It’s very common to hear someone say that they’re heading to the range to “do some training”. You may have used some variation of this phrase yourself. Usually what they mean is that they are going to go to the range and shoot at a target for an hour or so. They’ll shoot a smattering of random drills or exercises, firing somewhere between 1 and 10 rounds per second depending on how they are feeling at the moment. At the end, they look at the group on their target, shrug, and say “Not bad”. Maybe if they really took their time and drilled a ragged hole in the paper, they snap a selfie in front of their target for posting on Facebook.
What they are doing is not training. It’s practice. You might think I’m playing a semantical game, but the difference between training and practice is an important one to understand if you are a student of the gun.
Training is a process. It involves acquiring knowledge, technical skill, and proficiency. The goal of training is, ideally, the development of a well-rounded and full-spectrum skill set that ensures you are prepared to use your firearm. In the context of defensive shooting, it means that you are ready to deploy your weapon at a moment’s notice and use it effectively to protect an innocent life – yours or that of a loved one.
Practice, by contrast, is simply repetitive actions to achieve proficiency. It uses existing knowledge, and solidifies it in our subconsciousness or muscle memory. Practice is usually a part of training, although when done poorly, practice is no training at all.
Why is this distinction important? For the hobbyist shooter, that is the person who just enjoys shooting to relax and recreate, it’s probably not. But for someone who expects that their life may someday depend on their ability to use their gun effectively, it’s vital. It’s vital because your approach to training will determine your results.
Train First, Then Practice
Training must precede practice, so that when you practice, you’re practicing the right things. You’ve undoubtedly heard the phrase “practice makes perfect”. It sounds good, but it’s wrong. Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Whatever you practice, you will ingrain. If you practice crap, you become a crap master! As an instructor, I am very happy when students tell me that they’re brand new to shooting, because then I know they have no bad habits. Among the most challenging students I have are the ones who “know how to shoot” and bring 20 years of poor technique to the class. Getting proper training will ensure your practice sessions are beneficial, because you’ll ingrain proper technique and good habits.
Consistency is Key
Once you are trained in a skill, then you are ready to practice it. Practice should be consistent. It generally takes about 300 to 500 repetitions of a motor skill to ingrain it. However, a repetition only counts towards that total when it is done consistently and correctly. If your practice becomes sloppy and inconsistent, you’ll either ingrain bad habits or waste your time. If you’re not practicing correctly, all you’ll do is get really good at doing it wrong. This is one reason why proper training should include individual coaching with an instructor whose trained eye can identify and correct mistakes in your technique. Often, while building a skill we are unaware of our own mistakes and it takes a skilled coach to keep us on the right track.
Fundamentals Are Your Foundation
A common mistake made by instructors and students alike is moving on to complex techniques too quickly. Many people, once they feel they understand the fundamentals, often want to jump straight to “run and gun” or “tactical” training. (“Tactical” is among the most abused words in the gun industry, but that’s a topic for another day.) Unless such training continuously reinforces the fundamentals, you may be doing yourself a disservice. You can only concentrate on so many things at a time, so as you attempt to conquer advanced skills, your fundamentals will suffer unless you have trained them to a subconscious level. Here again, you are likely to ingrain bad habits. As an analogy, imagine the disaster that would result from a new driver who has made a few laps in the parking lot driving in rush hour traffic. Whether we’re talking about driving or shooting, the fundamentals must be second nature to you before moving onto more complicated skills. You can never practice the fundamentals too much. If you think of your skill set as a building, the fundamentals are your foundation, and a foundation can never be too strong.
One more note: YouTube is not training, folks! In the information age, we often turn to Google to seek answers on how to do most anything, and you’ll even find some quality information out there. But there are two major problems. First, it can be difficult to know the good information from the bad. Second, motor skills are not well-suited for learning from a video or article. Unless you are both a visual learner AND a kinesthetic learner (which an extremely small number of people are), you usually will not replicate what you’re seeing exactly right. Remember, whatever you practice is what you’ll ingrain. Without a coach to assist with and correct your technique, chances are very high that you’ll build at least a few bad habits, even if you’re using good information. And again, if you practice incorrectly, you’ll just get good at doing it wrong.
If you keep or carry a gun for self-defense, you owe it to yourself to build a skill set that will serve you when lives are at stake. It is a very rare person indeed who can develop such skills merely by practicing on their own. Training must guide your practice to ensure that you are building proper habits. Once you’ve gotten proper training, practice enough to log 300 to 500 correct repetitions. This will set you up for success and, over time, allow you to develop a skill set that far surpasses the norm.