Back to basics: no one advances until they master the basics

Guns Magazine, Jan, 2009 by Massad Ayoob

I'm in the process of updating my resume. It isn't short. I've been around for a while, and taken a heckuva lot of firearms training in the last 3-1/2 decades or so. I retired from the "pro tour" of competitive handgun shooting a long time ago, but I still try to shoot a couple of matches a month to keep my hand in. My primary occupation is teaching folks how (and when!) to shoot, and the experience builds up after a while.

And the more my experience and training accumulate, the more I am reminded of the importance of focusing on the basics.

Early on I learned as soon as you think you know it all, you're doomed to fossilization. I've accepted becoming an old raft, but I'll not let myself become an obsolete old fart. Each year I set time aside for national-class seminars where I can vampire the knowledge of others, to pass on to my own students. A lot of it could be categorized as "high speed, low The Basics survive subtle changes in technique. Most shooters today don't put their support hand index finger on the triggerguard, but here, IDPA Master Steve Sager makes it work in a rapid fire burst of hot .45 handloads from S&W 945. drag, way cool." Wanna know the next one I'm trying to fit into my schedule?

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

It's called "Appleseed." Yeah, that's right, a basic, introductory rifle course where a lot of folks show up with .22s. Why? Because I've heard a lot of good things about it ... because bringing new people into shooting is something all of us in this lifestyle ought to be doing ... and because it's about basics.

Look at any profession, any skill you yourself have mastered. Most masters of disciplines, most professionals, will tell you something close to 90 percent of advanced skill level is absolute mastery of the basics.

Things Left Behind

When we get good at something, we want to move forward with it and never look back. It may be an American thing. Europeans say Yank drivers don't need rearview mirrors, because we don't care where we've been, we just focus on where we're going. And that, of course, also keeps us from seeing what's coming up from behind us.

Let's never forget safety! If we get to believing we're so cool we can't make a mistake, we'll drop the guards keeping us from doing so. When I was a young shooter, I thought my world-famous idols were perfect. When I grew up and got to know them, I learned two of those superstars had accidentally shot themselves in the gluteus maximus, one had accidentally blown the gas meter off the side of his home with a .45 bullet, and another had tragically killed a brother officer in a single terrible moment of running on automatic pilot.

The late, great Colonel Jeff Cooper left us with the Four Rules now so standard people who quote them seem to forget who they came from. No. 1: Every gun is always (treated as) loaded. No. 2: Do not point the gun at anything you are not prepared to destroy. No. 3: Do not touch the trigger until you are on target and ready to fire (which I would update to, Do not let the finger enter the triggerguard until you are in the very act of intentionally releasing the shot). No. 4: Be absolutely certain of your target and the backstop behind it before you unleash the bullet.

And yet, each year we see cops killed or crippled when a shot is discharged from a functional gun during gun retention/disarming training that should have been done with something unshootable, or blown away in a "high speed, low drag" SWAT exercise just as easily performed without actual missiles in the launch tubes.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

When you have to put a bullet into something, deal with it like a fighter pilot. The continuum is: Identify target, lock missiles on target, launch missile without deviating from Target Lock. Follow through and repeat as necessary.

I had the privilege of being mentored by the first World Champion of the Combat Pistol, Ray Chapman. He told us, "Shooting a pistol is simple. It just isn't easy." In all the years since, I've never seen anything to prove Ray wrong.

Kinda like "ethics" vis-a-vis "morals." As my friend and colleague Clint Smith says about some other things, "They're the same--but they're different." Doing the right thing, the proper thing, the thing that works and gets what needs to be done, actually accomplished, is often simple. It just isn't easy. That's why Nancy Reagan's sweet platitude for ending the scourge of drugs didn't work. "Just Say No" was simple. It just wasn't easy.

Once you've followed all the safety rules, you need to hold the gun firmly for a number of reasons, chief of which from the marksmanship perspective, is the launch platform must be held steady against the pressure from one particular finger triggering the launch. You need to index the gun on target: one or another form of aiming. You need to simultaneously bring the trigger straight back with smooth, distributed, uninterrupted pressure, no matter how fast you are doing it. And you need to do it all from a stance-and-grasp platform allowing you to swiftly recover from the gun's recoil, maintain your firm hold, re-index the gun on the target, and do it all again, perhaps in fractions of a second.