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View Full Version : AAR: Aim Fast Hit Fast, 2-3 June 2012, Culpeper, VA



N6Chris
06-06-2012, 08:06 PM
I took AFHF this past weekend, and though I was in the bottom portion of the class, I thought it was an exceptional class, good training, and a lot of fun as well. One thing to note: Todd says before taking AFHF you should be able to score a 45 on the Dot Torture test consistently. I had been using the target in practice, but wasn't sticking to the rules, and don't know if I could do this prior to taking the class (I scored a 41 when I took it in class). I fired 750 rounds over the two days.

The hardest part for me was trying to get my brain and my body to do all the things Todd was telling me to do. Shooting for me has become nearly reflexive, I have entrenched habits that I don't think about, and Todd had me reconsidering and trying to change something about every aspect of getting a shot on target. I changed how I stand, how I hold the pistol, how I look at the sights, how I reload, and definitely how I press out. That is a lot to process at once, and that processing demonstrated itself in the form of slower, fewer hits. As you may know, Todd has the class do the FAST test three or four times. My best test was at the beginning of the class; I got slower each time.

However, finding myself in this state of not getting good shots because I was thinking about my grip or my stance rather than my sight picture provided Todd with the opportunity to do some coaching. This brings me to the biggest takeaway from the class, and it applies to other things that require you to teach your body to perform reflexively, allowing your brain to focus on one or two critical tasks. The principle is: If in training you feel like you are trying to do too much and your mind can't keep track of it all, slow down until you can do it all right. Then speed up. It took a lot of slowing down, over several courses of fire, before I could realize that hey, I'm reloading down in front of my chest instead of in front of my face, and it would be good for me to move my workspace up. When I did that, Todd noticed it, and said, "Hey - great! Conscious thought." Lizard Brain reduces at lower speed sometimes, and our training can take advantage of that.

Alternatively, in my own practice I could focus on one thing at a time, locking it in before moving on to the next aspect of my technique, but who can do that in a class with twelve other people and a training schedule to complete?

There were plenty of other things that were good takeaways for me: Sweep the slide release with my right thumb, get as much of my left palm as possible on the grip, follow through is seeing the front site rise, etc., and I'll be making these refinements to my technique in future practice.

I was also impressed with the SIRT and am considering getting one for non-range practice, and recording and reviewing some of that. I hear there is a new model coming out this summer with a slide that functions, and I'm going to wait and see.

As I go forward, I will also bear in mind another point Todd raised, which I will paraphrase: It is commonly said that mastery of anything requires 10000 hours of practice. However, to be useful the practice has to be thoughtful and focused on the things you want to improve, otherwise, you merely maintain your existing skill rather than advancing it. I'm going to be gripping and pressing out for some time, as well as rediscovering the fundamentals of sight alignment and trigger control, and not just going to the range and throwing up another round of dot torture.

I shot my Glock 17 Gen 4, with no malfunctions over the whole class, but there was one strange thing. I decided to clean my pistol afterward, and there was a lot of carbon residue in the breach area. It was unusually thick and sticky. In fact, it was so persistent that upon reassembly, my trigger wasn't resetting when I would rack the slide, so I had to disassemble the pistol again and put some cleaner in key places along the trigger connector before it would function again. It made me want to remove the trigger connector and clean it.

Al T.
06-07-2012, 07:08 AM
Good AAR - thanks for posting! :)