This was a very interesting class for me. I was hoping to get a few specific things out of it. My biggest goals were to learn to compete at USPSA more effectively and gain more perspective on USPSA, both in understanding what’s required to compete at a high level, and also to better understand where the technical skills and doctrine in USPSA comport (or don’t) with the defensive skills and doctrine I have spent so much time learning and practicing. I wanted to better understand a person who I have only interacted with online. I wanted to get more perspective on the technical skills of a National Champion-level pistol shooter. I wanted to better understand his beliefs about how to effectively train in general, and especially in dry fire.
All goals were met.
The class started out with a warmup of two USPSA stages that we shot without input from Ben. These stages were more complex and mentally taxing than any of the USPSA stages I had seen so far. Ben characterized the complexity level of the stages as typical of a major match. All the students did walk-throughs and then shot the stages. We all messed them up to one degree or another.