AAR: Mike Seeklander- Defensive Handgun Speed and Accuracy
Instructor: Mike Seeklander
Course: 101- Defensive Handgun Speed and Accuracy
Weather was in the 50s in the morning and 60s in the afternoon with heavy winds. Gusts were as high as 40 mph. It took place outdoors and the wind definetely played a factor in everyone’s performance. It was as realistic as you can get for Oklahoma weather.
It was an 8 hr course.
This was my second class and my first class with a legit instructor. I’m not sure I would even count the first one.
Gear: Glock 19 w/ Trijicon Hds, JMCK george holster with ptd loops, mastermind tactics g hook belt, streamlight protact 1l, clinch pick and a spyderco pm2. I did not use the knives in the course but I wanted to use my true edc loadout. I wanted to find out if my gear would fail me in real life.
We were encouraged to show up with our real life carry gear and it seems that everyone did. We had six students total and that equaled alot of individual instruction from Mike.
We started at 9 am sharp. We gathered around and he introduced himself and we went around the group. It was a diverse group with a couple ex military guys, retired highway patrol officer, an attorney, a pastor and myself. I was the youngest one there and also had the least amount of formal training. I was worried I was going to be in over my head, but I wasn’t. Mike did a great job of teaching us.
We did a safety briefing and I was designated to assist Mike if there was an injury since I was the only other one with medical training. I had some basic med gear in my bag and he had a much larger bag. I made sure to familiarize myself with the layout of the bag.
Then we began the good stuff.
Gear Selection: He gave us his thoughts on choosing carry gear and guns. For guns he uses the acronym REAP: reliability, ergoncomics, accuracy, and power. One note on ergonomics, he uses the term to refer to accessability of controls not so much how the gun feels in your hand.
He talked about sights. He’s not a night sights guy. He quoted some of Tom Given’s statistics and stated he doesn’t think they are necessary and that he prefers fiber optic, etc.
He touched on modifications to handguns and discouraged it from a reliability perspective. It’s important to note that everything he said about gear and guns is from a defensive perspective. We briefly discussed the legalities of changing out springs, etc. to get a lighter trigger. It was neat to have an attorney in the class. He said he doesn’t see it as an issue expect in a civil case. The attorney brought up accidentally shooting an innocent bystander during a “good shoot” and how it could open you up to a civil lawsuit.
In the class we had two Glock 19s, glock 43, s&w shield, Sig 226 legion, and a p320. Mike Seeklander shot a Wilson COmbat 1911. One guy had a tlr-1 on his g19 and another had a tlr-6 on the g43. This led into discussions about lights and lasers on a concealed carry weapon. Mike was very supportive of a small light laser combo on his carry guns and mentioned that he uses a tlr-6 on his s&w shield that he carries. He favors grip activated switches over toggle switches on the lights. I asked him about the practicality of carrying a wml for edc and he said he likes the small ones that don’t add any length to the gun. He mentioned how difficult it is to carry appendix with a wml.
We talked about the different carry positions. We had three appendix carry guys and the rest were owb w/ cover garment. Mike talked about the pros and cons of each position. He talked about the dangers of appendix carry and encouraged us to consider the risk we are taking by carrying a striker fired gun in that position. He talked about doing a hard break before reholstering and leaning away as you reholster. He never discouraged appendix carry, but he wanted to make us aware. It was refreshing to hear his stance on it. It was beautifully worded and I’m not doing it justice in this write up. This was the perfect segway to talk to him about the Gadget. On the next break I talked to him about it and he seemed to like the idea.
