FUNshoot News - Staged Shooting Environments
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Staged Shooting Environments
This meme makes a good point: Police, military, CCW/defensive shooting instruction, qualification, and other low-skill, introductory training is a staged environment on a one-way range under no stress. And they don't even require "shooting quickly."
I understand this meme was intended as a poorly-concealed jab at those of us shooting matches. However, personnel spending more time fooling themselves that cowering from competition is needed to preserve their self-appointed tactical acumen instead of just learning to shoot better actively fail to realize that every form of whatever instruction, training, practice, etc. they hold as sacrosanct suffers the same problems.
Qualifications are staged environments on a one-way range. Marine and Army qual courses have remained the same for decades with the courses published in official regulations. Police courses are just as bad. The minimal standards needed to graduate recruit/basic/academy training remain the same throughout an entire career with no skill progression required.
Qualifications are intended to be passed by low-skill shooters and retries are offered for anyone failing. Where is the stress in that? And such low-level qualification remains the only time skills are measured and held accountable at all. Even if "advanced" tactical and force-on-force exercises are conducted, their value and interpretation is often subjective. As long as we all agree we did a good enough job and learned something when congratulating ourselves during the AAR, then we're tactical.
Funny thing, competition has been proven by laboratory tests to consistently create a large amount of stress hormones and continued competitive experience does not blunt this effect. However, any stress created in non-scored, non-competitive environments has also been proven via laboratory tests to diminish notably by the third time a novice tries it, even when that third attempt happens on the first day during attention-grabbing events like parachuting. A brand new parachutist experiences less stress hormones during the third jump on their first day than an experienced competitor with a decade of experience and hundreds of competitions under their belt. This makes that "under no stress" qualifier a real problem for tactical instruction but not for competitive environments.
The best answer is to blend all the useful characteristics from multiple sources. Recognize that many things are beneficial but nothing provides a complete solution. A person with a reasonable competitive track record that shoots well, is in good shape, has formal tactical training in non-staged environments, and experience in force-on-force exercises is the best combination.
Why High Standards Matter
For the average Joe/Jane on the street who isn’t trying to beat Bob Vogel at the next world shoot, it is possible to expend too much effort developing speed while neglecting other important aspects of self defense but rarely do I see people investing so much effort in refining their ability to deliver fast, accurate hits on demand that they’re neglecting other bits of the equation. That’s much more of a theoretical problem than a real one, I’m afraid.
Assuming you’re not trying to become the next USPSA champion, there’s certainly a rational balance to be reached, but the clichés parroted endlessly don’t encourage the employment of reason in finding that balance. They tend to drive the conversation towards eschewing the use of a timer or the use of standards to measure performance because once you start to put things up against hard standards it becomes pretty clear that a lot of "tactical!" is just suck dressed up with black paint and silly furniture. Nobody likes to admit that they suck.
I don't know who came up with this concept of "cowboy quickdraw" but that person should be flogged in the town square. Police and ordinary citizens are reaching for a gun IN RESPONSE TO AN AMBUSH. They need the gun NOW.
Situational awareness gives you a few seconds heads up that something is happening...it is not a magical power that repels all boarders so you don't need to worry about the hard skills of actually using the weapon. There is no situation where you truly need a firearm in which getting it into play slower is to your advantage.
- Tim Chandler
I feel the timer is there to make up for the fact that targets in real life are not standing still indefinitely like they usually are on a range. It's pretty easy to not take speed seriously when that's the case.
- Robert Vogel
You've got the rest of your life to solve that problem... how ever long that is.
- John Farnam
There is a timer in every gun fight. The other guy is holding it and it has a button that makes a very loud beep. It's called a gun.
- Nate Perry
For the average Joe/Jane on the street who isn’t trying to beat Bob Vogel at the next world shoot, it is possible to expend too much effort developing speed while neglecting other important aspects of self defense but rarely do I see people investing so much effort in refining their ability to deliver fast, accurate hits on demand that they’re neglecting other bits of the equation. That’s much more of a theoretical problem than a real one, I’m afraid.
Assuming you’re not trying to become the next USPSA champion, there’s certainly a rational balance to be reached, but the clichés parroted endlessly don’t encourage the employment of reason in finding that balance. They tend to drive the conversation towards eschewing the use of a timer or the use of standards to measure performance because once you start to put things up against hard standards it becomes pretty clear that a lot of "tactical!" is just suck dressed up with black paint and silly furniture. Nobody likes to admit that they suck.
I don't know who came up with this concept of "cowboy quickdraw" but that person should be flogged in the town square. Police and ordinary citizens are reaching for a gun IN RESPONSE TO AN AMBUSH. They need the gun NOW.
Situational awareness gives you a few seconds heads up that something is happening...it is not a magical power that repels all boarders so you don't need to worry about the hard skills of actually using the weapon. There is no situation where you truly need a firearm in which getting it into play slower is to your advantage.
- Tim Chandler
I feel the timer is there to make up for the fact that targets in real life are not standing still indefinitely like they usually are on a range. It's pretty easy to not take speed seriously when that's the case.
- Robert Vogel
You've got the rest of your life to solve that problem... how ever long that is.
- John Farnam
There is a timer in every gun fight. The other guy is holding it and it has a button that makes a very loud beep. It's called a gun.
- Nate Perry