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MDS
10-04-2013, 10:53 AM
Question for you folks that do firearms instruction. Do you get any significant training or learning value out of instructing? What kind of learning? Under what circumstances? I train folks around computer stuff and was wondering with a friend how well that applies to gun training.

Failure2Stop
10-04-2013, 12:02 PM
There is much to be learned through observation and interaction with thousands of individual examples.
One of the biggest things I have learned is how differently people interpret words/guidance/instruction, and to expect to have to individually reiterate every part of what I am trying to teach.

Sal Picante
10-04-2013, 01:07 PM
Question for you folks that do firearms instruction. Do you get any significant training or learning value out of instructing? What kind of learning? Under what circumstances? I train folks around computer stuff and was wondering with a friend how well that applies to gun training.

Best book on learning that I've found so far: 4-Hour Chef by Tim Ferriss (author of the 4-hour workweek)

I learn a lot by teaching:

Makes me humble
makes me keep my chops up
Exposure to lots of gear/problems/trouble shooting
Exposure to great folks (folks that can help me out of a bind…)
Engaging in the thought process of how to actually explain/visualize concepts. This clarifies a lot for me.



It is exceedingly easy to teach stupid/useless things or fall back on the status quo.

Goals for what you expect out of one's training plan are just as important as students own goals. (My goal is to take a U or D USPSA shooter and have 'em earning B card in 5 months.)

BLR
10-04-2013, 02:20 PM
No firearms teaching, but I do when teaching engineering. Lesson planning is intensive, if done right.

ST911
10-04-2013, 03:46 PM
I've learned a lot from students over the years, with some real gems. Some of the better stuff has come from formal or informal teach-backs, where you can see how the thing you taught was received, processed, and how they chose to redeliver it.

Using associative learning techniques has been helpful as well, and offers whole new opportunities to draw information back out of students.

justintime
10-04-2013, 04:09 PM
I know for me when I started teaching at a racing school, as well as private coaching I learned more than I ever thought I would. I think it is mostly an academic learning experience though. For me I learned how to put into words, and how to break fundamentals down into an easy to teach format which also made me focus on them more than I normally would. Sometimes when you spend most of your time chasing unicorns to get just a little better, it helps to also be pounding fundamentals in to other people at the same time. Sometimes that can help you revisit areas which you might have developed a bad habit. I think that when you look in from the outside a lot and you see what doesn't work over and over and over again it brings an interesting level of new experience. It is also practice, and in my eyes the more practice.. no matter what kind it is will help. The real gem is when you come across quality students which can push you to be better in order to help them grow.

Every time you have to keep repeating fundamentals and lessons to someone else, the more you are also engraving it into your own mind. It also helps with personal confidence as well.. which I have always thought improves performance.

As far as shooting goes, I do not teach people stuff as I feel it is way out of my lane. When it comes to teaching family at the ranch it typically is more centered around safety so mileage may vary.

ToddG
10-05-2013, 07:47 AM
Some great answers so far, especially WIILSHOOT's list.

Obviously, teaching is a skill and just like shooting if you learn to do it right, the more you practice doing it right the better you'll get at it. If Mario's question was directed more at how teaching affects shooting, I think there's a lot to be gained but those gains will depend on your goals as a shooter to some extent.

The more you see people execute "X" the more mistakes you'll see and the better you'll understand technique "X" yourself. If you're honest with yourself and interested in performance over doctrine, that means you're constantly re-evaluating not only what you teach but how you, yourself, shoot.

Unless you just want to parrot what someone else taught you, being an instructor forces you to examine the why of techniques, tactics, or whatever it is you're communicating to your students. As you delve deeper you can learn a lot about things you may have been doing by rote simply because someone told you to.

On the other hand, it's a mistake to believe that you have to teach to attain excellence. Of the truly outstanding shooters I know, only half of them have ever taught and of those who have, only half of them really know what the heck they're doing in front of a group of students.