Designated target. Working through some carbine iterations in this close to far DT drill. Strong focus on the visual precision component and having the dot land on my focal point. Trying to aggressively engage the targets, push the speed, shoot sooner with only the minimal confirmation needed, keep my connection durable, and hold consistency and accountability under the 5 sec par time.

Working on shooting while moving with short and wide transitions and various distances. Testing out fast visual processing, durable connection, and how aggressive I can move and have acceptable dot behavior to make accountable hits.

Working vision and connection at speed and at carbine distances. Pushing to see where the wheels come off. Force mistakes to assess and correct so you can level up to a higher default skill set. Holding a small spot on the target, maintaining a durable connection, and holding the same pressures in the right places to have the gun return consistently. The farther distances of 60 yds and 80 yds in particular try to trick you into feeling the need to put input and muscle the gun to bring it back down. Many times, I see people shooting carbine strictly at pistol distances. Shooting fast at 10 and then slowing down dramatically at 20 and beyond. But there's no understanding of why. The reasoning is I'm close, I shoot fast, I'm far, I shoot slow. The goal is consistent, predictable, and repeatable behavior from the gun. Consistent development of the vision and connection pieces has allowed me to shoot aggressively and with accountability at much farther distances.

Putting some focused practice time in for an all rifle HF match in November. Simple yet challenging setup in the rain. Rain melting paper and pasters made this a perfect day to focus on the mini steel. It forces A zone accountability when shooting aggressively at greater distances. Cones were set up in a zig zag pattern at 50-40-35-30-25-20 yds with enough for short burst movements in between.

Got to work:
- Forward and retreating movement
- Different angles coming into position
- Getting the gun up early to shoot sooner
- Multiple distances
- Adjusting aiming schemes for different distances
- Which levels of confirmation were needed
- Physical stress and how that affects your shooting
- HF scored (rain was messing with the timer, so no score today)

It doesn't have to be complicated. It has to be focused, and you have to be paying attention to what's actually happening with your shooting. Hard skills built here can then be put into any context needed and function in the background on autopilot. This opens up bandwidth for you to concentrate on other things, i.e. tactics.

Designated target with some movement and an extra round on steel mid movement.
No Shoot @ 10
Open @ 30
Mini ADAP steel @ 40

What does your cold performance look like?
An on demand skill set isn't just when you're warmed up. It's means on demand, any time, any context, any COF. It's an out of the box, no warmup, GO time, whatever you want to call it, implementation of skill into the context at hand. It is important that you understand what you can do truly cold at an aggressive pace. From a concealed carry or home invasion perspective, the why is clearly obvious. Sometimes, it's solid, and sometimes, it'll be ugly. Use it as a diagnostic to inform your practice and fix the issues on the range. You want a skill set that is consistent and repeatable. Don't ignore it because of ego, i.e. bad target and have it come back and bite you in the ass for real.
Come out and train to start developing an on demand skill set.

Working 50 yd Bills.
Analyzing vision and connection at speed.
The goal was to keep it under 3 seconds. 3.06 - 2.60 - 2.45
The vision piece is more challenging at this distance for me. Seeing and staying locked on a small focal point without getting sucked into the dot takes a higher focus than at shorter distances. I'm working to have my mount and connection be consistent and durable throughout. At this distance, there's the urge to put input and muscle the gun around. Remaining tension free, keeping the correct pressures in the right place, and letting the gun return consistently is the key.
I want aggressive shooting with accountability at carbine distances. Understanding the concepts of vision and connection on a deeper level so you get predictable behavior makes that shooting possible, consistent, and repeatable.

Any fighter – boxer, bjj, mma– that is preparing for a fight will be training for more than he is expecting in the fight. They'll train at a very uncomfortable level with bigger guys, faster guys, and for longer rounds. To have plenty of reserve in the tank to make the fight manageable in comparison.

Shooting is no different. Especially if it's defensive in nature. You should be training and practicing at a level that feels very uncomfortable. Shooting at a very aggressive pace and at uncomfortable distances. Finding out where the wheels come off and what you're actually capable of. To have plenty in reserve to compensate for the deterioration of skill under stress. Shooting slow fire accuracy and thinking that skill will transfer over to anything remotely usable under the level of stress defending your life is delusional.

Learn to run your gun. Aggressive shooting with accountability.

