Tgace
Grandmaster
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Stressfire
Shooting under stress is the litmus test for any training. You get to see what your instinctive reactions really are, and whether the smoothly choreographed moves you rehearse in practice work so well in real life. Shooters can become clumsy, hands will shake, vision closes, the mind can go blank. All these things are part and parcel of defensive pistolcraft, and a well-conditioned shooter will still function under these conditions.
Massad Ayoob recommends always shooting under some stress, even if it's just making a bet with someone or penalizing yourself in some way for not meeting your shooting goals. I personally think there is also a place for relaxed, no-penalty experimentation, but still, nothing can hone your skills as much as learning to exercise them under stress.
These are just some notes on what some people have done to create stress for shooters. Take what you like.
The best stressfire is man-on-man. Any way to involve a "hostile" antagonist immediately increases the stress level of an exercise (see the Tueller Drill). Paintball or simunition courses are the most realistic and demanding ways to test gun skills and tactics, because you have to deal with receiving fire as well handing it out. Even simple close-quarter tactical exercises with squirtguns will get your heart pounding.
Police instructors often follow cadets around a shooting course, shouting to confuse. Massad Ayoob at LFI will have a shooter hold a paper target at gunpoint while an instructor harangues her with verbal abuse. The shooter must distinguish death threats from all other abuse, and cannot fire until given a lethal threat. Any kind of verbal involvement in a shooting course is going to help make it stressful.
Paintball guns can be rigged with RC triggers (or with strings on the triggers) to fire at shooters in scenarios. This is an excellent way to force shooters to make good use of cover BUT please be sure that proper protection (full-coverage facemasks) is worn by both the shooter and the range officers. Keep them aimed low enough that guns will not be knocked from hands.
Surprise courses are better than courses the shooter sees in advance.
Shooting in any competition introduces a level of stress.
Running before shooting (as in the biathalon) is a common stress inducer used by the military.
Slosh water on your shooter just before a course of fire. Sniper trainers are known to drip water on the back of a shooter's neck while he or she takes a difficult shot. Squirtguns and super soakers are possibilities.
Put vaseline on a shooter's hands before a stage. (Try thumbing the slide release on a Glock after someone's done this to you!)
LFI has been known to use an electric stun gun on a shooter before firing a standard. I do not know if it was modified to deliver less of a charge than usual, and I would not recommend that you try this without finding out.
Combine any of the above with shoot/no-shoot targets, so that shooters need to take the time to evaluate their targets under stress. The most common live-fire method is to fasten cutouts of either weapons or innocuous objects to the "hands" of cardboard targets. The best threat assessment exercises are man-on-man confrontations using paintballs or simunitions.
From
http://www.kuci.uci.edu/~dany/firearms/all_drills.html
Shooting under stress is the litmus test for any training. You get to see what your instinctive reactions really are, and whether the smoothly choreographed moves you rehearse in practice work so well in real life. Shooters can become clumsy, hands will shake, vision closes, the mind can go blank. All these things are part and parcel of defensive pistolcraft, and a well-conditioned shooter will still function under these conditions.
Massad Ayoob recommends always shooting under some stress, even if it's just making a bet with someone or penalizing yourself in some way for not meeting your shooting goals. I personally think there is also a place for relaxed, no-penalty experimentation, but still, nothing can hone your skills as much as learning to exercise them under stress.
These are just some notes on what some people have done to create stress for shooters. Take what you like.
The best stressfire is man-on-man. Any way to involve a "hostile" antagonist immediately increases the stress level of an exercise (see the Tueller Drill). Paintball or simunition courses are the most realistic and demanding ways to test gun skills and tactics, because you have to deal with receiving fire as well handing it out. Even simple close-quarter tactical exercises with squirtguns will get your heart pounding.
Police instructors often follow cadets around a shooting course, shouting to confuse. Massad Ayoob at LFI will have a shooter hold a paper target at gunpoint while an instructor harangues her with verbal abuse. The shooter must distinguish death threats from all other abuse, and cannot fire until given a lethal threat. Any kind of verbal involvement in a shooting course is going to help make it stressful.
Paintball guns can be rigged with RC triggers (or with strings on the triggers) to fire at shooters in scenarios. This is an excellent way to force shooters to make good use of cover BUT please be sure that proper protection (full-coverage facemasks) is worn by both the shooter and the range officers. Keep them aimed low enough that guns will not be knocked from hands.
Surprise courses are better than courses the shooter sees in advance.
Shooting in any competition introduces a level of stress.
Running before shooting (as in the biathalon) is a common stress inducer used by the military.
Slosh water on your shooter just before a course of fire. Sniper trainers are known to drip water on the back of a shooter's neck while he or she takes a difficult shot. Squirtguns and super soakers are possibilities.
Put vaseline on a shooter's hands before a stage. (Try thumbing the slide release on a Glock after someone's done this to you!)
LFI has been known to use an electric stun gun on a shooter before firing a standard. I do not know if it was modified to deliver less of a charge than usual, and I would not recommend that you try this without finding out.
Combine any of the above with shoot/no-shoot targets, so that shooters need to take the time to evaluate their targets under stress. The most common live-fire method is to fasten cutouts of either weapons or innocuous objects to the "hands" of cardboard targets. The best threat assessment exercises are man-on-man confrontations using paintballs or simunitions.
From
http://www.kuci.uci.edu/~dany/firearms/all_drills.html
