I'll just write my notes down from the day, and get as much out as I can before I forget.
Drill 1:
MQP defensive pistol - Pro Marksman qual
7 yds, 12" circle. Par time 5 seconds. Draw and shoot 1 shot. repeat 20x. Must make all hits.
I passed this drill (thankfully :p ). We did this cold. Claude is doing a lot of good work implementing this in his classes. It's a really well designed COF and test. The high repetition is a great way to get folks who probably won't be doing a lot of self guided practice outside of the classroom to grease the groove of the most important and most missed shot. The first.
Going forward for me, Claude recommended I work towards cutting everything in half.
2 second, 6" circle, repeat 20x. That'll take some work, but it's a nice thing to dry fire towards.
Drill 2:
Dot drill 101
This was a skillset I told Claude I wanted to work, and get some critique on. He obliged with the dot drill 101. This is a non timed drill that makes you work out the pure mechanics of shooting.
Here's my target:
We shot this at 5 yards. I think this is the best I've done on this drill. I usually use pistol-training.com's version on a piece of notebook paper. 16/60 points down. I'll take it, and I'll fix what I messed up.
I asked about the impact of my rounds on the left side of the circles on the top row. Claude pointed out that my trigger finger would tend to be against the frame of the gun, and during the trigger press, my 'finger bicep' would flex and just slightly push the gun to the left.
For one handed shooting, Claude convinced me to get the gun pure vertical in the strong hand, and only have a slight cant in the off hand. As he was talking about it, I was reminded of KStar talking about external rotation, and creating stability in the joint (hips or arms) while doing a lift. Why wouldn't it apply to shooting as well? So I'm going to be practicing fully externally rotating my arm, with the elbow locked and elbow-pit pointed up. It really does lock down. It also removes a freedom of motion, whereas a bent elbow allows the gun to recoil both up and in, making it harder to track during recoil.
For reloads, I was crowding my workspace while doing a reload. Claude recommended just dropping the strong side elbow to index on the ribs, then just roll the gun out until you can see a little bit of magwell. I had a tendency to both index on the ribs AND bend at the elbow bringing the gun really close. I'll be working the new way.
Drill 3:
FAST drill. Another pistol-training.com drill. We worked this about 5 reps each. My draw stroke from concealment was ok, but my split times on the head box were super slow (~.5-.6). My reloads were inconsistent in time, but improved during the course of my runs. My splits after the reload, which was also slow, were in the mid .2's. I wanted to run it one time strong hand only. Before I did, I wanted to learn the way Claude does a one handed reload.
one handed reload:
upon slide-lock, jettison mag as you bring your knees together. Once together, place the slide of the gun into your thighs. A hotdog in a bun. Find and seat fresh mag in the magwell, get FFG, and TILT the muzzle down and rack it through your clenched knees towards the dirt.
Drill 4:
17 yd hostage shot. Just a nice little 3 shot drill, no time, to test accuracy while there's a no-shoot downrange. Based on an actual event. The takeaway for me was 'Focus on the target, not the obstacle'.
Random tips:
make your weight feel heavy: my default shooting posture is a crappy hips forward, poor posture one. I need to get a good base in an athletic stance. Claude used the cue "get heavy on your feet". Nose over toes. I'll do this during dryfire. It made an immediate difference.
Shotgun work:
Do as much work as you can from the shoulder. For port load, roll the gun port up, flare elbow up, and drop a shell in. Go back around the gun, rack slide forward, and shoot.
Mag load: Keep shotgun on shoulder, and load by feel.
Drills for shotgun:
Started empty chamber, hammer down, safety off, empty magazine. Start by racking the slide, and do a port load, shoot one.
load 1/shoot 1: ec, hd, so,em , rack slide open, port load 1, shoot 1, port load, shoot ....
load 2/shoot 2: ec/hd/so/em rack slide open, port load 1, tube load 1, shoot, shoot, port load 1, tube load 1.
Shoot both
un-chambering a shell. Put pinkie behind slide, rack slide to rear, pinkie acts as spacer. Get shell out w/ firing hand. Put slide forward. This allows you to get back to cruiser ready.
Cruiser ready: empty chamber, full tube, safety off, hammer down (slide is free to move)
Most likely to find a dead chamber in a protracted shotgun fight, so makes sense to work off of a dead chamber.
