How to get Better

If you are new to shooting or have been shooting for a while and want to get better at it, how should you go about it? Given that I am a huge proponent of training, you might think that attending a shooting school is high on my list. If one school is good, maybe a bunch of schools is better. Sorry, but that just isn’t the case most of the time.

If you want to get better at something, you have to be willing to put in the work. Putting in the work does not mean going to lots of schools, it means actually practicing, live and dry, on a very regular basis. If you played sports in high school or college, did you have practice once a week? Or was it more like every day or every other day?

If you don’t know what to practice, buy a book, or a DVD (streaming something is okay too, if it’s available) and learn. Watch a few YouTube videos to see the techniques in action. Do not watch YouTube to see what drills to add to your range session. Practice what the book or DVD shows you. Practice it for 5-15 minutes every day and you will get it very quickly. Once you have the basics down, then take a class. One class. Don’t pick a class on underwater HALO knife fighting, take a class on shooting fundamentals. This can be in the form of a tactical pistol class, or a performance pistol class. They will be fairly similar in many cases. A three-day class is better than a two-day class, but a two-day class is better than a one-day class.

Learn everything the instructor has to teach during that class. If you practiced what the book or DVD showed you, you should have a strong base to build on. That will make it easier to learn more, as you won’t be starting from scratch. After your class, practice on your own or with a partner for another 6 months minimum. A year is good too. During that time, start shooting local competitions. Action Pistol and Steel Challenge are best to start with for a variety of reasons. Once you get the hang of those, then go try IDPA or USPSA. If you prefer some other competition order, then just go do that instead. The details can matter but are usually less important than just going and doing it. After a year or so of that, take another class. By that time, you should know what you want to learn and who you want to learn it from.

Maybe you want to improve your match performance so you go to a USPSA GM to learn the game better. Maybe you want to focus on self-defense so you go to a cop and learn more street stuff. Then…you go home and practice some more. It really is that simple. You don’t need to spend tons of time and money traveling around to the latest Instagram shooter. If you do, you will not learn as fast as you could otherwise.

I learned most of the more important stuff from reading books and magazines and watching an old VHS tape that John Shaw put out many years ago. By the time I went to my first formal school, I already knew what I was doing to a large extent, and was the top shooter there. Today, there are lots of good books and videos, but my recommendation would be to watch the video series that Ernest Langdon put out. Mimic what he shows, dryfire, in your house, and you will be well on your way to good technique. Then go apply it at the range. Once you can do it all relatively well, take a class and start competing. Sooner than you would think, you will be better.