Competitive shooting a plus in defense.

[MarkCO]

If you have a chance to shoot a night match, regardless of discipline, do it.

Provided the match employs the safety protocols correctly (not all do) it is a very valuable set of lessons. When I shoot night matches, I shoot my actual defense M&P with a stock trigger, and a defense purposed AR and shotgun. Shooting stock SD guns in "Open" division hurts my scores, but the lessons learned have been worth it.

[Jim243]

but it doesn't take the place of training and isn't perfect.

Unfortunately training tends to be very expensive and and far away, MOST shooters do not have the resources that they can spare to take advantage of it. My position is that any practice you can afford is helpful, but that IDPA is not expensive and is something that can help your self-defense skills.

That's all I am saying.

Thanks
Jim

[Brit]

The IDPA match, where you meet the "I have never done this B/4 person!"

They get help from all kinds of people, and as you see them improve, radically, better holsters, mag pouches (mag pouches that both face the same way!) change to pistols that work all the time!

Is IDPA good? It sure is, the things you get to do...Shoot on the move, take cover, shoot in all kind of weird positions, rapid reloads from an empty gun, a locked back slide. Shoot left hand/right hand.

And mostly shoot all targets twice! I really believe in that, you get better hits that way. With 16 ready to go, can't be bad. Just carrying, only 10 rounds, or less in IDPA.

Tactical reloads, stupid! The shoot all targets once, then come back to shoot a further round on each target, bunk.

Shoot 150 rounds from the holster, once a month? Great. And patch the targets after each shooter, not like most Police and Security, flood the targets with shots, replace them at the end!

[kraigwy]

This topic pops up every year or so and drives me nuts. It reminds me of the quote from Gen. J. Hatcher, "Textbook of Pistols and Revolvers" that covers the subject quite well:

Many practical users of pistols or revolvers are fond of making fun of target shooting, and of the advice given on how to learn his branch of he sport. Such an attitude is well understood by the psychologist. It is founded in the unconscious jealousy and feeling of inferiority that the poor shot feels when he sees a well trained marksman making scores out of his power to equal. Unconsciously he will seem to his audience to be just as important and well equipped as the good marksman whom he ridicules.

[1-DAB]

^^^^
well said.

i thought i was a decent shot...until i learned otherwise with the clock ticking as i tried to shoot targets at various distances. i'm getting better.

[FireForged]

There are always going to me grown men and women who may have some inferiority complex but I do not think that is what is at the center of this discussion. The argument could easily go the other direction as well and suggest that those who hold absolute marksmanship in such high regard are using it as a crutch against a lack of tactical abilities and strategics.

The biggest Korean I ever met was a guy we called KIM. I dont recall if that was his first name or his last name but he was big. Kim could demonstrate near perfect TKD forms and was very impressive to watch. Although he was very good at forms, Kim could not spar and lost nearly every match. This is an example of why tactics and strategics are so important. As a young kid I could not understand why Kim could not fight. One day there was a group soldiers watching Kim spar and I remember one asking "what was wrong with the big one". The other soldier said, he is dancing and his opponent is fighting. That is when I finally understood!

I guess in my mind, anything that we call training or "practice" that is devoid of proper tactics and strategics... is just a dance.

[pax]

Dunno why people always have to set this up as either/or -- when it's really both/and.

If your problem can only be solved with good tactics, the best marksmanship in the world isn't going to save your butt.

If your problem can only be solved by actually, you know, hitting the target, that fancy little tactical rain dance isn't going to make a squirrel's nuts' worth of difference to your chances of survival.

Learn to hit your target.

Learn to think with gun in hand.

Then learn to hit your target better -- faster, at farther distances, with more precision, under tougher circumstances.

Then learn to think better -- with more honesty about what you can or cannot actually do, with more integrated reactions, with less of your mind occupied by running the machine in your hand and more of your mind focused on solving the problem at hand.

Don't be too arrogant to learn new stuff. Don't be too arrogant to admit you may need instruction. Don't be too arrogant to admit you don't already know this stuff and don't be so arrogant that you put yourself and everyone around you at risk from your ignorance.

The first step to learning anything is to admit you don't already know it all.