Cold drill Berserker Bill
50-40-30-20-10
6 rds at each marker
HF scored mandatory

Aggressive shooting with accountability
Vision/connection to the gun
Aiming schemes/levels of confirmation
Put in the reps, practice with purpose

You can't learn to shoot fast enough or good enough. End of story. Have way more skill than you think you'll need.

Cold drill for the day 40 - 30 - 20 - 10 yds. For personal practice, in my opinion, "warmups" are a waste of a valuable teachable moment. You can't redo a cold drill later in the day. This is a chance for you to see how your on demand skill set holds up. It should be neither easy nor comfortable. It's not meant to demoralize but to inform. Combining hard skills for a cold pressure test. Ask yourself how did I do at this distance or at this speed? With this more complex course of fire? How did this piece of gear perform? The list goes on.

If it's self-defense or competition, you will immediately be engaging in a very aggressive way. Get comfortable with that.

Anyone who has done a class with me knows that outside of a brand new shooter, everyone goes through a cold drill. One that is a combination of hard skills and is HF scored. They are neither simple nor comfortable. That's the point. Then, the discussion follows of the "why" and specific skills being worked. If you're patting yourself on the back when you leave the range, you're doing it wrong.

Personal cold drill before students arrive. When the moment arrives, your skill set will be what it is. For better or worse. And it will be cold.

Vision, mount, and connection to the gun. Over development of foundational skills leads to proficiency and allows for aggressive shooting with accountability.

30 yd doubles.

Skills focus was on:

- Maintaining hard target focus/aggressive vision

- Consistent connection

Skill development for on demand performance under stress in whatever context is needed. This is the way.

Very productive portion of a personal practice day running the In and Out drill. There's a multitude of hard skills being worked in this low round count aggressive drill. Skills that can then be used in any application you need. Bumped up the round count and slightly extended the drill from 7 to 10 rds using the paper instead of the steel for the farther target.

Practicing to be comfortable and confident at a default shooting speed of 150 mph makes slowing down to 50 if you need to easy. It does not work the other way around.

Aggressive shooting with accountability.
Does the intensity of your practice mirror the stress you're expecting?

Practice with purpose.
This drill has performance value and defensive utility. Carbine throttle control drill at 10, 25 and 50 yds. Working on the vision and connection to the gun components and changing aiming schemes on the fly.
Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Allow yourself to fail and make mistakes in order to learn and get to a higher level of skill.

Aggressive shooting with accountability.
Consistency and repeatability.

Your skill set must be accessible on demand and under stress, or it is not a skill set you own.

Putting in work before students arrive with some AK doubles at 30 yds.

Most times, I'm working on these principles in 5.56, but I recently started exploring what was possible for me with 7.62x39. It is interesting to see the different recoil impulses with the heavier caliber when working a drill like doubles, especially at 30 yds. Using predictive as a training tool, understanding and applying the vision and connection pieces, and then applying those same principles to a reactive pace makes shooting aggressively with accountability and repeatability at any distance a reality. This has truly taken my shooting to a place I never thought possible before. Coming from a firefighter background, the importance of passing on knowledge and experience has always been integral in my overall mission and how I train. The more I learn from training, my competing in USPSA, personal practice, and dry fire, the more knowledge and experience gets passed on to my students to help them on the road to proficiency. From me, thank you to @benstoeger and @xray.alpha.llc for passing on their knowledge and experience and leading the charge on what's possible with a rifle and pistol. Keep up the solid work, gentlemen.

Your skill set must be accessible on demand and under stress, or it is not a skill set you own.

Consistency.

Without consistency, it's nothing more than a one-time circus trick. 10 yd Carbine Bills are a good test of raw speed, vision, connection, and recoil management, but they don't expose flaws in your fundamentals the way distance does. Walk out to 30 yds and start shooting aggressively to see where your skill set truly lives. 30 yds exposes problems and amplifies weaknesses with your fundamentals. With your vision, mount, and connection. It exposes whether you are able to shoot consistently and be confident in your on demand performance. It shows you where you need work. That doesn't mean the plateau inducing "slow down to get your hits" answer. Address the actual problem and fix it.

This drill works a multitude of hard skills while highlighting areas that need attention. Times were pretty consistent throughout the day from the 1.90s to 2.30s. Overall accuracy was fairly consistent with alphas, dropping some charlies when my focal point was lost or there was too much over muscling of the gun on my strong side. Understanding how to self diagnose your shooting is a major part of the path to proficiency.