Practice Makes Progress

Have you heard of the quote “Practice makes perfect”? I’m sure you have. But to be honest this really isn’t a fair quote. The concept of perfection is only something we know about because imperfection exists. So to say that with enough practice you can achieve perfection really isn’t possible. I like to think that we are on a mission for continuous growth and progression. We will never achieve perfection, but we will achieve goals that meet needs and bring satisfaction, happiness and joy. If you can harness the mentality that progression and improvement is the goal then your practice (in anything that you do) will have purpose. Why am I talking about this? Well, as I continue being a student to marksmanship and defensive shooting, I have learned that to be truly proficient you must put in time to practice. Practice can be very elaborate and simple depending on the specific areas of focus. My first suggestion would be to think about what your overarching goal is. Write that goal down and then just write anything and everything you can think of that will help you hit this goal. Secondly I would suggest you make sure that the equipment you plan on using to achieve your goal is consistent. Try to not be changing parts and gear as you’re working towards the goal (if possible). It’s, from my experience, best to have consistent gear in place so that you can limit those factors as a reason why you wouldn’t be successful. Ok, so you have your goal with your ideas written down and you have sorted out your gear. Now you’re ready to practice for improvements towards your goal. Practice for me consists of dry fire. Dry fire is the concept of shooting your firearm without any ammunition. You are going through the motions of shooting your gun without getting a live fire feedback. Dry fire has proven to be a great way to practice all the bio-mechanical skills when shooting a gun. Commonly when shooters fail to achieve a goal (hit a target, complete a task within a specific time frame, or a combination of the 2) it’s more often than not due to a shooter error. Dry fire lends shooters the opportunity to practice a ton of skills: you can practice the holster draw, the grip, the weapon presentation, the sight acquisition, the trigger press, the reload, the malfunction, the transition to multiple targets, moving and shooting, transitioning to a secondary weapon and so much more. A great way to truly make your dry fire practice count is to consider investing in a shot timer. A shot timer is great for both practice and live fire at the range. Shot timers have 2 primary functions. They are great to start a drill as it will give an audible “beep” to indicate the timer has started. The second function is that it will record the time in which the shots were taken by the shooter. This gives you an idea of how quickly you performed the task at hand. Combine the shot timer data with reviewing your target for precision data and you now have a clear picture of how well you are doing at both speed and accuracy. The shot timer is also a great tool for practice as it can help replicate stress as you are waiting for the time to go off and start your practice drill. If you have a goal time to meet, you can set your timer to have a delayed beep after the initial beep. For example: If you have a goal to shoot a target 6 times in under 2 seconds, you can set the delay to 2.00 and begin your drill. You will press the start button and the timer will randomly go off, you will perform the drill and as you are working the second beep will go off indicating 2 seconds has passed. So there you have some starting points on how to improve your shooting skills. Set some goals, make sure you have consistent gear, invest in a shot timer and do some dry fire with a specific intention. If you’re looking for a shot timer recommendation, I personally own the PACT CLUB iii.

If your curious, about this timer you can pick one up at Brownells for a really fair price. And remember Practice doesn’t make perfect. But rather, practice makes progress. This is why the guys with #SQUADDRILLS have the motto “Progress Not Perfection”. Stay safe, shoot straight and lead with your heart.