Erin, psyching up and hydrating before her final shooting qualification
I spent the week up in Live Oak, FL at a MAG-40 class. This time, I was helping out as an instructor! The old adage really is true, if you want to master something, teach it. Walking new shooters through the techniques and watching them really helped me understand things that I hadn’t thought about before. It was also quite a lesson in how to teach, as the other instructors were eager to assist me in assisting others.
The most memorable moment for me was the Exemplar Drill. The student aims at the target downrange while the instructor uses pressure with their finger on to of the student’s trigger finger to “pull” the trigger. It’s to help give the student a feeling of a smooth rolling press. It also helps them see any issues in accuracy relating to trigger pull. First run through is dryfire, 100% instructor pull; Second run is live-fire, 100% instructor pull; Third run is 50/50 instructor pull – student pull; Final run is 95% student pull, 5% instructor pull.
I had one student, a gun owner of 6 months, that was shooting all over the target. Everything was on paper, but it was a 12 inch group at 7 yards. The first live run through the exemplar drill had him shooting 2 inch groups. “Hot Damn. This stuff really works!”
