So last week, Andreas Yankopolus posed a question to my post on X where I re-shared an after action report of Ben Stoeger’s Practical Shooting Skills & Drills. The question was:

Where do you think classes like Ben’s Skills & Drills fit in someone’s shooting development vs. the static/single-target ones you’ve described?

Andreas Yankopolus, via X on Nov 12, 2024

This is a fantastic question. And it couldn’t have been asked at a better time. How so? Well, let’s rewind a couple of weeks where Jon Bissett (Outrider Training Group), The Cisco Ranger, and I decided to create a space on X on a whim to engage in some random ballistic banter. That discussion led to the idea of hosting a weekly space, that we have dubbed “ShotCraft”, to discuss specific topics with guests.

Given the timing, I invited Andreas to join us on upcoming space to discuss this question live. He agreed. And that discussion took place via X on Tuesday, November 19 at 8PM CDT.

All of that said, the question got me thinking about training curricula for shooters a lot since it was posed. At some point in my pondering, I noticed that learning how to drive is an analogous parallel that kind of works. The connection is that driving and shooting are similar in many respects. Both are skills that are better learned than intuited. Both deal with the operation of dangerous equipment. Both have related laws, licensing, and regulations. There are various forms of training available for both activities that focus on skill improvement and specific applications.

As I said, the parallel kind of works. It falls apart as we get into more “advanced” topics, but I’ll use it since it works pretty well when we talk about getting started.

Introductory Training

Like Driver’s Ed that is required for someone to get their Driver learning permit and eventually their initial or provisional license, the goal of introductory training is to take someone who knows next to nothing about driving and evolve them into a safe driver with a sufficient understanding of traffic laws and regulations. Introductory firearm training, in my opinion, has a similar goal – take someone who knows next to nothing about shooting and evolve them into a safe shooter with a sufficient understanding of gun laws and regulations.

It’s worth pointing out that safe doesn’t mean highly skilled. I suppose “safe” does imply some degree of competence, but the degree of competence is going to depend entirely on the quality of instruction the student receives and the amount of practice the student puts in.

In the context of firearms, there are a few different ways to become a safe and competent shooter.

A good starting place to start becoming familiar with laws and regulations is the Handgunlaw.us website. While the website is primarily focused on laws surrounding defensive carry by armed citizens including state specific use of force laws, it does a really good job at covering the laws that every gun owner must concern themselves with even if they don’t intend to carry a gun defensively in public.

For those who intend to carry a defensive weapon in public, I strongly urge attending the state mandated training for the issuance of a carry permit or license even if the intent is to participate in permit-less or Constitutional carry. Personally, I think there are merits to getting a permit or license even in places were permit-less or Constitutional carry is allowed, but that’s another discussion. The point here is that the state mandated curriculums often require the inclusion of up to date possession and use of force laws and all of us can benefit from being up to date with the laws and regulations that govern us.

While that addresses the laws and regulation understanding of introductory training, we still have to address the safe and competent operation of firearms. Some folks have accomplished this by learning safety and marksmanship fundamentals from a family member or a friend. Not all of us have that luxury available to us. Furthermore, I’ve seen many who went that route do unsafe things and struggle to make good hits on relatively easy targets. Sure, there are exceptions to this. However, based on what I’ve seen, I think receiving quality training from a qualified instructor is the better route.

This begs the question: What should that introductory training consist of or cover? It might be easier to answer this question by setting a goal for “safe and competent” and work backwards from that. So let’s do that.

In my mind, a safe and competent shooter is one that practices safe gun handling principles at all times (even when moving with their gun in hand) and is able to put acceptable hits on target with minimal or without external pressure with their pistol starting and ending in their holster. Going back to the driving parallel, I would venture to define a safe and competent driver as one who can commute back and forth to school, the store, or work without incident under typical driving conditions.

