The handgun is the hardest of the small-arms to master. Like any other skill or knowledge set, it becomes EXPONENTIALLY harder to learn when unnecessary and/or incorrect information is thrown in.
What am I talking about? First, a little history. For a long time mankind has decided that the fundamentals for RIFLE marksmanship are aiming, breathing, trigger squeeze, and steady position, right?
It seems that we carried those 4 fundamentals over to handguns. Which is probably why competitors always seemed to me like they must be from another planet, most likely Krypton. I mean, who can breathe between shots being fired that fast? OR, and this may be more likely, they must be holding their breath during their entire time while literally moving and shooting.
No, obviously not, they are not from Krypton. They are not superhuman. They are not, I hope, holding their breath.
So, again, what have I been leading up to? There are only 2 things we need to worry about when first starting to learn handgun accuracy, maybe even lifelong. I say "maybe," because I have counter arguments against what I'm about to argue.
We do not need to learn about breathing or trigger squeeze as a handgun marksmanship fundamental. There, I said it, it's on the internet forever and I can't take it back for all of history.
Think about it. If you've ever seen handgun competitions of any level you know that they are trying to score accurate hits while getting it done in the best time possible.
They are not breathing at a ridiculously fast rate since it would actually cause them to hyperventilate.
They are not holding their breath during their competition, if they didn't pass out their concentration and aim would suffer tremendously.
And that trigger squeeze is not slow and smooth. They are SLAPPING that trigger to get rounds downrange.
What does this mean for you? It means you have a whole lot less to worry about. It means you have a lot less time before becoming an expert shot. It means after a single lesson and just a little bit of range-time you're gonna get bored and look for the next step.
By the way, the next step is finding competitions to go to.
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