Now the really good stuff:
Grip: Mike is known for his vice like grip and this portion of the class was worth the price of admission. We spent about an hour on grip because he believes it’s the foundation of consistent, acurate shooting. He talked about grip pressure and the old 60/40 adage that has been floating around and that he doesn’t suscribe to it. He said to grip the gun as hard as you can with both hands. He mentioned that we are hardwired to grip equally with both hands and that it’s diffcult to tell your left hand to grip as hard as you can and your right hand to grip hard, but not as hard. It wasn’t about how hard you are gripping, but more about where you were applying your grip to. This part was a huge revelation for me. I always try to squeeze the gun hard, but he showed me I was squeezing in all the wrong places. He showed us what happens with various grips. Ex; leaving small gaps between hands, not holding it tight with one hand but tight with the other. Then he shows proper recoil control. His ability to control recoil was amazing. He referred to the term “crushing walnuts”. I had heard this before but he showed me how I wasn’t doing it. One of his keys to a great grip is having a majority of the pressure on the rear of the gun. This is where it gets really hard to describe and why it’s important to take his (or someone else’s) class. I don’t think I can articulate it into words so I won’t try.
His stuff on strong hand only grip and stance was very impactful. He taught us how to get our body weight behind the gun and it helped alot with recoil control.
Draw: Mike has a very different approach to the draw than any other instructors I have seen. He doesn’t teach the traditional rip and grip. He teaches a “sweep and grip”. I think it’s hard to communicate in words. Here’s the video of what he teaches if you care to watch https://youtu.be/TbD9Iy4xh3U. Essentially he teaches to 4 finger grab of the cover garment with the strong hand in the midline and sweep it in a “C” motion from the belly button to the grip of the gun. The key to his method is at the top of the sweep you switch from a 4 finger grip and drive your thumb down behind the gun and establish your master grip. Your off hand pins the cover garment.
I asked him why he doesn’t do the rip and grip and he said that he likes having one draw process. The great thing about his draw is that you do the same thing for a one handed draw. The biggest selling point of his style is that the cover garment does not get hung up if you do it properly. I did his draw for the entire class. It is slower but I’d imagine if one practiced it alot you can get it pretty close to a rip and grip. He is pretty dang fast at it.
Mike talks alot about the Judi Chop position of the draw process, which is esentially the the point at which the gun and support hand meet. We spent alot of time developing our “judi Chop” position and it was benefitial in developing a consistent draw.
Stance: We spent little time on this because he broke it down pretty simply. He said get in a fighting stance. He uses the same stance for pistol, rifle, combatives, etc.
With each technique we went over, we would practice it. We did alot of dry fire on the range. In fact, every drill we did we would end it with 5-10 reps of dry fire. Total I shot 597 rounds. Most of the drills we would do 3 magazines worth of reps. I got 2-3x times the reps of the guys running single stack guns because I ran 17 rounders for the class. I feel that I got more out of the class because of that. Often, I was the last one shooting and that meant Mike was watching me only and led to more one on one stuff.
We finished the day with Wilson’s 5x5 drill. I totally choked on it. Interestingly, every person in the class had some sort of a mistake or two on the drill. Shooting while having Mike and the entire class watching was stressful. I had practiced the 5x5 before and knew what I could shoot but I shot about 6 seconds worse than in practice.
Mike would walk the shooting line on each drill and observe each of us. He made minor adjustment to me on multiple occasions. Each adjustment was tailored to the shooter. He didn't go down the line telling each person to grip harder, he would tell you exactly how to do it. For me, he told me that he often finds taller guys with long arms need to extend their arms a little farther. Not locked out, but extended just and inch or two. He told me to press the gun out two more inches and it allowed my palms to really press together. There was an immediate impact on my recoil control. This example made me realize the importance of attending training under a watchful eye. We can watch videos and read articles all day long but shooting isn’t a one size fits all subject.
Lastly, I was super impressed with his ability to demonstrate all the drills. I don't believe he ever missed the A zone on his demonstrations and he wasn't sandbagging on speed. Watching a GM level shooter shoot on demand like that was impressive.
Overall, I would highly recommend his class to anyone looking to improve their shooting.
I’m not a writer so I hope this all makes sense. I suck at putting thoughts to paper.
