Exercise in the Use of a Gun
My Friend - Happy Saturday,
“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks." -
~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785
Exercise in the use of a gun. Interesting. I often emphasize the importance of training over that of the guns themselves. That’s a topic for another time, but I want to speak to training. Specifically gun training but not only.
The Idea
I just posted a YouTube video called Live to Learn Another Day: Training Hacks That Improved My Performance. If you haven’t already please watch it and let me know what you think. The idea is as I’m training myself, I can share poignant thoughts and knowledge bites that I’ve learned to help you in your own practice. I’m not an expert at shooting, fitness, articulation, masculinity, or any of the topics I talk about. But I am working, hard, and learning daily and as a result have a lot of things to share. I hope you will indulge me.
Where it Came From
I called that video “Live to Learn Another Day” - which is super cheesy now that I think of it - because I love this idea of constantly trying to improve. There’s no destination to training, it’s a lifelong journey, a process to be embraced. So, I’m living to learn and work and train, day after day and that itself is life, or at least a very important part of it. I also came up with that name because learning, training, studying, this is where the actual fighting is done. Being a play on the saying “live to fight another day,” the real battle takes place in the daily grind: The discipline of our minds to do the work that’s not fun or glamorous and that no-one sees. It’s very easy to buy guns and things and think ourselves prepared for civil unrest or global conflict when in fact we haven’t really done anything to prepare. We haven’t exercised ourselves in the use of our guns, our bodies, or our minds for that matter. We are not, in fact, battle ready. And that’s why we train.
Training Hacks
1,000 acceptable reps is better than 10 perfect reps
The idea here is doing 10 perfect reps of a drill offers very little training benefit. Doing 1,000 acceptable reps, however, can lead to huge improvement! Aim for good enough and not perfection, make small improvements over time, and then do as many reps as you can.
Sometimes you have to speed up to slow down
Pushing through a speed barrier is often more effective of a training practice than slowing down and regaining control. Next time you’re stuck at a 1.00 second par time for your draw, instead of continuing to try there or dropping back to 1.10, speed up your time to .9 or even .8. This will expose your true weaknesses so that you can focus on them and push you in areas you didn’t know you could actually move faster. When you go back to 1.00 you will usually find it much smoother and easier.
A better way to clear your garment
When concealed carrying in appendix position, it’s common to pinch your garment with your thumb and index finger to pull it out of the way. Don’t do that. Instead slap your full hand onto your stomach and grab your garment with your whole hand. This has led to three improvements for me:
1. I don’t have to raise my hand as high to clear the gun.
2. Grabbing my shirt is much more consistent across different garment types.
3. I can be much more aggressive initiating the movement of my draw. Aggressive is better and faster.
I hope you find these hacks useful.
Be Civil, Stay Savage,
Peter