Nobody was born knowing this stuff, and nobody learned it as a 6-year-old when daddy took 'em out to shoot.

pax

[tedbeau]

I am also another that shoots IDPA with my every day carry gun. I carry a Glock 27 (SUB compact in 40 caliber) and yes the first year I competed I even used full power factory ammo.
I just started reloading a few months ago to decrease cost.
As far as the idea that IDPA people would laugh at a newbie or embarrass them. I would say defiantly not at my gun club! Everyone that I have meant at three regional matches and two state matches and all the club practice nights have been friendly and helpful.
While I agree that IDPA is a game, it has made me a better shooter. I have not taken a tactical class, but I think it makes sense to get you skill level up to point where you are not wasting money and ammo taking a tactical class and just throwing ammo downrange with out even making good hits. If IDPA or IPSC can make you shoot more accurately and learn how to do malfunction drills and reloads faster than I think it makes sense to learn these skills before you spend big bucks on a tactical class.

On the comment someone made about the doctor that was kidnapped as he was loading his car for a match, I wear my gear and carry my gun on me to the match. Sure I might look a little funny in a vest, but so what. The counter people at Mcdonald's have never asked, or noticed the gun.

[pax]

I have not taken a tactical class, but I think it makes sense to get you skill level up to point where you are not wasting money and ammo taking a tactical class and just throwing ammo downrange with out even making good hits. If IDPA or IPSC can make you shoot more accurately and learn how to do malfunction drills and reloads faster than I think it makes sense to learn these skills before you spend big bucks on a tactical class.

When I was a kid, my mom would sign us up for swimming lessons every year right after school got out for summer vacation. For a couple of weeks every summer, if you went down to our town’s public swimming pool in the morning, you would see clumps of maybe six or seven squealing little kids all over the place. They’d all be bobbing up and down and splashing the patient teenagers were were trying to show them how to swim.

If you took swim lessons when you were little, do you remember what the first day was like? It seemed like there was always that one kid who had both his arms and legs firmly wrapped around his mom’s leg, holding on for dear life and shrieking, “But Mommy! I can’t get in the water with the teacher! I don’t know how to swim!!!”

Poor little guy.

What does childhood swim lessons have to do with taking a defensive handgun class as an adult? Plenty! It happens often that people will ask, “Am I good enough yet to take a class?” Sometimes the person asking the question is truly a beginning shooter. Other times they’ve been shooting for awhile. In either case, they’re concerned because they think they have to reach a certain level of skill before they will benefit from professional firearms instruction.

That's actually a lie. The people who get the most value for their training dollar are those who haven't yet deeply engrained inefficient habits by practicing stuff they haven't learned good ways to do.

The people who've spent a lot of time teaching themselves A way to do something (not necessarily the most efficient or reliable way to do it, but just a way that works for them) -- well, when they decide to improve from where they're at, they're going to spend a lot of time erasing the bad habits before they can build better ones. That takes time and money and energy. Sometimes quite a lot of it.

Meanwhile, the guy who started out by getting a good foundation, and then practicing the skills he learned, is going to save a metric buttload of time and ammo money getting to the same level of skill. And then he's going to surge ahead, because he won't have to extinguish the overlearned bad habits when they sneak back under stress.

Like swim lessons for little kids, we don’t hold a class to validate what you already know, or just to let you show off your shooting for everyone. If you want to do that, you can open your own YouTube channel and have thousands of adoring fans within a week (at least if you dress interestingly enough).

pax

[MarkCO]

Kathy, that is all based on personality. I just jumped in the neighbors pool and figured it out.

Plus, I would venture to say that the average person on TFL is a better shooter than at least half of the "professional instructors" many of which teach bad habits.

Learning to shoot, by nature needs to have some solid foundations laid. But there are plenty of good books and even videos that do more for the shooter getting started than a class will do. One or two IDPA matches with an open mind and asking of the better shooters will trump the cost and benefit of most introductory firearms courses.

While I know we both make money teaching courses, I still think training courses give more benefit to people past the introductory phase. GSSF, RFC, First Shots, Steel Challenge are all sports or programs that will give the new shooter a safe and effective introduction without the cost of a professional trainer.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

We are getting silly when we say that half the folks on TFL are better than instructors who fit some ill defined criteria of bad advice.

It is also an empirical question if just shooting aids in learning as compared to instruction.

I've seen folks who can't swim jump in and head for the bottom - so what.

Not my forum but I think we've reach a dead end when we cite unsupported opinions. Training literature from all kinds of disciplines supports training up on the basics.

Closed - the relevant mods can reopen if they think there is something else useful to be said.