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Thread: Hearne & Weems: Do we shoot too much in shooting classes?

  1. #1

    Hearne & Weems: Do we shoot too much in shooting classes?

    I had an ER nurse in a class. I noticed she kept taking all head shots. Her response when asked why, "'I've seen too many people who have been shot in the chest putting up a fight in the ER." Point taken.

  2. #2
    Site Supporter rob_s's Avatar
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    Randy Cain’s courses are generally the lowest round count of any other class I’ve taken (other than certain celebrity classes where the instructor just wouldn’t shut the fuck up) and I don’t think there’s any secret how I feel about him as an instructor at this point (hint, he’s the best)

    I do agree with the idea of more focus on manipulations as well. Whenever I take a new shooter out (most recently my wife) I always make them spend some time at the house first getting them familiar with the controls, loading and unloading, etc. for someone just starting out, going to the indoor range, I don’t bother with holster work, or anything related to carry for that matter. We just work on finger off trigger, methods of running the slide, what each button and lever does, make sure they can REACH all the levers and buttons and offer guidance if they can’t, how to line up the sights, what the sight picture should look like, etc. no point doing all of that at an hourly rate at the indoor range where they can’t hear anyway. Before taking my wife to the range it had been awhile since teaching anew shooter, but it paid off in spades when we got there and she did a fantastic job with finger control, and even her accuracy.

    But it does obviously depend on the purpose of the course and the level of the shooters. I’ve spent days at Universal Shooting Academy where we shot ~1k rounds per day and learned an immense amount. Having an entire range to play with, with instructors that know how to take advantage of it, with limited need to paste or reset targets, and students that already had the basics down, etc.

    The main problem I see with group classes is the same problem that exists with public education, and that is that the pace of the course is (at best) dictated by the average of the students, meaning that the bottom and top performers are not being served. I’ve been in shooting courses where the instructor says something like “we have a lot to get to”and I always think “do we though? You suck at teaching and nobody is getting this concept, so maybe we should worry about what we’re doing rather than where we’re going.”

    I would like to see more instructors spend some time at the end of the class going over things to do at home. Not just “now go to the range once a week” but a bit of a recipe for dry fire, maybe encourage ent to attend matches with some guidance on what the instructor thinks is a best approach (e.g. “shoot all As” or “go fast as shit” or whatever).

    ETA:
    Talk about needing out! Bloom’s Taxonomy reference FTMFW

    Just to show how nerdy that is, I first learned about BT in 3rd grade gifted class
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  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by rob_s View Post
    I would like to see more instructors spend some time at the end of the class going over things to do at home . . . a bit of a recipe for dry fire . . . with some guidance on what the instructor thinks is a best approach (e.g. “shoot all As” or “go fast as shit” or whatever).
    Five days a week I dry fire 50 "rounds", 25 strong hand and 25 weak. I've recently returned to dry fire after being off for the past 10 months due to a boo-boo that resulted in not being able to raise the polymer gun to eye level, but things are better now and today was my 1806th day (not always consecutive) of the following:

    05 draw-fire-reload-fire
    10 two hand
    10 one hand

    These 25 presentations are done on each side. I'm an advocate of ambidexterity.

    I try to get the first round off as quickly as is reasonable, but my focus is always and forever on accuracy.
    Last edited by Duces Tecum; 06-29-2021 at 11:33 AM.

  4. #4
    Member SecondsCount's Avatar
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    AFHF was the highest round count class I have ever taken and I definitely saw an improvement after the end of the class which I attribute to both the instructor and the count.
    -Seconds Count. Misses Don't-

  5. #5
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    "If you're instructing, remember to engineer some downtime into your classes so that you don't burn your students out. People need to rest once in a while. They have to get a drink. They need to use the restroom. They need a chance to gather their thoughts and let all the wisdom you just shared with them soak in there for a while before you tell them something else profound. If you have extremes of weather, either heat or cold or rain or snow, they'll need more frequent breaks.
    For most students under most circumstances, about 6 hours and 400 rounds of actual shooting per day is the practical limit. Do more and you burn them out and their retention goes downhill and you may even create safety problems due to shooter fatigue." --Ernest Langdon, 2005 (At a class hosted by Midwest Training Group in Illinois)

    It all depends on your class and your students. More experienced shooters can shoot more and still retain their focus, unless the weather is an issue. Pat Rogers used to post an after action report after his classes, and he often talked about the importance of being in good physical shape before coming to class and of hydrating while at class.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff22 View Post
    "If you're instructing, remember to engineer some downtime into your classes so that you don't burn your students out. People need to rest once in a while. They have to get a drink. They need to use the restroom. They need a chance to gather their thoughts and let all the wisdom you just shared with them soak in there for a while before you tell them something else profound. If you have extremes of weather, either heat or cold or rain or snow, they'll need more frequent breaks.
    For most students under most circumstances, about 6 hours and 400 rounds of actual shooting per day is the practical limit. Do more and you burn them out and their retention goes downhill and you may even create safety problems due to shooter fatigue." --Ernest Langdon, 2005 (At a class hosted by Midwest Training Group in Illinois)

    It all depends on your class and your students. More experienced shooters can shoot more and still retain their focus, unless the weather is an issue. Pat Rogers used to post an after action report after his classes, and he often talked about the importance of being in good physical shape before coming to class and of hydrating while at class.

