It’s awesome to practice with a perfect stance and natural point of aim, but the real world and competition demands that we be able to make fast, accurate hits at all angles and all stances & non-stances, while stationary or moving.
Compass drills are an easy and powerful step in the right direction:
Compass drills give shooters a structured way to add movement to drills so that they can build resilient real-world skills rather than fragile range skills.
You can use compass drills along with leaning, stepping, lunging, kneeling, walking, or running.
You can also start drills by facing in each of the compass directions.
What this means is that instead of grinding out 50 boring, identical reps where you zone out, with compass drills, each of those 50 reps can be slightly different, but focusing on the core fundamentals of muzzle alignment and trigger press.
Want to take it to an extreme? You can start by facing one of the 8 compass directions, lunge in one of the 8 cardinal directions, and then lean from the waist up in one of the cardinal directions. When you consider that when you lunge forward (N) and backwards (S) you’ll step with both your right and left feet, that gives you 10 different lunge directions.
8 starting directions x 10 lunge directions x 8 lean directions are 640 different variations without ever doing the same thing twice. That’s kind of an extreme, but it shows you just how easy it is to add variety.
This will engage more of your brain, help you learn faster, remember longer, and help create more resilient skill that will transfer over to the real world better.
In the video, I used PopUp Targets and you can get them at https://Popuptargets.com They come with 50+ drills for law enforcement/self-defense, competition, long range, visual decision making, and drills to help you learn to trust your front sight…some use lights like the SwitchedOn App or BlazePods, but most can be done with nothing but a safely unloaded pistol with all ammo removed from the training area or a laser pistol like the SIRT https://DryFirePistol.com that I use in the video.
And, for a follow-along counter-ambush/counter-assault dry fire course that includes more than 50 sets of 5-15 minute drills using compass movements that will get you shooting better on the move than most people can shoot flat footed, check out https://DynamicGunfightTraining.com You’ll learn how to improve dynamic vision, balance, and body awareness and how to integrate them together so you can make accurate hits while moving faster than you thought possible.
P.S. Yes, that IS steam coming out of my mouth. It’s 20 degrees in my garage/studio 🙂 And also, yes…there’s something not quite right with the video that I can’t figure out. It’s HD 1080p, and yet still fuzzy.
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