperately need to know these things. Take those people to the range. Be patient. Be supportive. Give them what you wanted to get when you began in this discipline.

      If nothing else, you’ll make a good deposit in the karma bank and you won’t come back as a dung beetle.

       Final Thoughts

      Read on the topic. Watch the new generation of combat shooting videos. It’s one thing to read about it, and another to actually see masterful speed shooting in action. One thing videos can do that even experience cannot is deliver instant replay in slow motion, showing subtleties of technique frame by frame.

       …has become the traditional award for the most-improved shooter. The staff, whose collective vote determines the recipient, signs it. Here John Strayer waits his turn to sign as Steve Denney pens some words of encouragement to the winning student.

      Learn from your mistakes. Losing a match or a having bad day at the gun class doesn’t mean you’re a bad person and you need therapy. Winning gives you warm fuzzy strokes, and it also gives you positive reinforcement, validating that you’re doing it right. But losing is where you learn. Think about it: How many of life’s lessons did you learn by messing something up? Sometimes, that’s the strongest reinforcement of the learning experience. On days when you win, you can say to yourself, “A day well spent. I’m on the right track.” On days when you lose, you can say to yourself, “A day well spent. I’ve learned a lesson, and I will not repeat the mistake I made today.” Sometimes, the “instructional days” are a lot more valuable than the “positive reinforcement days.”

       Training should give you fallbacks for worst-case scenarios. Here, author drills on weak-hand-only with his Glock 22.

      It has been said that experience is the collected aggregate of our mistakes. But wisdom, said Otto von Bismarck, is learning from the collected aggregate of the mistakes of others. That’s why we read and study and reach out beyond our own experiences.

       Don’t assume that statistics are right, and you’ll only be in a gunfight at point-blank range. Here bodyguard Lars Lipke deploys his HK P7M13 at 50 yards, from standing position…

      How do you best practice? This way: Stop practicing! This doesn’t mean that you don’t shoot or drill in your movement patterns or perform repetitions of tactical skills. It means that if before you practiced, now you train!

      Practice can easily turn into just hosing bullets downrange. Often, you wind up reinforcing bad habits instead of enforcing good ones. Training, on the other hand, is purpose-oriented. Where practice can easily degenerate into “just going through the motions,” training sharpens and fine-tunes every motion. If practice was going to be a couple of hundred rounds downrange, training might be as little as 50 rounds, but all fired with purpose. You, the box of ammo, and the electronic timer (one of the best investments you can make in your own skill development) head to the range. Instead of creating 200 pieces of once-fired brass, your goal is 50 draws to the shot. Each will be done in a frame of time that satisfies you and results in a good hit, or you’ll analyze the reason why not and correct what’s going wrong.

      Shoot in competition. It hones the edge. A gun club that’s enthusiastic about IDPA or IPSC (see the chapter on Combat Competition) will be able to set up complicated and challenging scenarios that you or I might not have the time or the money to construct. You’ll get to watch top shooters in action and pick up subtle lessons from how they handle various tactical problems.

      If there’s no competition near you, or not as much as you like, shoot with a buddy or a loved one. Personally, I find I put forth my best effort against someone who shoots about the same as I do. When I shoot against world champions, it’s exciting, but I know I’m not really going to beat them. When I shoot against someone who’s had a lot less opportunity to develop skill, I’m not challenged. Someone who’s at the same level seems to bring out the greatest internal effort.

      Go ahead and side-bet with each other. That’s a good thing, too. It conditions you to the reality that every time you pull that trigger, something rides on the outcome. You’ll pay for a bad shot and be rewarded for a good one. Soon, shooting under pressure becomes the norm.

      Your partner is not as good a shot as you are? Pick a course of fire and each of you go through it a couple of times and determine an average score. Subtract the one from the other, and give the difference to the lower scoring shooter as a handicap.

       …and from the more effective Chapman Rollover Prone.

       Learn to make tactical movement as thoroughly ingrained as stance and trigger press. Here Justine Ayoob, 15, performs a tactical reload while moving behind cover at the New England Regional IDPA championships.

      Let’s say it’s a course of fire with 300 points possible. You average 299 and the partner averages 230. Give the partner 69 bonus points as a handicap. Now he or she is challenged: beating you is within striking distance, where before it seemed hopeless. This will encourage the partner to really focus and put forth his or her best effort. Before, you weren’t challenged, but now you know that the newer shooter with the faster learning curve only has to get a little better to beat you. You, in turn, are now motivated to shoot a perfect score, the only thing that will keep you from losing the bet.

      At Lethal Force Institute, we have the instructors shoot what we call a pace-setter drill on the last day. Just before the students shoot their final qualification test, the staff will shoot the same course of fire as a demonstration. This does several good things. First, it lets the students see what’s expected of them. Second, watching us do it helps them