Written By Steve Johnson (ISP Regional Coordinator and Lead Instructor)
Contrary to what you may have been told, failure is a good thing. You need failure to know where your limits are so that you can learn to train past them. Your journey towards true mastery of any discipline will have pitfalls, setbacks and failures. It is how you respond to those failures that truly counts and where the real learning begins. The discipline of defensive firearm training is no different.
Contrary to what you may have been told, failure is a good thing.
When someone is first starting to learn a new discipline, whatever it may be, they usually make big improvements in the beginning. Those improvements gradually taper off the more proficient you become. In the world of weight lifting, when beginners first start, they seem to throw more and more weight on the bar on a near-daily basis. As they get stronger and learn to correctly perform the movements they eventually hit a performance plateau and the same strength gains dramatically taper off. They’ll get to the point where adding a mere 5 pounds to the barbell becomes a more difficult task than adding 20 pounds was in the beginning. This plateau is where the real learning and work begins in order to reach that next rung in the ladder of excellence. In the world of shooting firearms, either competitively or defensively, this same process holds true. In the beginning, a new shooter will make improvements in learning how to properly stand, grip the firearm, draw from a holster, present the firearm, align the sights, squeeze the trigger, and how to follow through for follow-up shots. These are all part of the basic fundamentals of marksmanship and effective firearm training courses taught by leading firearms instructors. Once these are learned and applied a shooter will make dramatic improvements in accuracy and more than likely gain a little bit of speed.
The way you build efficiency is by performing perfect repetitions of the fundamentals.
When it comes to shooting there will always be a balancing act between speed and accuracy. Speed is a natural by-product of efficiency. The way you build efficiency is by performing perfect repetitions of the fundamentals. Each movement must be studied, broken down, and practiced in order to build a complete skill set. It is also vital to have clear and defined goals. In order to accomplish a large goal, you should define a series of small and achievable goals which build to an overall objective. It is in this process where we all stumble, fail, and mess up. We all have off days, setbacks, plateaus. Being able to work through these obstacles by breaking them down, figuring out the problem, and training past them is what allows you to climb the ladder of excellence in any discipline to reach your desired goals. At Team ISP our ladder of excellence has no end and neither does yours. Stay focused and keep climbing. We’ll see you on the range.
If you found this helpful do NOT stop here. Begin the path to become an asset to society, not a liability. Take action NOW and download the 6 Critical Keys to Why you Must Get Professional Firearms Training.
You can directly contact author and ISP instructor Steve Johnson at Stevenj@intuitivesp.com