Staying current in self-defense training
Many times, while teaching at Gunsite, I get asked how often a person should be training to not only stay sharp, but to build on the skills they just learned. While I wish there was a perfect and easy answer of “shoot this many times and this many rounds and you will always be sharp and ready,” that just is not reality. Skills related to the use of a handgun or rifle are perishable. Just like when you achieve a level of fitness, you must continue working out to keep at that level. Then, if you want to increase your skill level, you have to push yourself even harder.
Let me illustrate this for you. We all remember, way back in high school, when we had to take the dreaded foreign language class of our choice. For me it was Spanish. After taking the class, off into the real world I went, never using it in any meaningful way. To this day, other than the common everyday words, the only words in Spanish I remember are lechuga and cebolla, which is Spanish for lettuce and onion. I hate these two things on my cheeseburgers, which probably explains why I remember them. All kidding aside, when you don’t use a skill, you lose much, if not all of it. When it comes to the use of a firearm, this is extremely problematic, even more so if you are using this firearm in the defense of yourself or another.
Training should be an ongoing and lifelong process. Good shooters are constantly taking new classes and training to keep their fundamentals sharp while gaining new abilities.
By James Queisner