With that in mind, I would suggest that introductory training include the following:

• Four principles of safe gun handling (loaded, finger, muzzle, target) with an emphasis on finger and muzzle discipline
• Loading, reloading, and clearing the firearm
• Core marksmanship fundamentals of grip, trigger, and vision
• Introduce ready positions and one handed shooting
• Safely drawing a pistol from and returning it to a holster
• Moving with a gun in hand while maintaining finger and muzzle awareness

Ideally the training should be concluded with a qualification test that tests safe competence. Kind of like passing a driving test in order to get a driver license. A great example of this type of test is KR Training’s Three Seconds or Less Test which is required to graduate from their Defensive Pistol Skills program.

Beyond the Basics

After the basics have been learned, but not necessarily mastered, a student is now prepared enough to branch out and look at application specific training or work towards becoming more proficient at shooting.

From the self defense side of the house, application specific training is predominantly focused on tactics or development of supplementary skills like medical, driving, land navigation, communication, barehanded skills, etc. However, it doesn’t have to be self defense specific. There are other curricula available to learn tactics that apply to survival, hunting, and competition along with supplementary skills that are useful in those contexts.

While this is entirely anecdotal, I have found that the amount of learning I get from application specific training is proportional to my proficiency with the corresponding firearm under stress. I suspect that this is due to being able to put the “shooting” part of the training on “autopilot”. Meaning that the less cognitive load required to put acceptable hits quickly on a target the more cognitive bandwidth I have available to focus on the application tactics.

To answer Andreas’ question, this is where performance shooting clinics and classes, like Ben Stoeger’s Practical Shooting Skills & Drills class, fit in best. More specifically, investing in one or two performance shooting classes prior to jumping into application specific training can yield a better return on investment. Granted there is a balance here that depends on one’s available time and monetary resources. Especially when considering that most application specific courses include some application specific skill work in them as well.

To be fair, I’m not certain that answers Andreas’ question entirely since he qualified it with “vs. static/single target ones you have described”. While I might be mistaken, I suspect that qualification is referring to Gabe White’s Pistol Shooting Solutions class that I recently attended. In my opinion, that specific class, which is single target focused, is a hybrid performance pistol shooting class and self defense application tactics class. Because it attempts to tackle both performance shooting and application tactics, it’s hard to put it in one bucket or the other. What I can offer though is that I viewed that class, albeit perhaps erroneously, more as a performance shooting class when my proficiency was lower and more and more as a self defense tactics application course as my proficiency has improved.

That said, I think that I would have gotten more out of the application specific tactics from Gabe White’s class the first time I attended it had I attended a performance shooting focused class beforehand. Which brings me back to the answer of performance shooting classes fit anytime after safe competence has been achieved and are a smart investment prior to taking application specific training.

Performance Shooting Training

The only time I think performance shooting specific training is not a good idea is when a student has developed safe competent abilities. In this case, the student is likely to get frustrated because they will get left behind in the course work and will likely view the investment in class as a complete waste. Furthermore, any unsafe gun handling is likely to get them ejected from class more often than not without a refund.

However, after developing safe competent abilities, there really isn’t a bad time to attend a performance shooting clinic or class. These events often include experiential learning blocks that allow students to discover more about their existing abilities and new ways to approach their development. The classes also help improve one’s ability to self diagnose and can enhance their approach at training and practice. I’d argue that perhaps the biggest benefit from these classes is they can often help a student break through a performance plateau.

It is for these reasons that I make it a point to attend at least one 2-day performance shooting course every year. I want to get better. I want to get better at getting better. To me, this type of training is the avenue to do just that. Which is also why I encourage others to do the same.

At any rate, I’m not certain how the discussion with Andreas Yankopolus will go on Tuesday, November 19th. I am very interested to hear his take on this topic as he is a highly skilled USPSA Grand Master who has overcome several performance plateaus himself and has helped many others improve as a performance shooting instructor. I’m also interested to hear what the other two cohosts have to say on the matter. I hope you will join us.