I got a question from Darryl from Ft. Worth over the weekend asking whether or not he should avoid going to the range to do some shooting while he is going through the 21 Day Alpha Shooter Course.
This question comes up with 21 Day Alpha Shooter, 30-10 Pistol, and Concealed Carry Masters Course.
Larry, Chris, and I all suggest that shooters don’t go to the range while going through our courses…but that’s not realistic for a lot of people, because of qualifications, classes, competitions, or other pre-scheduled shooting events.
So here’s why I suggest people not go to the range while going through the course, and how to get around it if you need or REALLY want to do live fire during the course…
The big reason not to do live fire while going through a dry fire course is that it’s harder to pay attention to your technique and practice perfect form during live fire than during dry fire.
The more you can practice perfect form without throwing any challenges or curve balls into the mix, the more likely you’ll develop a deep groove of perfect technique in your mind that you’ll be able to execute under stress.
That’s why the training sessions are SO short with 21 Day Alpha Shooter. I don’t want you practicing any longer than you can practice with perfect form.
Eventually, you can step on the gas, but at first, you really want to focus on developing perfect technique.
With live fire, it’s harder to focus on form and there’s always a temptation to train past the point when you can execute perfect form.
Sometimes people shoot more than they should just to get their money’s worth out of the range time or travel time.
More often than not, it’s because shooting just plain feels good. It’s therapeutic. Relaxing. It can deliver a chemical reward similar to caffeine, sex, and/or exercise, and it’s easy to compromise on technique to keep the good times rolling…especially if things aren’t quite so rosy in other areas of your life.
There’s a time for this kind of fun, but when you’re going through a course designed specifically to help hardwire conditioned responses into your brain that you can execute in a life or death situation, you might want to exercise a bit of delayed gratification.
So what if you have to shoot or just REALLY want to shoot while you’re going through the course?
Here’s 3 plans, depending on why you need to shoot…
- If you need a little “group therapy” in the form of shooting tight groups, tell yourself ahead of time that you’ll stop when your technique starts to drop off.When you’re shooting, consider doing 4-5 dry fire reps for each live fire rep while you’re doing live fire. This will actually help your mind more fully understand that dry fire technique=live fire technique and can enhance what you’re doing with the 21 Day Alpha Shooter course.
Another way that you can approach it is to do a completely different kind of shooting. Since 21 Day Alpha Shooter is primarily for using a semi-auto pistol to stop a lethal threat, go shoot carbine, long range, shotguns, big bore revolvers, or some other form of shooting besides training for self defense with a semi-auto pistol.
- If you have a match to shoot while you’re going through 21 Day Alpha Shooter, consider slowing down and focusing on shooting the match with no points down…all hits in the A zone or -0 zone.
- If you have a qualifier to shoot or have a course scheduled while you’re going through 21 Day Alpha Shooter, my advice is a little different…To the extent that you can, just be in the moment, execute, and don’t think about anything from 21 Day Alpha Shooter. If lessons from the course come out in how you shoot, that’s awesome, but try not to overthink it…just execute.
If you paid to go to a class and the instructor tells you to use a different technique than what I teach, I encourage you to pick your battles.
As an example, when I’m training with an instructor who I respect enough to take time to train with and they say that the only way to take a pistol from slide lock to being in battery is to rack the slide–I shut my mouth, use their technique for the class, and then go back to using the slide stop after the class.
At the same time, keep in mind that a confused mind with multiple options for how to perform an identical task isn’t going to perform as well under stress as a clear mind that only has 1 technique to default to.
When you get done with the qualifier or the class, you can always go back to the beginning of 21 Day Alpha Shooter and start over. You’ve got unlimited lifetime access for a reason—I want you to be able to go back to it as often as you need to or want to.
In fact, I’d recommend that you go through 21 Day Alpha Shooter again after ANY live training class that you go through to help solidify the lessons that you paid for and learned/earned in the class.
And don’t be surprised if your instructor sells our training at the course. They know that you’ll forget 80-90% of what you learned in a live course within a couple of weeks if you don’t keep practicing it and our training materials are the easiest, cheapest, and best structured way to make sure the lessons that you paid for stick long term.
Regardless of why you need to shoot in the next 3 weeks, don’t let a match, class, or fun time at the range keep you from getting the training you know you need from 21 Day Alpha Shooter.
If you haven’t checked it out recently, you need to…it’s now offered on DVD, we’ve added new bonuses in the members’ area, and it’s still the same low price that’s less than the cost of a single trip to the range.
Take action now by clicking >HERE<
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