I was born in Texas, I knew how to shoot a rifle. Between my father and grandfather, learning firearm safety and rifle marksmanship fundamentals was... well... fundamental.
I had been attending Valley Forge Military Academy for the last 3 years of high-school so in my late teens I enlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard.
Nobody can tell you why, but I chose to go into the Infantry. So, there they made sure I could shoot a rifle.
Rifles rifles rifles. Everywhere rifles. Never a handgun. Even as a gunner in the turret of a humble my first tour in Iraq. There was usually a 240B mounted in front of me, and my secondary weapon was my M4.
Years later, I end up as a Range Safety Officer for an outdoor range back home in Fort Worth, Texas.
This range had nearly everything a shooter could need. Two HUGE shotgun courses, 3 different distances for hunters and competitors to properly zero their rifles, and bay after bay for pistol shooters, including one set up with steel targets. Even better, the employees weren't just people who were there as a job, they enjoyed shooting.
So, on a Saturday evening after closing, several of the employees are going to go shoot together, and I go to join them.
Well, there I am, watching these guys shoot. The majority of them have not been law enforcement or military. Yet, there I was, watching these guys shoot there HANDGUNS fairly quickly and constantly TINGing against the metal from the steel targets, rarely a miss.
Up to this point, I thought that I simply did not have enough practice with a handgun. I thought that I just needed more range time. I thought I knew the fundamentals and just needed to focus on improving the level of skill that I thought I was at the bottom of.
But something about these guys made me think "I must have something wrong." The way they were shooting wasn't simply above my level, they were light-years ahead of me. What I was doing, I'd never catch up to these guys.
They were shooting just like anybody I'd seen in any video ever of competitive shooting. They were Fast and they were Accurate. I'd always kinda dismissed the videos that I've come across thinking that they've just got to be born some kind of special to be able to do that.
Turns out, I indeed had something wrong. I discovered that the manager of the pistol and rifle range, my direct boss, had actually been the one to train all of them. So, I asked if he would do the same for me.
The next Saturday, after work, he took his free time to teach me. It only took 45 minutes. I learned so much in such a short time. I learned what I was doing wrong. I learned how to do more of the very little that I was doing right. I learned what I didn't know existed, that was the crucial part. The questions I didn't know to ask. At the end, he half joked saying "that'll be $300," and held out his palm. I realized he was telling me how much this knowledge was worth.
I never shot the same way since. But, I do remember what I was doing. Now, I'm the teacher.
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