    Did you answer based on title, or did you watch the video?
    I had an ER nurse in a class. I noticed she kept taking all head shots. Her response when asked why, "'I've seen too many people who have been shot in the chest putting up a fight in the ER." Point taken.

  7. #7
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    I watched the video and I agree with your conclusions.

    Ernest's comment was a more general one, and I think it's correct. A lot depends on your students.

    You can do a LOT of skill building doing dry drills. I have observed, as a student and as an instructor (of soldiers & cops) that they focus pretty good on about a dozen reps of any particular skill dry (the draw, a reload, a malfunction clearance, or whatever) and then their attention starts to drift. Short intervals of dry fire seem to work the best.

  8. #8
    I kind of cringe when I read someone posting 'I want to attend a high round count pistol/carbine class.' That statement tossed out in the usual context makes me wonder if 1) the person has done their due diligence and decided that they needed reps; 2) the person thinks they will be trained in basic use; or 3) they are attending for social participation points.

    Based on my experience as a police firearms instructor, I tend to shy away from classes with higher round counts than three to four hundred a day. I also try to determine if it is a lone ranger operation, or if the primary has assistant instructors, and, if it is a road show, who those assistants are.

    I've passed on training with some folks because from their promo materials and videos placed on youtube I've been given the idea that much of their program consists of the great one watching a line of 20 shooters. There simply isn't much instruction going on in those circumstances.

    I also believe in dry fire reps or any drill before it is conducted live, and generally, about a half day of classroom/dryfire before beginning live fire. I prefer to have either a classroom or a carport type canopy near the firing line in order to give the students some downtime/rest between relays and to do any range talk/demos to the entire group at once. It will probably surprise many of the non LEO folks reading this, but I feel it is important for the instructor to do live-fire demos, many/most LE agency/academy instructors don't in my experience. That is not a problem with any professional trainer I've run across.

    Although I didn't hear it mentioned in the video, a couple of my pet peeves are:

    1) Shooters who are under-qualified for the course. As an example, folks often sign up for LE firearms instructor courses who have no business being there. Some places have first day qualification or standards drills to weed those folks out, but I've been to numerous courses where a significant amount of time was spent bringing folks up to user level.

    2) Shooters who are overqualified for the course can be just as big a problem. These are the folks who will chime in with 'well, so and so does it this way.' I'm okay with students asking 'why do you do that the way you are showing?' in fact I encourage it because my thinking is that if I cant explain why I want you to do something a specific way, maybe I ought to revisit why I'm asking you to do it a specific way. But, I don't have time, or generally, the inclination to compare my method to joe's in a more basic setting - you are attending my course, not joe's.

    My most recent experience with over-qualified shooters was attending a fundamentals course with a nationally recognized instructor. He was at the training location for an entire week, and had conducted two more advanced course before conducting the more basic fundamentals course. I signed up for the fundamentals course because I wanted to start shooting USPSA and didn't know squat about the game. I was told that the courses had been scheduled the way they were to keep graduates of fundamentals from signing up for the advanced courses before they had been able to solidify the lessons learned in the fundamental course. Seemed like a good idea to me.

    Of course what I got was me and one or two other newbies taking a fundamentals class with a bunch of guys from the advanced classes who just wanted a couple more days range time with the instructor. The instructor did a great job of conducting the course, but nonetheless, it was frustrating.
    Adding nothing to the conversation since 2015....

  9. #9
    When I trained with Larry Vickers, I remember him saying early in the day that he tended to train to 300 rounds or six hours, whichever came first. After that, he said, people got burned out and couldn't remember anything.


    Okie John
    “The reliability of the 30-06 on most of the world’s non-dangerous game is so well established as to be beyond intelligent dispute.” Finn Aagaard
    "Don't fuck with it" seems to prevent the vast majority of reported issues." BehindBlueI's

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Lehr View Post
    My most recent experience with over-qualified shooters was attending a fundamentals course with a nationally recognized instructor. He was at the training location for an entire week, and had conducted two more advanced course before conducting the more basic fundamentals course. I signed up for the fundamentals course because I wanted to start shooting USPSA and didn't know squat about the game. I was told that the courses had been scheduled the way they were to keep graduates of fundamentals from signing up for the advanced courses before they had been able to solidify the lessons learned in the fundamental course. Seemed like a good idea to me.
    It's a damned shame that more instructors lack the integrity to do this.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Lehr View Post
    Of course what I got was me and one or two other newbies taking a fundamentals class with a bunch of guys from the advanced classes who just wanted a couple more days range time with the instructor. The instructor did a great job of conducting the course, but nonetheless, it was frustrating.
    It's a damned shame that more students lack the integrity to avoid this.


    Okie John
    “The reliability of the 30-06 on most of the world’s non-dangerous game is so well established as to be beyond intelligent dispute.” Finn Aagaard
    "Don't fuck with it" seems to prevent the vast majority of reported issues." BehindBlueI's

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