PDN 2012 National Training Tour Update: Week 12

All right today, we're finishing up the last combat focus shooting course at the 2012 Personal Defense Network training tour. One of the most important parts of any skill development class is the evaluation period. The evaluation not just if someone's ability to perform a skill but specifically to apply a skill. We use the combat focus shooting to help determine whether or not people have reached a level of competency when it comes to actually processing information and using the counter ambush defensive shooting skills that they've been developing in the context that they're actually meant to be used. So what we do is we set up a little figure eight for them to walk in, there's targets at different angles around them. They have to process the command, and respond appropriately to the situation they're given using lateral movement, recognizing slide lock and mixing up the number of shots they're firing in order to get the number of hits they need. Let's take a look and see how it's working. Something on the left is a year Thirteen! Five! Keep moving keep moving. All right so that's how the figure eight drill works. What we actually do is have everyone watch and observe every individual in the class go through. Of course, that creates some performance anxiety, and what we see is a lot of people figure out that they haven't quite set the ruts in the road where they actually need them to be. They haven't quite set things in their point where they can put it, present them in an automated way where they can put those skills to use when the right stimulus comes up in front of them. And now they get the chance to go back and think about that and actually go practice what they need to work on the most in the rest of the afternoon's training. All right, so we just finished the figure eight drill. It really pulled together a lot of things we've done so far in the class. For me personally, a lot of the bad habits I'd had earlier in the last couple of days have really kinda come back out. And so I've realized that as I introduced more of the psychological factors it really made me need to refocus on the fundamentals so that I didn't miss my shots, remembered to move, and I paid attention to keeping my reload up and keeping my head moving on a swivel. So definitely a good drill would make me refocus on the fundamentals. Well, that's it for today's update from the Firearms Academy Seattle Personal Defense Network Training Tour 2012. Don't forget, it's not enough to be able to perform a skill you need to be able to apply it and the figure eight's drill can help you figure out if you're ready to apply it in that worst case scenario. I'm out here. It's a little bit of a rainy day. Glad to have one of my jackets from Smith and Wesson M and P line from WT tactical. One of our sponsors.